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tracyfance · 2 years ago

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Your Trigger Points From The Past Are Creating Your Issues Now

Let’s Look At Triggering

As a psychic coach, I’ve worked with many people struggling with the impact & effects of “triggering.” You may not be familiar with the term but I’m sure you’ll be familiar with the actual behaviour or process; triggering refers to situations or events that bring up negative emotions, memories, or experiences from the past. Triggers can be anything from a certain smell or sound to a specific person or situation. You may have heard about this happening with people who have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS also called PTSD many people think it should be classed as syndrome not a disorder).

The problem is that triggers can be very distressing, interfering with your ability to function in your daily life. In this blog, I want to share with you how my training in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) can be a valuable tool for managing triggers and helping you move forward.

How Your Triggers Work

First, let’s talk about how triggers work. When you experience a traumatic or stressful event, your brain records not only the event itself but also the emotions and physical sensations associated with it. Later, when you encounter a similar situation, your brain may activate the same emotions and physical sensations as if you were reliving the original event. This is why triggers can be so powerful not to mention overwhelming – your brain is essentially being hijacked by your past experiences. If we take the example of a soldier with PTSS coming back from war, the simple backfiring of a car can trigger their PTSS or it may be a certain smell or even flashing lights as you’d get with gunfire & missile strikes at night.

One of the key principles of NLP is that your thoughts and behaviours are connected and can be changed through language and communication. I can use the right language to help your brain to think differently which in turn will allow a different, more empowering behaviour to follow.

You can be triggered on much smaller things, it isn’t always big events:

Case Studies

1: Brian Cox – Actor

It’s pretty hard not to know who Brian Cox is these days as he seems to be everywhere! However, just in case you are the other person not watching Succession (I’m the other one) then know that he’s an actor from Dundee, born in 1946 into a family where money was tight. His father died when Brian was 10 years old, only for them to discover that his father had not been charging people for food from his store because he felt bad they couldn’t afford to actually pay him for it & as a result Brian’s family were virtually penniless & reliant on family for support.

He recently did a documentary ‘How The Other Half Live’ where he spent time in the USA & Dundee, looking at the wealth divide and how the poor are getting poorer & the rich are getting richer. He visited homeless shelters & food banks to see what life is like for those that use them. Bear in mind Brian Cox is very wealthy now – which he has earned – so he has safety, security, food in the cupboard etc.

During the documentary, Brian started to get angry & upset with his camera crew, he felt they were invading the privacy of these people who were struggling, even though he was part of the team & it was all done with full permission. The reason he was so upset & angry, enough to get them to stop filming briefly, is that being back in that poverty ridden environment was triggering his experiences of being a poor family with all the emotions that go with it; guilt, shame, lack of self-worth, humiliation etc.

Are there things from your past that affect you now?

2: A Young School Boy

In the Oprah Winfrey book ‘What Happened To You’ (a fantastic read whatever field you’re in) there is a case study of a young lad who had a violent father, he was in school & doing really well, when suddenly he started acting out, nobody could understand why, he’d got a great relationship with teachers, he was starting to become more confident & he’d been really well behaved. The co-author of the book Dr Bruce Perry sat in on the class & sure enough this lad started to act out but for no apparent reason. As Dr Perry sat there, he could smell the teacher’s eau d’cologne, which reminded him of his dad and took him back to his childhood. As he sat there smiling at the memory, his brain suddenly made a connection. He took the teacher to one side and asked when he’d started to wear this eau d’cologne & he replied it was a Christmas gift from his daughter so only a matter of months ago. Dr Perry then spoke to the young lad, who was able to acknowledge that the timeframe fit but that he had no idea why he was acting out. After discussing the eau d’cologne, the young lad confirmed that his father had worn the same scent. It transpired that whenever the teacher came close enough for the lad to smell the eau d’cologne, his brain would trigger feeling unsafe, so the ‘flight-freeze-fight’ response kicked in, ready to run from his father & hide or defend himself if his dad was in a violent mood.

The teacher agreed not to wear it at school and normality returned, so can you see how little things can cause a bigger issue?

3: Me!

I didn’t have a traumatic upbringing in the full sense of the word; no abuse, no poverty and the like, I did however have critical parents, now this is not to guilt trip them, they did the best they knew how to do & a critical parent is usually trying to protect you from whatever they went through, whether that’s bullying, not being accepted by others etc, sadly it just doesn’t always get received that way by the child.

I don’t recall thinking ‘if I’m being criticised I’m not loved’ but I’m pretty sure that’s the story my subconcious developed! It was only after I left home at 17 that I stopped feeling criticised or not good enough on a daily basis. That doesn’t sound too awful does it? Well, it’s over 30 years since I left home & it’s still there lurking, not to the same extent as I’ve worked on it, but it’s still there!

Here’s how it worked; Since my 20’s I tended to know my own mind, I learned to be very independant, so I’ve tended to get on and do things, now sometimes that’s fine, other times someone might question what I’ve done, how I’ve done it or why. Straight away I’d get uncomfortable, I’d feel unaccepted, I’d feel my confidence drop. The old me would have panicked, I’d have maybe changed my opinion or re-do something so I’d be ‘perfect’ again. I realised that I got triggered by criticism & conflict but these days I won’t retreat, I’ll standby what I’ve said, done etc, I’ll accept constructive criticism & if it feels right to make changes I will, on the other hand I’d much rather not have a row regardless unless it’s the only avenue, and there’s nearly always another avenue available!

The criticism can come in various ways, it may be directly such as when someone says ‘I would not do it that way’ or ‘why’d you do that’? It can also be social media though so someone may say something about a post or me personally – that took some getting used to I can tell you – or it may be the dreaded ‘inner critic’ judging me about something I’ve said or done, even though nobody has said anything! It may be that I’ve emailed a friend and then get a response that jangles my trigger, because I’ve ‘chosen’ to interpret it as criticism when it is in fact just a different opinion on the time to book a dinner table for or what choice of train time etc.

In the old days, I could not make a decision in case nobody liked it, trying to plan dinner or a night out was hell! A friend would say to me ‘where do you fancy going’? My reply would generally have been along the lines of ‘I’m happy with whatever…’ worried that if I made the wrong choice they’d no longer like me! Thankfully those days are gone and if I do say that it’s because I know the choices and I truly am happy with them all, I will say if I’m not.

These anchor points as I call them are not isolated to your childhood, many different situations can create the anchor point, they can come from any area of your life. Can you see any anchors or trigger points?

Double Triggering

Sometimes when we’re around another person we can get triggered which in turn triggers them! Let’s pretend that my partner always needs to be right, if he then criticised me (now I’m triggered) then I didn’t do something his way because mine felt more intuitive for instance, he would now be triggered too! As you can imagine this can be a recipe for disaster! when we’re triggered we enter the ‘fight-flight-freeze’ state which means our body is amped up on adrenaline & the brain is shutting down on thinking critically, we just react, so now we have a vicious circle which is most likely to end in a row or someone being hurt emotionally, sometimes physically too, the response to being triggered can vary widely depending on what and how the trigger was created.

In this scenario we have to hope that both parties are self-aware enough to get help so they can at least stop triggering each other, even if only one of the parties does this it would help things.

How Do I Clear These Triggers?

NLP techniques can help you to reframe your thoughts and emotions around a particular trigger, which can reduce its intensity and impact.

Technique 1: An NLP technique that can be particularly helpful for managing triggers is called the “Swish Pattern.” The Swish Pattern involves creating a mental image of the trigger and then replacing it with a more positive image. Here’s how you can do it:

Identify the trigger: Start by identifying the specific situation, object, or person that triggers you.

Create a mental image: Close your eyes and imagine the trigger in as much detail as possible. Notice how you feel and what thoughts come up for you.

Create a positive image: Now, imagine a positive image that you would like to replace the trigger with. This could be anything – a peaceful scene, a happy memory, or an image that represents safety and security.

Swish the images: In your mind’s eye, imagine the trigger getting smaller and smaller until it disappears. At the same time, imagine the positive image getting bigger and brighter until it fills your entire field of vision. This should happen quickly, almost like a “swish” motion.

Repeat: Repeat the swish pattern several times, until you feel a sense of calm and peace when you think about the trigger.

Technique 2: Another NLP technique that can be helpful for managing triggers is called “Anchoring.” Anchoring involves creating a physical or mental cue that helps to bring up positive emotions and feelings. Here’s how you can do it:

Recall a positive memory: Think of a time when you felt happy, confident, and in control. Really immerse yourself in that memory and try to feel the same emotions and physical sensations you felt at the time.

Create an anchor: Choose a physical or mental cue that you can associate with that positive feeling. This could be anything from squeezing your fist to saying a certain word to imagining a specific colour.

Activate the anchor: Whenever you feel triggered or overwhelmed, activate the anchor by squeezing your fist, saying the word, or imagining the colour. This should help to bring up the positive feelings associated with the memory.

Repeat: Repeat the anchoring process several times until the anchor becomes automatic and you can use it whenever you need it.

Of course, NLP techniques are just one tool in a larger toolkit for managing triggers. It’s important to work with a qualified professional, such as a therapist or coach, to develop a comprehensive plan for managing triggers and addressing any underlying issues.

The Spiritual Side of Triggering

Soul Contracts are an agreement between two or more souls to achieve something such as Soul A helping Soul B (or even Souls B, C & D) achieve compassion or learning to allow other people to follow their path, tolerance etc, being triggered & then allowing it to be dealt with may be part of the mechanism to achieve the Soul Growth Soul B needed.

So here’s a potential scenario, it is just an example of how this works, I’ll use me as the case study:

I was born into a family that for their own reasons used criticism to demonstrate love, being very sensitive this made me shrink inwards to avoid the pain. As I grew physically & spiritually, I took ownership of this & learned to not respond in a negative way to criticism, to not feel it to my core & to not repeat the pattern with those I love. Once this has been achieved, I am able to thank the soul of each parent, as well as any other soul that was party to helping me complete this soul contract. It may be that my partner had a soul contract to be the person who doesn’t criticise me, or the one who makes me aware of this trigger so I can diffuse it. In turn this may make me less judgemental or more compassionate of others. Does that make sense?

It’s not always possible to see the links or the opportunity for growth, this is why journalling is good as it gives a chance for observation, objectivity & growth. I’m a huge believer in looking backwards for understanding but not for beating yourself up or to dwell on the past.

Your Turn!

Give these techniques a go and let me know how you get on. I’m happy to have a chat with you if need be so let’s schedule a Zoom call, grab a coffee & chat! You can book a 30 minute free call here via my online calendar.

#NLP #healing #selfhealing #healthemind #coachingwithtracyfance #psychiccoachtracyfance #triggering #thepastcanstillhurtyou

#nlp #spiritual #soulcontracts #selfhealing #thepastcanstillhurtyou #healthemind

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hugintheraven · 4 months ago

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I think the key is to figure out a thematic core and build out from there, rather than trying to mimic powersets specifically. If you're doing a crossover that's actually the characters transported over it's different, but if you're just figuring out "what would X be in the Parahumans-verse", there's no reason to copy every niche application of their powers.

A vampire who gets "drain someone of blood, greatly increase what your body is capable of for a day" would be able to hit the Senses/Movement/Strength/Healing part of the package easily while still feeling like a single power AND feeling like a vampire. Honestly the hardest thing to justify is the vulnerability to Sunlight, Parahumans doesn't usually do Kryptonite-style drawbacks. It's worth remembering that the classification system was built by humans and the Shards do not care what we think of it, so as long as there's a single point to the power, it's probably fine.

One of the parts of crossovers that makes things interesting for both directions is that the power level in Worm is odd. Many universes give all their protagonists and antagonists general mover/brute powers. Some explicit(The Boys, RWBY, most shonen), some just implied(Marvel/DC), but the average named char can generally punch through concrete and dodge bullets. In Worm, that's explicitly not the case for non-Alexandrias, but the actual superpowers are consequentially MUCH stronger to justify how these chars are still alive and more dangerous than "cop with an M-16".

As an example, RWBY(because I tried to work out a plot for that once). Every char can take a mag from an SMG to the face and be fine, dodge bullets, stab through steel, AND has an additional power. But if you want to make the Undersiders in RWBY, step one is to nerf the actual powers, HARD, because Brian's default darkness power puts him on par with some of the most annoying fighters in the series as soon as you add the native Aura everyone gets.

I don't really have a point, I just think that the way Worm built it's power system is really good if you work with it, though I agree that it's absolute hell if you try to do anything outside of those limits(probably why Ward seems to have leaned into Clusters so heavily).

One thing that the Worm power classification does is it makes trying to translate other characters from outside the Wormverse into it very odd, in ways.

Like, there are many characters or classes of being who in their own universes are not that OP, perfectly reasonably in line with the power levels of the universe, both conceptually and on a strength level.

But if you try to take them into Wormverse, they look like some weird grab-bag collection powers gathered almost randomly, and certainly make the character OP.

Like, take your average vampire. Super strength and durability/healing from most injuries that aren't the standard vamp weaknesses (stake to heart, sunlight etc). That's a Brute rating. Vampires usually are portrayed as having much faster movement than people, the ability to jump far (some even do fly, but that's less common). That's Mover. Throw in enhanced senses (Thinker?) and already you're at three ratings.

Capes with three ratings is not unheard of, but it is uncommon, overall, except maybe for Alexandria packages (though hardly all, but an AP requires at least two implicitly) Then you throw in things like vampires changing forms (changer), some even control animals, vampires often mind control or hypnotize or whatever people, (both Master) etc and you're left imagining that if a vampire pops into Wormverse PHO would go nuts with the assorted collection of powers they seemed to have, even if the ratings were (say) not more than 3 or 4?

But in a universe where vampires and other supernatural entities exist, that's just... the standard vampire package, eh?

#Parahumans

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lonelyasawhisper · 3 years ago

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Behind the Brian Curtain - Sounds (17/01/1987)

Credits to pamphilon.

In an effort to take their music to the culture starved youth of the world, Queen visit Hungary for the world premiere of the film they made there, Magic: Queen In Budapest. Brian May explains the reason for their crusade and how they’ve managed to survive so long.

There’s a moment in the new Queen movie when the band are cruising up the Danube through Budapest on a hydrofoil and someone points out the Hungarian houses of parliament to Freddie Mercury.

