#but i also remember being in high school where the entire narrative was that every single person needed to have advanced math skills or they

[cursed-tm]

people who like math and are mad that no one else does think they are the most persecuted people on earth lmao. this isn’t even hate it is just genuinely hilarious to me

[conflictofthemind]

Montauk, The Project Rainbow, and Experiments in Time

It’s fairly common knowledge that Stranger Things is based on Montauk. The unfortunate part is that Montauk has been attributed to another ‘vaguely MK-ULTRA mind control related side project’ and not the big narrative that it is, with details incredibly close to plot points in Stranger Things that resulted in an attempted lawsuit years back. Montauk does not just set the general ‘spooky scientific experiments on kids’ tone for ST - it is the backbone of the whole lore. 

‘The Montauk Project’ Book / Conspiracy explained simply is that the US government unofficially experimented on humans with ‘great psychic ability’ to allow their psychic brain waves to interact with the normal electromagnetic waves of our world. The end goal being manifesting thoughts into reality, and opening up wormholes in time. This would give the military great advantage and potentially control over the outcomes of war. It then turns out the whole narrative of Montauk occurs within a time loop from 1943-1983, when the disappearance of a ship called the USS Eldridge opened up a wormhole which was connected with by a research subject in 1983. The time loop is self-causing - the entire reason the Montauk experiments take place are to further study the events that occurred on this ship, but part of the reason the ship disappears is because of the Montauk Project. Due to all of the other time travel references within the series - trust, we will get into those - this leads me to believe it’s very unlikely there isn’t time travel / a time loop involved. Here I hope to posit the basic information about Montauk/The Philadelphia Project, how the powers work within ST, Will’s clear involvement in all of it, and the time travel element. 

Ahahaha why does that look like a bowl-cut…

Let’s put this out of the way first: the idea that Montauk/Philadelphia is the direct inspiration for the show is not based on flimsy grounds. The original series the Duffers planned to make was going to be an actual retelling of Duncan Cameron’s (think El and Henry - main research subject of Montauk) story. This was later changed to become the story we know today with the characters we know today, although with different names and the title remaining Montauk. Some of the characters had names from Montauk too… like Mr. Clarke being Mr. Nichols. I’ll save that for a later post. The entire design of HNL is based off of the ‘Camp Hero’ / Montauk lab with the iconic banana-shaped radar disk. El’s Void ability comes from the ‘Seeing Eye’ power Duncan has in Montauk, where focusing on a personal item belonging to a person lets him see into their mind. The research subjects’ power is amplified by white noise and a sensory deprivation chamber - again, seen with El. 

The Rainbow Ship and the Electromagnetic Connection:

The Electromagnetic Spectrum is usually mentioned at least a little in every season. Joyce’s magnets falling off, El needing the radio, etc. Lights are another focus, with the kids in the Rainbow Room being tested on how they can manipulate lightbulbs, and the emphasis on lights flickering whenever powerful forces are being used or the Upside Down is interfering with Hawkins. I expect them to really start pushing it in Season 5, and we can already see evidence of this (below: the WSQK Squawk Van). They’re at a radio station, the Middle School kids are learning about light from Scott Clarke most likely, and you can see the abundance of rainbows everywhere. It’s my opinion that rainbows and light are the mechanism in which these gates open, and also when at high enough power, how time can become warped. ‘Project Rainbow’ is another title basically interchangeable with the USS Eldridge and Philadelphia Project. This was because “the mechanism involved was the generation of an incredibly intense magnetic field around the ship, which would cause refraction or bending of light or radar waves around the ship”. However as we remember, this had the unintended effect of teleporting the ship across space-time. In the ST Universe, this results in the Eldridge being teleported to Dimension X temporarily (without a gate being opened).

The eagle shoots out beams of a rainbow which are meant to represent the radio waves being broadcast. 

It’s a commonly asked question as to how Will ‘blinked’ out of that shed without a gate, considering only El was able to open them at that time. The close-up on the lightbulb is the last shot we see before he just vanishes. It’s not just powers interfering with the surrounding electricity; this bending of light is what took him to the UD. But when this happens, it doesn’t result in a gate. I also believe this will end up being the mechanism for the eventual time-travel plot we’ll be seeing. Again in Montauk, there is a ‘time-tunnel’ made between the Eldridge and 1983 Montauk that was caused by the disappearance. My original post investigating this was me hypothesizing that being able to bend light to travel faster than it could result in temporary anomalies that allow one to time travel. 

Anyway, back to the rainbows. Rainbows are one of the most common recurring symbols in Stranger Things. The Rainbow Room exists of course, and there’s a deliberate costuming choice, especially in later seasons with the brighter atmosphere, to have characters wearing rainbow patterned items. Holly’s room is full of rainbows, and there are multiple rainbow props scattered around other locations (Mike’s basement, Erica’s room, etc). Scott Clarke (seriously what is up with him) is introduced in Season 1 doing a lesson on ROYGBIV. The BTS pictures of S5 Hawkins Middle School have him teaching yet another lesson on the visible light spectrum. And space for some reason. This brings us back to the Rainbow Ship.  Now we know the USS Eldridge is a marine ship, not a spaceship. But for the characters who seem to have some connection to it, it is represented as one regardless.

Will drew something representing the USS Eldridge (which it is mentioned was not from a movie i.e. he came up with it using his own memory and mind). The main fixture of Henry’s playground, where a ‘significant’ memory took place also features this representation of the Eldridge. I suspect there might also be a larger reason it took the form of a spaceship, but for now, consider that the ST Universe’s version of aliens are the Demogorgons. And outer space is Dimension X. The ship ‘flew’ to ‘outer space’ (D-X) and encountered ‘aliens’. In Montauk, that is kind of what happens. It’s more metaphorical in Stranger Things. The comic book Henry is obsessed with in TFS is seemingly changed from the real life Captain Midnight who was an airplane pilot, to be an astronaut. I think there is some kind of “alien abduction” theme with both Henry and Will being suddenly transported to another dimension that is alien in itself. Even when the lab scientists enter the UD in the first few seasons, they use hazmat suits that are deliberately similar looking to spacesuits. Stranger Things is a story about UFOs and aliens that also isn’t exactly about UFOs and aliens. 

And then, I’ll mention the weirdest part of this all - Will knows about the Eldridge somehow. And he knew about it before he was ever kidnapped and attached to the hive-mind. 

This is either possible because 1) he was in fact involved in research projects at HNL, and maybe the Project Indigo before the age of 8 like the original “rainbowshipgate” suggests. Or 2), there is an element messing with time in this situation, just like in the original Montauk book series. Montauk is literally named ‘Experiments in Time’. They’ve nabbed Linda Hamilton from Terminator (a movie about time travel) for this final season. They’re referencing a Wrinkle in Time with the Episode 6 title and Holly plot. Then we have everything else involving Henry’s clock theming that hasn’t exactly explained itself yet. Thinking time travel is a far-fetched idea at this point is a bit ridiculous. 

It really depends on how crazy they go with the whole concept. One of the other main characters from Montauk I haven’t mentioned yet is Al Bielek. Al Bielek was the original “whistleblower” who came forward with his story after supposedly recovering his repressed memories of the events. He claims to have been on the crew of the USS Eldridge in a previous life as Edward Cameron, Duncan Cameron’s brother. When he was sent forward in time he ended up staying in 1983 whereas Duncan Cameron was effectively sent back to where he came. Very confusing. But the story is, the man’s a time traveler. 

I do wonder if Al Bielek is loosely the inspiration for Will’s part in the story. Will who has seemingly repressed memories of many points in his life and has been suggested to be a time traveler many times. His name appears on the grandfather clock. He wears Marty McFly’s outfit in the first season. He has knowledge of an event that happened in 1943. He has lines about “seeing into the future” and Mike calls him a time-traveler in the VR Game where the writing staff had access to scripts and a writer from the show. The Upside Down is stuck on “the day of Will’s disappearance” (in the Duffers’ words), though that one probably has a slightly simpler explanation. 

The exact mechanics of how that would work are unclear. Right now, as young as an eight year old Will needs to have the knowledge of the Eldridge - so this isn’t something he will only end up connecting with this season. My theory is that there is a time loop involved, and Will’s actions in the future of Season 5 have him interfere in some way with the 1943 Philadelphia Project / Project Rainbow. The time loop is cyclical and self-causing. Our Will Byers already has a past iteration in yet another timeline where he already went back and tried to interfere with the past (and likely died trying in 1943). Then he is reborn again in 1971, and awakes a very small portion of his past memories of the previous loops. If that doesn’t make sense, I created this handy-but-ugly flowchart to help you out: 

Basically there is no beginning, since the future causes the past and vice versa (a bootstrap paradox). Every Will would then have memories of a past self(selves). The time loop also gets more complicated than this. Did Henry create the mindflayer? It’s presented like that within the show, but let me remind you that shows with heavy mystery elements can and will purposely deceive you. In the First Shadow, Mr. Newby is attacked by the Mindflayer and produces a drawing of the entity - it’s purposely not shown to the audience, but considering the Mindflayer was supposedly just a black mass then why is that? And regardless, in order to have Henry become possessed by it, the Mindflayer was definitely not created by him in 1979. A few have written up theories about this already, I’ll link to my friend's two posts on this element of the time loop.  

I don't have anything else super definitive yet. But I believe wholeheartedly that this is the right direction to search in and I hope we can put more attention on the subject. All of this makes sense, from the military connections they keep pushing in the show, the time travel hints we have been getting, the origin story of Brenner (whose dad died aboard the ship) and the Rainbow Room, everything ties back to the Eldridge events being incredibly incredibly important going forward.

Here's a link where you can read through Montauk Experiments in Time for free.

[mystreet-liveblog]

Its not even the voices Aphmau needed to do in early seasons. I just have troubles where I take shows really seriously, so the no warning / no consent kissing or the people trying to find out everything about Aphmau's love life is just frustrating for me.

Autistic people taking things too seriously, what else is new?

I hear that, I too have the “tism”

But on the rewatch I kind of read it differently. It makes sense that Aph’s friends would be concerned about her love life since she hasn’t been interested in anyone since high school, her mom is notorious for hating boys, and half her male friends have crushes on her and she doesn’t reciprocate any of them. It’s an interesting situation and I know I’d be concerned, especially if I was Katelyn or KC

Katelyn sees Aph as a sister and knows that she’s had bad experiences with boys in the past (Gene and Ein, though I haven’t gotten to Ein in the rewatch yet so I may be misremembering some details) so of course she’d be suspicious of Laurance and the others across the street, Aaron who’s super suspicious and used to be a bully, and Zane who is literally Zane hahah

Meanwhile, KC is obsessed with shipping and she stands as an outlier who actively analyzes relationships and pairs them together in her mind as possible relationships, with her favorites being expressed more openly and verbally like a hyperfixation. It’s problematic but also not unheard of, and I can relate to analyzing your friends and deducing their compatibility (though not so much pressuring them into pursuing that compatibility :/). In the end she just wants to see all her friends happy, and she projects her own love of romantic love onto them

(KC actually reminds me a bit of Nepeta from Homestuck but that’s a conversation for a different day)

I do think the lack of consent coming from Laurance and his roommates is very weird and disturbing, but the conscious narrative seems aware that it’s problematic while the subconscious narrative plays it off as a joke. It’s not really that funny, but I guess that’s just part of the anime tropiness of the season.

