#diane nguyen woman of ALL TIME!!!

[luckyfaeth]

me after rewatching bojack horseman for the umpteenth time: wow this is peak television

[go-go-devil]

Top 5 autistic headcanons and top 5 aroace headcanons?

TRIPLE A LET'S GOOO!!!

Autism:

Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks): One of the most obviously autistic characters to ever grace television. The allistics just didn't get it probably because he was "too social" or whatever other slight deviation from what's stereotypical in autistic characters

Kris (Deltarune): I genuinely believe Kris is deliberately autistic-coded, mostly due to that "How to Care for a Human" book you find in the library in Chapter 2 but even beyond that all of their described behaviors are SUPER relatable to me as an autistic person (and bring me back to how I felt about it in my youth...)

Daniil Dankovsky & Various Other Characters (Pathologic): Thank you once again for showing me the light in how truly autistic Daniil is at his very core <3 Besides him though I'm also in agreement with the very code of Classic HD that Peter Stamatin and Grace are on the spectrum (tortured savant and death-obsessed weird girl rep respectively), but I would also argue that Yulia Lyuricheva is autistic as well. I mean the woman is described as someone who "sits in the corner and quietly observes others" and invented an entire philosophical theory in an attempt to explain the pattern of random events invisibly triggered by people. That's what we in the business call STEM-influenced autism :)

The Lodger (Knock-Knock): Yet another video game character that is so intensely autistic. Willingly living in isolation, simultaneously longing for and hating the presence of guests in your house, talking to yourself while pacing through the hallways & infodumping about the most niche scientific field imaginable? It's so relatable 🕯

Diane Nguyen (Bojack Horseman): This one maybe doesn't have the most "evidence" compared to the others per say, but I honestly found myself relating to a lot of Diane's personality quirks and struggles AS an autistic person (ex: hating surprises, trouble regulating her emotions/prone to emotional outbursts, having the most specific overly-convoluted Halloween costume ever). With her I think I'm more in the minority for this hc since her other mental illnesses overshadow her autistic traits, plus her's aren't nearly as obvious as Juda's (who as far as I'm concerned IS canonically autistic even if it's not outright stated by the characters)

Aroace:

Patches (Soulsborne Series): There is no fucking way this man has ANY desire for sex and romance. The only hole he's interested in are the enemy-infested ones he can kick you down! Plus I do know of that one famous line he says in Dark Souls 3 which he claims to be "devoid of all worldly wants" so this might as well be canon

Artemy Burakh (Pathologic): I don't care what the shippers think, I just love the idea of Artemy having a narrative revolving around the concept of "love" while being alienated and eventually coming to terms with how he himself doesn't experience this emotion in a socially conventional way. Besides just 'cause he's aroace in my mind doesn't mean he can't form QPR's ;)

Death of the Endless (The Sandman): ABSOLUTE AROACE ICON! She's a being who loves humanity, but keeps a reasonable distance between any individual person due to her role in taking their souls upon their death. Though instead of being all moping and "oh I can never allow myself to truly be close to those I love T_T" she's instead endlessly jovial and enjoys every second of spending time with other humans in a platonic fashion, brief as those seconds are in the grand scheme of her job. If that ain't actually positive aroace rep I don't know what is 🖤

Every Character in Hylics: All of them are aroace. They're functionally immortal clay aliens who probably don't even need to procreate in traditional means to produce new life, and besides they're more interested in prog rock than romance anyway 🌙 🎸🌯

Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye): A very personal hc for me. Reading that book was one of my earliest instances of me relating to a character for their lack of desire for sex and romance; in particular the whole story about Holden losing his best friend Jane due to her no longer valuing him as a friend and wanting a boyfriend instead, to which he couldn't find himself filling that role. It's just such a vivid portrayal of THE aroace experience of having your platonic connections become "lesser" in the eyes of society, and it really pisses me off that so many contribute this character trait of his as something "he refuses to grow out of" because no it fucking isn't! But then again most analyses of this book are godawful ableist pieces of shit so I'm not exactly surprised there's a lack of meaningful analysis on the main character being sexually deviant alongside his mental disorders

[runthepockets]

I've been thinking a lot today about how self hatred seems pretty integral to straight culture, at least from all the passing remarks my gay friends and peers have made throughout our time together. Like that analysis of Carmen and Richie from The Bear is really sticking with me, the way fans resonate and are more forgiving of the latter because he's that of your average red blooded working class old school straight dude, while Carmen is seen as prissy and pathetic and weird by some fans for not linearly healing from unlinear trauma, for standing up for women and taking no issue with having them in power, some headcanoning him gay or trans for all this. I was watching Bojack Horseman with one of my old roommates last year and he made a comment like "it's so crazy that they made Diane go this hard for feminism and they still made her straight", almost as if to imply straight women don't need feminism and if their feminism goes any deeper than centricism or liberalism then they've probably got more going on, so the reverse of this exists for straight women too.

It's fascinating. People will assume you're gay if you're a nice / sensitive dude, as evidenced both by real life interactions that've been recounted to me by my straight guy friends and by the countless amount of headcanons that any boy or man in fiction with trauma who tries to do the right thing is a trans guy or a gay dude. I mindlessly reblog pictures of shirtless guys + male positivity posts cus "hey that's cool, I could look like that. I hope people think I'm as cool as this guy looks." Men are pretty cool" " or "yeah, men do have the potential to be good. I'm a man, I like to think this is the case" and very little more, and next thing I know I've got like 3 dudes trying to slide in my DMs. I have my personal grievances with these lines of thinking; I think they're really limiting and kind of regressive, especially from the perspective of anyone who's serious about any kind of gender or sexuality liberation. I don't think it's a crime to have headcanons or to want to find other gay people or to want to be seen in your media of choice, or any of that stuff, but I do think it's kinda rude to talk about straight people who don't fit into neat little boxes of "rampant abuser" and "vapid floozy who'll agree to anything as long as it gets her a husband" as if they're, like, weirdos or a waste or something. Part of sex and gender and feminist liberation means that everyone gets to do whatever they want. You're gonna meet a lot of straight women like Diane Nguyen, you're gonna meet a lot of straight men like Carmen Berzatto.

More importantly though, it just makes me kinda sad. Like the only way to love yourself and your gender and the people around you is so lacking in straight culture that people will sooner assume you're gay when you do good things for the women in your life or when a woman has a life outside of her husband. Like why did we do this to ourselves. It sucks bad.

[witchstormm]

Hello everyone! A few days ago, I wrote an essay on Accidental Autistic representation in media using the character Diane Nguyen from BoJack Horseman as an example of that as a part of a bigger college paper I'm writing about autistic representation in media! I decided recently that I wanted to make my current essay public as I work on the bigger paper, just as a bit of a taste tester for those interested in what I have to say as well as a way to showcase why I believe Diane Nguyen is autistic coded (as an autistic person)! To those interested, the essay will be put right under the cut! I hope you enjoy it! To those who aren’t, I understand! I hope you have a wonderful day as well!

When trying to come up with ways to make characters with diverse personalities, creators will often end up representing groups of people without initial and deliberate intent. While it may be a bit misleading to call something that was unintentional “representation,” media, in general, is a subjective art form, so it’s important to recognize the merits of what an audience can take from a piece of media, even if it was unintended by its creators. A rather notable occurrence of this would be the abundance of media portraying autistic characters. Accidental Autism in media is often presented as characters who were intended to come off as “quirky” and/or “different” by their creators without realizing the “quirky” traits in question are diagnosable qualities of autism. As a result of this phenomenon, these characters and their reflective arcs often have more focus on who they are overall rather than solely existing to be an “autistic character,” which ends up humanizing and more accurately portraying autistic people and how they function in society. A good example of this happening in a modern-day show would be the accidental representation of autism in BoJack Horseman with the character Diane Nguyen, a frequently recurring character who is one of BoJack's closest friends.

BoJack Horseman is an animated series that debuted on Netflix in August 2014. It stars the titular BoJack Horseman, a washed-up celebrity horse from a popular sitcom from the 90s, and his eccentric friends Princess Carolyn, Mr. Peanutbutter, Todd Chavez, and Diane Nguyen as they all go through the motions of day-to-day life while dealing with heavy topics such as childhood trauma, drug abuse, mental health, abortion, overwhelming fame, etc. Such portrayal of real-life experiences has won the show numerous accolades as well as high critic and audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and other similar websites. The show’s writing has managed to touch the lives of a lot of people, and the characters within it are still often discussed to this day as their relatability has withstood the test of time and maintained their relevance in popular culture, even though the series has ended. 

A lot of the characters in the show have their respective fans and portray unique viewpoints on life that many can relate to; however, the case of Diane Nguyen (BoJack’s former ghostwriter-turned-friend) in particular, is an interesting one. Of the main characters, she's the only one that people seem to be perplexed by, being labeled as weird or odd, because on a surface level of examination, she may not trigger a general audience's perception of what an autistic woman is. Thus, these traits are unfortunately often perceived as annoying or inconvenient when it comes to furthering the narrative of this show. It is not until all of her acclaimed “annoying” traits are added up that a general audience will recognize how she ends up properly representing the autistic experience.  

As outlined by the CDC, certain diagnostic criteria need to be met for an individual to be considered autistic. In particular, there is a minimum of no less than 5 traits an individual must possess that are deemed as being persistent and cause significant impairment in multiple areas of functioning. One of the foremost traits of autism Diane possesses is that of info-dumping, a practice in which someone regurgitates as much information about a specific topic as they possibly know onto someone else in an unprompted manner at random parts of conversations throughout the run of the show. In season 1, episode 3 “Prickly-Muffin,” Diane goes on a tangent about her thoughts on Sarah Lynn, tying into her feminist views in general without understanding fundamentally that BoJack wasn’t meaning to ask for her actual opinion of Sarah Lynn; he was more trying to get Diane’s opinion of her being in his house (Bob-Waksberg). Another instance of this occurring would be in Season 3, Episode 7 “Stop the Presses.” This time, Diane goes on a tangent about her disastrous trip to work, which led her to be nearly 2 hours late. This event proceeds from a comment Princess Carolyn had made where the latter replies, “I’m hanging onto every word” (Bob-Waksberg). She says this in a sarcastic tone, which is implied to have flown over Diane’s head, as she responded to her literally. While these instances may seem innocuous at first glance, “deficits in social-emotional reciprocity…from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation” as outlined above is a rather important trait of autism (CDC). While this is still a noticeable way to indicate autism to an audience, the usage of how her traits are portrayed is visible enough to cause some people to consider it while not overriding who the character is fundamentally.