"The houses of parliament?” he laughs. “Is it for sale? How many bedrooms has it got? Are there servants?”

Then he claps his hand over his mouth, eyes twinkling mischievously.

There’s nothing particularly outrageous about that, you may think… except when heard while sitting among 2000 Hungarians, including some members of the politburo, such a throwaway quip takes on a new meaning.

They laughed, yes – slowly and carefully. Rock ‘n’ Roll in a communist country is never an easy thing to contemplate. The fact that we’re talking about Queen here, whose stylised pomp may give some of you the creeps is of no matter. It’s loud, excessive, glamorous, and most of all, it’s Western. And the people it seems can’t get enough.

So picture the scene: Queen at The Nepstadion (The People’s Stadium) in Budapest in July 1986, playing to a sell-out crowd of 80,000 while 45,000 of the 250,000 who couldn’t get tickets turned up anyway, just to listen from outside the stadium walls. Some had come from Warsaw, Odessa and Minsk.

And now Queen are about to notch up another first (that was the biggest musical event to be held in Eastern Europe) as the film Magic: Queen in Budapest has just, at the end of last year, gone on general release throughout Eastern Europe, the first time this has happened for a Western rock band.

Recorded by 17 cameras, which produced over 100,00 feet of film (22 hours worth) the concert was a stunning success; although there was never any chance that it wouldn’t be.

You realise how significantly the authorities took the event when you learn that for the first time ever the Soviet Union magnanimously allowed its citizens to be bussed into Hungary, or that – as the local press reported for the gig – there would be ‘lenient restriction on audience behaviour’.

Think about that next time you pull on leather trousers and head out to get completely smashed to your current fave rave.

Budapest in December is bloody cold, o cold that a bellyful of schnapps seemed to be the only way to keep your blood from freezing.

I am part of a small party of British journalists flown out to attend the world premiere of the film, and accordingly we receive VIP treatment – the nice soldiers at the airport couldn’t do enough to rush us through passport control – and it seems every associated with the band is elevated to a position of importance similar to, at least that of a high-ranking politician.

It makes weird sense, Queen in this part of the world. Their sound matches the sometimes baroque, sometimes gothic architecture, the immense statues to fallen war heroes, the vast expanse of the Danube snaking away from Austria and towards Yugoslavia, Romania and finally the Black Sea.

With Brian May as the Queen rep, and the likes of Janos Barabas (the Deputy Head of the division for Agitation and Propaganda of the Central Committee) present this is the place to be, as the healthy selection of Hungarian sports, music and TV personalities would no doubt testify. Such is the feeling about the event that the Queen Fan Club (Hungarian Division), who managed to get only 100 tickets for their 5000 members ha threatened to storm the building. Not a threat to make idly in a country with such, shall we say, definite views on public order.

The 85-minute long film, basically the Nepstadion gig cut with scenes of the band in and around Budapest, is an excellent example of why queen could be called the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.

Magic has also achieved the distinction of being the first-ever film in Eastern Europe to be mixed in Dolby Stereo, and the first Hungarian production not to seek any government financial aid. You see, this is just one big happy success story all down the line.

After the premiere, a reception is held for 800 guests, each one, it seems, attempting to work his or her way towards a surprisingly unflustered Brian May. In a country where the state takes strict control over whose records are released and exactly how many, they all seem very eager to stand next to this particular recording star.

I happen upon the President of the official Queen Fan Club of Hungary, but end up talking to her friend instead.

“I zink ze Queen only want ze money now, zay are not zo good now.”

I suggest, while nibbling on a tasty little biscuit with ‘Queen’ written on it in icing, that if all they wanted was money they could have called it a day years ago, but she won’t be swayed. She tells me that her friend, the Fan Club President agrees and that she even thinks Paul McCartney is better, anyway.

At the same time, they both noticeably revert into swooning mod as Brian May approaches, surrounded by a polite but persistent mass of autograph books and pens on legs.

Yes, the Fan Club President’s friend has heard of AC/DC; no she hasn’t heard of Van Halen, but she knows a bit more about Iron Maiden because they played here not so long ago and there are still tattered posters on the city’s walls to prove it. I want to ask her what she really thinks about the Russian troops on the streets I saw earlier while window shopping, how she feels about not being able to buy certain records because her government won’t let her, but it was neither the time nor the place.

Instead, we agree that Frank Zappa is pretty good, and I make my excuses and do a runner in the general direction of the champagne.

True story: British person walks into a Budapest record store and asks, Do you have any Queen records? No, replies the shop assistant, who then asks hopefully, do you?

A few hours after the reception, myself and fellow journalists along with Brian May and entourage are closeted in a small room adjacent to a hotel’s underground disco-floorshow, getting into some serious Schnapps appreciation and snickering as the ghastly live entertainment murders ‘A Kind of Magic’ (no doubt intended as a serious accolade for the VIP in their midst).

Queen, it seems, don’t do interviews much nowadays. And their relationship with the British music press has been virtually non-existent over the last few years.

Yet, when the room empties because a stripper threatens to perform, Brian is quite happy to stay seated in the corner and explain the reasons behind this whole fairly incredible episode in the band’s history.

“Not for long though,” Brain warns, with a laugh, “as I intend to get seriously shit-faced tonight!”

“We like going places where it’s a challenge,” he starts, in his extremely listenable, mild-mannered way, “going to odd corners and doing things which we haven’t done before. What happened with Budapest was the same, in essence, as what happened with South America. Someone comes along and says, You’re huge in ‘X’, why don’t you go and play there and play?

It turned out that our records have been leaking into this place for a long time from various places, because you’re not allowed to buy many legitimate albums in this country. They said we could do the football stadium for maybe three or four nights.

Within the group, we have various little areas we get involved in, and Budapest was something I got excited about, so I came here very early on. I talked to various people and tried to find out if it was for real, if it was really going to happen. All these people were saying that it was going to open up a new world, and that they could guarantee at least one night at the stadium.”

Why was there only one night?

“The politburo got nervous. They don’t like too many people being in one place at one time at all, and the excuse was that there was a motorbike meeting going on next door on the other nights we wanted.”

Are you happy with the film?

“Um,…. Yes. We learnt this Hungarian folk song, we spent three days learning the bloody thing, and that was the turning point of the gig. They hadn’t known how to react, but then they realised we were serious: they knew that we knew where we were, and that we really cared where we were.

The genuine audience reaction was fucking deafening at that point but that doesn’t really come over in the film. It all changed then it was genuine contact.”

A fact confirmed by someone at the gig, who told me that she watched tears spring into grown men’s eyes.

Brian tells about a TV interview he did earlier in the day, another illustration of the regime behind the Iron Curtain.

“I was all prepared to do an in-depth interview and all they wanted was a ten-second quote. They asked me if I’d seen the final film and I said not in its final form, only in the cutting room and mixing. Then they said fine, that’s enough, thank you very much. I wanted to do it again, so they asked me the same question. I answered that it was very important technically, a lot different from what Westerners would do, and that in the Iron Curtain countries it’s going to be great!

"They said, Iron Curtain?!”

And here Brian’s mouth drops and his eyes bulge in mock horror.

“You can’t say that!”

Did you think this year might be such a success? That Queen still had the power?

“You never know until you’ve sold the tickets, never ever.

Wembley went as fast as they could open the sacks of mail. A lot of people do as much as they can do, the look at the returns and they say we can do another night here or whatever. That’s not the way we are.

Freddie gives, and I’ll be careful what I say here because it can sound corny, but he gives so completely of himself, every night and he can only do it a certain number of times. We sold out Wembley twice, we could have done a couple more, to be honest, but we didn’t because Freddie’s voice would have gone and then you let people down.

We gauge it according to what Freddie can do, because he’s the pivot of what it’s all about. It’s a democracy and we all do our bit, but it all depends on Fred being able to deliver on the night. He’s the medium through which it all happens. It’s all channelled through Freddie so we look after him.”

Do you see a lot of each other?

“When we want to. You know when you have neighbours, I believe you should have high fences between the houses. Not because you don’t like the neighbour, but because you should choose when you want to see them.

That’s the way we are. The subject of how groups communicate with each other intrigues m, I’ve seen so many groups be great and split up because they hated each other.

There are times when you do hate each other, but we’ve learned to circumvent it. The way you get around it is not ringing up the manager and saying, I hear that so and so is doing this, well fuck that.

I’ve learned the lesson, and when I feel that something’s going on the wrong course I ring up whoever is relevant and usually it’s Fred. It’s a very odd relationship, but when things get very bad and it looks like we’re going to break up or whatever. I talk to Fred and say, This is stupid, shall we have a chat?

Usually it gets worked out, and it’s very valuable to me. If you can preserve a bit of magic, in spite of all the problems that occur……”

Magic being the operative word…..

“Sorry, that was unintentional. I think that, er I’ve forgotten what the question was.”

And so have I, and anyway, the room is re-filling with an even drunker collection of journalists and entourage.

The next morning, or a few hours later that morning to be exact, Magic: Queen In Budapest opened at the city’s major cinema at nine o’clock, the first of none sold-out screenings that day.

The film is now showing seven times a day, which makes you wonder what all those people do all day, or should be doing. And no doubt it will continue that way until the populace are saturated with it. But I suspect viewers will return for third, fourth and fifth visits to re-live an experience which to them is absolutely awesome; to you or I almost as common as breathing.

Me, I’m just happy to get off on May’s gloriously fluid guitar overkill, while remembering that is a sound that may have given some bored, frustrated Hungarian kid a whole new way of looking at things.

Rock ‘n’ roll is the best propaganda the West will probably ever have.

#the part where he said they would communicate with each other to avoid infighting and conflict and how he would call freddie to talk things #out directly instead of letting other people deal with it 🥺🥺🥺#also what sort of fan club president is this lol #bri #interview #article #1987 #brian may #queen band

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bullet-prooflove · 2 years ago

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I have an idea for a sub Mouse x dom reader writing piece but I need some advice.

The reader is a tall, commanding, high-ranking officer from the Norwegian Special Forces. she is like 6'4" and a friend of Will Halstead (maybe thats how Jay knows her) and she comes to visit Jay after she came back from a terrorism prevention job in the North Sea. She's friendly with Voight and they need some extra man (woman) power on a huge case, like the Yates one. See where is goes from there...

I was planning to write this but I'm really sick lmao (bronchitis or pneumonia) and I'm exhausted. I guess I'm tired of trying to find fanfics about rare (so to speak) characters that don't have the cliché sub female reader who's short and a pushover. I need a second opinion/POV.

Either way, I love your writing style and I know you don't like being restricted creatively (same), I was just wondering if you could write some sort of dom female military leader x sub Mouse one-shot. Kinda like inspiration points so I could see another writers POV on a topic like this so my writing doesn't end up dry and full of plot holes. I also just need reassurance that people will want to see something like this because at this point it's just for me. Mostly because my tastes and preferences are stupidly out of the gender "norm" and hard to find.

Thanks so much, let me know what you think (if you want!).

Hi!

So full disclosure this is not something I am going to write as it is very much out my wheelhouse - I have virtually no knowledge/experience of the military life esp command positions.

From my experience people love seeing their fav guys in a sub position, I have requests for Sub Will and Sub Connor and Sub Otis all the time. The trick is figuring out what makes them need that dynamic for it to come across as genuine.

An example is for Connor, he doesnt feel like he’s worthy of love, he needs someone to express it, to take care of him and make him feel like he is worth something to someone. The dynamic works for him on that level as it's the only way he can 'ask' for it.

With Will, he is so in his own head about his decisions, the choices he makes. When he has a bad day it's hard for him to get out of his own head, sometimes to the point where he simply cant speak and he needs his lover to bring him back to himself, to take control of the situation to vent his emotions.

With Brian he's more able to ask for what he needs but he craves someone else taking control because the decisions he makes endanger people, he needs someone else to take responsibility for a while. He needs to not have to think.

This will help you determine the kind of dom you are playing with. So usually I go soft Dom for Connor. A bit harder for Brian and Wil,l I feel like could flip flop either way.

Another thing you will need to consider in my opinion is Mouse's PTSD and how he would respond to certain dynamics. As someone who has been diagnosed with it twice for two separate issues I am very aware that there are certain situations and environments I wouldn’t put myself in again. - this is why I feel the way the show wrote him out was unbelievable.

So if you are planning to use terms like soldier or Sarge, which I believe was his rank, consider that these could be triggering. He has come along way in his experience with mental health, I would consider playing into that.

As for the character you are discussing. I feel Mouse would love how safe she would make him feel.

If you look at my writing over the past six months I don’t inc physical desc when it comes to female body type as I know it comes in all shapes and sizes, it's more appealing to your readers as they can imagine themselves or a char. I do add tattoos or scars because for me as a writer it helps me develop aspects of the reader character.

I hope all of this helped!