The entire show, or at least the first seasons of MyStreet and PDH, was made to feel anime tropey and unfortunately that kind of nonconsensual humor is very anime. It’s a little nuanced tho that the rest of the show explores the “after they get together” situations rarely seen in romance anime, though, as well as abandoning the nonconsensual humor in favor of villainizing it and using it to characterize antagonists (sorry Laurance fans your fav is problematic <3)

I actually kind of realized through my rewatch that Laurance was the main instigator of these inappropriate actions and it’s really his own problem to work through. The rest follow him with the frat boy mindset and only come to their senses when actually thinking on their own lol

Like, I remember as a kid there being so many jokes about Travis touching peoples butts, but as far as I remember from my rewatch they were all accidents! That’s kind of funny actually! But the normalization of predatory behavior is very weird in S1 and I’m glad it’s gone in S2

In PDH S1, it’s only slightly justified by the students all being literal children who are working through their hormones and poor coping mechanisms. Both Laurance and Garroth kiss Aphmau without her consent and then swear her to secrecy, which is toxic as hell and its protrayed as such. Gene even threatens to kiss her in front of Aaron which is a whole other thing we don’t need to discuss at length cause I’m sure you get the point by now

But PDH-Aaron notably asks permission every time he does anything romantic with Aph and it’s sweet. In S1 of MyStreet, he does kiss her after the play without verbal consent, but it’s implied she did at least nonverbally consent in later episodes when discussing what happened. Regardless, that sort of content in S1 isn’t touched upon as the story goes on which makes it a lot better to me, and it shows the growth of the author alongside her characters

WOAH— SORRY FOR THE LONG RESPONSE!!!! I just found this topic interesting!!!! Hope you have fun reading this MOUNTAIN wow—

[arimiadev]

2024 Year in Review

If 2023 was a new leaf for me, then 2024 was a year of tying up loose ends. I started off 2024 with multiple unfinished projects that needed wrapping up—more than I like having open at any time.

Canvas Menagerie was entering its 2nd year of development, I was in the midst of finishing Asphodelium—which was supposed to be a Winter Jam 2023 project—and a separate Winter Jam 2022 project, Lost Lune, that only had a partial amount of progress made on it. Suffice to say, I was somewhat in over my head with unfinished games.

I’m the type that is self motivated while working, but I can get overwhelmed when I have several projects in progress (including game dev, marketing, IRL, etc). So, clearly I needed to actually finish some things, even though my games were just hobby projects.

…But, I also had to start some new projects. An idea I’ve had for a while was an otome sequel to Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea, something I told myself I wouldn’t make unless I could get a writer and artist to help me with it. Well, guess what my Otome Jam 2024 project was…

In February I set up a new side website—Arimia’s Doujin Den! It’s a little blog for me to share the doujin fan games I’ve collected over the years, many of which no longer have any internet presence at all. It takes a lot of passion and dedication to make an indie game but maybe even a touch more for a fan game, and I don’t want that passion to go to waste. I’ve only catalogued a few so far, but I want to do even more in the future.

However, about halfway through 2024 I was laid off from my software development job very suddenly. I was partially expecting for months to be laid off at any point as the company has lay offs every single month, but it was still incredibly sudden. I had hoped to at least make it through to the end of the year, not only half the year!

I also began doing social media work for Studio Everium, an indie otome studio. I’ve only ever worked at Studio Élan for marketing (and this marks my 5th year there!) so it’s been a fun change of pace to help share even more visual novels to the world. Speaking of Élan, I spent a few weekends this year traveling and attending conventions! We had booths at Offkai Expo and Otakon, where we sold our yuri games and met a lot of fans & fellow developers. It was my first time going to a convention outside of Memphis and was so fun to finally meet so many friends (and make new ones).

At the tail end of the year, I finished rereading Umineko in October (on the 5th, of course), which I hadn’t read since….middle school. It was such a refreshing reread, to not only read something made with so much love for the world but also to confirm that it was just as good—even better, with fresh eyes on the queer narrative—than I remembered. Anyway, that’s what led me to get back into reading novels. I wanted to see some of r07’s inspiration for it, so I picked up And Then There Were None and dived into several other of Christie’s tales, which led me to joining an in-person book club (where all of the members could be my parents/grandparents…!) to force myself to get out more.

Projects

Canvas Menagerie

My main goal for 2024 was to finish writing Canvas Menagerie, but my secret internal goal was to finish the entire game—and I did! Just a couple of weeks ago I managed to release it to the world after 3 years of solo development. It’s not exactly what I envisioned it being when I started outlining it (and I definitely chunked and rewrote my outlines several times), but I’m still happy with how it came out.

I’m also happy to finally have a commercial game out that doesn’t have my writings & art from early college (that’s practically high school…!!). It’s something I’ve been somewhat self conscious about for a few years—to be honest, I don’t like my prior commercial works. I can only look at them and cringe somewhat, knowing how old the writing and art is. Now I finally have a commercial project I’m (mostly) proud of.

The final game ended up being 138k words with 15+ CGs and 10+ character sprites. I did all of the work on the project, outside of the backgrounds, music, and GUI design. I’m thankful for all of the people who supported the project to the end!

I was also able to do a lifelong goal—have a physical release for one of my games!

These were handmade by myself. I think they came out pretty cute~

Asphodelium

My other main goal for 2024 was to finish and release Asphodelium. Well, about that….

I did end up finishing it, releasing it in January. That version was right at 40k words long with 1 story line and 2 slightly different endings. But, well… I wanted to do more with it!

I got several extremely positive comments after releasing it and I loved writing Aster & Hazel’s push-and-pull relationship, so I started secretly working on an expansion afterwards. The main story already covers a lot of ideas regarding cults, but I wanted to expand upon it even more. There’s plenty more aspects I want to touch on such as the depersonalization cult members experience and the idea of self identity after leaving a cult. It’s a completely different vibe from the comfyness of Canvas Menagerie, to say the least!

I’m currently aiming to make it a full commercial release sometime in the first half of 2025 by adding a new story path (with at least a couple of new endings), at least 25k more words, and several new CGs. I’ve already written 14k words and drawn 2 new CGs, so it’s progressing smoothly. This will be the main project I’m working on going into 2025.

Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon

As mentioned before, I couldn’t go the entire year without starting a new long-term project of course. I began preparing as soon as Asphodelium was out the door to attempt a sequel to my 2021 fantasy mystery visual novel Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea. I say “attempt” as I went into the planning phase sure that I would only make it if I was able to find solid partners to make the projects with—after all, I had enough projects to work on solo! It’s been years since I directed a project without my writing and art, so I wanted to give it a shot again.

I was lucky to find Runa Winters to helm the writing based off of my terribly shoddy outline & character notes, Iron to edit it into a cohesive narrative, and Dule to bring the colorful cast to life. Together, we were able to get a demo out and also later get featured on the IGN YouTube as part of the Dames 4 Games Fall Showcase!

Witch You Want

Over at Élan, in September we wanted to try something new—a game jam! Several of us had already entered game jams in the past (and I had just finished a game jam—more on that later), so we thought it’d be a good way to rejuvenate ourselves and our creative juices.

I lead a team with Natasha Luna providing her wonderful writing and Dani creating our own magic with their lovely illustrations. The premise is simple—a local witch desperately needs help making enough potions for the festival that weekend. She’s just, like, only slightly incompetent and ditzy. Slightly.

We made the game in under a month alongside 3 other yuri visual novels from the game jam. I did all of the programming, with some outside assistance from Feniks. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Dahlia

Around April I got the itch to join a game jam (we hadn’t decided to do an internal jam at Élan quite yet) and became interested in the Velox series of jams. They’re Ludum Dare-inspired visual novel game jams which is absolutely perfect for me. I got my start making games with Ludum Dare, as a bunch of my first visual novels were Ludum Dare entries. They taught me how to actually make a game from start to finish and set deadlines for myself.

I entered Velox Formido, which was by far the strictest game jam I’ve ever entered. You have 36 hours to make a visual novel. Still, somehow I was able to make a story with 2 character sprites and multiple endings in the time frame. I think it came out rather nice, as the art direction came out exactly as I imagined.

Starlit Regrets

After entering Velox Formido, I found I really liked the format and was eager to enter the next in the series. In August they held Velox Fabula 2, a 10 day long version of the jam. This gave me a lot more room to work with my idea—maybe a bit too much!

Starlit Regrets is a melancholic story focused on reminiscing and letting the player guide the narrative, both the past and present. It has quite a few different scenes in it depending on choices and 5 endings over 15k words long (I don’t know how I was able to churn out that much in such a short time)! Most of my long visual novels are very linear, so it’s fun to try branching narratives for my shorter games.

Articles

Continuing from last year, I interviewed other visual novel developers! I was lucky to have Katelyn from GB Patch Games, Gabby from Two and a Half Studios, and Tony & Abby from Black Tabby Games all sit down with me in 2024 to talk about their visual novels and how they approach the medium.

Interviewing other developers is still a bit nerve-wracking for me, but it always turns out to be a fun and informative experience.

After getting home from Offkai Expo, I wrote up an overview of our (wonderful) experiences as well as some takeaways from it. We had a great time selling there, but it’s not something that can easily be replicated…!

And continuing from last year’s article looking over Mahoyo’s very questionable marketing campaign, I took a look at both Mahoyo and Tsukihime remake‘s approach to visual direction. So no badmouthing Aniplex this time, but instead praising Type-Moon’s art direction.

My last blog post for the year was also partially a postmortem for Canvas Menagerie. I’ve been on a lot of projects in varying states of being finished, so it was a big relief to finally finish my 3 year long project. I hope it’ll help other developers push themselves across the finish line…!

Art

This year I did a lot of art assets! 4 of the images here are in-game assets and 4 are promotional artworks for the games.

I also participated in Umitober this year, an Inktober-inspired month-long art event where you draw Umineko arts based on different themes each day. Most of my submissions were sketches as I wanted to just try a bunch of different poses and focus on quantity over quality—the best way to get better is to draw a lot, so I used it as pose practice.