Diane’s link with the traits of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) doesn’t end there. She often misreads social situations and ends up spouting inappropriate conversation as a result of not understanding nonverbal behaviors. She exaggerates her facial reactions in situations that don’t necessarily warrant said expression, such as times when she’ll widen her eyes for no reason mid-conversation. While it's not expressly stated in the show whether or not it is something she does purposely, the intention of showcasing this behavior, in particular, could go either way. Either she's doing it as a result of years of masking, a process in which an autistic person attempts to conform to societal norms, or she’s just the type to make random faces from time to time. She also tends to have the opposite problem where her delivery of important information comes off as dry as a result of her lack of intonation and expression in her delivery. A good example of this would be how she responded to her co-worker (at the time), Guy, in the episode “Feel-Good Story.” He invites her over to his place to watch a game, and her tone while accepting the invitation is monotonous, even though you can tell she’s genuine in her delight (Bob-Waksberg). Diane’s also very prone to viewing situations logically by default, which often leads to negative reactions by others, best showcased by the time she alluded to the harassment she experienced as a result of some popular cheerleaders in high school who wrote “virgin slut” on her forehead. Her initial reaction to their harassment was to question how she could “be both a virgin and a slut at the same time", disregarding the elephant in the room of the fact that she was being harassed at all (Bob-Waksberg). She’s missing the social situation of what’s occurring then entirely, focusing more on the logical fallacy of the cheerleader’s statement rather than the fact that they were harassing her.  Another example of this behavior occurring in the show would be when she first met Sonny and he talked about how his parents would get back together, as they’re secretly still in love after their divorce, whereas Diane’s initial reaction was to tell him that it wasn’t true because “[his parents] hated each other and fought all the time” (Bob-Waksberg). These traits would all constitute what the CDC labels “deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction,” but are done in a way where they don’t feel like a caricature. As a result of her tendency to read situations and respond literally, it feels as though it comes more naturally to the character, rather than feeling as if there are very specific beats that she needs to hit for the writers to feel as though they’ve accomplished autistic representation.

Diane furthermore largely dislikes social events as they make her uncomfortable because she often fundamentally doesn’t understand what to do and how they’re supposed to work. In that manner, Diane admits: “When you’re Diane, you can live your whole life like it’s a puzzle, put together from the pieces of different sets…your whole life is full of these pieces that don’t quite fit. But at some point, you start to think it’s you. You’re the piece that doesn’t quite fit” (Bob-Waksberg). This behavior of hers would constitute “Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example… difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts,” according to the CDC. Shown struggling to understand how people around her go about partying and/or socializing in general, it makes her feel like an outcast due to her innate differences. Moreover, her over analyzation of people and what they’re doing in certain situations to decode and then imitate such behaviors is a great example of when she described how she would simply observe and study how people interacted together at parties in the first episodes of the show (also directly linking to how she mimics her friend's unique behaviors unconsciously). Such as when she copied one of BoJack’s quirks in which he asserts his full identity over phone calls; “This is Diane by the way… Nguyen, obviously” (Bob-Waksberg). This further supports her tendency to try to adjust to her environment.

Whether she’s adjusting her glasses an unnecessary amount of times or she’s pushing her hair back over and over again, Diane tends to fidget around in a manner that would be seen as excessive and distracting from an outside perspective. She always seems a bit uncomfortable with conversations, especially when said conversations involve her communicating en masse with people, so as she’s interacting with others to calm herself, she’ll repeat certain motions. This falls under the diagnostic category of stereotyped/repetitive motor movements, repeating these actions as a form of soothing herself in uncomfortable situations一 also known as stimming.

“Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus” are a rather well-known autistic trait, and something that Diane exhibits in a wonderfully noticeable yet subtle way (CDC). She tends to develop obsessive interests in random things that can go unnoticed in the grand scheme of the show if not focused on, such as when she fixated on making the perfect grilled cheese when she first moved to LA, making them for every meal she ate at that point in her life until she had felt she perfected the recipe (Bob-Waksberg). This demonstrates how intensely focused she can become on a topic, and how willing she is to see the ideas she has through. Another would be her strong desire to help people and her fixation on change and fixing things, even when it comes to her detriment, such as when she took a very public stance against a celebrity in the show who’d been accused of sexual assault and continued to hold her ground even when she received several threats to her life for refusing to drop the allegations she made against him in the season 2 episode “Hank After Dark” (Bob-Waksberg).

While it’s clear that characters like Diane are autistic to an audience who are looking for these traits, they often fly over the heads of those who aren’t intending to view said characters as autistic, including creators. In trying to come up with a character that they deem as different from what would be considered socially acceptable, the media will often take inspiration from autistic traits, which creates a rather interesting result of good autistic representation. Unintentionally, the accidental combination of traits resulting in an accurate depiction of autism, such as those seen in Diane Nguyen, creates a clear dichotomy between characters with qualities forced into checking the boxes of CDC guidelines. These content creators, along with the characters born from simply recognizing autistic traits as common in society and innately human, deliver an accurate, relatable, and profound representation of a subgroup that is often dramatized and embellished in a manner that becomes inaccurate in modern media.

My Works Cited

“Diagnostic Criteria.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 Nov. 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html.

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "Prickly-Muffin" BoJack Horseman, season 1, episode 3, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 22 August 2014. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/70298932?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C0%2Ccd3cc07a-d98d-468c-8bc4-dfcb3ded2d58-331248819%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-3DF1649C24_p_1678406684315%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "Stop the Presses" BoJack Horseman, season 3, episode 7, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 22 July 2016. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80073223?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C0%2Ccd3cc07a-d98d-468c-8bc4-dfcb3ded2d58-331248819%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-3DF1649C24_p_1678406684315%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "Feel-Good Story" BoJack Horseman, season 6, episode 3, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 31 January 2020. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/81026961?trackId=14170289&tctx=1%2C0%2C9a11e1d5-7da2-450e-8743-fc53e5b0bcb0-47084340%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-AE978428A7_p_1678524571926%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "One Trick Pony" BoJack Horseman, season 1, episode 10, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 22 August 2014. Netflix,https://www.netflix.com/watch/70298939?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C0%2Ccd3cc07a-d98d-468c-8bc4-dfcb3ded2d58-331248819%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-3DF1649C24_p_1678406684315%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "Xerox of a Xerox" BoJack Horseman, season 6, episode 12, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 31 January 2020. Netflix,https://www.netflix.com/watch/81026970?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C0%2Ccd3cc07a-d98d-468c-8bc4-dfcb3ded2d58-331248819%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-3DF1649C24_p_1678406684315%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "Angela" BoJack Horseman, season 6, episode 14, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 31 January 2020. Netflix,https://www.netflix.com/watch/81043629?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C0%2Ccd3cc07a-d98d-468c-8bc4-dfcb3ded2d58-331248819%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-3DF1649C24_p_1678406684315%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "See Mr. Peanutbutter Run" BoJack Horseman, season 4, episode 1, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 8 September 2017. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80117548?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C0%2Ccd3cc07a-d98d-468c-8bc4-dfcb3ded2d58-331248819%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-3DF1649C24_p_1678406684315%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

Bob-Waksberg, Raphael, writer/creator. "Hank After Dark" BoJack Horseman, season 2, episode 7, The Tornante Company / Boxer vs. Raptor / ShadowMachine, 17 July 2015. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80048082?trackId=14170289&tctx=1%2C0%2C9a11e1d5-7da2-450e-8743-fc53e5b0bcb0-47084340%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961-B9F225DDE3A711-AE978428A7_p_1678524571926%2CNES_BB936C03657FFA88767C5DAF178961_p_1678524571926%2C%2C%2C%2C70300800%2CVideo%3A70300800

[ellemusing-it]

ORange You Glad I Didn't Say RAGE? Peeling Back the Citric Layers of Female Fury

𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯

𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘥𝘢𝘺, 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘵

as i’ve grown both increasingly ill and increasingly visible, i’ve had to face my relationship with my own sickness. for women, it’s often tempting to simplify illness into a consumable narrative—turning deep-seated issues into just smudged eyeliner and wild escapades, or transforming childhood trauma into mere “daddy issues” and suicidal depression into a mysterious allure. it’s easier to market your pain than to truly confront it.

this month, i’ve been overwhelmed by a profound depressive episode—one that feels like wearing ankle weights and having time swirl around you like soup. i’ve spent most days lying on the mattress in my small, rented apartment, staring at the ceiling and straining to hear the whispers of my bunking neighbors through the walls. often, i’ve struggled to tell whether i’m dreaming or awake.

you could blame it on your hormones, the unpredictable tides of your period, or the dull ache of seasonal depression that seeps into your bones as the days grow shorter. you could trace it back to the shadows of your childhood, the echoes of your parents’ arguments that linger in your mind, or the wounds left by your exes that never seem to heal. but deep down, you know that placing blame wouldn’t change a thing. it’s just a fleeting relief, a temporary balm that does little to ease the gnawing pain.

i find myself in a melodramatic, 20th-century woman phase—sleeping erratically, sobbing, writing without publishing, and seeing shapes in my wallpaper. i neglect personal care, indulge in lavish fasting, and tarnish my reputation for battling dehydration. i make sure to nibble the tip of my fingernails during these depressive episodes, hoping they’ll stop writhing as an urge to run down my wrists. even at my lowest, i still view my experiences through a consumer lens; the urge to romanticize our own struggles and shape them into a compelling story has become as natural as breathing for women.

gaslight yourself if it helps you sleep at night—convince yourself that it’s all in your head, that you’re imagining things. it’s all the same, a cycle that repeats itself endlessly. deep inside, you know there’s nothing that can truly take it away. you carry it with you, a constant companion that lurks in the corners of your mind, whispering doubts and insecurities.

𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘵,

there’s a strange comfort in being understood, even if it’s only as a caricature. this feeling is genuine because i can contrast it with other experiences. i’m living through my own diane nguyen phase, my own the bell jar moment, my phoebe bridgers - chapell roan spectrum; i am a complementary mix of the 'buzz' & 'this is how tomorrow move' albums; i am eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. do you see it now? do you understand? despite my efforts, i find myself only able to grasp my identity through the stories of those who seem more complete. and while i tell myself i’m drawn to this media because it resonates with some intrinsic part of me, i wonder if it’s shaping me, too. who would i be without the things i consume? what feelings would remain?

you’ll tell yourself that you’re okay, that you’re resilient, stronger than before. you don’t cut, nor do you burn. you don’t smoke, nor do you get high. but you know another form of harm, one that consumes your mind, a silent battle that rages within. you understand why they did it, why you are the way you are, and you possess a clarity about what’s wrong. your insight, your maturity—a double-edged sword, a parasite that eats at you from the inside. the very thing that people praise you for becomes a burden too heavy to bear.

in a world where mass consumerism reigns, perhaps we’ve lost touch with what it means to exist beyond something marketable. this struggle echoes themes from juliet ivy's "we're all eating each other," where the lyrics explore how we consume not only products but also each other's identities and emotions. the song reflects on how we lose ourselves in this cycle, becoming products of our own creation, shaped by the endless need for validation and recognition. it’s a poignant reminder of the struggle to maintain a sense of self amid the chaos of external expectations and the relentless pace of modern life.

it follows you like a curse, an invisible chain that binds you, making you wonder what sins you’re paying for. there is something sick and twisted inside you, a darkness that refuses to let go. you will never be rid of it because it’s woven into the fabric of who you are. it is what you make of it that determines your life, the choices you make in spite of it, or perhaps because of it.