#writing process

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lucky-sevens · 4 years ago

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mechanisms basics & lore

welcome to my updated mechanisms intro post! this post will cover both the topics discussed in my mechanisms basics post, which is geared towards people who don’t know what the mechanisms are, and my deep lore post, which aimed to be a comprehensive compilation of all the important character and world lore. this post should serve the above group, but it’s geared towards people who have listened but feel there’s a lot of lore that seems to be common knowledge they’re missing. we’ll start out with a basic introduction, and then go into crew lore and a semi-comprehensive guide on where to go for further information.

basics

the mechanisms were a steampunk concept band, known for their queer representation and their tragic stories. they are no longer together, their last performance being january 2020, but several of their members are still creating related spinoff content.

they follow the trope many steampunk bands do, which is albums that tell a story; think similar to listening to a musical soundtrack, but geared to a visual-less experience. what distinguishes them is 1) narration tracks between each song, making the plot very easy to follow, and 2) being meant to be watched live, meaning there’s layers of meta that are more easily understood by watching recorded gigs rather than studio recordings of albums. specifically, there’s a focus on the narrators, known as the mechanisms or the crew of the aurora, who are immortal space pirates telling the stories and occasionally inserting themselves into them. though they are tragic figures themselves, their banter serves the purpose of bringing a lightheartedness and dark humor to the stories. if there’s an aspect of the lore you’re confused on, it’s probably related to the narrators!

to watch the mechanisms live, you can find recordings on youtube, dropbox, google drive, soundcloud, or vimeo, which are all compiled in this post (including transcripts!). if visuals aren’t your thing, i’ve linked the studio recordings later on in this post when they come up, and here are the mechanisms’ official spotify, bandcamp, and youtube, as well as an unofficial comprehensive lyric videos channel.

the albums

regarding the albums specifically, there are 4 main ones (once upon a time (in space), ulysses dies at dawn, high noon over camelot, and the bifrost incident), 2 that are compilations of miscellaneous songs (tales to be told 1 & 2), 1 single (frankenstein), and 1 album that’s a high-quality recording of their last live show, including an alternative performance of the bifrost incident, 2 songs only performed at live shows, and 'the deathsong’, which details how they all eventually die (death to the mechanisms).

as you might have been able to tell from the titles, they’re all based off of various myths, folklore, literature, and/or fairy tales, using different genres on top of a sci-fi setting to add a fresh twist to them! for example, high noon over camelot is a western based on arthurian mythos, set on a space station. (the albums are known for all ending in tragedy, so be careful if that isn’t your cup of tea!) if your goal is to get into the mechanisms, i’d suggest sitting down and listening to them all in full; links will be provided below, or alternatively you can watch once upon a time (in space) live here, ulysses dies at dawn live here, or the bifrost incident live here. (there is no full live recording with visuals of high noon over camelot, sadly, but there are partial and audio only recordings.)

once upon a time (in space) - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

ulysses dies at dawn - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

high noon over camelot - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

the bifrost incident - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

tales to be told, volume 1 - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

tales to be told, volume 2 - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

frankenstein - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

death to the mechanisms - edited video with the stream corruption fixed + subtitles / stream / spotify / bandcamp / youtube / transcript pt. 1 / transcript pt. 2

reading the fiction is integral to understanding both the albums and the mechanisms themselves. the fiction is a collection of short stories set in the mechanisms universe posted on their website here and compiled by me here, with an extra high noon over camelot story here. (there are also audio versions for ‘mirror mirror’ and ‘a rebel yell’ included on both the website and the compilation).

the crew of the aurora

as for the crew, at their peak there were nine members played by people, as well as the ex-member dr carmilla, who has extensive solo lore and is still active (which we’ll touch on in a few paragraphs). there is also their ship, the aurora, who is sentient and has her own lore. in fact, every member of the crew has their own backstory, set in a different genre or historical period; for example, nastya rasputina's is historical, jonny d’ville’s is a western and marius von raum’s is a mecha anime. however, they’re all still different flavors of steampunk! below, i’ll list each member, their performer, and the main sources of lore about them. for the majority of them, they have their own song in tales to be told, but there are a few outliers. everyone also has their own bio up on the website, which can all be found here.

the aurora (n/a, ship)- on aurora (meta)

jonny d’ville (jonny sims)- one eyed jacks (song), jonny before he was mechanized (meta)

nastya rasputina (anonymous)- cyberian demons (song)

ivy alexandria (morgan wilkinson)- archive footage (fiction), crew bio

ashes o’reilly (frank voss)- lucky sevens (song)

drumbot brian (ben below)- lost in the cosmos (song), crew bio

the toy soldier (jessica law)- the story of the toy soldier (fiction)

gunpowder tim (tim ledsam)- gunpowder tim vs the moon kaiser (song/minialbum)

marius von raum (kofi young)- the death of byron von raum summary (blog post)

raphaella la cognizi (r l hughes)- crew bio

if you’ve noticed the crew bio doesn’t say much about raphaella, that’s because we know little to nothing about her backstory. the only thing we have to go on is a quote from the tv tropes page, which looking at the edit history, was likely written by one of the mechanisms. the quote is ‘Science officer who may or may not have cheated her way onto the ship after becoming a little too interested.‘ and the page is here.

the majority of fandom content is about the crew, working off of what we get from the tales to be told songs, the live gigs, and the fiction.

dr carmilla

speaking of characters with obscure lore, let’s talk about dr carmilla! rather than linger, i’ll just link my carmilla basics post, which is a comprehensive summary of who she is in and out of universe. to summarize, she’s a character based on the novella ‘carmilla’ by sheridan le fanu, commonly regarded as the first vampire novel, but her lore has diverged heavily from that original starting point since then. she is the oldest out of all of the crew, and made the majority of the other crew members immortal. she, as well as aurora, is from a planet called terra, which was destroyed partially as a result of her actions. her character is defined by her immortality and how she deals with it, her experiences on terra, her relationship with the mechanisms, and her dysfunctional relationship with her ex-girlfriend loreli, the last of which is the most covered by her songs. out of universe, she is played by maki yamazaki. all her lore lines up with what happened out of universe, and ties to the fact the mechanisms were originally dr carmilla and the mechanisms. she has two solo albums and two singles, which i’ll link below.

ageha (prototype edition) (album)- bandcamp | youtube

exhumed and {un}plugged (album)- bandcamp | youtube

the city {nex:type mix} (single, in-character cover)- bandcamp | youtube

eleven (single)- bandcamp | youtube

the majority of her lore is still to be officially revealed, and will be in the trilogy of albums maki yamazaki is working on.

further reading

if you’d like to delve further into the lore, there are a few sources i use! there are official, in-character, blogs, as well as things that are harder to dredge up; i won’t link them here, but some sources include @/thedreadvampy (the band’s artist, as well as morgan wilkinson’s sister and kofi young’s partner; don’t bother her for lore or anything, but she’s previously made posts sharing previously unknown information), old websites and deleted content found on the wayback machine, the tv tropes pages, and most notably the lore doc.

the ‘maki forbidden lore doc’ is an archive of all the lore maki yamazaki has shared on the mechscord, the official mechanisms discord which she’s on, and her own personal server, where she’s running an arg (alternate reality game) as a way of relaying more lore about the dr carmilla universe. for an idea of the scale, the doc is currently 91 pages and 28346 words, and recontextualizes much of what is known about dr carmilla and maki’s canon of the mechanisms universe. it is confidential to anyone not in her discord or the mechscord, as she’s said that this lore isn’t thought out nearly as much as the albums and is subject to change, so she’d rather it not be out in the open. however, information on how to join the mechscord can be found here. there is also a non-canonical fan project based on the arg in progress, but information on it is also confidential for now.

with regards to the above phrase ‘maki’s canon’ it’s worth noting that all of the individual band members have their own idea of what counts as canon and what doesn’t, and as you foray deeper into lore that division becomes more and more apparent.

with that, here are the mechanisms’ blogs. they are all both run in-character by the main nine band members and inactive unless i note otherwise.

twitter

tumblr

facebook

website/wordpress (run ic by tereshkova’s ghost, the blogbot, for the most part)

carmilla twitter (active, run ic by dr carmilla)

conclusion

now that we’re coming to the end of this, i’d like to thank whoever got this far, and to say a few words. my interest in the mechanisms has been slowly fading, and i’ve been writing less and less meta and lapsing in keeping up with new lore myself. honestly, i’m pretty worn out by how much i’ve done on this blog and in this fandom, and the commitments i’ve assigned myself. i do have plans for future meta, but it’s unlikely they’ll come to fruition. so, i thought i’d do a new version of my two oldest posts on this blog, and hopefully enable other people to look into the lore and theorize themselves with the new information.

to find more information, remember there’s a mechanisms wiki, and that my askbox is always open.

thanks for reading!

#the mechanisms #the mechs #meta #my posts

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obsessivelollipoplalala · 3 years ago

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Mhm ok, I disagree I guess. Why would they be a deal breaker? Being queer myself, I hate how normalised some of the disgusting situations Ratty describes are, but what you're saying makes no sense to me. Should I be more bothered? 🤔🤔 because if people ask ME what are some good books about Queen I always recommend Ratty's book (together with Jim's and Phoebe's and a couple more) because he can give a perspective on Freddie, Queen and life on tour that no one else can. Of course I warn about the homophobia, etc, but usually people expect them, given the time period. No one has to LIKE Ratty. I don't. From the laughable way he acts like he deserved more gratitude from the band to the disgusting comments he makes, he really doesn't sound like a great person. But I still think his book is one of the best ones about Queen for other things like his perspective on being a roadie for a major touring band and the (biased) way in which he describes the boys as one of their employees (you can really tell who his faves are and they're not Brian and Roger lmao), it's one of the most truthful ones compared to the blatant lies from the likes of LAJ, Bret or Blake and he also isn't out making some scandalous claims about Freddie which are the things that usually make me close the book. Not trying to make you like Ratty's book lol, just trying to give you a different perspective, I guess. In general, I don't see how liking a book that contains homophobia, transphobia etc should mean that one doesn't care about those things or that they're not bothered by them irl. I mean, I may dislike that they were a reality then, often worse than what it is now, but since I can do nothing about it I don't see a point in getting mad about it? I already get mad about it IRL enough. And unfortunately they are extremely common in any memoir/biography from basically any time period (and don't get me started on the racism and antisemitism). I just don't feel I have any obligation to like the person I'm reading about while still thinking the book was worth a read because it made me understand that person better (for better or worse), or because it opened a window on a time period. But I guess if you don't see it that way you don't see it. Sorry for the long ask. Also I'm esl and sometimes misinterpret things so if I completely missed your point, apologies for making you read this novel for nothing 😅

My answer got a little long, so I'm going to put it under a cut:

Okay, so, let me try to make myself clear, since perhaps I didn’t explain myself well enough before. First of all, yes, Ratty’s book is not full of lies, compared to shit like LAJ’s “biographies.” Accuracy isn’t the issue at all, and I think it’s actually one of the few positive points of the book. If someone wants to read about what it was like to be a roadie for a band like Queen, the book is a good source. I’m not talking about how you should feel. If you get angry enough at IRL stuff and don’t want to be mad about Ratty’s book, that’s fine and in your right, but my post wasn’t about fans’ opinions on the book at all.

My original post was specifically talking about Roger stans who I have seen on here, instagram, and twitter who have overstated the progressive nature of his politics and almost present him as an activist. He’s not. And there’s nothing wrong with him not being an activist or super left of center, but the problem is people pretending he is those things for the purposes of 1) projecting their politics onto him or 2) using him as their “unproblematic” fave (which doesn’t exist, btw). Ratty’s book wasn’t the only example I used in that post. I pointed out how a lot of Roger’s public statements on politics are actually rather generic and not very radical. Once again: that’s FINE. But “gangsters are running this world” or “Nazis are bad” are not ground-breaking statements lol, and another issue is people using those generic things to say “well he can’t be problematic because he said this thing!!!” I’m not even out here trying to say he’s “problematic” or whatever the fuck, but that his public political statements aren’t as drenched in social justice as (usually) young stans have claimed.

In addition…look, there was homophobia directed at Freddie in the book with Ratty remembering when he called him a slur to his face (“p00fy”) for playing an acoustic guitar on stage, and when he told a homophobic joke with Freddie not far away, then Freddie heard him and called him out, and Ratty just sunk in his chair. As people pointed out in the past, Ratty does not tell these stories with any sort of self-awareness or reflection. He doesn’t say “I did this, and looking back, it was fucked up.” Going by his writing, he doesn’t give a shit. That’s the bigger problem than all of this stuff happening in the past. Let’s be clear: all of that shit was still wrong back then and I think the fandom as a whole gives all of this too much of a pass, but Ratty publishing the book just 11 years ago with no qualms with the prejudice inside is more worthy of anger than all of this being the reality of 40 years ago, in my opinion.

So with all of that said…if I read a book with homophobia directed at my gay best friend, yes, that would be a deal breaker for me. I would not praise it. I would not endorse it. It isn’t simply that Roger liked the book, but basically said “I usually don’t like any books about the band, except for this one!”, and that one just so happened to contain numerous instances of blatant bigotry. Sorry, but no, I don’t think it’s something which a person who is deeply political and driven by social justice would do, and I’ve talked to several people in the fandom who feel the same way and think Ratty’s book is so dripping with ignorance that people shouldn’t even give him their money to pay for it. I only bring this up to say my opinion is not an isolated one. This is NOT to say Roger didn’t really care about Freddie or doesn’t really care about social issues at all, but that maybe he’s not quite as bothered by social justice issues as some people claim, given he went out of his way to praise a text with such garbage in it, and acting like he’s some woke, unproblematic fave is silly and not reflective of reality.

This makes sense, right?

#replies #Anonymous

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august-persona · 4 years ago

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Witch Week Epiphanies Part 2 (also additional storylines to be explored if there was ever a Chrestomanci tv show or something idk...)

So where do you go from an ending like that of Witch Week's?

Out of the six Chrestomanci books, excluding the short stories, Witch Week is likely the last book in the chronological order of the series. In The Magicians of Caprona, the war was declared on January 14th, 1979, and we know that The Pinhoe Egg must take place pretty soon after that point since it is referenced near the beginning of The Pinhoe Egg that Chrestomanci had to take Tonino back to Italy. Witch Week takes place in the autumn of 1981.

I bring this up because this means after Witch Week, who knows what the heck happened? And there is so much that could have happened. I mean, there is now a whole world of people who at the very least have vague dreams (if not a double set of memories) of living as witches in a world where witchcraft was banned and punishable by death, imagine the collective trauma. While some characters, like Mr. Crossley, have hardly any memories of the old universe at all and only a vague sense of dreaminess and deja vu when it comes to details pertaining to the old world, there's also characters like Nirupam and Charles, who now have full on double-memories (and I have thoughts on why Charles managed to maintain the double-memories while Mr. Crossley only recalls them as vague dreams). Charles even still has the blister from when he burned himself in the old universe.

Imagine what it would be like for people who died in the old world, but are alive in the new one. They either just had an insane dream about dying, or the very real memory of what death feels like, which wouldn't be pleasant for executed witches, would it?

Also, there's the fact that if all the people from the old Witch Week universe melted into the people from Janet's World... what happened to Janet? She wasn't in her own world when they were combined, but still, if the worlds were combined by changing an event that happened centuries before Janet was even born, that would mean centuries worth of people across both worlds have just melted into each other, so by the time Janet was born her Witch Week counterpart should have melted into her before she could go to Chrestomanci's world. Does Janet now have double-memories, or at the very least some weird dreams?

These are the questions. Questions that would be really cool to have answered in a Chrestomanci tv show or something like that just saying...