Goals

2024 Goals:

Fully write Act 3 of Canvas Menagerie: This was the lite version of this goal. I actually wanted to fully finish the visual novel but didn’t want to overshoot, as I was still working a full time job. Suffice to say I cleared this goal with flying colors.

Release the full version & an artbook for Asphodelium: I actually forgot I was going to release an artbook with the original release… Well, I hope I’ll release one with the extended cut next year. I made an artbook for Canvas Menagerie which was a lot of fun, so I want to do it again.

Go to an out-of-town convention: I’ve never been to an anime convention outside of Memphis…until now! I was able to travel to Offkai Expo and Otakon this year which was so amazing.

Share more VNs I like: I was able to do this as well! I’ve started sharing my favorites from Spooktober after the event as well as cataloguing some of the doujin games I own on Neocities. It’s fun to be able to share some of the visual novel gems I’ve played.

2025 Goals:

Release the extended version for Asphodelium: In January I released the “full” version of Asphodelium, but as mentioned I want to extend it even more. This edition isn’t too far from being done, so I hope to release it in the first half of 2025.

Release Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon: CWES: AM has had a lot of progress on the writing front, so I need to get back to scripting it…! We were originally thinking of releasing it Q1 2025 but want to give it more time in the oven. It’s only been in development for half a year as of now, so a later 2025 release would be great.

Fill an entire sketchbook: I have a sketchbook from 2 years ago I started for doing pose practice and this year I want to finally fully use the sketchbook with practices. Not full arts—just practicing everything.

Get back to kanji studies: I feel like this is a goal for a lot of people, hah. Given how often I try to navigate JP websites and play JP games, I need to get back to learning JP!

Document more doujin games: One of the hobbies I started in 2024 was archiving doujin games I have, as many don’t have any documentation online anymore. This is still a side project of mine, but I want to continue blogging about doujin games (namely fangames) and sharing these gems.

2024 certainly had a lot of ups and downs and changes and curveballs. Looking back on it, it was a better year for me than I thought it would be (and remember it being). I was able to finally travel on my own, meet so many friends, try new things, and find new joys.

I’m very nervous going into 2025 as my first year being a fulltime freelancer. I’ve got some cushions set in place, but it’s still a bit nerve-wracking. Now that I’m no longer in my early 20s, things are changing—but in a way, I’ve been finding myself through it. I want to be in visual novels for many more years to come. I love making visual novels, playing visual novels, talking about visual novels. I want to spend time with my friends, flying out to see them and going to conventions where I’m able to meet even more amazing people.

I hope this year will be kind to us all. Cultivate the space you want to live in and help the people you care about.

— Arimia

[coraniaid]

Season 5 isn't my favorite season (it's honestly not even my second favorite season, and it might not even be my third). Glory isn't the best Big Bad the show would come up with (I think Clare Kramer's performance is ... fine, but she has basically nobody to play off of in the way the arc villains of the earlier seasons did, which really makes her job a lot more difficult than it had to be).

The season also devotes a lot of screentime and narrative focus to several characters I don't particularly care for, there are a couple of episodes this season that are definitely in the running for some of the show's weakest ever offerings, and while The Gift is very impactful as a season finale as a putative finale episode of the whole series it's kind of conceptually a disaster. ("What if our young adult protagonist told everyone how sad she was and how hard it was to be alive and then killed herself?")

And -- if I'm being totally honest -- it still irks me quite a lot, even a full season after The Harsh Light Of Day, that the scripts keep having Buffy talk about Harmony "becoming" a vampire as if that were some particularly silly lifestyle choice she'd made (and continuing to show no sign at all of being sad that the human Harmony died while trying to help Buffy save the whole town from the Mayor). This is both not something Buffy should canonically believe -- she's descibed in detail before how she believes "becoming" a vampire works, and nothing has happened since that should have changed her mind about that, other than the writers having some worse ideas -- and something which would, were it true, fatally undermine the entire premise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

That being said, I do think that objectively Season 5 might be the best season of the show. Not necessarily as a collection of episodes (though it does have some very strong episodes), but as a deliberately planned story told over the course of twenty-two episodes. It just feels very structured and carefully arranged in a way that none of the seasons that came before were and none of the seasons that come after will be. Every episode has a very clear purpose and the writers obviously knew from the start where the story was going (which I don't think was true for any of the previous full-length seasons).

So Real Me foreshadows The Gift (with Harmony and her self-described "minions" capturing Dawn and so auditioning for the part of Glory and her minions doing the same), and The Replacement (re)introduces the idea of a split between Buffy's human and Slayer sides, and Family and Fool For Love and Blood Ties and Intervention all help to set up the choice Buffy will make at the end of the season, and Triangle and I Was Made To Love You introduce the weapons that will be used to defeat Glory, and there is a general sense throughout, which the high school seasons especially don't always manage, that the characters remember what happened from one week to the next and you cannot afford to miss a single episode if you want to understand what's going on.

The Knights of Byzantium are still utterly shit though.

(If you want a powerful ancient faction who know about Glory and have reach all over the world and who employ teams of people who know how to fight and who might plausibly have found out about Dawn and who don't really have anything else to do in the plot after Checkpoint and who consider themselves entitled to make pragmatic decisions about other people's lives -- especially young girls' lives -- in the name of saving the world from demons ... I mean, guys, come on, the Watcher's Council were literally right there.)

[a-teacup-of-golden-cracks]

tw this is a trauma post but it's also a narrative I'm proud of. Suicide and self harm (mental and physical) will be mentioned.

To help those who aren't me understand, I think in part in references since it is both easier and more fun than creating original thoughts.

(1): reference to the videogame Omori

(2): reference to the movie The Dark Knight (take a guess as to why I like and relate to the joker)

(3): reference to a song I like (in order, HOPE by NF, Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park, Love the Subhuman Self by AISHA, Arc System Works, and Jamison Boaz)

(4): a random saying I heard and enjoyed

“No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man behind blue eyes. No one knows what it's like to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies”

“Behind blue eyes” by The Who

Welcome to the nonsensical abyss of my mind, you've been here as long as you can remember (1). By reading this you're getting to see my thoughts without translation. Nothing here makes sense to anyone except me, I make references others rarely understand. But allow me to tell the story of how what you see now came to be. You wanna know how I got these scars (2)? “I spent years of my life holdin’ on to things I never should've kept, full of hatred, years of my life wishin I was someone different looking for some validation.” (3)

Middle school was a special sort of subtle hell for me, it stole things without me noticing. First it was my feeling of impervious safety when a kid laughed at a genuine heartfelt remark I made. Then it was my trust that friends would never betray me and always respect me when they wouldn't stop making jokes at my expense. Slowly, steadily I descended into paranoia and loneliness, and thus my contentedness with life was stolen. The ax forgets yet the tree never does(4).

A secret hidden issue that I only found out this year was that the ADHD meds I needed to take to function may have been causing the paranoia to start with. I still don't know how to feel about that, that all my issues and trauma might stem from something that's not even real.

Once I started high school it became more and more apparent that nobody liked me. At least not for very long. I never learned to function in middle school so I was still struggling with what everyone else already knew and mastered. Giving a compliment and sexual harassment, would you like to know the difference? I would've but nobody told me until after I'd been punished.

Intent vs impact, I never intended to hurt anyone yet my impact was that I did more often than not. So I cut off the things that hurt people, removed them from my mind. Who needs humor? Not me if I can't use it right. Who needs to give compliments? Not me if I can't say it right. Who needs to hug people to show affection because it's your primary love language and you want to show everyone how much you like and appreciate them? …… not me…. if I must…. to not hurt them…

You see where my inner pain starts now? Where the scars in my mind begin? There were two things I could never bear to cut and slice away, my name and my kindness. Most trans people change their names to align more with their gender but I decided no. I am done changing things for other people to accept me more, they never do. My name is Daniel and it's the sum of my entire being. If I am non-binary, or a woman, or some eldritch horror that everyone fears and that has lost every shred of humanity because of the things I've endured, then my name represents all of that. It's not my issue if people make a poor assumption about my name because of what they think it should be.

Maybe I don't even want to be human anymore if all that humans have shown me is hate. All throughout high school it was nothing but hate or dislike shown to me, barely any kindness outside of my family. So I isolated myself from everyone, to avoid those who hated and to not burden my family with my issues. I'd handle it by myself like I always had in the past and I'd be ok.

I was not ok.

I was rageful. I was tearing myself apart more and more and more internally, only my desire to never hurt anyone kept me from tearing the school down brick by brick with all the students inside it. But maybe… could it be I was the exception and the problem? Could it be I'm the one who deserves to hurt for the pain I've caused? Should I hurt myself? And so I tried once, a good solid punch to the forehead that didn't make me feel any better and never tried again.

The pain I deserved wasn't physical, it was mental and so I gave myself infinite mental pain. What an idiot I was for giving that compliment when clearly in retrospect it was sexual harassment, what a dumbass I was for saying that joke, looking back I deserve to lose my entire friend group over it. Maybe I'd be better off if I didn't exist anymore if I caused more harm than good and could never seem to learn or improve. The thoughts I had then… and sometimes still now… it's so hard to remember that looking into the past makes everything obvious in the worst ways possible…

But there was a light eventually, someone who told me all that was wrong. Someone I met online and will never see in person, someone I messed up horribly with and yet she still forgave me. Thank you infinitely June. You showed me that monsters can be good.

So I steeled my resolve and used my rage at myself to look inward and outward and found that I was being mistreated and misunderstood. I shouldn't kill myself to not exist or hurt people because I would improve and I could make others improve. So I stood at the very last meeting in front of the whole school and spoke the truth of my mind with as much respect and rage as I could muster. So much pain and anger and hate and sadness I'd endured and I showed all of it to the entire high school of 300 people.

I've never felt more satisfied in my life than when the headmaster of the school himself asked if there was anything he could do for me and I said no. I've never felt more proud when I met with him two days later and asked for a neurodivergent support group to be created for the middle and high school, and he said yes. Half a year later my brother told me that the headmaster stuck to his word and did more than I asked. I never felt more vindicated than when I was told by my only friend that he'd heard people making school shooter jokes after I stood up and told my story.

And so I started to heal. My humor, I did need that. How could I be happy if I could never make myself laugh? My desire to give joy and be kind, I needed that. How could I not fulfill the purpose in life I'd made for myself? My ability to hug and love and be happy with others, I needed that. Desperately. “I want to heal, I want to feel what I thought was never real, like there was somewhere I belong.”(3) I just needed to find better people who understood. I reconnected with my family and told my pain and tried in every possible way to show how sorry and sad I was for cutting them off. I couldn't stitch the old bits back onto me but maybe I could grow something new. Something I wanted and I loved, for me.