you'll try to find meaning in your trauma, searching for a purpose in the pain because this damage can't have been for nothing. 𝘴𝘰, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳?

this is female rage at its deepest, saddest, most self-annihilating. it’s the quiet despair that whispers, "i want to burn my clothes," which translates to "i want to crawl out of my fucking skin because you've touched it," and "i want to change my name because i can still hear it in your voice and it sounds like a slur." it’s the desperate longing to fake your own death and start a new life somewhere else because you've ruined mine, and the wish to erase every memory of you from my brain.

female rage doesn’t take a golf club to your car or throw your flaming clothes on the lawn. it’s an inward implosion, a fire that eats itself alive, sets itself ablaze, screams itself sick. the only vengeance it seeks is in hoping you witness our self-destruction, that you see the wreckage you’ve left behind. female rage wants to grasp the knife you dangled over our heads for weeks, to take control of the threat that loomed over us as you slithered away, hoping we wouldn’t notice. hoping we wouldn’t text you after 19 days of silence and ask, “can we talk?” but it doesn’t want to turn the knife on you. it just wants to finish the job itself. it doesn’t want blood; it wants to bleed out, to let go of the anguish once and for all. and it wants you to fucking watch.

this is the paradox of female rage—a desire to implode rather than explode, to internalize rather than burst out. it’s the silent scream that echoes within, a testament to the strength it takes to endure. it’s the quiet rebellion against the constraints imposed upon us, the fierce determination to reclaim our narrative, even if it means burning it all down to start anew.

just as an orange is divided into twelve segments, each layer of rage and pain reveals a new facet of the struggle. each segment is a fragment of a tumultuous year, each peel an attempt to grasp the essence of our suffering. and while peeling back each layer might feel like removing pieces of ourselves, it’s also a testament to the complexity and depth of what we endure. in this process, we come to understand that while our pain may be segmented, it is no less significant.

now .. would you still 𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘭 that for me?

[hypers-of-music]

Post Humanism: A Space of Liberation

The imagery of Arca’s music videos occupies the niche of post humanism aesthetic. Although the idea of the “post human” is not new (as predictions for the end of world have existed for centuries) Arca’s interpretation of the post humanism is more reminiscent of the anthropocene, ultimately centering the image of technology. With the rise of AI (and technology in general) as an increasingly dominant social force, the imagination of the post-human almost acts as a means of confronting fear. 

Diane Marie Keeling and Marguerite Nguyen Lehman published an article “Posthumanism” in 2018 that discusses its definition and development. Rather than review the posthuman as an image or imagination, they review it as a perspective, “a posthumanist perspective considers a wide variety of environmental factors that affect change in combination with human action, including cultural, technological, biological, and physical influences.” The “post” in posthumanism refers to the after, the world “after humans” that has become increasingly ominous in the midst of the anthropocene. As we see the world change through our interactions with it, we become increasingly curious about the end of these interactions, “‘“post’ indicates a rethinking of the individualism and superiority of the human in our worldly relations.” In the imagination of the post humanism (that I consider as encapsulating the posthumanist perspective) there is an inherent fear of the loss of power and control. However, Arca’s portrayal of the posthuman in her music videos offers an alternative to this fear.

In the worlds she creates in her music videos she is seemingly liberated from the “normal” confines of gender expression and labeled sexuality. The images of the sex changes, blurred or completely missing anatomy, and monuments dedicated to her, all contribute to the possibility of posthumanism communicating the specific message of liberation. The New York Times published an article at approximately the same time as the release of “Prada/Rakata” on Youtube, and they hint at some of the same themes in “Arca Once Made Electronic Music. Now She Builds Worlds.” 

Arca describes the KICK series as a world building exercise and cites some of her childhood inspiration, all of which are notorious for their integration of realism and fantasy “her love of anime, video games like Final Fantasy and the science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin.” And Arca takes the elements of exaggeration from each source to infuse into her videos, simultaneously creating a representation of her life and the world without her (humans). This article also delves into the topic of body modifications which I think was a really great point, “‘As if there was a shame to the transformation of the body.’” I think this openness in regards to body modifications really speaks not only to Arca gender transition, but also her transformation. There is the obvious, stand out imagery of the sex change in the video, but these images also exist alongside the subtleties of traditional femininity–with the hair, makeup, and latex suits all solidifying Arca’s human identity as a woman within her post human world. 

And this is why I say that this setting of the post-human world represents more than the possibility of the Anthropocene to Arca. It is a world without humans, but is then also a world without human traditions and restrictions, and it therefore becomes one she can be fully free within. 

[omg-foreverfilledwithweird-posts]

Diane Nguyen

So I just finished Bojack Horseman and I’m floored, it’s amazing go watch it if you haven’t already. But I needed to talk about the polarizing Diane Nguyen, she’s my absolute favorite character. And I want to explain why and how her character arc was so well done.

Yes she made bad decisions and yes she could have been better, but that’s the beauty of her. And the trauma she has experienced is a level I myself can heavily relate to and I think a lot of other young women can too, especially those who are Vietnamese like herself, and I can’t say it doesn’t suck that they put a white woman to play someone Vietnamese, because it does. 

However, that aside, this character spoke volumes in her way of having to fix those around her while simultaneously struggling to fix and find herself, doing what she believes to be right at all times, hoping to help Bojack no matter what while still holding him accountable for the bad things he does, and there’s something still deeply flawed and beautiful about that.  

And my favorite part: she gains weight. 

She’s doesn’t lose weight as part of her happy transformation, becoming a better person, getting happy, getting healthy, she gains weight as a side effect of her anti-depressants. 

It’s one of the first times I’ve seen someone gain weight in their glow up instead of the other way around. And this isn’t to say losing weight in a healthy way in order to feel confident and one with themselves is a bad thing, but it’s also nice to see the alternative. As someone who gained weight as the result of getting back on their meds and becoming happier, it hits home. But her problems didn’t stop after this transformation, even after the pills she still has her highs, her lows, her downs, her manic episodes of self deprecation and sadness. 

Because it’s real.

Thank you for coming to my T.E.D talk. 

[xdelanceyshepard]

“won a national music talent search competition called NEXT LEVEL & signed with THE REAL as alternative rock singer. jaded and cynical from the overwhelming new attention as a newcomer into the world of celebrities. but willing to play the game to keep afloat.”   — penned by raven (EST & she/her)

tw: child neglect and homelessness

SUMMARY

[[ AMBER STEVENS WEST, SHE/HER, CIS FEMALE]] — don’t look now but i could swear i just saw the paparazzi chasing DELANCEY SHEPARD down the street! the THIRTY-TWO year old has been signed with ‘the real’ for the last 2 YEARS, so i guess you could say they’re a big deal. oh, you don’t believe me? the SOLO SINGER was over the tabloids a week ago where they were being praised for their DEDICATED, RESOURCEFUL, & INDEPENDENT nature, but don’t let that fool you, according to the people closest to them they’re also WITHDRAWN, INSECURE, & SKEPTICAL, but their fans like to just blame that on the fact they’re a/an LEO if you believe in all that. according to their wikipedia page this current l.a native was born in CINCINNATI, OH and a few secrets from their past tend to follow them to this day, like how RETRACTED. i’m sure they’d hate for that one to get out, so let’s keep it between us for now.

STATS

BASIC INFORMATION

name: Delancey Shepard

nicknames: Lancey, Dee-dee, and Daisy

pronouns: She/Her

gender: Cis Female

age: 32 years old 

d.o.b: August 22, 1989

p.o.b: Cincinnati, Ohio

astrological sign: Leo

orientation: Homosexual/Homoromantic (closeted)

occupation: Alternative Rock Singer & Songwriter

APPEARANCE 

faceclaim: Amber Stevens West

voiceclaim: Edith Johnson

height: 5'8 

weight: 151 lb

build: Slender

hair colour: Brown

eye colour: Brown

wardrobe style: Post-Grunge (spaghetti straps, flare jeans, baggy pants, sheer textures, chunky shoes, slip dresses, midriff-baring crop tops, lots of lace, oversized flannel shirts, leather jackets, & casual sneakers)

tattoos: None

piercings: Five on Each Ear 

defining features: She is a woman of Comanche, African-American, and Caucasian descent with light brown skin. She has straightened long brown hair, dark brown eyes, black-painted fingernails, a round nose, and a scar on the back of her neck from a knife. She usually wears glitter eye makeup during her live performances. 

HEALTH

physical ailments: None

mental ailments: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (undiagnosed) & Anxiety (undiagnosed)

do they drink: No

do they smoke: No

recreational drugs: None

addictions: None

PERSONALITY

character inspiration: Diane Nguyen, Fiona Gallagher, & Jane Lane

positive traits: Dedicated, Responsible, Open-Minded, Resourceful, & Independent

negative traits: Withdrawn, Apathetic, Sardonic, Insecure, & Skeptical

likes: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Solitude, Spending Time on Rooftops, Late Night Drives through a Fast Food Drive-Thru, Long Road Trips, Sleeping, & Reality TV Shows

dislikes: Parties, Beaches, People with Big Egos, Her Manager, Her Agent, Smokers, Paparazzi, Country Music, & Horror Movies

ACTIVITIES & SKILLS

skills: Writing, Singing, Cooking, Babysitting, Multi-tasking, & Driving  

weaknesses: Choreography, Small Talk, & Applying Makeup

hidden talents: Drawing Skills

languages spoken: English 

BIOGRAPHY 

Delancey Shepard didn’t know what to expect her future to look like other than somewhere far away from her hometown. At a very young age, she was stuck in the difficult position as the oldest Shepard child. Because of her mom's frequent disappearing acts, Delancey was forced to be the family's caretaker, especially for her younger sister. She handled taking charge when necessary in her household to the best of her abilities as a child. As a result, Delancey quickly grew into a hardworking and quick-witted individual.

By the time Delancey reached her senior year of high school, she saved enough money on her own from part-time jobs and financial aid to be able to go attend a community college. However, the tensions with her mom became too challenging to bear. She had originally planned to major in Education but instead, she dropped out of school and moved out from her mom's house. 

After traveling throughout three West Coast states and quitting five jobs later, she found herself as a STARBUCKS barista in Chino, California at the age of 30 years old. She was practically living in her car and she hadn't heard from her family in years. But she kept pretending that everything was okay.

Then Delancey found out about a national music talent search competition called NEXT LEVEL from her friends. They all agreed to participate in the competition as a joke. She went along with it because she thought it wouldn't hurt to go. Maybe her pride would get wounded on national television, but she'd recover from that. Delancey never considered the possibility of pursuing a career in music or art. It was foolish dreaming. Not something stable and realistic enough for her to obtain. So, when she made it through the first two rounds of auditions, she felt the world she knew to begin to unravel right in front of her.  

 The winner of the competition is expected to be offered a contract with THE REAL. The only issue with this matter was that Delancey never expected to actually win the competition. She entered as a joke, but she started enjoying singing and letting her competitive side get to her with her rival contestants. For once, she didn't consider the outcome of it all. But should she really afford to second guess her prize? It wasn't her fault that she won the many hearts of America with her “Broken Bird” looks.