And if Janet doesn't have double memories, and just her counterpart Romelia or whatever her name was, following the Witch Week kids as they struggle with the double-memories and work out their lives would still be pretty entertaining.

Imagine the drama. Take Brian and Simon, for example: in this new universe, they're best friends; but in the old universe Simon made Brian's life a nightmare. What if they both had double-memories? How would their friendship be strained? What if Brian only had vague dreams, while Simon had double-memories of everything that happened between them? THE GUILT! What if Simon only had the vague dreams while Brian had double-memories? THE BETRAYAL! What if both of them only had vague dreams and didn't think much of it at first, only to realize that their dreams are eerily alike, and that other people seem to have similar dreams as well...

And then EVERYTHING TO DO WITH CHARLES AND NAN!! I want to meet Nan's alive mom. I want to see Nan become the successful writer she deserves to be and also be ridiculously interested in historical clothing. Imagine if Nan became like Christopher, just fancy clothing all the time and sass.

And then Charles... I have thoughts on Charles. Can't explain them all here. I'll probably have to create a whole other Witch Weeks Epiphanies for Charles. He's such an intriguing character to me. There's so much going on with him and it really is a shame we never got to see him again. When I first read Witch Week, all my thoughts on Charles were "he's terrible but I get it" and I didn't pick up the book or think about it much when compared to how much I thought about the other Chrestomanci books for a long while after that.

Then I re-read Witch Week for the first time, and OH BOY IS "HE'S TERRIBLE BUT I GET IT" AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Now, I've re-read the book maybe five times (?) in rapid succession after that point. And Charles has become one of my favorite characters in this whole series.

I just want some follow up on the Witch Week kids, what can I say?

#witch week epiphanies #diana wynne jones #dwj #chrestomanci #chronicles of chrestomanci #i just want a chrestomanci tv series #the aesthetic would be insane #think about it #it would be chaos #witch week #witchweek

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bonvoyage-boncourage · 3 years ago

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Jour 29: View of the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Strasbourg from one of the cathédrale’s spires. Okay, okay. It’s been a LONG time since I updated. But I think after hearing about my absolutely INSANE weekend, you’ll start to see why.

After getting there just in time for the hostel breakfast, I headed out to Strasbourg’s main attraction, the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Strasbourg. ...I’m starting to realize that basically every big French church is named the “Notre Dame” of their city. In the U.S, there are a lot of churches called “Our Lady,” but they’re all “Our Lady OF” something different: “Our Lady of the Saints,” “Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” “Our Lady of Good Council,” et cetera. French people, apparently, are not this creative and instead just name one church/cathedral/basilica per city “Our Lady of [city name].” I think they need to step it up.

Anyway, this is a huge gothic church, one of the oldest and biggest in France, and one of the things they offer is that you can pay to climb one of the spires and see the whole city from the roof! It was definitely worth the cost and the stairs for the view, and then I took this photo on the way back down. A great start to my morning!

I went inside the church after that: the cathedral’s other big draw is its huge astronomical and astrological clock. It still works, to this day: it shows you what astrological house each planet is in. And while I absolutely LOVED it, I honestly didn’t know that the Catholic church was okay with astrology at one point! But they must’ve been! How cool.

I bought my obligatory sticker after that and then went to the Palais Rohan, another big attraction of the city. The Palais has a whopping three museums inside! Unfortunately, only two were open: the Decorative Arts museum and the Archaeological Museum. I toured both and loved both! The Decorative Arts museum had lots of dishware on display as well as showing what the rooms would’ve looked like when a prince actually lived there. WOW. I’m currently writing a fantasy piece based off of France in the 17th and 18th centuries, and I took SO many photos of the decor as inspiration. I really liked getting a sense for how people lived and what the rooms looked like. The Archaeological Museum was also REALLY COOL, with lots of stuff about the Gauls and Romans. For example, did you know that the Gauls had a system of under-floor heating powered by a coal furnace? Or that they buried their dead warriors in their chariots? IS THAT NOT THE COOLEST THING YOU’VE EVER HEARD?

After that, I wandered over to yet another museum, this one dedicated entirely to the Cathédrale Notre Dame. I was the ONLY person in there, which I actually didn’t mind. There were plenty of really interesting religious artifacts people crafted over the centuries, like golden crowns of thorns, panels of stained glass, baptismal fonts, and recreations of the tomb of Jesus. There was even a room where they showed you how the cathedral went from plan on paper to wooden mockup to an actual building!

It was getting almost too late for lunch and I was getting hungry, so I wandered into the nearby bustling street. There was a man there who had a giant mechanical punchcard music box! He had a bunch of famous French folk songs and would run them through the box and sing. If you don’t know, I collect music boxes, so this was really really exciting to me! I ended up giving him a lot of money... but only because I wanted to. I heard someone behind me speaking American English, and turned around to see a dad and his son watching the show, too! I wandered over to the dad and talked to him for a while. He told me his name was Brian and that he and his wife were American but lived and worked in Germany. They were planning on moving back to the U.S. soon, and he didn’t sound too happy about it, but he also said he was getting bored living in a small German town, too. His son kept coming back and begging for more change to give to the man with the music box but he eventually ran out of money, so I started giving the kid whatever spare change I had.

Eventually I headed out and found a restaurant that looked nice and inquired about a table for one. They told me it would be about a ten minute wait. Two women then asked about a table and got told the same thing, so they came out to wait with me. I turned around and asked them, “Vous attendez aussi ?” (You’re waiting too?) And they both threw their hands up and said “Sorry, we don’t actually speak French!” It turned out that they were German! Strasbourg is right on the border of Germany, so I suppose it’s pretty common.

We ended up being seated right next to each other, and decided just to have lunch together. It was super nice. Their names were Virginia and Lara, and they were coworkers, friends, and cousins, which I suppose is why they laughed and said it was “complicated” when I asked how they knew each other. They were travelling companions, mostly; they tended to take their vacations together and go places because they were on the same page about what they liked to do. I remember before I left my dad telling me about how nice it is to find a travelling companion; he had a friend who he went to Ireland with, and he said it was the best way to travel.

Apparently Lara and Virginia had been planning a vacation to the U.S. for quite some time when COVID hit and ruined their plans. But they mentioned they were going later this year, and I’m excited for them! Lara seemed to be very infatuated with the U.S. but had never been; it’s very funny to see the inverse of the reason I wanted to come to Europe.

They let me know that they lived outside of Nuremburg and invited me to stay with them there if I wanted! I think I’ll take them up on it; I wanted to go to Germany anyway!

I wandered for a while along the Ill River for a while before arriving in Petite France, a colorfully painted quarter of the city. I went through a covered bridge across the river and perused the buildings before starting back towards the hostel. I ended up stopping in a vintage thrift store I’d seen on my way into the city in the morning and bought a blouse and a pair of suspenders. I... cannot be helped when it comes to thrifting and vintage fashion, I’m such a sucker for it.

When I got back to the room, one of the other girls in there was just arriving back, too! She’d seemed nice when we’d originally talked, and now she invited me to get drinks with her and her friend in the hostel bar later that night. I obliged; after a nap and my dinner reservation.

I’d gotten a reservation at what was supposedly one of the best Alsacien restaurants in the city, Le Tire-Bouchon. I went in, sat down and ate. The food was good, but this German dad kept staring at me the entire meal... it was kind of intimidating.

Afterwards, I met up with my new friends in the hostel bar. The girl in my room was named Priyanka and her friend was Sanjay. I quickly learned that they were both originally from India but lived and worked in Munich. They were definitely good people to drink with, very engaging and funny to listen to, plus they shared spicy Indian sweets with me. The way to my heart is definitely my stomach. And they invited me to Munich, too! I guess I’m obliged to visit Germany now.

After a fun evening, I went back up to my room and settled down for the night. What a great day! Who knew travelling on your own could be so fun? If you ever travel alone, I wish you

Bon voyage, bon courage !

#travel #strasbourg #france #travel stories #study abroad #langblr #language learning #bvbc-daily

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a-froger-epic · 3 years ago

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hmm I think Brian tends to get emotionally hung up when he talks about something that’s near and dear to his heart and that he feels strongly about, like Freddie or how the rock life affected him personally. His views are very subjective and often ‘tainted’ by what he thinks, which is normal i think. So he associated those years with trauma, lack of control and getting hurt and damaged by the excess of sex and all the things that come with being a rock musician in the 70-80s. And he naturally relates and links it with what the band including freddie went through, and assumes that’s how they felt about it and that’s how it affected them as well. Which might not be completely true, and I think he admitted it as well but I also think what he said is what he truly believed. It’s like, I get what he’s trying to say, but the way he worded it is bad and very influenced by his own bad experiences with sex. Imo he’s saying “Freddie went out of control and had lots of sex, like we all did, and that’S why he got AIDS”, which is obviously not a good statement to make because like he himself said before, AIDS is not about how promiscuous you are lol. You can get it from a monogamous relationship as well. He’s contradicting himself there. But it’S still not “Freddie went and had a lot of gay sex with men, and that’S why he got AIDS”. He just saw the sexual experiences in those years with a big red stamp of “BAD. LACK OF CONTROL. EXCESSIVE.” and let that overwhelm his perception of a lot of things. But that reflects badly on freddie because gay AIDS victims were so stigmatised, and his statement will ultimately come across as homophobic. He can be so high strung and blurt out shit sometimes lol. I hope this makes sense. What do you think?

I have little to add, anon, I pretty much agree with your assessment of Brian and his point of view there. There is a very good example of that, which is the Munich recordings, where Brian seems to remember it as a horrible, horrible time and Roger’s account is something along the lines of “Yeah, we had a blast most days!” Natually Brian’s perception is his subjective perception. That’s true of everybody.

Also, look, it is worth saying that of course people who have more sexual partners are more in danger of catching a sexually transmitted illness. However, yes, at the time so little was known about HIV that Freddie would have been in danger one way or the other just by being a gay man.

#Freddie Mercury #Brian May

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fantasysamsclub · 5 years ago

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so the adventure zone was recently picked up for an animated series.

hooray! good for the mcelroys. i’m glad they’re getting more mainstream. i’m glad they’re able to financially support themselves and their family with this fame. i’m glad taz has a chance to get new fans! i’m glad fans get to see some of the most iconic balance moments animated!

i also think it’s a monstrously bad idea.

(this is long and this may seem pretty mean and radical, but please read before fighting me on any of this. also this isn’t an attack on anyone that’s excited for any of this adaptation stuff! it’s good to be excited for this success. but also there are some things to consider.)

okay! so, up front: i think the taz animated series is a bad idea. i also think, retrospectively, the graphic novel was a bad idea. also i think the vox machina origins comic and animated series are bad ideas.

okay so this is going to get. a little long and rambly. but i’ll try to keep it organized.

1. TAZ Graphic Novel

now, when the first book was announced, i was excited! i’m still excited for the next one. aside from the blue/green elves thing, which i won’t ever forgive, carey’s doing a great job adapting this piece. i’ve met her before and she generally does know what she’s talking about, comics-wise, so i do think she was a very good choice to pick up the graphic novel

there are still problems! oh, are there problems. for example, i think everyone in the novel is characterized in a wildly different way than the original podcast. i can also get into this later if people want to hear about it, but! people have picked at that one before.

out of all the adaptations i’m going to talk about, this one is the best!

2. Vox Machina Origins

alright. context. i don’t know if i’ve said this on this platform before, but i’m a comic book artist (my big project is coming out this year, i’ll announce it on here, that’s not the point of this rant). and i bought the comic on a whim! it was a christmas present to me.

now, i know a lot of people read it and enjoyed it! and that’s great. i’m happy you got joy out of the book, really. i think every piece of art means something to someone, no matter its popularity or quality. and it did well, as far as i know! so that’s very good for CR and its fans. also i think pike is hot.

all that aside, the comic does suck very much.

i could go into a deep analysis of it (i CAN, if enough people actually want to see that?) but tldr: it’s rushed, both in production and story pacing. the character art is good! but you can see the shortcuts. the lettering is. awful. (that’s mostly a problem of modern comics in general though)

and i’m not blaming anyone at CR for these problems! really, if dark horse wants to pick up an adaptation, any writers from the original project should be heavily coached on how to write for a new medium. i’m not blaming matthew for that one! i know from firsthand experience that comic writing is different from anything else you will ever write, and is so difficult to get correct. as far as i knew, matt had never written for comics before! it would be really nice if he had some more resources to get this done right.

but that would cost money.

and that brings me to--

3. The Vox Machina Animated Series

wow! look at all that money everyone raised for this animated series. this animated series that the creators said they were raising money for so they could do it independently. hope they don’t go pitch it to a bigger company to do m--

and, it was sold to Amazon.

like, it didn’t even take them a month.

and in the current climate of how animation is bought and sold, i understand the need to sell it to a streaming service! you need a platform to let people view it, and youtube is in the shitter with its copyright stuff lately, so it makes sense to go private to keep your show safe. and then, you can maybe make more episodes after you run out of kickstarter money. i don’t hate that idea!

but amazon...hm.

it’s probably fine, right?

3.5. Wendy’s

haha remember when CR got sponsored by wendy’s and played their shitty rpg that wasn’t even balanced properly and then people called them out for it and then they donated all the money to a cause wendy’s hated to make up for it (good on them!) and then deleted the VOD off youtube? gosh, good times.

money makes people do strange things.

4. TAZ Animated Series

so, peacock has taz. sure! that works. it’s not the best company to pick this up, but it’s also not the worst. i’ll take that. i looked up the guy that’s slated to direct this and i don’t think he’s ever directed an animated show? which isn’t great, but that’s not what i’m worried about.

you know what i am worried about?

these big corporations don’t care if these adaptations are any good. they just want to cram as many iconic moments from your quirky, small-owned d&d podcasts to get you to give them money. for the mcelroys and the CR crew, it’s a passion project. to amazon and dark horse and NBC, it’s an investment.

you’re going to buy the book to see vax and vex bicker!

you’re going to tune in to watch magic brian!

you’re going to want to read pike meeting scanlan, of course!

you want to see “phantasmal and resplendent” animated!

here’s the other thing. when i see people talking about the animated series, this is exactly what they’re looking for.

“i want to watch merle dirty talk the plants on screen!”