I can never fully heal, that's why you see the holes in my form, but I've incorporated them now, so that they help me as much as they hurt. I carry on and love my subhuman self, accept me for me and go back to being with humans (3). I give them the kindnesses I can but only after I do that for myself. This is the kindness and respect I give to me, the biggest change I made, because I deserve it as much as everyone else. Now close your eyes and you'll leave this dream (1).

“But my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be.”

Behind Blue Eyes by the Who

[fantasylandbitch]

🙌15 Questions For Friends 🙌

Tagged by my people: @michiganstray , @blackwolfstabs , and @osnapitzmel1

⬆️Gif and Photo made by FantasyLandBitch ⬆️

Are you named after someone?

No, my mom had the name Elizabeth picked out I think before or after I was born. However, if you are referring to my tumblr name then I made the name"FantasyLandBitch" up way after high school because I wasn't sure what to really call myself and for the life of me I don't remember the original name of my tumblr.

When was the last time you cried?

I cried last night while my sister and her wife were driving me and my little brother back to our parents house and I had cried while in the house.

Do you have kids?

Haha in this economy? No.

What sports do you play/have played?

Well growing up I didn't participate in team sports like wanting to go pro kind of sports because I had a lot of anxiety, was super shy, and insecure. However, I did like participating in flag football, volleyball, badminton, baseball, and sometimes floor hockey.

Do you use sarcasm?

I had to ask my brother "Hey Jon, have I ever used sarcasm?" and he said "no" so no. I think it's because I sort of wouldn't know how to do that but if I picked up that someone else was using sarcasm in a particular tone that lets me know that they're using sarcasm that's fine or like they're kidding is fine.

But if someone is using sarcasm in a rude way then I might be inclined to punch them really hard in the throat.

What is the first thing you notice about people?

I would say their vibes or their personality because I might be intimidated if I don't know the stranger or I might feel uncomfortable by their vibes. But if someone's vibes and personality seem friendly then it's safe for me to talk to them.

What is your eye color?

I think my eyes are dark brown.

Scary movies or happy endings?

DAMN okay so for this one it really depends because if it's a scary movie with a happy ending where a character lives after suffering the entire movie then I'm all for it right. The narrative needs to be well thought out and not half assed. But if it's like a scary movie where the narrative and characters makes sense, then be my guest kill everyone on the screen, however, if it's a movie like "The Descent" and there are no happy endings then I might get fucking angry.

Any talents?

Okay so for some reason this one was kind of hard for me to understand so I had to look up what you meant. But I would say writing, maybe storytelling, having a creative mind or possibly being creatively gifted.

{I would have to get help for this one and write a list.}

Where were you born?

In the USA but if you're talking about where I came out of the womb then that is confidential.

What are your hobbies?

Writing, Drawing in different mediums, sewing when I have to sew, playing video games, listening to music, sometimes singing, sometimes reading,

Do you have any pets?

I did...we had to put my 12 year old dog Aubrey down on March 2 due to liver cancer so it's been kind of hard for me since then. But I suppose I have unofficially adopted my friends pets, my sisters dog Starbuck, and am kind of happy just seeing animals in general.

💚 I still miss my best friend every day though. 💚

How tall are you?

I'm 5'3 and ready to beat someone's ass like a morally gray character.

Favorite subject in school?

Oooooooooooooooooh that's kind of a hard one, it's between History and Art.

Dream job?

When I figure it out then I'll come back to you.

I shall tag: @screechcat , @thisonewhocanbreathe , @schrodingerspsycho , @wandagcre

Feel free to try this out, tag your friends or close followers but also no pressure to make one!😊💚😘

[thefloatingstone]

I've potentially convinced a Discord server I'm in to do a watch party of Utena. As a professional Utena enjoyer, could you give me a list of all of the TWs that Utena entails? I know about a few, but I haven't watched the entire series myself, and I'd rather they be informed about what they're stepping into. 🙏

oh oof. OK! This may spoil certain things but I also understand the concern.

First, importantly, the show is PG13 so remember that nothing I am about to list is shown GRAPHICALLY on screen. You're never going to see detailed nudity (They're all barbie dolls) or sexual acts in detail. But the situations are IN the show and although some things are told through symbolism and metaphor... a lot of it is not.

I don't want this list to make you feel you shouldn't watch it, because almost every fucked up thing in the show is treated as being as fucked up as it is and does NOT paint these things as good or cool. As well, because the show uses metaphor and symbolism a lot, (as well as being aimed at teenaged girls) these topics are never graphic or presented as violence or in a "horror" way. It treats these subject as serious and mature, not as shock value or trying to upset the audience. This isn't Midori or anything.

So this is more if people would like to avoid certain topics COMPLETELY. But if they're not super triggered by the topic itself, they should be ok to watch the show as it portrays these things carefully and with consideration.

Also all of these triggers are plot important and tied directly to the narrative, and are not just there to be there. They all impact the story in a major way.

Also reminder what the show looks like

OK! So here's the list;

Trigger warnings for

A character throws a kitten into a river where it drowns (not graphic. Just very sad)

Flashing lights

incest between siblings (not shown in a positive light)

The characters are 14 despite not looking like it. So also sexual relations between an adult and several of the underage characters (it's fucked up and presented as fucked up)

Grooming ^ (once again fucked up and presented as fucked up)

Suicide attempt

suicide ideation

Terminal illness

High school bullying between girls

the character Anthy has multiple moments in the show where she is slapped by someone including some of the male characters

emotional and mental manipulation

The show is about "Gender is a construct. Tear it apart" so there are moments of deliberate misgendering and a LOT of misogyny from some of the worse people in the show

blood free stabbing

Parental death and grief is a large plot point

And finally; Nanami turns into a cow

I think that's everything. If anyone remembers a major trigger that needs to be added let me know.

[maya-matlin]

Pick your most unpopular opinion about each of these shows (only if you want to!!): Degrassi, OTH, Gilmore Girls, Friends, Riverdale, That 70s Show, and Dawson's Creek :)

Degrassi:

This is so difficult because I feel like I've stated so many opinions in the past. Okay. I think the Degrassi nudes arc was theoretically really interesting from a psychological standpoint as well as how a survivor would cope after going through a very public sexual assault trial with the details of what happened to them being well known. Because it feels like something so human and yet so misguided, I don't view Zoe's role in it as harshly as others do. To be fair, the writers lost the plot. Literally. It got really sensationalized with blackmailing and cheerleader dolls and fake hostage situations. I also really hate how it turned into a Zoe vs Frankie situation with zero nuance. Their past involving Frankie being an unsupportive friend who victim blamed Zoe multiple times was never brought up once in lieu of Frankie being turned into Zoe's victim. So while I wouldn't say I like the arc itself, I feel like it had potential. The writers just weren't committed to seeing it through and let Zoe down as a character. The aftermath was really underwhelming and made the whole story line irrelevant.

OTH:

Even though I like the shooting episode for what it is, it's a pretty mediocre depiction of characterizing a school shooter. Following Jimmy's suicide, the writing consistently expects the audience to feel sympathy for him and remember him as a good guy who did one bad thing. It's to the point where the entire school ends up signing his high school yearbook. To be fair, a lot of the Jimmy romanticism came from Mouth, who had weird morals himself considering he was the show's resident incel. But beyond that, Jimmy quickly stops being the villain of the episode to orchestrate a scenario where Dan just happens to stumble upon Keith and a gun, giving him the opportunity to murder him. Also, every other scene features monologues given by the characters that are blatantly trying WAY too hard to be deep and profound. Not to mention this episode marked the official return of romantic Lucas/Peyton, but because Peyton was bleeding and supposedly didn't know any better she can't possibly be held responsible for selfishly making a move on her best friend's boyfriend in what she believed to be her last moments. Sorry, fuck that. Your last moments shouldn't include complicating things for two people you claim to care about. Especially not when you were the one who helped ruin their relationship the first time around, and you know for a fact that your best friend still has trust issues over what happened.

Also, Brooke was the love of Lucas's life. I'll die on this hill. Blame Chad Michael Murray's inability to stop giving his ex-wife heart eyes even during scenes post-Brucas, but it is what it is.

Gilmore Girls:

It's difficult to know what is or isn't popular in the Gilmore Girls fandom. I guess I'll say that Rory dropping out of Yale was the right decision? The way I see it, nothing bad was ever going to come out of that. Rory was in a transitional place where she was questioning a lot of her life decisions. She didn't currently feel up to attending school, so she took some time off. It was completely understandable, yet the narrative insists that this was indicative of Rory going down a bad path. I can understand Lorelai wanting Rory to take some time to make sure this was what she wanted but if anything, Lorelai's overreaction probably made Rory take even more time off from school. Had Rory had her mother and best friend in her corner, maybe she would have realized by the beginning of the next semester that she was emotionally ready to return to Yale. Just.. everything with Lorelai, Richard and Emily feeling as though they could force Rory to go back to school as though she was suddenly going to lose her place and never be able to return was stupid. Out of the two of them, Lorelai was the pettiest and most in the wrong during their estrangement. Lorelai was the parent. Lorelai chose not to tell her daughter she was engaged. Rory shouldn't have ever felt as though she couldn't come home until she basically did everything her mother wanted her to do. Considering Lorelai's own history with Emily, you'd think she'd realize that. But again, the writers made sure we knew how badly Rory was ruining her life and making bad decisions for committing the crime of taking a leave of absence from school and daring to try other things in the meantime.

Friends:

My opinions on the Ross/Rachel infamous "break" are all over the place. Technically, I think Ross is right that their relationship was no longer intact when he slept with another woman. Their communication absolutely sucked during this story line. No attempts at clarification were ever made. Ross just walked out when Rachel said she wanted a break, and Rachel let him. Honestly, I don't even think Ross sleeping with someone else so soon after splitting up from Rachel, in whatever form you consider that to be, makes him an asshole. In an ideal world where everyone makes rational decisions all the time, Ross wouldn't have coped with intense heartbreak by immediately sleeping with someone else. But it was a human reaction, and I don't fault him for that. What I do fault him for is hiding it the next day, running around town trying to stop other people from telling Rachel. It's all but admitting that Ross and Rachel were still emotionally connected and in the mindset of being in a monogamous relationship. Even if they technically weren't. What I also fault him for is being so stubborn and adamant on being right that he never admits fault or owns up to causing Rachel pain for several years after that. So what if he didn't technically betray Rachel? To Rachel, it felt like one. Sometimes, when you love someone, you have to be understanding of the complexities of emotions and just take the fucking L, even if you're technically faultless by definition. And honestly, Rachel was part of the problem, too. What kind of relationship or connection do you really have if you're having the same, obnoxious argument for eight years, never able to get on the same page? Like, I know it's a comedy, but Friends wasn't playing up the comedy angle during this arc. Anyways, they definitely shouldn't have ended up together if they were going to keep getting tripped up over one argument for eight years.