Delancey signed with THE REAL as an ALTERNATIVE ROCK artist after the competition and released her first album, CURIOSITY, in 2020. She just came back from her first tour and is expected to be working on her next album soon. She is feeling jaded about the lifestyle of the rich and famous already but she is willing to play along to keep the money coming in.

[tucaandbertie]

finale thoughts

re: diane and representation

my initial feelings for diane nguyen is complex at best, which seems an appropriate reaction to a complex character who's vietnamese yet voiced by a white woman. and i know the creator has shared his remorse on "blind" casting roles in season one and has made continuous efforts advocating for not more but better representation (there's a difference yall!) but it did sour a lot of diane's relatability to me as a Southeast Asian woman. she even succumbed to 'rebellious Asian woman hair streak' trope at the start of season 5.

however, when i watched S05E02 "The Dog Days are Over", the show's closer examination on how diane grew up with little connection to her vietnamese roots and has become so skewed to western expectations that she even thought travelling to a third world country will help her find herself is itself an experience in Asian diaspora that is very real and also the show self-awareness on it has thus far treated diane's heritage. i find it was an efficient way to address the elephant in the room for asians viewers while making sense in terms of character development.

more on the finale: diane in these final few eps hits way too close to home and hits HARD. the effects of antidepressants at odds with her trying tap into the self-flaggelation, the anxiety, the absolute misery in trying to create art from trauma was devastating to watch, my heart was in my throat the entire time. but unlike previous seasons, the advice and support of people around her (maybe even bolstered from the lack of bojack's presence), she recovered and chose to prioritize her mental health. her conversation with princess carolyn on representation was a nice nod as well: female characters like both of them with their specific tropes (depressed writer struggling with morality, career woman trying to have it all) are way too often left with tragic endings or to conform with societal expectations of women to gain their happy endings. this show said: fuck that trope!

so next to bojack, diane is the best written character on this show. i said what i said. she's righteous, emphatic and unflaggingly loyal. what a character!!

[inktog]

I did this several years ago, and I thought it would be fun to do again now that many of my ships have changed. Consider yourself tagged if you want to participate, though I’m also tagging @kingofterrors specifically.

First, list your top 10 ships without reading the questions below.

Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe

Shallan Davar/Adolin Kholin/Kaladin Stormblessed

Amity Blight/Luz Noceda/Willow Park

Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett

BoJack Horseman/Diane Nguyen

Anthy Himemiya/Utena Tenjou

Chandra Nalaar/Nissa Revane

Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius

Jade Harley/Rose Lalonde

Keyleth/Vax’ildan

Then answer the questions.

Do you remember the episode/scene/chapter that you first started shipping 6? Nope! I mean, I guess I kind of shipped it before I even watched an episode? I went into RGU knowing that Utena/Anthy was a thing, but I wound up disappointed that it wasn’t as much of a thing as I expected, or at least not the particular type of thing I expected. It wasn’t until I rewatched the series while reading the Consulting Analyst that I began to appreciate Utena and Anthy’s relationship. But I can’t pinpoint a particular moment during the rewatch where it clicked for me.

On a side note…goddamn, I really demoted these two, huh? They used to be my #2 ship. My backup OTP. Maybe I’m due for another rewatch.

Have you ever read a fic about 2? Yes, but the cosmere fandom is small. I’ve read only a handful of Shakadolin fics out of the like…few dozen handfuls that exist. Haven’t found anything that particularly strikes my fancy.

Has a picture of 4 ever been your screensaver/profile pic/tumblr? No. Maybe I should do that more often...Beaujester would certainly be a fun screensaver.

If 7 were to suddenly break up today, what would your reaction be? I have very little interest in catching up on the Magic story, so I can’t give an answer that’s grounded in canon; I don’t even know whether they’ve gotten together yet. But in general, I fucking love stories about relationship drama, so it’d probably be a net positive for me—provided that the quantity of queerness in the story didn’t decline as a result. (I.e., Either they got back together, or at least one of them started dating another woman.)

Why is 1 so important? Eh, the #1 slot hasn’t changed since last time, and I don’t feel like explaining it all over again. Tl;dr: it lets me vicariously relive the experience of being a young teen and falling in love for the first time.

Which one has the strongest bond? I think that honor goes to Connverse. There’s something immensely powerful about Best Friends To Lovers, and Steven and Connie have worked really hard to build a lasting relationship. Utena and Anthy are a strong runner up, but I feel like a lot of their bond isn’t sustainably strong. Not yet. Their canon interactions exist in a tangled web of lies and manipulation and non-communication, and the hard work is still before them.

Which ship has lasted the longest? Okay, I think I previously misinterpreted this question. I suppose it refers to the length of each relationship and not (as I originally thought) how long I’ve been shipping them.

…then again, is this question assuming a canon status? Or is it asking which ship would last the longest, were they to get together? Least likely to break up? That just feels like a reprise of the last question. Okay, I’m going with my original interpretation.

I think I’ve been shipping Connverse for longer than anything else on this list. I could be wrong: Homestuck precedes SU on my fandom timeline, so maybe it’s actually Jaderose. But I don’t think I shipped Jaderose right away, while I shipped Steven and Connie pretty much immediately.

How many times, if ever, has 6 broken up? When it comes to post-canon Utenanthy, the fandom, from what I’ve seen, tends to focus on the Healing From Akio’s Abuse angle and the Fluffy Domestic Life angle. Understandably so! But I think this trend has left me with the impression that Utena and Anthy have a mostly uncomplicated post-canon life. And, well…

Their canon relationship is so fucking unhealthy. Anthy spends almost the entirety of the show deceiving and manipulating Utena, while Utena speaks for and over Anthy without ever listening to her. And like, sure, Akio’s out of the picture now. That’ll definitely make things easier. But Anthy is still vindictive, passive-aggressive, and utterly disinclined to communicate her feelings or preferences. Utena is still headstrong, quick to anger, and not a good listener. They seem to be outgrowing these traits by the final episode, but that isn’t the kind of thing that happens overnight.

In short, how many times do I expect them to break up—messily, unable to put the past behind them, each feeling hurt and betrayed and seen in the worst possible way while she drives a knife as deep as she can into the other’s heart?

If the world was suddenly thrust into a zombie apocalypse, which ship would make it out alive: 2 or 8? My first thought was that Harrow and Ianthe obviously win this round. I mean, come on, they’re necromancers. However, Shakadolin have the skill set to not only survive a zombie apocalypse, but rally other survivors as well. Kaladin scouts for stragglers and flies them to safety, Shallan Soulcasts food and medicine, and Adolin organizes defense of the camp perimeter. There’s a chance that Kaladin succumbs to zombie-apocalypse-induced depression, but the other two are good at helping him through it. And let’s be real, Ianthe probably caused the apocalypse in the first place.

Did 7 ever have to hide their relationship for any reason? Tfw you date someone from the same tightly knit friend group slash superhero squad as you and neither of you wants to tell your other friends slash co-heroes because damn that’d be awkward so you pretend nothing’s happening until one day after a particularly close battle you kiss each other thoughtlessly in an oh-thank-god-you’re-alive kind of way and then you realize everyone else saw and you start to explain yourselves only to learn that everyone already knew. They all knew.

Is 4 still together? Bold of you to assume they got together in the first place :'c

Is 10 canon? Yep! A pleasant surprise, honestly, since I shipped them long before I had any idea that they’d end up canon.

If all 10 ships were put into a couple’s Hunger Games, which couple would win?

Okay, time to rank power levels again. Also time to collapse two triangles into lines.

Jade/Rose

Harrow/Ianthe

Connie/Steven

Keyleth/Vax’ildan

Shallan/Kaladin

Chandra/Nissa

Jester/Beau

Amity/Willow

BoJack/Diane

Anthy’s magic is such a goddamn wildcard that I have once again removed her and Utena from the rankings.

By far the most powerful remaining competitor is Jade Harley. She can instantaneously teleport herself or anyone else to any location in the universe; shrink, grow, accelerate, and decelerate anyone or anything; and generally manipulate the fabric of spacial reality. She also has the hit points and damage output of the GREEN FUCKING SUN. And if by some miracle you manage to kill her, she comes right back to life unless her death is suitably Just or Heroic, conditions that I don’t expect to be met often in the Hunger Games. Rose is mostly a liability, and I expect that Jade, not wanted to take a chance on the god tier clock, would focus her early efforts on protecting her girlfriend. If they both survive the first few minutes, Rose’s Seer powers suddenly become a huge asset. She’s the only person who can see into the future, except Jester (whose foresight via divination is extremely limited) and maybe Amity (we don’t really know how oracle magic works, but it’s probably not as powerful as a fully realized Seer of Light).

I won’t break down the power level of everyone else, because it would be kind of boring to get into the nitty gritty. Just imagine a line between 5 and 6; each couple above the line has at least one person with some kind of Extreme Damage Resistance, while everyone below has a normal vulnerable meatsuit.

That said, there are a two people worth mentioning.

Steven’s rank has improved considerably thanks to the later seasons, especially SU Future. He’s been shown to rival White Diamond and even the Cluster in power level. And he’s much more willing to use his power offensively. Nevertheless, I think his surest path to victory is to slow down time and run the fuck away. I don’t care how much power the Rose Quartz gem has in it (and it’s clearly a fuckton); neither shield nor bubble would hold a candle to fusion of two dying universes. If he can find his way to relative safety, he can use his empathetic powers to push Jade into grimbarkness, opening up the door to a Just death. Then he could kill her by possessing her. It’s a long shot, but technically possible. Sadly, Connie is probably dead no matter what.

Beauregard is the dark horse because she could, in theory, stun all the key players—Jade, Harrow, Ianthe, and Steven if he doesn’t run—with a single round of attacks before anyone else reacts. The Green Sun probably grants Jade an ungodly bonus to Con saves, but the necros have negative Constitution as a rule, so there isn’t too much luck involved. If it works, you’re suddenly left with a fight between people of roughly the same power level, and it’s anyone’s game…for six seconds.

BoJack and Diane die immediately, no matter what.

Has anyone ever tried to sabotage 5? Yeah, BoJack has.

Do you spend hours a day going through 3’s tumblr tag? Not enough content to spend hours per day in the tag, but I certainly have it bookmarked c:

If an evil witch descended from the sky and told you that you had to pick one of the ten ships to break up forever or else she’d break them all up, which ship would you SINK? The witch already came and she broke up BoJack and Diane, making the show 100 times better than if they’d ever boned or dated.

[mcfreakin-bxtch]

The Fan Tag Game

Tagged by @fatbottomedcurls, thank you lovely  ❤️

Answer the questions and tag ten people you want to get to know better:

Three tv shows I would have joined friend groups in: That 70′s Show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I know they’re terrible people but I love this show), and a tie between Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Stranger Things

Three animated universes I wouldn’t have minded living in: Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons, and I know this doesn’t count since it’s a video games but I can’t think of anything else so Skyrim. I love that game and dare I say would kill it at taking souls of dragons

Three fictional characters I relate to: Diane Nguyen (Bojack Horsemen), Bojack Horsemen, and Fiona Gallagher (Shameless US; never watched the UK version!)