“i want to see the taakitz date!”

“i want to see magnus do the julia scene...”

now, this mindset isn’t bad! no, if you’ve been thinking this, that’s okay! it’s really not my personal thought (i think adaptations are best when they DO change things in the story to better fit the new medium they’re going on) but it’s fine.

we might get tom arnold!

but you know what we’re not going to get?

we’re not going to get apologies and revisions when something goes wrong. we’re not going to get cute extra scenes because that would require more writing. we’re not going to get the same respect for the LGBTQ+ characters on screen. the people working on this show will not get paid what they’re worth.

we’re probably not going to get a trans actress for lup.

we’re probably going to see less of carey and killain.

we’re probably going to see even fewer black and brown characters than we already have.

why’s that?

because it’s a money project. they’re doing it for money. and they want to reach as wide of an audience as possible, right? “really, we need to cut back on this gay stuff so that straight people aren’t uncomfortable. we need to stay more moderate on this project so that more people will watch it!”

(that was sarcasm)

now, NBC has had some good shows! but that’s really the responsibility of their individual writers, and it’s usually in spite of the companies they work for, and not because of them.

once an author or an artist sells their project to a company for adaptation, they often lose all rights to input from it. i don’t know what the mcelroy’s or CR’s contracts are, but unless they have better lawyers than NBC or amazon.....they probably got shafted somehow.

it’s not a mcelroy product. it’s not a CR product. don’t pretend like it is.

you can enjoy it, but please be cautious. this is just a pile of money in a cheap taako costume. don’t trust it as much as you would the podcast.

tldr: individual creators are always going to make more genuine content than corporations that buy those creations for larger adaptations. it’s okay to enjoy these adaptations, but please be aware that it’s not going to have the same spirit or heart as the boys talking about masturbation on a filler show they did quickly so justin could go support his wife in labor.

#taz #the adventure zone #taz balance #taz animated

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nothingunrealistic · 4 years ago

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Hello I am the “what is billions about” anon pls share ur thoughts as well I am listening

hello!! i have many thoughts and milo covered quite a few of them in their answer (which i’m sure you checked out already but maybe someone Else reading this hasn’t yet, who’s to say) so i’m basically gonna supplement that post / give a slightly more structured Season By Season breakdown of What Is Billions, Anyway. spoilers, naturally.

first, an Overall Statement, on which i’m going to quote one of the billions showrunners, brian koppelman (here he’s also speaking for the other billions showrunner / his creative partner, david levien), on what he hopes people take away from the show:

I think that people love to watch hyper-intelligent, hyper-verbal people who are charismatic and charming, and who really love what they do, and who love being in this contest and this game.

For us, what we’re interested in, is why America is willing to substitute verbal acuity, charm, power and wealth for true qualities of character, like kindness and empathy? We hope that by watching the show and getting off on it when these characters do really bad things, it makes us all wonder why we’re rooting for them sometimes.

these characters are forever gunning to speak in the most obscure references and quickest witticisms of anyone in the room, to give the most inspirational off-the-cuff monologues, to indulge in the best meals and the most expensive luxuries — and constantly saying and doing horrible things to one another and to total strangers, because they can. so that’s a major Theme to keep in mind. (we talk about brian and david quite a bit. authorly intentions are interesting.)

season one sets up The World Of Billions and the tangled relationships between the three initial leads. bobby “axe” axelrod is a rich & successful hedge fund ceo who’s widely loved in nyc for famously surviving 9/11 and engaging in philanthropy. chuck rhoades is a ruthless us attorney in manhattan who prosecutes financial crime but has, until now, avoided going after axe and his hedge fund, axe capital, despite axe’s reputation for Shady Dealings. wendy rhoades is chuck’s wife, and axe capital’s on-call performance coach / therapist and axe’s bff. (allegedly. i’m rarely convinced that their friendship is as Real And Weird And Deep as we’re meant to believe, but we are meant to believe it.) chuck can’t deal with his wife being best friends with some other guy, let alone some guy who’s doing finance crimes, so once he resolves to Take Axe Down, he spends most of the season figuring out how, with the help of two assistant us attorneys, kate sacker and bryan connerty. axe doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong, and can’t deal with any man getting more of wendy’s attention than he does, so he spends most of the season fighting back. (let’s also note that axe has a wife, lara, who is at best uneasy about wendy’s sway over him.)

chuck uses his power to do a lot of questionable things, up to and including stealing wendy’s notes on her axe capital patients, ostensibly in the service of justice. axe uses his wealth to do a lot of questionable things, up to and including letting one of his employees die to protect axe from prosecution when he could have extended the employee’s life, so he can keep making money. (also, we — and many, many people in nyc — find out that axe made his fortune off of 9/11 and tried to keep it buried for 14 years. he’s not so well loved after that.) the season ends with wendy deciding she’s sick of both of them, quitting her job at axe capital, and kicking chuck out of the house, followed by axe & chuck meeting face to face to yell about how much they hate each other and how they’ve both lost wendy by being so exquisitely terrible.

so this is the world that taylor mason (the most important character, as you know) walks into. rich men make their wealth of off suffering and death; powerful men abuse their public trust for personal ends; and the lives and wellbeing of everyone else turn on the whims of the rich and powerful and whatever years-long personal grudges they feel like satisfying today. (and sometimes, rich and powerful people will walk up to each other and say things like “What’s the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you?” and “You’re sure to become President of the Libertarian Club of Danbury Federal Prison.”)

season two introduces us to taylor and demonstrates that it’s not so easy for axe & chuck to become disentangled from wendy, or one another. early on, axe, chuck, & wendy are all under legal scrutiny due to the circumstances of chuck stealing wendy’s notes and wendy leaving axe capital. when axe is introduced to taylor by mafee, their mentor, and recognizes their brilliance, he enlists them to help attack another hedge fund ceo who wendy’s chosen to work for (and who is generally awful); chuck, who’s in danger of being fired, holds onto his job by successfully prosecuting (with the assistance of connerty and sacker) a prominent banker who’s also a friend of axe. axe decides to invest in a poor town in upstate new york, as a favor to a family friend, and puts taylor on figuring out if it’s a good deal; chuck is pushed to run for governor by his father, chuck senior, and senior sabotages a deal that would have brought a lot of money to the upstate town, which means a lot of money potentially lost for axe capital. (taylor, perhaps surprisingly, calls for stripping the town for all it’s worth to make up the loss.)

taylor gains favor with axe, gets used to a life of increasing wealth and power, finds themself on connerty’s radar, and starts to see the personal costs of doing business at axe capital. chuck & axe set their sights on one another again, which isn’t helped by axe finally managing to hire back wendy, a deal that strains chuck and wendy’s ongoing attempt to repair their marriage and hastens the crumbling of axe and lara’s marriage. (other than axe, the only person happy to see wendy back at axe capital is taylor — the two properly meet for the first time and click immediately.) chuck convinces senior to invest in a company, ice juice, that chuck’s best friend, ira schirmer, has also invested in, knowing that axe will try to ruin the company to hurt chuck and profit from its ruin — he does, and chuck gets it all on camera. wendy is again stuck in the middle, without knowing what chuck is planning, and decides to take a chunk of the profits axe is making. axe gets arrested, and wendy & chuck go home together, but only after axe sets taylor up to lead axe capital in his absence, lies about coming home to lara, and hugs wendy goodbye while chuck watches.

season three elevates taylor to more and more power, while setting axe against them — and, shockingly, on the same side as chuck — for the first time. axe is frustrated about the ice juice case and about having to give up his right to trade in order for axe capital, under taylor’s leadership and (allegedly) without axe’s input, to do business at all. (he’s also frustrated about lara deciding to divorce him, but it’s on the back burner, really.) chuck isn’t doing much better — senior and ira now hate him for using them as bait for axe; the new attorney general, jock jeffcoat, is forcing him (and sacker, who’s now his right hand attorney) to take on cases he hates in order to keep his job; and connerty, who’s supposed to be leading the ice juice case against axe, keeps finding evidence that points to chuck’s involvement. while taylor is in charge of axe cap, and with wendy advising them, they get accustomed to doing things their own way & dealing with crises, decide to hire quantitative analysts (aka quants! hello winston!) to help develop an algorithm that will change how axe capital does business, fend off / work around axe’s repeated attempts to make their decisions for them, and grow disillusioned with the culture of axe capital. (an example: taylor, and everyone at axe capital, watch a man die in an explosion on live television, and almost everyone around them starts cheering because they’ll make money off of it.)

chuck & axe are both fighting to make sure the other guy goes down over ice juice — until the news of wendy’s involvement gets out, and they have to work together to keep her safe and out of jail. (their plan to do this involves putting mafee in the line of fire, which taylor picks up on and confronts wendy about.) once the case is resolved, and chuck, axe, & wendy all get off scot-free, chuck reconciles with senior & ira and fires connerty for daring to come after him, and axe returns to axe capital and knocks taylor off their perch, back to being a regular employee. axe prepares to raise new money for axe capital, while undoing much of taylor’s work and belittling them and their requests for input and autonomy. chuck gives up his run for governor and tries to get jeffcoat out of office. but both of them are blindsided by betrayal — axe by taylor starting their own hedge fund, taylor mason capital, with the money raised for axe capital, and chuck by connerty and sacker siding with jeffcoat to get chuck fired. with chuck no longer the us attorney, he and wendy agree he’s got nothing against axe, and the three of them meet to start planning their retribution.

season four focuses on everyone’s desire for revenge against someone else, particularly axe & wendy’s separate but related desires for revenge against taylor. axe is trying to crush taylor & their company any way he can (sometimes with the assistance of his new girlfriend, rebecca cantu), and firing / threatening anyone at axe capital who gets in touch with them, because he can’t bear to let them succeed. chuck is running for state attorney general, because he needs a position of power to go after connerty, who’s now the us attorney, and jeffcoat. axe & chuck make a deal: if axe helps chuck get elected, chuck will make sure taylor is arrested. (“arrested for what?” axe doesn’t care what. just crimes.) wendy is helping both axe & chuck with their respective goals and feeling vindictive herself because she believes taylor took advantage of her empathy for them to put them in a position to start their own fund. taylor does well fending off axe’s attacks at first, with the help of mafee, their coo sara hammon, and other new employees. then their father, douglas mason, comes to visit, and three things become clear: 1) their relationship is difficult because he has almost no respect for them 2) they’re desperate for his approval 3) he’s come to see them because he wants their financial support for a personal project.

chuck wins his election, with axe’s help and with a very personal public speech. once in office, he agrees to help senior with a real estate deal; his legally questionable “help” catches the attention of connerty, sacker, and jeffcoat, who go to equally questionable lengths to prove that chuck is doing crimes. (an example: breaking into senior’s apartment to steal evidence from his biometrically locked safe.) wendy, who’s angry about her inclusion in chuck’s very personal speech, reaches out to taylor to talk. she learns that taylor is funding douglas’s personal project and, using her knowledge of their strained relationship from therapy sessions with taylor, works with axe to force taylor to kill the project. douglas walks out; taylor is devastated and wants some revenge of their own. (so does sara, who reports wendy for medical malpractice.) taylor attacks a company owned by rebecca, and axe supports her, until rebecca & taylor cut both their losses by cutting a deal. this makes axe so mad that he destroys the company instead, alienating rebecca and bankrupting taylor mason capital. chuck & senior’s real estate deal turns out to be a trap for connerty and jeffcoat (but not sacker, because she’s too smart for that), and it succeeds. however, chuck was supposed to be helping wendy keep her medical license; when she finds out that he didn’t do a thing, she walks out on him and into axe’s apartment. chuck, who was already sick of axe, “arrests” taylor and tells them that, though axe wants him to blackmail taylor into returning to axe capital, chuck wants them to go back as his operative to take axe down. taylor agrees to all sides of this deal, and returns to axe capital with their employees in tow, intending to just wait it out until axe and chuck destroy one another.

season five forces the leads to deal with the messes they made in season four, and smashes up & reforms the relationships of that season. axe, who’s feeling adrift after reaching a net worth of $10 billion and not feeling happy about it, is going in all directions at once. he decides that fellow deca-billionaire mike prince, who keeps swiping things he wants, is his new arch-nemesis; he applies for a bank charter for axe capital so he’ll never have to work again; he hires a artist, nico tanner, to paint for him on commission. the only thing he doesn’t do is run axe capital, even with the return of taylor, who he said he wanted around to help him make better plays, and their confession to him that they came back in collaboration with chuck. axe & chuck are ostensibly still allies, but chuck, with sacker behind him, is trying every angle he can think of to send axe to jail and prevent him from getting a bank charter. taylor, who’s struggling to achieve anything under the weight of appeasing both axe & chuck and the interference of other axe capital people in taylor mason capital’s work, teams up with wendy to win over investors and reinvents their fund as taylor mason carbon, focused on environmentally friendly investing. wendy and chuck get divorced, but are still entangled by shared assets and familial commitments; wendy and tanner take to one another romantically, axe finds out, and as we recall from season one, axe can’t deal with any man getting more of wendy’s attention than he does; and all of taylor’s employees are suspicious of wendy and her intentions.

season five hasn’t yet been filmed or aired in full thanks to covid, but where we’ve left off, axe has lost out on his bank charter, discovered that taylor and wendy teamed up with prince, and deliberately driven a wedge between axe & tanner, all in one night. it seems likely that wendy’s soon going to be as alienated from axe as she already is from chuck, and probable or at least possible that there’s more to taylor’s partnership with wendy than we’re led to believe. but we really have no idea what’s going to happen or even when we’re going to see it happen, and in a way that’s the best description of billions anyone could give.

#this is long. i apologize but also i should mention that even this leaves out a Lot of characters and plot details #and i am happy to answer more specific questions too because billions is simply So Much All The Time #inbox #anonymous #billions #taylor mason #bobby axelrod #chuck rhoades #wendy rhoades #lara axelrod #bryan connerty #kate sacker #jock jeffcoat #chuck rhoades senior

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jennibeultimate · 4 years ago

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I don’t know a whole lot about the technical side of figure skating, usually I choose favorite skaters just on whose performances I enjoy the most, but I’m curious since a lot of people seem to really dislike her: what do you think of Evgenia Medvedeva? since you seem to know a lot and be very invested in the figure skating world, I’m interested to know your opinion

Oh wow. I am very honored to have someone want my opinion 👀

First of all I am by no means an expert on the technical sides of figure skating - still learning - but I give it a try and your observation is correct that I am very invested in this sport and I know how (shitty) the fandom can be. And to warn you you're in for a long read. 😅

I will give my opinion on both, the aspects of her skating and the person Evgenia Medvedeva. And on why I think ppl may dislike her/hate on her.