Riverdale:

I don't know how unpopular this actually is, but Veronica is extremely underrated and never gets the love and appreciation she deserves. Looking across the entire series, including time jumps, different universes, and eras where the characters literally had powers, Veronica was consistently the most selfless and considerate character on the show. Half the time, she was the mean girl in name only. There were countless occasions where Veronica forgave even when she shouldn't have and/or should have held out for more remorse and effort from the person that wronged her. The attempt to compare Veronica kissing Ginger Judas in the pilot after knowing Archie and Betty for two seconds to Betty doing it three years into Varchie's relationship is.. it has some nerve. Anyways, Veronica was wonderful, ambitious, and everyone on that show was better for having known her. Sadly, she was underappreciated more often than not, rarely ever getting her due. I really wish anyone but Archie had been the love of her life, because he really didn't deserve her by the end.

That '70s Show:

Sometimes, Hyde gets way too much of a pass for his treatment of Jackie. I feel like he's overall the most popular character on the show with his relationship with Jackie being the most popular, resulting in a lot of his questionable behavior getting swept under the rug. Obviously Hyde had issues he needed to work through stemming from his childhood and struggled to let other people in. But Jackie was consistently a pretty great girlfriend for him, going out of her way to show love and affection, only for him to not 100% reciprocate. Fuck Danny Masterson (and honestly Mila at this point too), but a lot of what made that relationship what it was is the chemistry between Danny and Mila and how they chose to demonstrate the love between those two characters. Hyde was still miles ahead of Kelso and Fez and had great moments with Jackie. But it still needs to be said. Hyde put Jackie through a lot.

Dawson's Creek:

While not perfectly written, most of Andie's fall from grace during season 3 makes a lot of sense. I even think Andie cheating on Pacey was in character. It's a controversial take because no one wants to believe that season 2 Andie would have ever done such a thing. But the reality is, Andie had a literal mental breakdown. She says it herself. When Andie went to get mental health help, she was no longer the same girl Pacey fell in love with. Andie was in a dark, lonely, vulnerable place, and she met someone else. This guy understood parts of Andie's mental health struggles that Pacey couldn't, and it led to a friendship that became an emotional affair. They made their own world together, and then had one, impulsive slip up. It doesn't cheapen Andie's love for Pacey, but it's still understandable that Andie crossed a boundary of Pacey's that couldn't be uncrossed. After this, Andie's attempts to recuperate post-breakup, including her treatment of Pacey and even stealing the test were pretty consistent based on how desperately Andie wanted to appear normal and as though everything was under control. However, I also think early season 3 stacked the deck too far against Andie, resulting in her character leaving the show early. The supposed "false accusation" meant to make Andie look bad from a misogynistic, ableist showrunner took it too far. I personally think even during that episode, there are enough hints, including Rob's desperation to shut Andie's story down when she hadn't even gone to the authorities, indicates she told the truth. Seriously, his happy ass was all cocky when Pacey confronted him, but once he sobered up he practically sprinted to Joey's house to use Andie's mental health against her, even manhandling Joey multiple times to force her to listen. But whatever. The intent was obvious, and I still hated it. Anyways, Andie McPhee was great, and I wish people would still appreciate her at her worst. After all, it's what led to season 4 Andie, probably the strongest iteration of her character even though she sadly wasn't around for long.

[placeinthisworld]

I’m that anon and this might sound over the top but I genuinely feel so so so heard right now because for the longest time when I followed them their takes and the way Taylor just fully consumes their life made me feel drained. I remember always side eyeing how they would conveniently side step criticising Taylor whenever she would genuinely mess up like saying oh they’re not a part of that group so they don’t want to take up space but it’s like okay I get it, hell I can even respect that but why aren’t you reblogging posts criticising Taylor made by the people she has directly hurt from her actions then. the way that fans go into dissecting very minute details over there sometimes made me think of how inevitable it is for Taylor to not grow and change cuz these are the blogs that always filled up Taylor’s feed and realistically fans like this is what she’s exposed to and on a human level I can’t imagine being treated as if every minor action of mine is worth extensive praise. The mental development of a celebrity impacted by being placed on such high pedestals has always intrigued me. I won’t lie there was a time, whenever I came home from school I would sit and obsessively consume only Taylor content and would be very defensive over her in real life as well but ( and I’m not trying to be super judgemental here) I can’t imagine being that committed to protecting, coddling, praising and borderline worshipping somebody like that when I know that individual never even considers my existence for like a second, I genuinely can’t imagine doing this for years and years and never growing past it especially with everything Taylor has done.

I still remember how condescending and truthfully mean they were being to anons when some fans questioned why Taylor swapped out invisible string for the 1 and they defended joe so so so much as if they were his lawyer or something but as soon as they broke up the absolute switch up kind of floored me cuz I always thought that they genuinely started liking joe for his work at one point cuz of how much they would place him on a pedestal as well before but damn I got whiplash from soo many blogs after the breakup. I know this turned into a giant rant and I’m so sorry but it’s just I’ve never come across anybody that felt the same way cuz generally literally everybody praises that blog and treats it like royalty sometimes so it’s like getting to vent to somebody for the first time 😅😅😔😔

100000000% bestie i agree with everything you’ve said 😭

i followed them too for the longest time and always kinda followed that same mindset too. but something changed when eras started that made me just kinda….feel like there was a tswift overexposure/ blowup where it suddenly felt like people were only online again to gain clout, and then the breakup happened and everyone and their mom was suddenly a diehard swiftie with all these opinions about it and it started to make me feel icked out by the way people just…..casually discussed and debated/speculated about her personal life and their entire relationship without knowing really anything more. when the breakup happened i definitely saw the switch from just another swiftie to literally suffocating up taylor’s asshole. i mostly blame tumblr too for giving them that attention lol i think that definitely fed into their dialogue. i remember being kinda sad when i unfollowed but knew it was better for me bc their interactions with anons and their opinions were so wild lol. i also remember starting to feel like i was a bad fan/ swiftie if i couldn’t defend taylor like that in good conscience so i figured disengaging would be enough, but then meathead came into play and suddenly their narrative became clear that they were really just ready to support and defend taylor about absolutely everything (and then somewhere along the way they blocked meeeee and ngl i wa so caught off guard bc i had unfollowed so long before that i couldn’t even tell you when it happened or like what i said to cause if LMAO i’m sure it was one of my criticism posts about taylor but like still find it funny!) because at the end of the day we’re all just fans seeing what taylor wants us to see and nobody really has any insight as to what taylor is thinking or how she feels, yes even if you spent a few hours with her once 5+ years ago……

overall is been a very eye opening experience as to how parasocial relationships develop and how weird people are on social media…..i always said (jokingly) that swiftism was a disease but like i actually feel like it is

[datamodel-of-disaster]

Ask game time! Thanks for the tag, @filmamir!

1. Are you named after anyone?

I keep saying if I do anything noteworthy enough in my life to deserve a wikipedia page, someone has to add me to List of things named after Bernhard Riemann - Wikipedia, so... yes.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Yesterday night, and also, longer ago than I remember. Are the tears mine if the sadness isn't? It be like that sometimes.

3. Do you have kids?

No, and thank the powers that be (mostly contraception) for that!

4. What sports do you play/have played?

No real sports, unless highschool PE counts. I was a fervent and pretty skilled skier for a while but my partner is afraid of skiing and its too expensive to go on my own, so it's been years since I did it.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Not as much as you'd think. I'm a painfully sincere person much of the time.

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

I hate to be *that* person, but... their vibe. Fake car salesperson smiles, awkward "haha we will ignore that!" silences, confrontational high-schooler convo style... Some people just have fucky energy, idk what else to say. That said, my actual opinion of people takes a while to form -it's like a committee vote more or less.

7. What's your eye colour?

Blue-green

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings all the way. I can watch unhappy endings if the movie is aesthetic(TM) or it's more about the art or history of the film than the narrative, but if I'm immersing myself in a story-story, the person(s) the narrative makes me root for better fucking make it to a happy end.

I'm very selective about scary movies: they need to be aesthetic, and satisfying.

9. Any talents?

... not... really? I kinda struggle with linking my qualities to "talents". I don't have many (if any) things I'm just "naturally good" at; even skill sets I'm now proud of were not something I ever had a natural aptitude for, and if I developed a skill it was 99% of the time out of necessity rather than enjoyment.

I guess I have... shockingly broad bandwidth for other people's issues. Like... interpersonal exhaustion? I don't know her, man. Mostly due to a combination of voyeuristic enjoyment of knowing and understanding things about others, my sense of empathy being almost entirely generated through fine-grained psych analysis rather than instinct, and the *very* odd given that my own personality temporarily stabilizes when exposed to interpersonal input. I'm not sure that's a talent so much as a condition, though xD

10. Where were you born?

Belgium

11. What are your hobbies?

At the moment, mostly writing Tron fanfiction. I also draw (sometimes), paint and kitbash Warhammer 40k minis (been a while), do metalwork (I need a new welding helm T_T), do gothic and fetish modelling, thrift and collect things for my house, etcetera. I cycle through hobbies mostly. Writing is my most stable one -I dare say I keeps me sane.

12. Do you have any pets?

I have a cat! Her name is Meoi (Quenya for "Cat", in honour of Huan and terrible Feanorian naming traditions -retired Silmarillion fan here)

13. How tall are you?

1m70 but most people assume I'm a good bit taller because I'm broad-shouldered and always in 17cm platform stilettos.

14. Favourite subject in school?

Oof. Tough one. I've been out of school for a good long while. The person I was in high-school would have picked physics, followed closely by math. Leaving the following period in the middle (lalala), at uni *in the major I actually graduated from*, my favourites were Architectural Theory, Medieval Image Culture, and Visual Analysis.

15. Dream job?

Oof again. Opinions divided on this one.

I like to say my dream job needs to meet the following criteria:

- I am competent at the job and reasonably regularly get this confirmed by others

- Every day at work I know largely what is expected of me, and what is expected fully falls within my capacity to deliver.

- I have tangible, well-described tasks and goals and never have to "be proactive about finding more work" or "try to look more productive".

- I have good coworkers I get along with, at least professionally.

- No extraneous admin tasks or timesheet micromanagement.

- GOOD PAY

If I'm really ambitious, I would add to that:

- I'm an expert (or just really, really good) at it.

But let's be honest, actual dream jobs Riemann over here has dreamed of having or pursuing? Interior designer/stylist, professional fetish performer/pro-domme, and Enterprise IT Architect.