Three fictional characters I wouldn’t vibe with: Raven Reyes (The 100), Rafael Solano (Jane The Virgin), Luther (The Umbrella Academy)

Three fictional characters I would be good friends with: Wanda Maximoff, Natasha Romanoff, and Wade Wilson (I did not think this was all going to be Marvel xD)

Three fictional characters I would probably most definitely have romantic feelings for: Bucky Barnes, Javier Pena (this was a tough choice to make out of Pedro’s characters), and a tie between Alucard (Hellsing Ultimate) and Kate Fuller (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series). I just also have a huge crush on Madison Davenport

Three villains I’d want to have a chat with over coffee: Ivar The Boneless (Vikings, yes girl; his eyes have a way with me but I feel like he could hold a deep conversation as well), The Shadow King (Legion FX), and David (Prometheus) 

Three superheroes I’d want to be for a day: Jean Grey (X-Men), Wanda Maximoff, and Wonder Woman

Three abilities I would want to have: Telekinesis, Reality manipulation, and Time travel/manipulation

Three ships I sail as the fierce and feared captain I am: Bellarke, Clarke Griffin (The 100) x HAPPINESS YOU COWARDS, and Deacon x Sole Survivor (Fallout 4) I just saw the case I had for it and said fuck it

Three fictional female characters I feel empowered by: Elizabeth Swann (Pirates of The Caribbean) I WILL SAY THIS TILL THE DAY I DIE, Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) I know that may seem a little silly but c’mon you cannot deny the message it’s conveying, and Clary Fairchild (The Mortal Instruments). She will always have a special place in my heart

Three fictional male characters with good ethics and morals I believe deserve more recognition: Bob Belcher (Bob’s Burgers), Peeta Mellark (The Hunger Games) I just got done watching the movie on tv so he’s fresh in my mind, and Fezco (Euphoria) I know he sells drugs and all which isn’t cool but he generally does care about his friends and looks out for them and does everything he can to take care of his family and skjflsjfdlhj

Three fictional lgbtq+ characters I would take bullters for: Klaus Hargreeves (The Umbrella Academy), Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)

Three fictional places I would have liked to visit: The Shire (The Lord of The Rings), Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland), and Jurassic Park

Three costumes worn by fictional characters I would have rocked: Amaru (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series), Beetlejuice, and Harley Quinn (Old and/or Birds of Prey)

Three characterization tropes to describe myself: Brief Accent Imitation (all the TIMEEEE), Idealism (there’s quite a few), and Grew a Spine

Tagging: @lesqui, @creamysacrilege, @forever-rogue, @longitud-de-onda, @littlegirlsdontplaynice, @lustriix, @crazyzivadiva, @foenixphire, @c0recl0wn, @sando-rannn

[scrawnydutchman]

“There’s Always More Show”; A Bojack Horseman Essay

It’s about time I talked about one of the finest ongoing shows in animation right now. I. LOVE. Bojack Horseman. I must have binged the whole series 5 times at this point, and it’s rare for even my absolute favorite shows to get me to do that. The dialogue is so poignant I have entire exchanges between characters burned into my memory. The jokes and societal commentary are so on point that many lines have gotten me to burst out laughing among company.The characters themselves are so complex, so filled with depth, that they are all well deserving of their own analysis. The writing is SO tight and the storytelling so consistently engaging that I hang onto every little detail. I swear they foreshadow events from as late as season 4 and 5 as early as season 1. Even it’s animation, while admittedly pretty primitive character rigging with a handful of noticeable errors, takes some amazing creative liberty at times, particularly with subjectivity in the drug trips. While the art design has taken a few people off guard for it’s blinding colors and it’s premise has discouraged a less open minded audience with it’s animal-human hybrids living among people, those who stick with the show will get a sophisticated while simultaneously wacky romp that is both the silliest and most real show you can watch right now. So with a show this dense that has characters this deep, there are many themes it tackles such as the perpetual meaninglessness of existence or the pursuit to being a good person, but there’s a more central theme Bojack keeps bringing up which I’d like to talk about.

Oh and, uh, Spoilers incoming for Bojack Horseman . .  . obviously. Get Netflix and watch all of this show right now before reading. seriously. But for those reading who don’t care about spoilers but are interested in what makes Bojack so great and may like to watch it themselves, here’s a brief summary:

Bojack Horseman (played by Will Arnett) Is a horse-man hybrid living out the so called “glamorous” life style in Hollywood, Los Angeles (later called “Hollywoo” in the series for reasons I won’t spoil here). Out of work, out of shape and out of touch, Bojack wastes away his days in sorrow as a past-his-prime actor who goes day to day being disrespected. Back in the 90s he was the star of a very famous “full house”-esque sitcom called “Horsin’ Around” and he longs for the days where he was in the prime of his life, but nowadays he mostly just sits around the house watching old reruns of his show. He constantly struggles with depression, dependancy on narcotics . . . and the ongoing guilt he feels for every shitty thing he’s done in life . . . and as viewers will no doubt find out . . . Bojack has a LOT of baggage. He finds new friends in life like his responsible ghost writer of his memoir Diane Nguyen (played by Alison Brie), his easygoing  freeloader and best friend Todd Chavez (played by Aaron Paul), his happy go lucky Labrador rival Mr. Peanutbutter (played by Paul F. Tompkins) and his workaholic pink cat agent Princess Carolyn (played by Amy Seradis). The show centres around his ongoing relationships with these people as well as their own journeys of self discovery . . . and the occasional wacky schemes. Through his surrounding positive influences can Bojack learn to grow past his personal demons? Or will his shitty tendencies and depressing outlook permanently spoil the lives of the people closest to him like he so often fears?

Spoilers begin NOW

In what is perhaps my favorite episode of the show, episode 6 of Season 5 titled “Free Churro”, Bojack gives an improvised eulogy for his recently deceased mother . . . and that’s it. The episode is just a full 20 minutes of Bojack talking about his dead mom . . . and struggling to find anything positive to say about her. His mom was nothing but cold, hard and abusive to Bojack his entire life and Bojack laments about how he never received a single loving gesture from his mother for as long as he’s known her . . and now that she’s dead that chance is permanently gone. In his ramblings, he mentions an episode of Horsin’ Around in which the writers juice the idea of main cast character Olivia leaving the show for good, only for her to be written back into the status quo, because as Bojack puts it 

“Of course that’s what happened, because what are you gonna do? Just not have Olivia on the show? You can’t have happy endings in sitcoms -- not really -- because if everyone’s happy, the show would be over, and above all else the show has to keep going. There’s always more show. (And) You can call Horsin’ Around dumb, or bad, or unrealistic, but there’s nothing more realistic than that. You never get a happy ending, because there’s always more show.”

That right there sums up the entire ongoing struggle of every character in this show. In many ways, Bojack Horseman the Netflix series is like a typical sitcom turned upside down. You have an ongoing setup of colourful, over the top characters doing outrageous things for our amusement, and in a lot of ways they’re actually terrible people but they’re just SO endearing that we have to keep tuning into their antics. Much like how an average Friends episode is about every titular friend trying haphazardly to cover up a lie for 20 minutes when their problems would so easily be over if they just had the maturity to be honest about how they’re feeling, characters like Bojack, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter are always up to something silly whether it’s poorly covering up a lie or coming up with elaborate sabotages for selfish ends. But there’s one core difference. In Friends, everybody forgives each other in the end. In the gritty and merciless world of Bojack Horseman . . . every wrongdoing has long term consequences, some of which can never be forgiven. 

Bojack’s antics especially cause permanent stains on his relationships. When he sabotaged Todd’s rock opera by getting him readdicted to a video game so he wouldn’t leave, he permanently makes a wound in his and Todd’s relationship. He only makes it worse when he has sex with Emily, Todd’s best friend and kinda-sorta girlfriend. Todd had faith in Bojack early on in the show, but he makes it apparent later on that the less he has to do with Bojack the better off he is. Todd’s an easygoing friend that can forgive easily, but Bojack really tests his patience. As he said once he found out Bojack had sex with Emily

“You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay. You need to be better.”

In the luxurious  yet phony and superficial world of Hollywoo, everyone has an outlook on life as if it’s a sitcom. The center of mass produced film and television has everyone believing in achieving against the odds, amending their wrongs in the end and getting satisfying conclusions as if the credits of their very own movie will roll any second. But real life keeps on hitting these characters like a truck, as if to say “there is no happy ending , you aren’t the main character and the harm you’ve caused is permanent. Get used to it.” Bojack gets his hard hitting reality more prominently than anyone. He keeps looking for backdoor solutions to his pain like getting back with Charlotte, starting a new Horsin’ Around spinoff, finding meaning far away from L.A. or straight up finding solace in drugs, but every solution to his search for meaning ends in him hurting somebody else even more. He has to separate the idea from his head that shitty things like nearly sleeping with your old friends daughter is just a wacky sitcom hijinks situation, and that the guilt he feels is just an ongoing conflict he feels every day. He even tries at one point to get forgiveness from his old show writer Herb Kezzaz after betraying him, only to be greeted with Herb saying 

“No. I’m not going to give you closure. You don’t get that. You have to live with the shitty thing that you did for the rest of your life.”

Sometimes Bojack will go to more silly extents for his so desired “happy ending”, like humming his own credits as he embraces Sarah Lynn when she comes out of rehab.

But as screwed up as Bojack is, he’s not the only one who’s mind is warped by the empty promise of a “happy ending”. Diane Nguyen, for as much as she comes off as the moral compass of the show who isn’t afraid to call anyone out for their bullshit, is what I like to call “Bojack lite”. While she’d be grossly offended by the accusation that she’s anything like Bojack, she shares a lot of his toxic traits. Sure, she’s not actively life ruining for anyone, but she has a tendency to harshly criticize people as a means to deflect any criticism towards herself and she often manages to find the negative connotation to even the best of situations. Also, she struggles with getting drunk a lot too, which is often enabled by Bojack. Diane makes a lot of rash decisions in her life hoping she’ll find some sort of “happy ending”. She married Mr. Peanutbutter longing for a simpler, more laid back life for she just settles down with her loving husband. However, unwilling to keep up with Mr. Peanutbutters love for spontaneity and grand gestures, she ends up divorcing him, deciding instead to try and find solace in being her own woman who doesn’t need a mans affection to be happy . .  .but that leaves her empty too. Every time she gets what she asked for, she ends up having to fight all the challenges that go with it, and those challenges end up obscuring her vision of that made her want that thing in the first place. She thinks it’s something wrong with her, like she just can’t ever be satisfied.

“Why can’t I be happy? Am I busted?!”