1. About Evgenia Medvedeva - the skater

I hope you understand at least the basic terms of the technical aspects in figure skating as I will refer to them a lot in this part.

Jumps - Zhenya is a better edge than toe jumper. Her 3Loop and her 3Salchow are one of the best in the field and imo extremely pretty. Her 2Axel is usually her biggest problem, she muscles the jump. Her toe jumps have issues too. Zhenya has a wrong edge on the Lutz, called a "Flutz", she is working on it but it's still the wrong edge. She mostly didn't get an edge call on it though by the judges. The other aspect ppl often talk about is the "prerotation" in her toe jumps, especially the Flip. She does prerotate more than some other skaters. She is often criticized for it. But to make it short imo the rules about prerotation are a bit blurry (at what point is prerotation normal and when is it excessive prerotation?) and in fact judges doesn't seem to penalize prerotation at all. Some fans like to nitpick on this matter a lot. For some it's almost some sort of crime. Let's just say it's not easy to fix it and I think Zhenya improved on this matter with time. I think Zhenya definitely has some issues on her toe jumps and Axel, but I don't think just because someone has a flawed technique the person is a bad skater. So there are things you can rightfully criticize but also things to love in her jumps like not only are Salchow and Loop beautiful, but also her leg extension on landing is good and she usually has good flow in her jumps. The Tanos (one arm over the head while jumping) aren't my cup of tea but they have a positive influence the GOEs.

Her Salchow:

Her Loop:

Spins - I think she has beautiful spins, but they are not the fastest. And I think her spins were better in the early senior years. The back that is bothering her is making the Bielmann spin not doable for her anymore, which is a shame.

Programs and performance - I think Zhenya does portray characters exceptionally well. Yes some ppl don't like the excessive pantomime in her earlier programs and I also think less is more, but she always captures the audience with her charm and personality on ice and her programs always have a concept she can bring across (even sometimes with questionable theme). She has some very beautiful programs, I recommend her "Anna Karenina" 2017-2018 program and her "Memoirs of a Geisha" 2019-2020 program. What stands out of Zhenya and also has been a reason she has earned high PCS - especially in her first senior years - is that her programs are full of difficult transitions between the elements. I don't want to pick all of the PCS categories apart, just that I think she is selling her skating exceptionally well. (She doesn't have thousands of fans for no reason. 😉)

Scoring - I think this is actually the main point why some skating fans didn't like her in the first place. She emerged to a scene with extremely high scores for being a first year senior, scores that matched past heroes of skating like Yuna Kim and Mao Asada. Even though Zhenya never skated against Yuna and shared only few competitions with Mao, ppl always referred to the old scores of them. (which were former world records) Zhenya's consistency made her get world record after world record and flaws in jumps have often been overlooked like not calling the Flutz and her PCS seemed super high in comparison to other skaters of the same level. Even though the scoring is hardly her fault, she got the flack for it and tbh the way she was scored was also turning me off for a while but Zhenya captured me with her performance. Her high scores also have some justification. Zhenya had the most difficulty in her programs in 2015-2017. She was the skater to start the trend to backload the jumps to the 2nd half to get the bonus points (rules have been changed after 2018 because of this). Her PCS being high can also be justified to some extent, like she does have a lot of transitions and her skating is clear (turns and steps are recognizable and mostly of high quality) etc. I still do think especially after her coaching change to Brian Orser that her scores have been worth a discussion and I think that in comparison her scores were too high, but I don't think there is any doubt that she deserved the world titles she got. (Just look at those comps and tell me who was better?) Also her consistency between 2015 and 2017 is unmatched and is admirable. I think Zhenya has been overscored in her career a lot, but not to the extent that made her "unrightfully" claiming the titles and again that's hardly her fault.

I actually like Zhenya's skating a lot. I wasn’t a fan the first time I saw her but she grew on me a lot, especially in the last two years. She can create magic. 😊

If you want to know more about Zhenya and the technical aspects of her skating you can go through the Evgenia Medvedeva tag on @the-real-xmonster (the blog is not active anymore but has tons of technical explanations)

About the person Evgenia Medvedeva

I personally admire Zhenya for her guts to keep competing in a country where a lot of ppl think she is "too old" for the sport. I also admired her for the coaching change to Brian to go a different way (I hate how she had to return to Eteri because of the pandemic). I like that she is speaking up towards online bullying she and others received. She keeps on sharing on Instagram though she has been harassed there a lot. I think in her interviews she is thoughtful (she is speaking her mind, which I like), but she can also be goofy and funny and her love for anime and being an "Otaku" is making her relatable.

Her Sailor Moon exhibition is such a fun program I can recommend to everyone.

(GIF by @the-real-xmonster)

About the "hate" towards Zhenya:

Some of the criticism Zhenya is receiving is understandable in my opinion. For example lately traveling during a pandemic to another country is something worth talking about or her mother letting a fan into TCC or some of the statements towards media can be criticised. But some "critic" is not criticism but hate for example when she changed to Brian Orser, calling her a traitor, badmouthing her for being ungrateful or being an attention seeker or making assumptions about her relationships with other skaters to the extent she deleted all the pictures with Yuzuru Hanyu from her Instagram etc. (especially when Eteribots or some Fanyus are involved things can turn ugly in the fandom) I also don't think ppl should put all some media is reporting as truth and stalking her Instagram backgrounds to see if she violated her quarantine is crossing personal boundaries. I think these are things that are not ok at all. (and to hate someone for their scores is really stupid imo)

However I think part of the problem why ppl dislike/hate her is her popularity (She has 700k followers on Instagram) . If she would be a no name skater her actions or scores wouldn't be discussed across the fandom. But actually most of the time you can follow the hate back to a few accounts...

Just to be clear it's totally fine to not get into Zhenya's skating, to point out flaws in scoring and in her technique, to not like some of her actions or criticize them, but I don't think it's fair to hate on her or make fun of her injuries or bad performances, she is human and deserves respect. The tone is important. Be kind and respectful! We don't know any of those skaters personally, so what does it cost to be a bit kind? Figure skating is a small fandom and believe me skaters see what ppl write. And it can hurt an actual human being. So please be considerate.

I am not sure if this is the kind of answer you were looking for anon, but here are some of my opinions on Zhenya 😊 You're welcome to ask more if something is unclear or you want to know something about another skater.

Anyone who read 'til the end should have a cookie! Have a good day! Thanks for reading!

Let's end this long read with a happy Zhenya!

#evgenia medvedeva #figure skating #anon #replies #i can't do short answers sorry #the reason i hate Twitter i can't keep it short 😅

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sunnykeysmash · 5 years ago

Text

The connection between Brian LeFevre, death and macdennis/sunny meta

In my time obsessing over sunny recently I ended up noticing interesting stuff that I’m gonna try to show here, that was greatly expanded in s14 and that I believe gives us great odds over whether dennis will be acknowledged as gay in s15 or not.

Thesis: There has been an ongoing dichotomy, or “choice”, for Dennis, between Brian/Death/Son/Mandy and Dennis/Life/Love/Mac. Additionally, there has been purposeful ambiguity between what is sunny meta and what is dennis meta in season 14, enough for me to consider them one and the same in most cases. Information which puts Big Mo under a completely new light.

Long analysis under the cut.

Basically, Brian has been symbolically linked to death, thanks to an extensive use of metaphors and parallels, because Brian represents the death of Dennis’ identity. Not a true physical death, but the death of Dennis as a person.

Starting from the very beginning, of course, Brian is a dead guy.

In Dennis’ Double Life, it’s established textually, metatextually and visually that Dennis has an actual mirroring double life (Mandy vs Mac, Brian vs Dennis) and is stuck between the two of them.

This is also thanks to the heavy callbacks to suburbs. Here’s an excerpt from a previous analysis of mine explaining it:

(read more here, seriously I recommend it)

During this episode Dennis’ actually eventually fakes Brian’s death to try to get out of trouble, which is the second clear link to death for the persona.

It doesn’t work.

Mandy: “You can open your eyes now, I know you're not dead.”

Which also works as the first acknowledgement of Dennis not really wanting what the Brian life entails, as it’s a character death as much as it is the death of Dennis’ true wishes. He is not dead, he is not Brian, who IS dead.

Then, as he holds his son, something changes inside him. Suddenly, he is a father. His emotional involvement in choosing between the two lives changes drastically with this.

Nevertheless at the end of the episode Dennis is once again presented with the clear choice, which from this point forward I will address as Son/Death vs Love/Life, he looks at the RPG looming in the background and decides to go, not before a long hesitation and stopping immediately when he thought he was being asked not to go, showing us where his heart lies.

This, him choosing to go away, is because at this point in time, Dennis is still not in the right headspace to accept the right path for him. As Chop will put it, he feels “lonely and needs to do something extreme to feel special”, most of all though he feels lost. The conflicts that started in Boggs and Suburbs still make him unsure, and the presence of his son makes him feel like he has to be better for him, despite himself.

As he goes away, Mac blows up Dennis’ Range Rover with the RPG, car which is later in New Wheels metaphorically linked to Dennis’ identity.

Basically, as Dennis chooses Brian’s life, his actual identity dies.

So during the first half of season 13, he is nobody. He is not Brian and he’s struggling to be Dennis. He’s trying to get back into his old identity, desperate for any semblance of control and to belong, so he ends up looking like a caricature of himself, or rather, precisely who the gang thinks he is and who they see him as, not who he truly is.

New Wheels perfectly shows Dennis desperate to belong when he finds a new group of people, he tries on a whole new and different identity, which isn’t entirely him, but that at least feels welcoming enough. But it’s also a showcase of what Dennis truly wanted, which is to be acknowledged and seen by the gang, but particularly by Mac, feel like he matters to them and to him.

I say Mac specifically because the framing during the beginning scene seems to be fixated on a behind-Mac perspective on Dennis, almost like the conversation were happening just between the two of them, like Dennis was talking to him specifically when he pleads for questions.

These are all different shots, not the same one.

By the end of the episode he finally becomes himself again. And that’s that for s13.

Another thing worth pointing out though is that Dennis apparently has not been kicked out from ND, he himself says “I may go back” in New Wheels, and although in context it sounds more like an empty threat, it’s not empty because he can’t go back, it’s empty because he doesn’t really want to, as can be guessed thanks to his tone. This is because it’s then reinforced at the end of Chop with these lines of dialogue:

Charlie: “I can't believe how quick you gave up Poppins' puppies, though, you know? You didn't even think about keeping 'em.” Mac: “Well, that's a lot of responsibility, Charlie, right? And plus, there's no doggy paternity test to actually prove that they were Poppins' puppies in the first place. But, hey, if Poppins wants to stop by and say, "What's up?" and, like, be a dad for while, he's gonna. Or he won't. Dennis: “Yeah, that's how I do. That's how I do.”

Because of this, it can and should also be argued that the choice I am explaining in this analysis is something that Dennis still has to make, because he is, as it stands, still stuck between the two lives, and he has to settle on one, so choose between them, in order for the struggle to end. During all of s14 he is stuck trying to figure out which of the two he should choose, which is also the cause of his growing frustration. Currently speaking, getting a little speculatory here, I think everything feels like death to him, which is why he is having such a hard time deciding. He obviously doesn’t know the outcome of either option, because he’s not the audience or RCG, which means either of them can potentially kill him, and they both feel like they might to him.

Now, in season 14 is where all of this (the dichotomy of Death/Son vs Life/Love) starts to really become prominent in metatext, and this happens as the episodes start to purposefully confuse meta about the show itself with meta about Dennis. Let’s go through it in order one episode at a time, as that’s easier for me to dissect.

First of all, the backwards message at the end of all season 14 episodes, which is this:

“They leave but they all come back”

Is already a clear example of what I’m talking about. Is it about the show because of the false ending of Big Mo which actually ends with the message that “they’ll never stop doing sunny”? Is it about Dennis coming back from North Dakota? Unclear, but that’s entirely on purpose.

Episode 1: The Gang Gets Romantic

Now, there isn’t any clear connection to the choice as far as I am aware, but it is a first approach to the themes of romantic love, death, sons, as a whole. In this episode, while Frank and Charlie are paired with a father and son, Mac and Dennis get paired with a couple mourning a son (Dennis Jr, the “son” in the metaphor, is dead, but more in general it’s pointing to them slowly healing from the Suburbs conflict in my opinion though).

As a bonus fact, Charlie+Frank have always been set up to mirror Mac+Dennis. It is explicitly said in the Mac and Dennis Break Up commentary, and it shows in a bunch of episodes such as Dines Out, Chokes, or hell that one time Frank got a Charlie mannequin. Anyway, word of god, they are parallels.

TGGR presents us with two plotlines that mirror each other while going in the exact opposite direction, and the mirror element is the “structure”. Charlie and Frank’s plotline follows the romcom tropes closely, its structure, and is thus rewarded with a positive ending. Mac and Dennis’ plotline struggles against them (since the tropes are applying to Mac+Dennis, not Dennis+Lisa and Mac+Greg), which is why their plotline resolves negatively.

At the same time, this episode can have a sunny meta interpretation.

In this perspective, the Mac+Dennis plotline is the option for RCG to end sunny and each do their own thing, while the Charlie+Frank plotline is the option to keep it going, and at the end they conclude with the C+F one, seeing as it’s the option to keep going, which is ultimately what RCG wants.

So when this dialogue happens:

Mac: “You think they're gonna give us a bad review?” Dennis: “Yeah.” Mac: “I guess we're not gonna get that romantic comedy ending after all.”

It is about RCG choosing not to end the show (supported later by Big Mo), as it would not provide anything positive.

Or this:

Dennis: “It just feels like a lot of effort, and it feels desperate, you know what I mean? Like, I never put this much work into banging some cute meat.”

It can be interpreted as the effort to win an Emmy, especially since the Mac+Dennis plotline is the tired one, the one that’s failing.