Yeah.

You see why I stick to bullet point lists.

Tagging... @bowiesinspace @inquisitor-gayfax @clevermird @et-novum and everyone else who feels like it!

[cmccormickarts346]

(ARTS346) Week 4 Progress

Crafting a New Narrative - Developing Personal Stories Into Storytelling Graphic Design & Illustration Projects

NOTE: Replacing Initial Murrells Inlet Project idea with a personal narrative of my experience living with hearing loss

Story Topic: Hearing Loss & Learning to Live with a Hearing Disability

From my childhood and well into my adult years, I have always struggled with my hearing. As a child, I didn’t realize anything was wrong since I had never known a life different from my own. It wasn’t until I enrolled in elementary school that anyone noticed anything unusual. I recall the school nurse calling me into her office for the annual hearing evaluation test, the test where they give you headphones and ask you to listen for beeps and point to the ear you hear them in.

After the test, the nurse expressed concern because I either missed the beeps entirely or pointed to the wrong ear. Little did I know that this test would initiate a five-year battle involving trips to the ear doctor, comprehension testing, speech therapy, and numerous other tests that I can hardly remember due to their being so many.

Following that initial referral from the nurse, I visited Hunterdon Otolaryngology, about a 25-minute drive from my hometown of Holland Township, New Jersey. Every few months, I had hearing tests, and each time, I was passed. This led to the conclusion that I must have had an auditory processing disorder, resulting in my enrollment in a resource room/special education class for kids with learning disabilities to receive more one-on-one education. However, the truth was that I had mild to moderately severe hearing loss, and this misdiagnosis went unnoticed for years.

Every year after that initial test in Ms. Meyer’s nurse's office, I was retested, and I failed every single one. The nurse was my most vocal advocate, recognizing that something was wrong during each test. From first grade to fifth grade, I finally began to understand the situation. I wouldn't learn until later that the reason I consistently failed my tests in the nurse’s office, while passing at the ear doctor, was that I was subconsciously reading lips. Having had this hearing disability since birth, I learned to understand what people were saying by reading their lips and needing them to face me to have a conversation.

In the early 2000s, the ear doctor I visited never connected the dots that I was subconsciously reading their lips during the hearing tests, which inevitably led to my false passes. Throughout this long period of constant hearing tests and operations to insert tubes in my ears to improve wax filtration, my mother was one of my biggest advocates, as she also sensed that something was wrong.

When I entered fifth grade, after failing another hearing test in the nurse’s office and passing again at the ear doctor, my mother decided it was time to seek additional opinions to find out what was wrong with my hearing. I still remember those long drives early in the morning before school to Mountainside, NJ, where I met with specialists at the Children's Specialized Hospital Long Term Care Center.

During many standardized hearing tests, which included beeps, sounds, and repeating words, I had to sit in a chair for two separate days for two hours while probes were placed on my face and behind my head. From this specialized testing, it was determined that I indeed had a hearing loss, which was more severe than initially thought. This was a relief, as I finally had an answer, but it also marked the beginning of a long journey to learn about my hearing loss and hearing aids. It was an overwhelming time for both my mother and me, but we got through it. I thank God every day for the sacrifices my mother made and for having the supportive people in my life. I am especially grateful for the incredible nurse, teaching aides, and teachers of the deaf that I had in elementary school to high school, who advocated for my education and helped me receive additional assistance in the classroom. I honestly wouldn't be where I am today without these remarkable people.

The most overwhelming time in my life was when I got my first pair of hearing aids. The process included filling out paperwork and learning about how my hearing loss worked. I was shown a chart featuring a shape called a "speech banana," which illustrated the sounds I could hear. Everything inside the banana represented the sounds I could hear, while everything outside of it represented the sounds I could not hear. Sounds are measured in decibels, and while I could hear certain sounds, I struggled with others.

During this time, I was also assigned a specialist known as the Teacher of the Deaf. This individual met with me during school hours and was responsible for educating me about my hearing disability. They taught me the inner workings of the ear, the origins of hearing loss, and how to advocate for myself. This support continued until I was a senior in high school, even after I moved to South Carolina. Throughout this period, I learned about the laws surrounding my disability and how to be an advocate for myself.

Ever since fifth grade, I have been going to an audiologist every year to check in with my hearing, seeing if anything has changed or gotten worse, as I get older my hearing will continue to decrease just like everyone deals with eventually. When I was younger, is thought frightened me, making me internalize that one day I will wake up and I won't be able to hear anyone and I'll be completely deaf. I now know this isn't the case, but this fear greatly frightened me until I entered high school.

When reflecting on my hearing loss, the number one question I often get asked is, "What is it like?" Honestly, my answer is that it feels almost like being underwater, where the sounds around me are significantly quieter. However, I’m not sure if this is an accurate description, as I don’t know what normal hearing is like, as I have had this hearing loss since childhood and didn't know any different.

When comparing my experiences with and without hearing aids, I notice that the surrounding noises become quieter without them. I can still hear someone speaking, but unless they are facing me directly, their voice tends to sound muffled, almost like gibberish. This experience reminds me of my childhood, listening to the radio with my mother. I couldn’t understand the songs or what the radio host was saying because I couldn’t read their lips. Instead, I often made up my own lyrics, which my sister loved to tease me about when I got them wrong.

While I can now reflect on this time in my life and appreciate how far I’ve come in my journey with hearing loss, it was filled with a lot of frustration and resentment to reach this point. I remember when I first put on my hearing aids, as the quiet world I had always known suddenly became amplified with sounds. I could hear the machines in my audiologist's office, the loudness of my own voice, as well as my mother’s and the audiologist’s voices. It was exciting but extremely overwhelming.

When I stepped out onto the street after my appointment, the amplified noises of cars driving by and the activity in the parking lot hit me all at once. Everything felt instantly louder, making me acutely aware of how noisy the world truly is, which was quite overwhelming.

After my first appointment with the hearing aids, my mother and I decided to stop for ice cream at Jimmy's Ice Cream Stand. This turned out to be a mistake, as the overwhelming sound of voices around me was so significant that I became mentally exhausted and drained from all the noise. I remember my mother saying something along the lines of, "This is what it's like to hear. You need to get used to it." While it felt like tough love in that moment, she was right. This is a noisy world, and learning to adapt is crucial for continuing to live my life.

Although this was a challenging time for me, it was also when I excelled in my resources room classes and transitioned into the regular classroom. I began to thrive in my speech classes as well, as I could now hear the teacher clearly. It wasn't until I moved out of my hometown to South Carolina that I noticed I spoke differently from my peers. I had picked up my speech patterns from how I heard sounds growing up, and I didn't think much of it.

However, when people started asking me where I was from and what kind of accent I had, I became aware of the differences in my speech. Posting videos on social media made me even more self-conscious, as I received negative comments about the way I spoke. It wasn't until I finished high school that these comments stopped affecting me.

Even today, I still get asked those common questions, but I now brush them off by saying I'm from New Jersey and that my mother is from Jersey and my father is from New York, and I picked up on both accents. Their reactions to my answer are often priceless.

I have many feelings when I think about my experience with hearing loss. Although I deal with it daily, I refuse to let it define me or control my life. In the past, I have been told that I couldn’t pursue certain things because of my disability, but that hasn’t stopped me from going after what I want.

As I reflect on the outcomes of the Process and Systems class, I hope to create not only creative pieces to add to my portfolio but also a design and visual challenge that represents this part of my life. I want to express the emotions I experienced as a child that have led me to this point. The wide range of feelings brought on by my hearing loss, along with the excitement and struggles of using hearing aids, have shaped my journey. It is not a straightforward path. Rather, it is filled with pivots and turns, and I aim to convey this through my work. Although it took me three weeks into the semester to realize what story I wanted to tell, I hope these projects will reflect my personal experiences rather than someone else’s narrative.

In-Class Demo Notes: Introduction to the Die-cutting Machine

The machine is located under the cabinets in the back of the studio.

Download software - this can be difficult due to the current IOS updates on the Macbooks.

Start design in illustrator, download as JPEG or PNG - transfer into software

Machine comes with sticky mat - you can buy name brand online (Amazon)

Go to the silhouette site, click software

Click on silhouette studio version

This does not always connect with Bluetooth

Go to the legacy versions and download 4.3.70. Anything higher won't work!

Click on MAC 64-bit

2. Open up software

(Previously) draw up designs in Illustrator - imagery, type, layers, etc.

Think of the software as a watered-down version of illustrator

For example, the professor used a png of dogs for the demo

Trace area = the yellow highlight is everything you want the machine to trace

When moving the image away, it will show the dogs traced

Get rid of the box (compound path)

Clean up design

NOTE: grouping commands are the same as in Illustrator

Put object anywhere you want on screen (mirrors the space on the cutting mat)

The machine takes different types of paper: origami paper, vinyl, construction paper, and card stock

Go off of the numbers on the screen and line up the edges to the machine

NOTE: you can save your work on the software

3. Cutting out the design

Go to settings, materials drop-down, and select the material you are working with (ex: glitter paper)

NOTE: the thicker the paper, the more times the machine needs to trace/cut through the material

NOTE: adjustment settings can also be saved

4. Syncing up computer with machine

The machine will stop at specific times depending on the complexity of the design

Cut out the design and peel the material off the sticky mat

Use an x-acto blade or a small spatula to peel off the designs

Replicate design by clicking on replicate table (star icon)

5. Cutting with vinyl material

An adhesive-free, sticker

Uses static

Recommended brand = Scissor vinyl

Select vinyl option

Make sure ti cut off excess vinyl to not waste the material

Use transfer tape/masking tape - put on top of the design, peel off artwork

WARNING: this tape burns easily!

6. Cutting heat transfer vinyl

Goes on bags, fabric, etc.

Shiny side down, dull side facing up

Heat transfer vinyl = HTV

NOTE: if you are cutting out type, it needs to be a mirror image - choose reflect after selecting HTV as material

Bring material up to a bright light to help peel the design

Peel from the corner with an x-acto blade

To transfer to a surface, take an iron with no steam, let it sit for a minute (bubbles will begin to form)

Once bubbles stop forming/go away, peel off the the paper

Transfer design onto the fabric

Don't put iron directly onto the plastic! Use transfer paper in between the materials

7. Additional things to keep in mind:

Type needs to connect

Need 60% of paper for design to hold up

In working with type: spacing will be your biggest challenge

Machine/process is great for packaging design

Make sure all letters are wield together = make sure everything is connected

Pull from edges to peel off paper to reveal design

In doing anything with texture, keep extra scraps and use as template

Take design off with transfer paper = type is more difficult to peel off than imagery

8. Typography and heat transfer

NOTE: The machine doesn't always cut heat transfer vinyl (make the needle longer in order for it to cut through the material)

If making flat or carousel book, this system might work best for you!