If we’re comparing each Bojack Horseman character to standard sitcom fare, Mr. Peanutbutter likely comes the closest to fitting the mold of what we expect from a likable television comedy protagonist. Everyone loves him. He’s endearing, he’s funny, he’s sweet. He makes silly mistakes but has a good heart, and even if he does touch some raw nerves along the way he can usually win his audience back with some sort of grand gesture. If Diane is Bojack Lite, then Mr. Peanutbutter is the yin to Bojack’s yang. They live virtually the same lives to a point where Mr. Peanutbutter even got famous off of what is blatantly a knock off of Horsin’ Around, The key difference though is that while Bojack is incurably pessimistic, Mr. Peanutbutter is obnoxiously optimistic, and why wouldn’t he be? He sees the good in everything and everyone and manages to get his way shearly through people loving him. He never has to learn anything because nobody ever challenges him. But that precisely is the rub. Mr. Peanutbutter is a cautionary tale about what would happen if you DID get that life full of happy endings and comfortable conclusions. Much like how many a sitcom protagonist never learns to tell the truth or to take responsibility for their own health, Mr. Peanutbutter never grows past his mistakes. It’s why he always does grand gestures for Diane despite her repeating several times that she doesn’t like them. It’s why he keeps dating women much younger than himself. It’s why he keeps getting divorced. He never takes any kind of long term lesson from what happens to him and never evolves as a person. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Season 5. Whenever Mr. Peanut butter does something wrong, he’s usually blind to the responsibility he must take to it. He either dismisses it as somebody else being mean or unreasonable or he makes an empty promise to not do it again. But for the first time ever, he partakes in betraying somebody he cares about. After divorcing Diane and getting with Pickles the Pug waitress . . . he has sex with Diane again behind Pickles’ back. This time there’s nobody to blame but himself . . and he doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that he did an unforgivably shitty thing. In fact, he’s the least equipped character to do so in the whole show. He even pleads for Diane to break the news to Pickles and tries to force a silver lining by getting back with Diane as a result of it. In the season finale, when Mr. Peanutbutter has to tell the awful truth and knowingly hurt somebody close to him . . .much like a sitcom character, he instead pulls a happy ending out of his ass and decides to propose to Pickles instead. He actively decides not to do the tough, but right decision, and thus does not evolve. This is especially interesting in the finale because, for the first time ever, Bojack is a step ahead of Mr. Peanutbutter when it comes to committing to making things right. After Bojack nearly strangles Gina to death on his drug high, he turns himself into rehab with the help of Diane and starts taking real steps to self improvement. In contrast, Mr. Peanut butter . . . is just up to his same old tricks. 

You wanna talk about reaching that sitcom happy ending? It’s all this workaholic cat ever thinks about. Princess Carolyn leads life with the philosophy that with enough grit and go-getter attitude you can make anything happen for yourself . . . and to an extent that actually serves her pretty well. She gets out of her hick town to pursue her dreams as an agent and whenever the other characters are knee deep in their own mess she’s always the one with the solution to get them out. She compulsively helps people while refusing to take help for herself because . . well, she wants a happy ending . . .but she wants to be the one responsible for it. She had an opportunity as a kid to have everything in her life decided for her but once she had her miscarriage and that dream fell apart, she instead decided to pursue a career in the big city. She made tons of sacrifices to get where she is including leaving her own mother, and she’s also afraid of falling into the same trap of dependency she almost fell into as a kid again. That’s why she rejects Ralph Stilton’s offer to help her with her adopted baby, even though he’s irrefutably the best boyfriend she ever had. Time and time again Princess Carolyn will willingly be pushed right up to the edge before she accepts any kind of help, because she thinks doing so is a sign of weakness. She keeps herself motivated with fantasies about that wonderful happy ending, whether that means living in a cottage in a beautiful painting or succeeding enough that some future ancestor can give her class a family heritage report all about what a great ass kickin’ gal she is. While Princess Carolyn is definitely the most well adjusted and most durable to the constant hustle and beating down of reality, she’s got her own toxic tendencies as a result of thinking she’s a main character. She thinks she’s got to do everything on her own . . . . and if she doesn’t get past that insecurity soon, it may swallow her whole.

At long last we come to mr. Todd Chavez, the endearing little brother of Bojack Horseman’s family of main characters. Upon first glance, Todd seems the least prepared for life’s harsh reality out of all our leads. He’s a 20-something year old with no real job, no real responsibilities and no real goals in life. He’s very upfront and honest about how he spends his time, be it spending all day watching Youtube videos . . . or building a knockoff Disneyland. And yet, when we analyze him with the thesis that these “sitcom characters” are all trying to get by in a cruel and merciless world, we suddenly realize that ironically . . . Todd grows the most naturally out of everyone. Bojack lets Todd down time and time again and rather than accepting status quo as God like many a sitcom character might do, he takes it upon himself to distance his relationship with Bojack. He initially has faith in Bojack to be better, but doesn’t beat around the bush when he’s lost his faith in him. When he realizes that he was nothing in common with Yolanda aside from being asexual, he breaks up with her before prolonging the painful inevitable. The cast of Bojack Horseman go through their share of changes in what they want and who they want to be, but Todd is always the one who knows what he needs and makes an honest effort to be better. He’s surprisingly wise for an adult manchild flunky. But he gets up to wacky sitcomish schemes too, about as much as Mr. Peanutbutter (who is often his partner in crime with these things) . . . yet even then through his ernestness and cuttthroat honesty he manages to overcome better than the other characters.

Conclusion:

*decided to include this gif because i love the animation in it*

Hollywoo is a world of sitcom characters pulled out of the TV and trying to get by in everyday life under the harsh, uncompromising grip of reality. In a culture so entrenched in it’s ideals of maintaining superficial likability and celebrating yourself no matter what you do or who you hurt, each character’s mind is warped into buying the illusion that for how screwed up they are there’s a happy ending waiting at the end of the horizon for them. They all deal with it with different levels of success. Some take change in life with stride like Todd. Some think they found their happy ending but only remain empty like Diane. Some get everything they ask for and thus never evolve and never better themselves like Mr. PeanutButter. Some cling on for deal life as they get everything thrown at them, believing that they’ll be rewarded in the end, like Princess Carolyn. And then . . . some are a depressing cocktail of all of those things. They have opportunity land at their feet and think they’ve finally done the thing that will preserve them, only to find themselves empty. They work through the pain in their life hoping that at any point they’ll get some grand gesture or reward that makes everything they endured worth it, only for that chance to become officially non existent. But occasionally . . . very occasionally . . . they do something wonderful and heartfelt and sincere that maintains a glimmer of hope for their capacity to be better. That is Bojack Horseman. Bojack hurts the people closest to him much like his parents did. He remains bitter and sad and petty and self important . . . but he IS better than his folks. He’s like his late mom . . . only for him the grand gesture really does come.

But as Bojack says

“The grand gesture isn’t enough. You have to be consistent. You have to be dependably good. You can’t just screw everything up and then take a boat out on the ocean to save your best friend or solve a mystery and fly to Cansas. You need to do it everyday, which is so . . . hard.”

The truth is, all of these characters, even Bojack, have the potential to be better as long as they deconstruct their worldview shaped by watching television. They have to rid themselves of the illusion. The illusion that there’s some great happy ending that’s going to make all the pain worth it. The only ending in life . . . is death. Until then, there’s always more show. Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses; it always marches forward. There will be days these characters make mistakes and days they do great things . . how much they do of either is up to them. Sometimes they’ll do things that they will never get closure for . . things that can’t be forgiven  . . . but that doesn’t ruin their capacity to do right the next day.  Bojack’s right . . .it IS hard to do better every single day. But as the jogger near Bojack’s house says “It gets easier”.

And my essay concludes . . . .riiiiiiight after this anecdote.

I think what makes Bojack Horseman so special is that it holds up a mirror to how a screen infested world has permanently warped our sense of self worth and our understanding of how life really works. In a way, we’re all “sitcom characters” roaming around real life. We think of ourselves as the main characters of our stories, that there’s some sort of satisfying conclusion waiting for us. That we can win whoever we want back with a grand gesture and that we never have to evolve, we just have to be “good enough” . . .and that’s all . . SO wrong. That mentality makes us toxic. It makes us self important and hypocritical and petty, while also leaving us empty. It makes us incomplete. We all have to learn that there’s no ending until we die, that we have to do good every day . . . and that we aren’t the main character.  Everyone is important. Maybe we’ve been watching too many sitcoms and have had these fallacies drilled into our heads . . . and maybe Bojack Horseman is like a rehab for those bad tendencies. As Princess Carolyn points out in the finale of Season 4

“I got into this business because I love stories. They comfort us. They inspire us. They create a context for how we view the world. But also you have to be careful because if you spend a lot of time with stories you start to believe that life is just . . . stories. And it’s not. Life is life . . . and . . .that’s so sad, because . . .there’s so little time and . . . what are we doing with it?”

[introvcrts-blog]

(  maggie  q.  thirty - nine.  cisfemale.  bojack  horseman.  )  ——  i  think  i  just  saw  DIANE  NGUYEN  walking  around  in  the  employee  lounge.  SHE  is  a  professor  and  teaching  in  LITERATURE.  their  coworkers  have  described  them  as  being  IDEALISTIC  &  OVER-CRITICAL ,  and  they  even  remind  me  of  COFFEE  STAINS ,  NAIL  BITING  &  UNREALISTIC  EXPECTATIONS.

hello helLO !! i’m super excited to be here playing what is probably my favorite fictional character ever , diane nguyen !! if you’ve never seen bojack horseman , below is a brief summary of the events that led up to her teaching at toonsville. i’ll be posting some wanted connections later today , but in the meantime , feel free to message me or hit me up on discord @dumb libra#4945 !!

“ are you PROUD of who you have become ?? “

name: NGUYEN, diane. aka: deedee , blarn , cryanne , glasses , asian daria. age: 39. date of brith: march 19th, 1980. hometown: boston , massachussets. marital status: divorced.

current location: toonsville. occupation: professor of literature at toonsville university.