And then when Alexi and Nikki say they’ll be back “next year”, and Charlie yells back “I love you!”, it can be interpreted that metaphorically Alexi and Nikki are sunny. Which also creates another link between love and the show continuing, or “staying alive”.

Finally, all the talk about “structure” and “acts”, particularly the three act structure, is a writer’s process, which also serves as an additional link to the RCG meta interpretation.

Episode 2: Thunder Gun 4: Maximum Cool

This episode leans heavily in the dichotomy, through various pieces of dialogue.

Starting from this:

Girl: "So, this is the midpoint twist. Thundergun finding out he has a son." Frank: "He has a son?" Girl: "Yes." Frank: "But how is this the twist? I mean, because he's got a kid? I mean, he's probably got a thousand kids, all the raw-dog loads he drops."

Which also calls back to the episode prior, where Dee’s role is called “diversionary plot-twist at best”. Now, all these words, midpoint and diversionary, imply an endgoal that is also opposite of what the twist shows.

The twist, obviously, being that Dennis has a secret life with a girl and a son.

It continues:

Dennis: “We’re feeling a lot of outrage right now, you know, because we want something, and we know we deserve it, - but we’re not getting it. [...] I wanna cling to the way things were, but they’re done. […] Let’s run from this.”

Being now aware of the metatext from Big Mo, once again, is this about RCG not getting an Emmy, being discouraged and wanting to end the show because they’re feeling stuck? Or is it about Dennis running away to North Dakota after he realizes in DDL that things have changed permanently despite Mac’s attempt at keeping them the exact same (the apartment restoration)?

The ambiguity that connects Dennis meta with Sunny/RCG meta continues.

Finally:

Dennis “No-no, you guys don’t get it. It’s a cliffhanger. Yeah? It’s a cliffhanger. We’re gonna find out what happened to John in the next movie, Thunder Gun 5.”

Dennis himself going against what is metaphorically his choice in DDL.

Let’s actually look into that, into what happens to Thundergun.

He sacrifices himself for his son, and dies in the process. Said film is then leaked by the gang and the audience hates it, so the franchise decides to “go back to its roots”. Very clearly sunny meta, but it can absolutely also be seen as Dennis meta. Dennis hating his choice (his thunderson ending) and deciding to come back (go back to his roots).

Additionally, Dennis literally says “give me dong or give me death” at one point, which in the context of all of this feels rather significant, you know?

Episode 3: Dee Day

Surprisingly, and thankfully for me, not much that I can see.

There is this:

Dennis: “And who cares about her feelings anyway? Nobody, that’s who. What about my feelings? Now, that’s interesting, okay?”

Which implies something going on with Dennis’ feelings, and which will more substantially be addressed by Jumper when it’s implied that Dennis tries to completely disregard them when it comes to choices, but other than that, really not much else.

Episode 4: The Gang Chokes

Once again we see a Mac+Dennis and Charlie+Frank parallel conflict. Charlie and Frank resolve their own with words (that mirror Dines Out) while Mac and Dennis resolve theirs with actions, while also solving the much bigger conflicts started by Suburbs (again, check out the other analysis for more context on this) and DDL.

It should also be stressed that Chokes starts by saying:

Charlie: “Uh, guys, I'd like to raise a glass to Frank. Frank, another year has gone by since you came into my life.”

He’s making a toast, which implies that they are celebrating their anniversary, as they were in Dines Out, and so the parallel becomes not only implied in dialogue as I’m about to show, but direct. It is unclear whether this is also a monthly dinner for Mac and Dennis or not, as I don’t think it was ever specified one way or the other.

As for the parallel in dialogue.

In Dines Out:

Mac: “I didn't have your back before, but now I'm gonna be the wind beneath your wings.”

In Chokes:

Frank (to the Waiter): “Hey, you had my back. Now I'm gonna have yours.”

and

Charlie: “Look, Frank, I'm sorry, dude. I screwed up, man. I should've saved you, and I'll always save you from now on, I promise.” Frank: “Thanks, Charlie. I knew you had my back.”

With Brian representing a death for Dennis, it is implied that what Charlie and Frank are saying in words is supposed to be fully applicable for Mac and Dennis, as there is a parallel between Frank almost dying by choking and Dennis almost dying by going to ND.

Therefore, this is about Dennis going to North Dakota and how he wanted to be stopped, “saved” by Mac. This is Mac apologizing, Dennis accepting the apology, and them implicitly moving forward from this conflict in their relationship and for any similar ones in the future if they present themselves. Mac learning the tools to deal with it, “I’ll always save you from now on”.

Which in a way further solidifies that the option that isn’t Brian, Death, Son, Mandy is fully intended as Dennis, Life, Love, Mac. Mac plays a role in the second option, so when choosing life, love, etc, Mac will be involved. As he is the savior in the context.

Continuing on Chokes, the episode itself again focuses a lot on death, both real and perceived, and being saved. There are three main points for this.

First point: Frank’s death.

So, he almost dies and no one helps. Sound familiar? It’s what happened when Dennis went to ND. As a result of no one helping him, Frank lashes out and decides to move out and distance himself. It is then shown that Frank keeps missing Charlie and comparing the Waiter to him subconsciously. It is constantly shown that Frank rejects Charlie’s attempts at helping him despite actually needing him. Which is also what applies to Mac and Dennis, throughout the episode Dennis is shown needing Mac’s help and taking it while verbally refusing it.

Charlie proposes to chew Frank’s food, Frank refuses his help, Frank chokes, Charlie doesn’t help.

Mac constantly helps Dennis, Dennis starts to push him away, Dennis “dies” (chooses to move to ND), Mac doesn’t help.

The episode concludes with the acknowledgement that they should’ve helped, and with the offended part forgiving the other.

Second point: Dee’s death

She witnesses death and is subsequently enthralled by it, seeking thrill by living on the edge. We can draw a parallel to Dennis’ enjoyment in “living in another man’s skin”, you know, “getting off”. It’s how Dennis started the double life he then got lost inside after all, it gave him a thrill. Then, it happened to him exactly what ends up happening to Dee. She experiences real death, is scared shitless by it, and decides to never do it again, going as far as to say this:

Dee: “I saw the other side. I didn't like it. I hated it. It was just blackness. There's nothing there. It's just dark. That's it. Just lights out. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to live on the edge. I don't want to die.”

So once again the choice rests on LIFE, it is like this for Dee, as it is for Sunny, as it is for Dennis.

It’s also interesting to point out that Dee is rescued by a third party, after Mac is able to say “No”; as if symbolically that is what should’ve happened to save Dennis, back when he was about to go. A “no”, to stop him.

Third point: Dennis’ death

Dennis witnesses Frank dying and no one helping him and is immediately reminded of his own situation, which he then proceeds to discuss when at home, with Mac. Thanks to Dennis making this correlation we can once again assume that it is meant to be interpreted as a nod to the ND twist. Not only this but it then keeps linking Dennis to the concept of death and being saved.

This dialogue happens:

Mac: “I would've stepped in, but, of course, I was taking my cues from you.” Dennis: “Why?” Mac: “Well, you didn't tell me whether I should save him or not.” Dennis: “But why? I mean, why do I still have to tell you what to do? Why do I still have to order your dinners for you? And why is it up to me to decide whether or not you're going to save a man's life? You know what the problem is? I can't depend on you. I can't depend on anyone. You know, I mean, if that had been me choking tonight, no one would've saved me.” Mac: “No. I would've saved you, Dennis. I would have saved you. If you told me to.” Dennis: “Oh, Jesus Christ if I told you to?”

Dennis is clearly still upset about no one helping him when he needed it, which is, no one stopping him from making the worst decision of his life, a well established metaphorical death, and is projecting this frustration by applying it to Frank’s situation.

Later on, again:

Dennis: “Christ. I feel like I'm dying.” Mac: “Just let me help you, Dennis!”

Then:

Mac: “Look, all the gluten and the sugar and the dairy just wreaks havoc on his system, you know? And it makes him so weak. And then he's gonna depend on me to take care of him, to bring him back from the brink of death.”

Or “from making a wrong decision”.

Continuing:

Dee: “But if you want Dennis to really depend on you, you’re gonna have to save his life for real.”

And:

Dennis: “So you were still gonna rely on a decision that somebody else made, only, this time, you were potentially gonna kill a man?”

In which Dennis is once again, always without fail, the dying man, and Mac the person who saves him, or tries to. Dennis is very adamant in wanting Mac to choose for himself, which is surprising for a man so “obsessed with control”, and specifically it ticks him off that Mac’s decision was once again gonna provoke the death of a man because he couldn’t take action.

All this implied connection between Dennis, North Dakota and Death reinforces the Death/Brian aspect, while also reinforcing the Life/Mac one, as it is Mac that is supposed to save Dennis.

Episode 5: The Gang Texts

A shorter one, but here things get a little interesting, because the dichotomy is highlighted by one particular joke.

Mac: “Bathrooms at zoos are, like, big Grindr spots for closeted dads.”

Mac says this, then later on, in comes Dennis, a dad, and if it weren’t enough, it’s Mac himself who points to the situation once again by asking if it’s a “grindr thing”.

So going with this, his particular struggle (Death/Son vs Life/Love) is being highlighted with a very fitting choice of words, as he is a dad, and so... also closeted. Going with this. These are the words chosen to describe him in the joke, and it ends up being very telling overall.

Episode 6: The Janitor Always Mops Twice

Nothing, pretty much. lol

I’m gonna use this empty space to write that I just realized that Mac is even more linked to the theme of romantic love because he gifts the RPG specifically on Valentines Day.

Also, generally speaking, Dennis leaving would imply the death of the show, so that’s another way in which dennis meta and sunny meta are linked, because every time one is referenced, the other is automatically implied. The show cannot exist without Dennis in it, and Dennis cannot exist if the show ends. And if that’s not enough, in Big Mo they outright link the end of the show to actual death, in a lot of ways that I’m gonna look into in a bit, so once again, remember that.

Finally, Dennis is very adamant on Mac acting in s14 because if Mac were to do it, he would basically make the decision for Dennis, something that he used to do all the time, if you recall Mac and Dennis Break Up.

Episode 7: The Gang Solves Global Warming

The subject itself can be considered a slow death of sorts, so it feels especially significant that it’s Dennis the member of the gang who cares most about stopping it, despite not being able to because Mac doesn’t help him.

That’s not the only reason he fails at the end though.

He keeps trying to be rational and keep feelings out of it, to rationalize with the situation, which is what ultimately crushes him, as that’s impossible long term.

In this episode, he keeps getting mad at Mac for not taking action and instead trusting God’s will.

Frank: “Where is your God now?” Mac: “He will reveal himself at some point.” Dennis: “Well, is he gonna do it before all these people revolt and destroy the place?” Mac: “I don’t know. I don’t question God’s will. If he wants to destroy the Earth, that’s on him. - I support it!”

I think this is stretching it a bit, but this can also be read as Mac accepting Dennis’ decision to leave despite hating it. Dennis is also frequently presented as “God” so it would make some sense.

The crowd “not wanting to stop” and rioting can be read as sunny meta also, though that’s also kind of a stretch to me, I’m pointing it out.

In the end, the whole episode Dennis and Mac keep arguing about action vs inaction, with Dennis insisting that Mac should take action and being distressed when he doesn’t. They also keep arguing about rationality vs God, something that will come up again in Jumper, surprisingly.

Episode 8: Paddy's Has a Jumper

Now, starting from the very obvious, because that’s what’s easy to me, the jumper is called Bryan O’Brien, and if that doesn’t scream Brian=death, then boy I don’t know what does.

Not only that, but the episode spends a significant portion really stressing and beating you over the head with the fact that the jumper is paralleling Dennis.

Not only is Frank mistaken for the father, but Dennis’ dialogue as a whole really insists on this in multiple points. But again let’s go in order.

Discussing his motivations and intentions:

Mac: ”I mean, maybe God is testing us.” Dee: “He's not gonna do anything. This is a classic cry for help.”

Plus, this episode feels like a writers’ room. When they say stuff like:

Charlie: “It doesn't matter if he wants to or he doesn't want to. He's not gonna die falling from that height.” Dennis: “Whoa. Hard disagree, pal. You could absolutely die if you jump from that height.”

This to me sounds equally about RCG discussing the choice for themselves (implying they did at one point consider outright killing Dennis, or at least argued the theoreticals of it in the writers room, as in “would he actually even die with a decision like that?”) as it is the characters arguing the ND thing in the metaphorical sense, with Dennis insisting that a jump would be fatal while the gang thinks he’s completely fine. So, again, the jump represents him moving to North Dakota, as we’ll see.

Also, in general, the whole episode sounds like RCG arguing over whether they should pull the plug on their own show or not (”become a suicide bar”, because again, without Dennis there is no show, if he chooses death, so does the show), RCG themselves stuck in Dennis’ choice. In particular with the whole “Could he? Would he? (choose one or the other?) Should we?”.

But in addition to this, the algorithm, actually algorithms in general, are once again something that Dennis uses regularly to solve his own problems (D.E.N.N.I.S system, hello), which is his downfall.

Dennis: “Based on the analytical conclusions that we draw here, we're gonna be able to come up with a mathematically-accurate, non-emotional answer to all of our questions. Okay? We just need to think like a computer.”

Speaking of rationality vs feelings.

Mac: “Let's not bring science into it. Okay? I mean, this is life or death. This is God's territory. All right? I mean, there is no science.”

Now, this is very important because it allows me to talk about another thing. If it hadn’t been clear enough by now, this choice Dennis is presented with is also one between rationality and feelings.

Choosing to care for your son and move to ND, that is the rational choice, and rational is everything Dennis has always tried to be, especially in this episode and in Global Warming (which also mentions God a lot!).

But throughout s12-13-14, as I have highlighted in this post so far, we have seen where Dennis’ heart lies, his feelings.

It is funny to notice that both in Global Warming and in Jumper, Mac is the half who keeps arguing for the side of religion, of faith, of feelings, while Dennis keeps arguing for the side of rationality, of objectivity, always wanting to keep feelings completely out of the equation.

Dennis: “I think I have a way that we can solve this argument without human emotion mucking it all up.”