Materials in the closet of the studio are fair game, vinyl is also available in there - but purchase your own mats!

In cutting felt material, slow down the machine

Additional Notes for turning in work: ALWAYS TURN IN SOMETHING! Something is always better than nothing, as Professor Nace does not accept late work, and an F cannot be replaced!

Progress - Journaling & Experimenting with Typography

In-Progress Critique & Feedback

This week, I took the time to experiment with typography while also beginning to explore my new narrative. I presented my findings to my colleagues and professor over Zoom on Thursday morning, and the response was really positive! Initially, I was nervous about this in-progress critique, as I wasn't sure if I had made enough progress in the screen design aspect of my semester-long project. However, after collecting and reviewing all my materials, I realized I actually had plenty to share, which was a huge relief, especially since I had changed my entire narrative three weeks into the semester. I quickly discovered that this change was the right decision as the ideas began to flow naturally, and everything seemed to fall into place.

To review what I presented during the Zoom critique, I prepared a mini presentation on my new narrative and the current progress of my project. Initially, I focused on experimenting with illustration, but I found that the concepts and ideas I was developing did not effectively convey the story I wanted to tell. In response, I shifted my focus to typography experimentation and visual imagery, drawing inspiration from the poster concepts I created for the UCDA Poster Competition in the spring semester of 2024.

My plan was to bring these designs into the computer and create three 11"x17" posters to be printed and submitted for critique on Tuesday. I'm still experimenting with screen printing, but printing out the posters has become more of a backup plan in case these poster designs don't turn out the way I want them to. Also, having this alternative option has reduced some pressure during the creative process. The printed posters will also incorporate an augmented reality (AR) element. This AR component will include sound that I edit together from audio clips of crowded places, reflecting what I hear daily without my hearing aids.

This initial project focuses on conveying the imagery of my childhood when I experienced hearing loss that went misdiagnosed for many years. During that time, I navigated the world differently from those around me, often feeling frustration and anxiety from missing critical auditory information. These posters aim to replicate what I hear without my hearing aids, reflecting on my life before I had access to these resources.

This semester-long project has a straightforward design plan, which includes screen design that portrays my life before hearing aids, packaging design that represents my life after receiving them, and book design that summarizes the narrative while incorporating aspects of my life after living with hearing aids for about a decade.

I also proposed the idea of potentially developing these projects into an advertising campaign to raise awareness of the importance of hearing health and the necessity of annual hearing tests.

After presenting my progress and ideas during the critique, I received positive feedback from my professor and some of my peers. Thankfully, my ideas were communicated in the way I intended! I also appreciated Professor Nace's suggestion to create a series of physical posters for a doctor's office, as well as digital signage to enhance the advertising campaign. This idea was well received and encouraged me to pursue it further.

Although I may not have the complete ad campaign ready for Tuesday, it is still a project I plan to continue working on throughout the semester. Overall, I feel encouraged to keep moving in this direction. It is reassuring to know that my ideas resonated well with my audience, and I hope to further develop both my existing and new ideas as the semester progresses. My goal is to create a personal project that I am proud to add to my portfolio, and I feel I am heading in this direction!

Assigned Reading: "Responsible to Whom, I'd Like to Know" by Ken Garland

First off, how did I know that Ken Garland was British? Honestly, his writing style was a dead giveaway, but it was a welcoming change. I found his humor and perspective on the atmosphere of a corporate board meeting with a client's shareholders quite relatable.

I have often thought about how I would react in a situation where I found myself in a boardroom with a group of executives and CEOs from companies that had no past experience with creativity. Frankly, I didn’t think I would ever have that opportunity in my career. However, as a design intern over the summer for a water filtration company, I did get that chance. Let me tell you, it was incredibly intimidating at first.

Before attending the meetings, I was briefed on the CEO's views regarding creativity and the importance of rebranding a subsection of the company. His response was, "Honestly, I don't care. I don’t have experience in these things, so it doesn’t interest me." Hearing this from my boss and the marketing team was incredibly stressful, but it also presented a challenge to prove that I could sell my concepts to people who lacked creative experience. I had to get them on board and excited about these new ideas, even though those conversations scared me.

Fortunately, unlike Ken's experience, the CEO loved my ideas and the branding identity I created, only requiring minor revisions. Talk about a great first impression! My first-ever pitch meeting with a CEO was incredibly successful. This was the best-case scenario, but I know that reality can be different. I could view this industry through rose-colored glasses and always hope for the best, but I also have enough sense to prepare for the worst.

As Ken stated at the end of his commentary, "What have I got to lose?" This echoes what Professor Nace discussed in class this week: our job as creatives is essentially to "f*ck around and find out." I think I need to embrace that mindset more, rather than letting my fears surrounding failure paralyze me from trying new things or taking risks. Making mistakes is always better than succeeding at everything all the time.

Being bold and taking risks is crucial to surviving in this industry, and I need to remind myself of this when creating work for myself and my classes. After all, this is my last semester at USC, what do I have to lose?

[allsassnoclass]

hazel!!!! i'm sending you 🧠🤘😈 along with my love 💙 -megs 💙

@igarbagecannoteven hi megs :) this got long so it's all under the cut!

send me a 🧠 for a long ramble about something i’m obsessed with lately

well well well. i'm going to talk about my character at the haunted house :) because i love her and i am obsessed with her and i have so much time to think about her while waiting for people to come into my tiny little oasis of a room. i am especially obsessed with her contradictions!!!! she is best friends with two outsiders but well-loved enough for the entire town to go absolutely crazy about her disappearance. the news stories we show in the haunt imply that she's in elementary school but her missing poster says she's 5'2 and shows a teenager (and also she's played by me, a 24 year old). she is dead but she also can never die. she knows everything going on but she can't properly remember her life (and also sean hasn't given me a journal to turn into her photo diary yet!). her disappearance is the catalyst for the entire storyline but only a handful of patrons actually get to hear about it from her. she's a daddy's girl and he becomes the secondary villain of the haunt because grief turns him crazy but the news stories mention parents plural yet there is no evidence of her mother at any other point in the haunt. her only character traits are that she's blonde and wears green but she's also the most complex character in the entire story. she's a paragon of feminine innocence but she has a guy's name. she has no agency but you can't get the full narrative without talking to her. her room in the haunt is the least scary room but it's a prison and she's trapped there for eternity because it's a memory but it's not even her memory!!!! she is fully reliant on two dudes (her dad or her best friend) to save her but they're both doing a terrible job and murdering a bunch of people instead. her life sucks!!!! but at least she might get to properly die at some point!!!!!

send me a 🤘 for a song rec

oooo let's see! Happy Birthday by Cooper Morrison is about being young but dreading getting older because you feel like things are never going to get better and that you're behind where you should be in life. also i met cooper once because he used to be in a band with/date a friend of mine from high school.

and because promoting women's music is important, Dessa released a new album recently and it's more pop focused than I like from her but I do really like the two songs from it that she had already released, one of which is "I Already Like You"

send me a 😈 for a hashtag hot take

People really, really need to not take songs lyrics as 100% truthful retellings of actual events in the singer's life. Many songs are inspired by personal experience, but there are always going to be aspects of fiction in them. Songwriters are creative storytellers, first and foremost, and they are storytellers who are writing from a specific perspective rather than writing an objectively truthful account. I've seen people prying into Olivia Rodrigo's life to find out who or what her songs are about, when the fact of the matter is that they're all going to have elements of fiction in them. She's telling a story, regardless of what the inspiration for that story was. Respect her privacy and stop trying to dig up her life to connect every line of a song to an actual event. This also really bothered me when All Too Well TV came out and everyone was taking the short film as gospel truth and hating on jake gyllenhaal to the extreme. Was the age gap weird and did he mistreat her? yeah probably. but that doesn't change the fact that ATW TV is a sensationalized retelling that she crafted into a story, and the short film especially is a double-fictionalized version of that story. Basically, everyone needs to be okay interpreting songs in their own way and they definitely need to make their peace with all songs being fictional to some degree.

[catboyebooks]

god, where to fucking start? i think i'll put a pin in the kamukura issue because we'll have more to discuss re: that in a minute anyway. let's talk about nanami. Let's fucking talk about nanami.

firstable, jumping directly to the main issue, i love how direct she is here in pointing out the root of hinata's problems. Being Talented is not and has never been the real issue here, obviously. literally nobody cares except him. it's nbd that hinata is pretty average at stuff, his peers don't care (even komaeda, who is also very hung up on the importance of having a talent, acknowledges that he still likes hinata just as much knowing that he's ordinary), we as the players don't care (we had an everyman protag last time too). the real problem is that hinata is so utterly lacking in confidence that he just assumes he can't/won't succeed, all because he's not Talented™, so he just gives up and accepts defeat rather than trying. he's done pretty solidly as a protagonist in this game (i'd say he actually demonstrates some aptitude at the whole amateur detective thing) all because he assumed that being here meant he had a talent after all. also, hinata has spent the entire game refusing to do introspection because every time he comes slightly close to introspecting he starts doom spiraling. this guy has next to no confidence and THAT is the issue. so nanami just forcing him to confront this here is fucking great, it's been a long time coming, he absolutely needed this as a kick in the pants. But Also, nanami has never ever been this blunt or delivered this much "tough love" to anybody. her tone here, the way she's speaking, it feels different from how she's behaved in this game prior, and hinata notices. and i have a lot to say about this.

i remember seeing an interview with kodaka, talking about dr3, where he said he didn't get the idea that there might have been a real chiaki nanami they all went to high school with until after he wrote this scene. because nanami is acting different here, and, even though he had hinata point it out, he didn't have a clear idea in his head at the time for why she has this sudden shift in behavior. it's just what needed to happen to progress the story, i guess. we'll get to covering dr3 eventually on here and i don't wanna get too ahead of myself, but this is much closer to how nanami in dr3 acts than it is to anything we've seen from nanami previously in sdr2. so with that context, the way this reads is that hinata is, like, having a conversation in his head with the memory of the real nanami he once knew. without that context, taking sdr2 on its own, this reads as though hinata is really having this conversation with himself. he knows he has a self-esteem problem, just can't admit to it, and the only way he can bring himself to confront it is by projecting those feelings onto "nanami" and pretending like she's saying this stuff to him.

either way, hinata's not exactly talking to nanami here. the AI version of her doesn't seem to have been fully deleted (she showed up during the late chapter 5 glitching, like most everyone else), but this is different enough from her prior behavior that i think you can only read it as either hinata talking to a memory of real!nanami or talking to himself via a version of nanami he's imagined. even if kodaka wasn't sure why he was writing nanami this way at the time, he made it a conscious part of the narrative here by having hinata comment on it and ask repeatedly who he's really talking to.