“ i’m sorry i’m not the person i THOUGHT i was. “

DIANE was born in BOSTON , massachussets. she’s the only daughter of PA and MA nguyen ( first names are never revealed ) , vietnamese immigrants , and the younger sister of TOMMY , MARTY , ARTIE , and GARY ( the literal black sheep of the family ).

childhood was TOUGH. her parents and brothers bullied and tormented her. her father was a MEAN , sadistic alcoholic who never supported ANYTHING she did and actively delighted in watching her fail. her mother is an OBNOXIOUS and condescending woman who CODDLES her sons , but frequently nags and guilt-trips diane , never forgiving her for leaving the family to make something of herself.

in SCHOOL, she never had any friends. she was mocked and bullied for being a NERD ; never invited to any parties. she had ONE friend , abby , until she became one of the cool kids , and diane was left all ALONE.

diane attended BOSTON university ; majored in literature and EQUINE studies. a few years later , she packed up and moved to LOS ANGELES , california , with dreams of writing IMPORTANT things and making a positive impact on the world. instead , she got a job at STARBUCKS.

in 2007 , she met tv star MR. PEANUTBUTTER. shortly after , they started dating. SEVEN years later, they got married on JUNE 13, 2014.

 in 2009 , she met BOJACK HORSEMAN at a halloween party , but he didn’t even acknowledge her. a few years later , she was hired to ghostwrite his memoir , meant to serve as his comeback. that was the start of a profound , yet complicated friendship. the book, titled ONE TRICK PONY was published a few years later as a biography , instead of a memoir.

after the publication of her book, diane worked for a few months as a character consultant on the SECRETARIAT movie. a few months later she embarked in a six-month trip to war-torn CORDOVIA with celebrity philanthropist SEBASTIAN ST. CLAIR. mr. peanutbutter didn’t want her to go , but diane instisted , believing that helping people and making a DIFFERENCE would finally make her happy. shortly after arriving , she was disappointed by the discovery that her reason for being there was NOT to help people , but to write a book about how GREAT sebastian was so people would donate to his organization. diane returned to LA , but was too ashamed to tell her husband , so she hid at bojack’s house for three months.

her marriage with mr. peanutbutter was STRAINED , but they tried to make it work. she began working as a ghostwriter for celebrity TWEETS at a talent agency. after that agency closed down , she became a writer for feminist website GIRLCROOSH. her articles about real-world issues ere typically overlooked in favor of celebrity gossip.

when mr. peanutbutter ran for governor, diane tries to be SUPPORTIVE , but instead sabotaged his campaign by writing an article against his pro-fracking views. their relationship was strained for the next few months , until diane realized that she was tired of trying to make the relationship WORK , and the two god a DIVORCE.

she then moved into a crappy apartment and worked for a while as a writer for the show PHILBERT. a gritty detective drama that attempted to deconstruct toxic masculinity , but as diane later realized , only succeeded in NORMALIZING it. ashamed that she contributed to this, she decided to pack up and move to TOONSVILLE.

ADVICE YOU’VE GIVEN OTHER PEOPLE THAT WAS REALLY ABOUT YOU :

zodiac sign: pisces. personality type: intp — the logician / the thinker. enneagram: 4 — the individualist. temperament: melancholic. hogwarts house: ravenclaw. moral alignment: lawful neutral. primary vice: pride. primary virtue: dilligence. element: water.

+ idealistic , intelligent , bold , determined , dedicated , moralistic , generous , forgiving.

- over-critical , pessimistic , stubborn , hypocritical , temperamental , spiteful , judgmental.

the first thing anyone can see about diane is that she’s somewhat reserved and introverted. he’s quiet  and keeps to herself. she’s very dedicated and focused. she’s socially anxious , hates parties and any situation in which she’s the center of attention ( grand gestures , public displays of affection , etc. )

she’s a third-wave feminist , and is constantly questioning the world around her , always looking at everything with a feminist perspective ( which probably makes people dislike her a bit , as she has a habit of being a bit of a killjoy ). despite her social anxiety , she’s quick to stand up for what she believes in when she feels something is unjust.

she’s very stubborn , and is always convinced that her way of doing things is the correct way ( even when she’s not even directly involved with the issue at hand ) , so she tends to be very judgmental , but it all comes from a deep desire to help people and make a difference in people’s lives ( help them her way , of course ).

she can be spiteful at times , but she always finds ways to justify her actions ( the end justifies the means and all that ). for example , leaking a few chapters of a book against her friend’s wishes because she believes that in the long run , it will make everyone love him again , even if he can’t see it.

she holds everyone , including herself , to an impossibly high standard , which makes her incredibly critical of everything and everyone , which then leads to disappointment and unhappiness , damages her relationships and self-worth. it also makes her quite hypocritical , and she’s quick to point out the flaws in others , but can’t recognize those same flaws in herself. when she does , she does her best to conceal them instead of working on them to improve.

i know this is a lot , but as you can probably tell , i love diane very very much.

here is her pinterest board !! here is her playlist !!

[rapeculturerealities]

Take the example of bit character Vance Waggoner. Waggoner is caught on a cop’s dashboard cam yelling “I HATE JEWS,” then makes a movie with a Jewish actor to “prove” he’s not anti-Semitic, then, in the process of promoting that movie, is questioned by a journalist about the time he beat a woman, then, in the process of giving an interview intended to downplay the incident, is surprised with a tape of a phone call in which he threatens to murder his 14-year-old daughter and tells her, “I hate Swedes.” (“Bet you didn’t see that coming!” Waggoner adds, evidently thrilled by the chance to unveil a new ethnic prejudice.) That was the set-up. Here’s the punchline: For all this, Waggoner is offered a lifetime achievement prize at the evidently prestigious We Forgive You Awards.

This is Season 5’s abiding preoccupation: bad men in entertainment, and how easily we forgive them. To its credit, BoJack covered this years before #MeToo. Its fantastic 2015 episode “Hank After Dark,” in which feminist writer Diane Nguyen tries to report on alleged sexual assaults by talk show host Hank Hippopopalous, only to have Hank quash her story, was read at the time as a simple Bill Cosby dig. It now resonates with at least a dozen recent cases—most notably Harvey Weinstein, who allegedly manipulated the press to kill stories about his wrongdoing. (Thanks to Lisa Hanawalt’s indelible character design, Hank—thickset, stubbly, big chin busting out of his suit—looks eerily like a hippo Weinstein.)

“We know how this ends,” Diane acknowledges. “Our core readership eats it up, a bunch of dudebros call me a dumb slunt, and Vance’s career chugs right along.” The world is a never-ending conveyor belt of predatory men, and we still forgive them. But this time around, BoJack is holding itself accountable.

read more

[iknownothingihearnothing]

BoJack Horseman: 5.2 The Dog Days Are Over

Kay, we ended episode 5.1 with the Goldfish Ladies doin’ their thang in BoJack’s pool. Aside: if their water ballet team isn’t called the Goldfish Ladies, I’ma be disappoint. 

Fish Fridays have gotta be like The Purge for these ladies. 

We also left off, at the tail end of the episode, with Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter. He was dropping her off at her new, um, let’s just call it “not a mansion in the Hollywoo Hills” after a trip and giving her a set of signed divorce papers. 

“Take *that*, our marriage!” she joked awkwardly before leaving. 

So, Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter are friendly but awks around each other. As tends to happen when exes who’ve seen each other nekkid many, many times try to stay friends with each other.

The episode starts with Diane crying in her car, mascara running down her face. She is wearing an outfit that is very unDianeish and she has cut her hair short. AKA the post-breakup haircut all girls know and eventually come to regret.

As poor Diane is cryin’ her eyes out over her canine ex-husband, uh, this happens:

This couple must be transplants from the underwater land BoJack went to for the premiere of Secretariat in season 3. 

Still crying, Diane heads to the airport and asks to be taken as far away from Los Ageless as possible. She demands this of the airport attendant, who is an emu. 

After the title sequence, Diane lands in Vietnam, and as she is walking through Hanoi, dodging people and reptiles alike (look, conspiracy theorists! lizard people!), Stefani calls, salivating for fresh content. Diane, if you remember, is a contributer at the website Girl Croosh, which I guess is a site for, like, everything. 

She promises to write something up from there, the article of which becomes the Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Travel To Vietnam 

I, personally, do not have ancestral roots with Vietnam...as far as I know. I took one of those Ancestry DNA tests a few weeks ago and am waiting on the results. As far as I know I could be 15 percent Tongan, which would be awesome. 

I should visit Germany. Or Austria. Or Russia. Those I know I have roots to. Really close roots. Munich-y roots. My dad’s side of the family were from a valley near the Caucasus Mountains. I am literally Caucasian. 

Sometimes, I don’t know whether to interested in the rich history or saddened and embarrassed at how white that is.

In VO, Diane explains that her family wasn’t much help in explaining to her where they came from when she was growing up, or their family history. We are shown a flashback of pre-teen Diane inquiring to her dad about just this, but he is busy with baseball. Likely a Red Sox game. Or a Red Fox game. 

Furthermore, many of the stores and billboards bear her last name.

I know. Many people in Vietnam share surnames. One of my friend’s last name is Nguyen. 

Everybody she passes, Diane continues, look like her (except the flamingo in the  nón lá hat).But then a woman bumps into her and speaks Vietnamese to her and she has no idea what she’s saying.

At the gorgeous (cartoon) hotel, Diane checks in just as a gang of American filmmakers bust in; they are filming a movie in the hotel. It stars Laura Linney as a recently divorced woman who comes to Vietnam to find herself.

So much for escaping the LA life. 

Diane puts on the dress she bought and the rice paddy hat but she still feels like a tourist.

Speaking of tourist--

Cut to Diane in her usual clothes plus the rice paddy hat appearing to take a selfie in front of the Thien Mu Pagoda.Then everything zooms out.

Pretending to be somewhere more awesome than where you actually are to make other people jealous of you on social media? The hell you say, that never happens!

Diane eats her chicken in the park when Mr. Peanutbutter calls, and, in his usual Mr. Peanutbutter way, inquires as to why she left his party early. He was gonna ask earlier but he was distracted by Todd getting his tongue stuck to the ice sculpture. Todd’s tongue swelled up, and Mr. Peanutbutter had to interfere between him and a mob boss when Todd started talking to him all muffled, the mob boss thinking he was making fun of his deaf sister.

Ya, don’t blame the mob boss.

She makes up an excuse about having a plane to catch to Vietnam while Mr. Peanutbutter literally catches his newspaper in his mouth like a good boy and he promises to pick her up like a good boy/ex-hubby. He is also glad that he is not paying for her phone bills anymore because that international call is gonna be bazongers

Wah wah wahhhhhh as joke falls flat.

In flashback, a still longhaired Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter, recently separated, are celebrating how friendly their separation is by having a divorce dinner. Their waitress turns out to be an excitable young pug by the name of Pickles and I need to call my next dog that. Not fit for a pug, tho. Maybe a dachshund.

She and Mr. Peanutbutter seem to hit it off right away, much to Diane’s annoyance. They both like water! And food scraps! And are full of boundless energy! Amazing! Diane just wants to know if he’s signed the divorce papers yet. Then suggests a housewarming party to curb his loneliness. 

Back in the Bojackverse present, a family of American tourists dressed in American flag shirts and polos mistake Diane for a Vietnamese citizen and talk to her like she’s an idiot.

Yup yup yup. Reminds me of the tourist from California who carved her initials into the Roman Colosseum and then took a selfie.  

I can go a few streets over and meet new people, Diane!

This is a bad reason to travel to Vietnam, Diane!

The internet exists, Diane!

At the hotel bar, Diane meets one of the only other Americans staying there, a dude working on Laura Linney’s movie about the recently divorced woman going to Vietnam to find herself. He appears to be a bald eagle, but we do not know that he is indeed bald because he is wearing a hat. 

He is likely bald, tho. 

I mean, unless people start fake tanning and fist-pumping there. Then I’d feel right at home.