Then:

Charlie: “I think what we learned is that there's no way that the jumper's gonna die from this height. You know? So there's no reason for us to do anything about it.”

Once again the gang not recognizing the gravity of the situation and choosing inaction, to which Dennis seems unsure and wants to do more testing.

Ok so, here’s where things get interesting, the biggest parallel links between Dennis and Bryan are brought to light as they are looking through his social media.

“Yeah, it looks like he likes to travel. He was recently on a cruise.”

Referring to how Dennis actually liked being in another man’s skin in general, and he was recently away to do just that.

The Gang: “Okay, so it looks like he's got a lot to live for.” “He's eating food.” Dennis: “Or-or-or is he? Because is-is that just what he wants you to believe?”

Once again it’s Dennis counterarguing, specifically on the points that sound most like himself, though this irony is lost on him. This also once again sounds like RCG discussing Dennis as a character and how the choice would actually impact him and has impacted him.

Generally, speaking about Dennis, everyone thought he was gonna be fine because on the surface, his choice in the s12 finale sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and exactly what Dennis has supposedly wanted ever since The Gang Misses The Boat, though even that episode itself proves that it simply isn’t what is right for him.

“He's hardly a child, but he's still hanging on to his youth. That suggests to me that maybe he's got some daddy issues. Abandonment, abuse.”

All things that perfectly apply to Dennis and that give us interesting insight on him.

“But recently the girlfriend, she's disappeared from his pictures, which tells me that, uh, she probably broke up with him, you know, because of all his father issues, and 'cause he's an alcoholic, and because of the copious requests for butt-eating, which, she was thinking was more of a one-time thing, and he was thinking, this is a thing now, like, from now on.”

Disregarding Dennis’ surprisingly canonical love for getting his butt ate, lol (despite how that could count as more indication of where his true feelings lie, knowing RCG and what their writing intentions might be), he brings out alcoholism out of seemingly nowhere, another thing that again confirms the link between Dennis and the jumper, Bryan.

Dennis: “Basically, what we've concluded is that it would actually be good for the bar if this guy jumps and dies. So the answer to the question of "should we get involved?" is actually yes. [...] You see, we've already established that this guy wants to die and that it would actually benefit our bar if he dies. Now, of course, from an emotional standpoint, we feel as though we should get involved, we feel as though we should save this guy, but the algorithm is actually telling us that that does not benefit anybody.”

This feels to me like Dennis realizing mid discussion that he should pick rationality aka Death, for the greater good, but being emotionally incapable of actually making that choice because of his feelings, and so implicitly pleading the gang to help him do it, to get involved and push him.

It also sounds like RCG coming to the conclusion that the algorithm, aka the show’s FORMULA, is telling them that Dennis ending up in the bad option of said choice is what would normally happen in a show like sunny, although they themselves don’t really want to go through with it.

Charlie: “Can I say something, though? I think this is for the best. You know what I mean? Like, we were going down a road I was not totally comfortable with.” Dee: “You guys want to go back to watching our show?” Charlie: “Let's get back to our show.”

So, a couple of things here. The jumper does not jump, he chooses life, which implies the same fate for Dennis. Coincidentally, pay attention to how the gang calls it “our” show, not like, “that” show, because this is, at the same time, RCG being glad of the decision to not end the show and kill Dennis off.

But here’s where things get real FUN, because the Melon is also used as a metaphor for sunny. Generally speaking, smashing it would’ve been ending it, it’s not a coincidence that the melon represents the jumper, they’re all one and the same.

Cricket: “Guys, why the hell are you wasting a perfectly good casaba melon?”

Why end a show that is doing perfectly fine?

Frank: “Where's my melon? Where's my casaba?” Dennis: “It's right here, man. Why do you care so much about this thing? What is the deal?” Frank: “It's where I stash my Maui Kush.” Charlie: “You hide your weed in a casaba melon?” Frank: “Yeah. In case the cops ransack the place, you got to find a good, unsuspecting spot to stash your drugs.” Mac: “Pot's pretty much legal now. You don't really have to stash it anywhere.” Charlie: “I don't think you have to hide it, man.” Frank: “When did that happen?”

Ok so, this might be the most speculative point I’m going to bring up, but I will anyway, because it’s my post and I do what I want. I think they’re talking about gay subtext here. It is simply something that is kept hidden (thus, subtext, duh), and that they don’t really need to hide anymore. The reason I think this has a metaphorical value is specifically because of how Charlie words “I don’t think you have to hide it, man” which beautifully applies to a Dennis who is still in the closet in the year of the lord 2020, if you catch my drift. Plus the whole situation reads kinda with a weird vibe in general, almost forced. You have to consider that they chose to include this dialogue over stuff like Frank bragging to Dennis about meeting Jackie DeNardo. He doesn’t bring her up at all, actually.

Mac: “Maybe that's, like, part of the problem of taking the humanity out of decisions.” Dennis: “Perhaps the science just isn't there yet.”

They acknowledge that any choice should be made following your feelings, not like a machine, and Dennis agrees with the point. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me Dennis agreeing that sometimes considering feelings in certain situations is necessary is something HUGE. Of course it is for the thesis I’m arguing, as it implies Dennis following his feelings when making the decision he is currently weighted by, and we know where those stand, but it is huge just in general, also. Dennis usually doesn’t do feelings, at least, he tries to repress them usually.

Cricket: “Where did we land on the casaba?” Dennis: “I think you can eat it, man. I think we're done with it.”

Basically, with the tinkering over, and a decision being made by RCG, they can hand it to Cricket (David Hornsby) to write the season finale.

Episode 9: A Woman’s Right To Chop

The salon’s insigna, pictured above.

This episode is full with dennis/sunny meta (which doubles as abortion meta, so bear with me), but it also has a son=death link once again, as “Poppins” is pregnant and were she to have the puppies (which are later directly used as a metaphor for Brian Jr as I already quoted in this post when explaining why Dennis could technically return to ND) she would die.

Poppins himself is linked to Dennis metaphorically, and as we all know it is a dog that simply does not die.

Mac: “Poppins! He came back! My dog came back!” Dennis: “How the hell is that dog still alive?” Dee: “Yeah, Mac, why don't you just put that poor thing out of its misery?” Mac: “Put him down? What, are you crazy? This is my dog, Dee. I love him.” Dee: “Well, he doesn't love you. Comes around every three or four years, eats a bunch of batteries or whatever, takes a giant dump on the floor, and then leaves again.” Mac: “Dee, Poppins comes and goes as he pleases 'cause that's his right as a male.”

Once again Mac is responsible for keeping him alive, and he does so because he loves him. As for “he doesn’t love you”, I mean, it’s Dee, the Gang’s perspective, of course they think that. They also thought Dennis had no feelings. But we know he does, they are why he came back after all.

Dennis: “And if we decide to leave, we're gonna leave. Yeah, 'cause that's nature. That's tradition.” Dee: “That's bullshit. Traditional roles are ridiculous, and they're made up by men.”

The episode discouraging the option of leaving from Dennis.

Now, cutting hair (while yes, abortion stuff, I’m not talking about that here) can also be interpreted as both a metaphor for ending the show, or Dennis cutting ties entirely. It works for all of them.

Dennis: “With luxurious locks like yours, it could take, oh, three, four years to grow back to its current length. Yeah, if it ever grows back.”

Ending the show with all the risks that it would imply, because it could take a while for them to get another show to get off the ground and a new thriving fanbase (years to grow back hair), that is, if it ever happens.

With relationships as established as those Dennis has, it could take years for him to find other people he can be close with, that is, if he ever finds them.

Dee: “Will you please leave these poor women alone? They're clearly bored and lonely and needing to do something extreme in order to make themselves feel special.”

That just screams “reason why Dennis went to ND” to me.

It’s also funny to consider that the episode as a whole is about choice.

And it’s also interesting that in this scenario Dennis is arguing to stop them from having the choice of “ruining their life”, which sounds rather dramatic and also like a lot of self projection on his part.

Reading the script, it also came to me that other people having a say in whether a haircut is made or not sounds like fans having a say in whether a show ends or not, so there’s that.

So, the burping in this episode is a metaphor for emotional pain.

In this case, Dee wants to get the haircut simply because she can, without understanding the ramifications of her actions, and this upsets Frank who actually does understands. He once had long beautiful hair, cut it and gave it away, and it never grew back. This fits in all three metaphorical perspectives, once again. In the end she ends up getting a haircut anyway, despite people trying to stop her, and ends up with a substitute wig that looks pretty much the same.

Dee: “I'm getting the haircut. I'm getting it.” Frank: “Don't do it, Deandra. You'll regret it! I'm telling you!” Car salesman: “What was that all about?” Frank: “Just trying to save a life.”

This is yes, a metaphor about adoption instead of abortion, but it doubles as Dennis meta for everything else we have discussed.

Not cutting, not jumping, not running away, is saving a life. It all works towards the same message without neglecting the episode’s main message.

All in all, I feel like the parallels and metaphors in this episode are only surface level, and the rest works to make the plot and the abortion stuff make sense. It is still significant though, it’s there.

Episode 10: Waiting For Big Mo

Not even gonna try to make sense of all the metaphors in here as I don’t even think they necessarily make sense at all.

The point of it all here is simple, and it is once again sunny meta as much as it is Dennis meta, which ends up being very important.

They always play the game guarding the base, never letting themselves have fun but following a clear formula (word actually used in the episode), because that is simply what has always worked. They have it down to a science.

Yet the desire to have fun keeps messing with it, getting them lower on the leaderboard, and so on so forth.

Dennis is afraid that this will bring on a death, if they can’t guard their base from Big Mo, so he keeps discouraging fun, and asks people to stay on track, manipulates them to reach this goal, even if it makes him miserable.

This is about Dennis keeping his perfected facade instead of following his feelings as much as it is about RCG following the formula instead of having fun with it. For Dennis, the goal of doing this is being perceived as perfect, being accepted, belonging. For RCG, the goal was winning an emmy and staying relevant.

So the episode starts by painting having fun (feelings in Dennis’ case) as something that will bring an inevitable death, which must be how it felt to RCG (if you don’t follow the formula they’ll cancel your show) and how it felt to Dennis (who knows what would happen if you opened up), which is what led him to make the wrong choice in the first place, to avoid getting hurt.

Except the episode then proceeds to make fun of that very notion:

Mac: “Who cares if we're losing?” Charlie: “Dennis said, like, if we leave the base, death is gonna come in the form of a fat kid who's gonna turn us into fart ghosts or something like that. So I got to stay.” Mac: “What?” Charlie: “It sounds crazy now that I'm saying it. Dennis explained it a lot more better. Dennis, we can't leave the base, right? That's the deal?” Dennis: “No. Frank was right. Rutherford B. Crazy's real name was Larry Takashi. Yeah, and he was the founder and owner of Laser Tag Fun Zone. Well, apparently, he killed himself.”

In the episode, Frank is the first to reveal the news to Dennis, and he doesn’t believe him. Up until that point in the ep, he had been using Rutherford/Larry (is it a coincidence that he also has two names? I’ll let you decide) as inspiration for himself and to keep going with his plan to win, the guy was always working towards his goal tirelessly, never having fun. His family hated him, he had no friends, he was completely alone. He died alone and miserable.

This part of the episode in particular feels very heavy, as we notice that Dennis (and it isn’t random that he’s the one having this revelation) is the only one who’s sitting, looking visibly shocked.

Now, Larry Takashi is based on Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. This isn’t only obvious because of the first name, but also because Larry was the person who Rob met that convinced him to not end the show.

He said this to Rob:

“Don’t be an idiot. Never stop. Just keep doing it. One, because it’s the greatest job you could ever want and two, because if you do a final episode they’ll just destroy you for it.“

So it’s easy to assume that this character is an homage to him.

Anyway, Dennis has this realization, and it feels important that he’s the one having it, as the whole season has been subtly about him and his choice, him feeling like he has to be a father but secretly wanting to be Mac’s “leading man”.

Dennis: “I mean, the guy was miserable. But he spent his life building this empire, and it all meant nothing? Shit. So Rutherford be rich. Rutherford be successful as all hell. But you know what else Rutherford be? Rutherford be right. Because it all means nothing if you're not enjoying it.”

This works both ways, and is the right message, but it then gets twisted into “choosing death on our own terms”, obviously for the sake of tricking the audience with a fake finale; as we now know, they have actually chosen life. The dialogue continues to be specifically about sunny.

And with that, it segues into the fake finale, with them saying “time to end the game”, “goodbye base” and all of that.

And it seems like with that they’re giving up, accepting death as something that will happen regardless, ending the show. Saying “screw it, we won’t let others cancel our show, we’ll end it on our terms if that needs to happen”. Or in Dennis’ case “If I’m gonna have to live a miserable life might as well directly kill myself” as, again, so far the implied death of choosing Brian has been METAPHORICAL, the death of Dennis’ identity. Not, you know, real.

Whereas the show ending would imply his eventual real death.

But that’s not how it ends.

“Oh, what? You thought we'd gone? You'd like that, wouldn't you? We ain't going anywhere. We're never leaving, you little piece of shit.”

They’re never leaving. And so, by progression of the metaphor, neither is Dennis, of course, which implies the choice of the other option. Dennis, Life, Love, Mac.

So as the show chooses to live forever, then so should Dennis also choose the option for life, and everything that it implies with it.

And this is why all of this talk about meta and symbolism was very important for me to make, because this is the logical conclusion I have reached.

Logically speaking, for me, this is where all the signs seem to be pointing, and that’s very exciting.

Because as RCG chooses to keep their show alive, they are also choosing to have real fun with it, and this seems to imply that they won’t stick to the formula as closely.

So in a way, Big Mo, as this fake finale, does end up representing the end of sunny as we know it, if I’m reading into it correctly. It ends up being a proper finale and send off, but sunny is not over because of it. Only the one we are used to, whatever that means.

So not only is Dennis choosing that, but it seems RCG might be taking some real artistic liberties or whatever, not be afraid to sink down in the leaderboards anymore but simply do what they please.

So... macdennis? Well, come back to me in a year and we’ll find out together. That is another reason why I made this post after all, to look back at it in the future and see just how wrong or right I was.

Let’s see how Rob chooses to embrace sunny.

#iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #analysis #macdennis #macden #meta #dennis reynolds #mac mcdonald #season 14

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