god this game really is so fucking much all of the time. sorry i have to take constant asides to overanalyze everything. we're gonna continue i prommy.

when the scene resolves, hinata and nanami are floating in a void:

hinata asks nanami why she's here, shouldn't she have already disappeared? does this mean this is his memory of nanami? (nanami's just like "hm, i wonder?" but otherwise lets him talk here without interjecting.) he's like, hey, isn't it pretty fucked up of the future foundation to tell us the world will be destroyed if we don't sacrifice themselves? someone like me can't make that choice (i guess he figures important decisions are for talented people). hinata goes on to say he's had enough, he doesn't understand all this stuff and he's tired of being involved in it. he's had like three different existential crises in short order (learning he doesn't have a talent, learning he's part of shsl despair, learning that this version of himself isn't real and is doomed to disappear), and that's a bit fucked up, innit?

when nanami doesn't reply, hinata tries to get her to back him up. she doesn't want that outcome either, right? if they force shutdown the simulation, if they lose their memories of nanami, not a single trace of her existence will remain. nanami says, no, she won't disappear. even if she doesn't "exist," even if they lose their memories of her, as long as they continue working towards the future she fought for and gave her life for the sake of she'll never be completely gone. in pursuing the future she believed in, they'll keep her memory alive even if they can't literally remember her. hinata acknowledges this is true but hesitates, and nanami asks him if he's scared. it's not just the disappearing part; even if he survives in some form and can continue to move towards the future, the burden he has to carry now is heavy. hinata admits to this. yeah, he's scared. of course it's scary.

nanami gets suddenly forceful (for her, anyway) and calls hinata out for being perpetually indecisive. she asks him "didn't you want to become someone with confidence? isn't that why you admired hope's peak academy?" hinata points out that hope's peak also tricked him. and then nanami's like. Hinata-kun. You have been looking at this wrong the entire time. Becoming talented isn't the goal. Having faith in yourself is way more important than any talent. You could have all the talent in the world and it would not fix your confidence issues. she implies that this is really what went wrong with the whole kamukura thing — hope's peak trying to "make him talented" when his core issue wasn't lacking talent, it was lacking self-esteem.

hinata's taken aback by this. we've never known nanami to be this blunt. he asks who he's really talking to — nanami should have already disappeared, right? nanami ignores this and continues. she says that the hinata she and the others got to know during the killing game isn't the same hinata he was before all that. he's changed, he's moving forward, and it's gonna be alright. it's time he finally believed in himself.

hinata asks nanami what choice he should make. saving himself vs. saving the world — what's the right call? nanami says the decision is up to the group, they're the only ones with the right to decide their future, and the responsibility as well. hinata's like, ok, so i have to choose? nanami says, well, if you can't choose either of the futures you've been presented, how about creating your own? this world is just a game, but he isn't, and the rest of his classmates aren't either. they're real, and so for them this isn't a video game decision where their choices are binary. if options 1 and 2 both suck, they can create an option 3. hinata's like, can i do that? someone like me? and nanami reminds him that this isn't a game so things like talent, skill, level, etc. don't matter. they have a "tremendous ultimate move" that can overcome anything. her advice is to Just Do It, and things will turn out okay. he needs to make this decision for his own sake, not anybody else's. then she says "it's about time you show me your cool side!" i love the implication that he has yet to do anything cool around her. that's right. she also offers to help.

the scene fades out here. we're gonna get thrown right into another debate, i'm sure, but i have a couple things to say first. again. sorry about myself but this is all so much

[kurokoros]

actually really messed up over the way that Steve Harrington is a character that's desperate to be wanted by someone and the narrative repeatedly punishes him for it. he's a very metaphorical and literal punching bag each season, but it's Steve so it's always a haha funny in hindsight moment or whatever trauma he goes through simply isn’t addressed afterwards.

like, it's implied that his parents aren't around much and/or they have an unhappy and unhealthy marriage (his mom has to follow his dad on business trips to make sure he isn't cheating, which happens often enough that his friends can joke about it). his friends sucked and he obviously didn't agree with or like some of the things they did, but at least they paid attention to him so it was something. he has a reputation for serial dating (or at the very least sleeping around) by the beginning of his junior year in high school. S1 has Nancy blow him off, lie to him, and then spend the night with Jonathan Byers in her bedroom, leading him to believe she’s cheating on him (and despite the audience knowing that’s not technically the case, there’s no denying that the scenes between Nancy and Jonathan were meant to imply romantic chemistry between them). in S2, drunk or not, Nancy is extremely cruel in the way she blames him in part for the death of her friend and calls their entire roughly year long relationship bullshit (which she never really apologizes for), after which she disappears for several days, leaving their relationship ambiguously over, only to show up again a few days later with the new boyfriend she spent over a year pining for. S3 he pours his heart out to Robin just to be rejected when there were totally different ways to work her coming out scene into the plot that didn’t involve spending x number of episodes hinting towards them as a couple just to pull a bait and switch for the audience. and then in S4 Steve is both insecure about his friendship with Dustin, who has more in common with Eddie than he does with Steve, and he has several different people telling him that he's still interested in Nancy and that she's also interested in him (Dustin, Robin, Eddie), only to have his heart kind of broken all over again when she goes right back to Jonathan. 

and that's emotional pain on top of getting beaten or otherwise attacked every season. though arguably justified, in S1 Steve is slapped, punched, and shoved around. during his fight with Billy in S2, Steve is beaten to the point of being knocked out cold for an undetermined amount of time between roughly 10-30 minutes. this is treated like a joke in S3, but considering the number of blows he took to the head there should have been a very serious concern over him having a concussion at best and trauma to the brain at worst. S3 is the same, but the focus on him feeling “like [his] eye is about to pop out” implies ocular trauma. he’s then drugged and nearly has his fingernails ripped off as a form of torture. finally in S4 his bare back is dragged across the ground, he’s strangled, and he has chunks of flesh ripped out of his sides, which I can’t remember being addressed at all after the group returns from the upside down. 

that’s a lot to go through in the ~2.5 years that Stranger things covers. and what’s worse is that I can’t remember a single time where a character asks if he’s okay

[charthanry]

BBS EP12: The Small Moments (or Attack of the Parallels)

I’ve now watched this perfect episode half a dozen times and keep discovering these small, quiet moments that P’Aof sneaks in between the bigger ones. P’Aof is so adept at layering his narrative; he’s like a puzzle maker revealing small pieces at a time that seemingly don’t fit only for it to form a full and complete picture later. It reminds me of those i-spy/hidden picture books, there’s just so much to look at that you miss out on the tiny details that make the whole thing just sing. He's also great at crafting the series as a complete journey with many call backs to previous scenes. 

We open with Pat waking up and brushing his teeth. He takes several beats here to stare wistfully at his toothbrush. The first time I watched this I interpreted this as him remembering Pran putting toothpaste on his toothbrush for him. BUT on rewatch, I re-interpreted this as Pat missing Pran and wondering if he’s awake and going about his morning routines too. Then we jump to Pran doing that very thing. It’s a nod to the opening sequence of EP2 where we see them each getting ready for their morning classes. This seemingly small detail is so well done.

In the high school flashbacks we are shown that PatPran have always been looking at each other and still are years later. Pat finally got his man’s attention after so much pigtail-pulling antics, but it's only more recently that he learns he's always had it.

When Pat opens the door and reveals Pran, we can see him visibly swallowing like he has to catch his breath or stop himself from reaching out and grabbing Pran. Such a great small detail by Ohm.

The micellar face wiping scene needs no explanation. And that line you’re still the cutest, put your face on my palm I am lit from within every time I watch this scene.

Pran’s I hate you from EP4 compared to Pran’s I still hate you in this episode. We know both times it’s him saying the opposite and Pat knows it now too.

Pat’s come here when he shows Pran the memory board. Another great call back to EP5′s come here. Same words, same intent but different delivery.

Pat kept most of Pran’s emoji lights because he misses him and simultaneously wanted to recreate their college ‘love nest’. He even kept all their post-it notes, what a Pran thing to do.

Their entire duologue about being rivals (this guy with the fierce eyes is Pat/This guy with the dimples is Pran) while standing in front of the memory board is a call back to their first reunion in EP1. Then we see the young versions of themselves standing in front of their respective houses in the same way the grown versions do in both the end of EP11 and in this episode. Magnificient parallels.

The running gag of Pran forgetting his earbuds case and Pran 'scenting' his friend/unfriend shirt for Pat. It's comforting that years later Pat still isn't over Pran's smell.

The fake enemies walking towards each other on campus only to hook pinkies as they pass is a great nod to EP7′s “the bet” when they secretly held hands at the bus stop.

Pat bundled in a comforter with Nong Nao in his arms rushing over to Pran’s for a sleepover. Such small yet so complete detailing.

The return to the noodle stand in front of their dorms where Pran orders an extra wonton for Pat to steal. What a sweet call back to EP3 and the hilarious chopsticks duel. Also note that Pran lines up his chopsticks to make sure they’re even. This show is so amazingly consistent with its characterization.

Pat asking Pran when he’ll get to enter his house normally like other people and Pran’s response that’s for other people and Pat isn't one of them and why would he want to be? Pat has special access, for life. What a simple, perfect response.

In Pran’s room, PatPran sing “Just Friends” to each other while Pran’s parents are downstairs. Such a great juxtaposition to his parents walking in and disrupting their Christmas performance of the same song but now with different results. I can’t get over Dissaya’s quiet smile here and Dad knowingly placing his head on her shoulder saying I’m proud of you honey. I’ve said it before but it’s worth mentioning again, this was my favorite non-PatPran scene of the episode.

The string-can telephone scene on the balcony- how they had young PatPran dressed in the same color scheme and style as their older selves is such a small detail but man does it stick the landing.

Pat singing Same Page when he kisses Pran during their nighttime picnic on Pat’s patio. So many sweet moments in this scene calling back to their competitiveness.

Pat knowing that the first song Pran ever learned guitar chords for is from the band So Cool is such a great call back to EP5. Something Pran probably doesn’t go around broadcasting, but Pat is adorably proud of himself for knowing this about Pran that nobody else does.

PatPran engaging in foreplay and chasing each other in the bonus credit scene was perfection and also is a big nod to their race to their dorms in EP3. 

The background music in this episode was on point. They used so many recognizable songs from the series creating this feeling of nostalgia and warmth, it never feels overdone or formulaic- just cozy and familar, like coming home.

I may go back and do these small moments and parallels for each episode at some point, maybe. In the meantime, you can find my intital reaction on my first viewing of EP12 here.