In flashback, Diane hangs a painting of the gorgeous Te Huc Bridge at the Hoàn Kiếm Lake in her crappy new apartment just as BoJack stops by. While helping her move, he, in true blunt BoJack fashion, informs her that this place is a shithole and invites her to stay at his place for a bit. She likes the shithole though. It may be a shithole, but it is her shithole.

At Girl Croosh HQ, Stefani is signing a contract outside of their be-tented building. It seems that the “cockroaches at IT tried to unionize” so Stefani called an exterminator--ahem, “negotiator”. The exterminators, natch, are flies. She also requires that listicle from Diane of 5 Empowering Roles For Women Over 40 Who Would’ve Been Better Played By Jennifer Lawrence. 

Somehow, I predict that role opposite that (now 58) year old actor Maggie Gyllenhaal didn’t get because she was told she was “too old” to play his love interest at the shocking age of 37 will go to JLaw. She’s, like, 28 now! That’s almost thirty!

Still in flashback, Diane’s trying to get work done in her shithole when a pipe leaks and a stray cat meows and someone burps. She shows up at BoJack’s door intoning “I’m a sad, sad girl with a dirty apartment” as was the phrase agreed upon she needed to utter if she ever needed a space. 

Diane finishes her article there and has a glass of wine with BoJack before going back to her shithole. But it turns into...

Keep saying it, Diane. Maybe if you utter it enough times, it’ll actually come true! like the Darling kids shouting “I can fly!” 

Diane mumbles drunkenly how weird it is that they are both single at the same time. BoJack knows why he thinks it’s weird, but why does she? It is just weird, they can totally make out and it’d be okay. But that is gross because he’s BoJack and he’s gross and she’s getting a divorce and allowed to be mean. Then, just as BoJack is ruminating on the last time Diane stayed in the guest room, when he went to New Mexico *andtotallydidnothookupwithateenager* she passes out on the couch in a drunken stupor.

In all my years of seeing therapists, not once has any of them advised me to fly to the capital of Vietnam. 

Diane’s therapist also gossips about the non celebrities she sees. Including Demi who had a first husband named Bruce and a second named Ashton. And a client named Angelina J., who does not think of herself as an actress anymore.

An actress, a director, a humanitarian, a savior of all mankind, all in a painfully obvious attempt to keep the spotlight on her. 

Yeah, I am not much of a Jolie fan.

Diane meets American Bald Eagle working on the Laura Linney movie at the bar and helps him order a drink. He thinks she’s a Vietnamese citizen. They walk through Hanoi’s market area, he tells her about his life in America, thinking she cannot understand a word he is saying, and she kisses him.

I have no bloody idea how you tongue a dude with a beak. There must be some particular angling involved.

American Bald Eagle takes her to Ha Long Bay...the set. It’s actually a backdrop for the Laura Linney movie. American Bald Eagle is the executive grip on the crew. He is Very Important. Or so he claims. But then, as they are perplexedly kissing again, a klieg light falls beside them and Diane curses. In English. 

The jig is up!

Diane tries to defend her actions but American Bald Eagle ain’t havin’ it. She’s the bad guy here! 

Diane is NOT having it, y’all.

Oooh, mic drop!

Number 9 reason to go to Vietnam:

She worries that this is similar to reason #5, which is Get Out Of Your Natural Habitat, but it’s whatever. Diane is getting divorced, she is owed a whatever.

In flashback, Diane has just chopped off her hair and she is wearing a kick jumpsuit looking all fly ready for her ex’s party but when BoJack arrives and compliments her she flies off the handle a bit, accusing him of trying to take advantage of her when she is vulnerable. He sighs and leaves, telling her that Mr. Peanutbutter will love her new hair.

At the party, Todd is wearing what he always is and eyes the ice swan greedily. Yes, he will lick it tonight. Oh, yes he will.

Oh, Todd. You are a delight.

Diane wanders into the library that used to be hers (her Belle-room) and bumps into Mr. Peanutbutter dressed in a tuxedo shirt and what look to be electric blue plastic pants. Carrying a dog bowl full of nachos.

Mr. Peanutbutter mumbles that she looks good. The new haircut really brings out her...neck. It is all really awkward and uncomfortable and Mr. Peanutbutter quickly finds an excuse to greet someone else.

PC hugs Diane and cries that she saw the whole thing; she will be her rock as long as it does not interfere with being Mr. Peanutbutter’s rock because they are both her friends and it also cannot interfere with her work, which is keeping her very bizzay.

There are a lot of heartbreakingly awkward moments in this episode. I kinda sympathize with PC, though. It’s always a fragile position to be in, being a friend of both parties in a divorce. There’s a fine line you have to tread. 

In the present, Diane gets on a plane in Hanoi and calls BoJack to apologize for how shook she’s been post-divorce. She really just needs a friend right now. Get that, BoJack? A friend. 

No more yanky your wanky, BoJack.

Or maybe do.

On the plane, none other than Laura Linney sits down beside Diane.

After she gets over her initial star struck reaction, Diane asks her how her movie ends. Does Laura find herself in Vietnam? Well, yes. Literally. She finds her clone sleeping with her ex. And they team up to take down the government.

Someone call Alex Jones!

But those, Diane says in VO, are not the real reasons to go to Vietnam. The real reason is because you see your ex-husband kissing someone else at a party.

Mr. Peanutbutter picks Diane up from the airport, we are shown the uncomfortable exchange from the first episode in his car, and just as she is about to leave with the signed divorce papers, Mr. PB admits that he is seeing someone. Who is not her. 

Flashback to the party. PC is still rambling on about being supportive while talking on her phone about work related stuffs when Diane spots her ex and Pickles through a window. She kisses him, and, at first, Diane waves it off as just Mr. PB being drunk. Then, the golden retriever and the pug kiss more thoroughly, and poor Diane is crushed.

There. You can fully see the shock and heartache in her eyes, rendered perfectly through simple animation. Another reason why I heart this show so much. 

Because even though she left him, even though she knows she made the right choice, it still frigging HURTS. Like shards of glass pricking her heart.

The heart is an unreasonable muscle.

Diane spends the next few frames drifting through her days. At her shithole apartment. At BoJack’s. On the plane. Even in Vietnam. In VO, she tells us she had hoped the vacation would give her some perspective, but it doesn’t. When she returns, she feels worse than ever.

And that is okay. It’s okay to ache. It’s okay to be confused. When your heart is crushed, nothing makes sense.

So, back in the present, Diane takes a deep breath, smiles a little, and says--

Wow, that was a great episode! I mean, they are all great, but this one was particularly awesome. Took FOREVER to cap, tho. I loved the artistry of the animated Vietnam, how beautiful Ha Long Bay and the Pagoda looked even rendered in animation. The attention to detail is exquisite. 

The emotions were so real. When our hearts ache, whether it be after a horrible break up or a divorce or any kind of tragedy in our lives, we tend to be erratic like Diane was in this episode. We lash out at our friends. We try to doll ourselves up when we know we’re going to see ex boyfriends or girlfriends. We feel as if we’ve been stabbed when we glimpse them moving on when we cannot. Sometimes, we take unplanned trips. Or some of us spend a lot in lieu. I could not take such a trip as Diane took after the worst breakup of my life because I was in the middle of a semester...so I spent money at the local mall. Everything I earned. My paycheck was GONE as soon as I got it. I think I spent over a grand in one month alone. 

We find ways to cope. And eventually, we start on the road to becoming okay again.

[whoatemykettlecorn]

BoJack Horseman: The Most Underrated Satirical Netflix Series

He’s half horse, half man and to me, all the rage. It has surprisingly been four years since I stumbled upon this crazy Netflix original, BoJack Horseman, in which the main character of the same name, struggles with his sad reality 20 years after his hit sitcom, Horsing Around, and the fame with it fades, leading him to write a biography. If you like mainstream media and more sarcasm than you thought you could possibly hear in a 26-minute interval, this show is what you should’ve started binge-watching yesterday.

This adult animated series, which takes place in Hollywoo (no, I did not misspell that) is full of famous cast members. Some you might have forgotten about, but know that they are still alive and funny as ever. The main voice cast consists of Will Arnett as BoJack, Alison Brie as Diane Nguyen (the reporter that follows BoJack around in order to write a book about him), Amy Sedaris as Princess Carolyn (BoJack’s agent and former lover) and Aaron Paul as Todd Chavez (BoJack’s somewhat hobo of a friend). Although most of the characters above play animated humans, there are also other people who are like BoJack, half animal/ half human. Mr. Peanutbutter, for example, is a golden retriever with human characteristics and BoJack’s television rival. Many of these character’s stories are also followed whether they involve BoJack or not.

The first season will have you rewinding scenes because it was too funny the first time to just watch it once. Like my favorite scene where BoJack is trying to get attention by dumping a bag of $1 bills from the top of a building but the people don’t care because “dollar bills are for poor people”. Just as the news crew is about to leave, Beyoncé walks past singing and slips on the money, hurting her ankle. Roll in all the Beyoncé/ Destiny’s Child references as possible, “Ring the alarm, irreplaceable pop icon and independent woman Beyonce has been injured… ‘We are told that she fell on all the single dollars.’ ‘All the single dollars?’ ‘All the single dollars.’ ‘Bills. Bills. Bills.’”

The second season gets serious, very quickly when BoJack starts filming his dream role Secretariat which he bonds with more than he thought. This season is almost depressing but that’s only because it strikes a big enough nerve that anyone can really relate to it. Like when a bamboo running finds BoJack on the ground trying to get his breath back says, “Everyday it gets a little easier. But you’ve got to do it every day. That’s the hard part. But it does get easier.”

The third season comes back with the laughs while still dealing with the real daily problems adults face in a world where you must realize that life goes on with or without you, while promoting his Secretariat film. The last season plays with the ramifications of BoJack’s reckless actions of his past while satirizing politics and hot button issues that have been seen on the news time and time again lately.

In Season 3, a big topic that made me feel guilty about laughing at was pro-choice or pro-life when a pop star had false scare through social media but rolled with it by making a song. This season, the topic is gun violence and the power it gives men and women or lack thereof, showing that the government would rather ban gun rights than let women use it. Despite these topics being broad and debated about since the beginning of time, the show makes it so that the audience can have a more open opinion on the matters through laughter.

A reason for believing that BoJack Horseman is underrated is how they demonstrate a person’s mental state. Although, I feel like mental instabilities are becoming more mainstream in television (thanks to Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why) and grabbing more attention, it also does it from more than one perspective with a different tone to each. As the more-than-chipper Golden Retriever Mr. Peanutbutter told his wife Diane, “The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn’t a search for meaning. It’s to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you’ll be dead.” Or even coming from a teens perspective, Hollyhock asks Bojack, “Like, sometimes I have this tiny voice in the back of my head that goes, like, ‘Hey, everyone hates you! And they’re not wrong to feel that way!’ […] That voice, the one that tells you you’re worthless and stupid and ugly? It goes away, right? It’s just, like, a dumb teenage-girl thing, but then it goes away?” No matter how grim those quotes might sound, the writers of BoJack Horseman have a way of making you think about such grand themes of life in the most subtle ways. It makes you, the audience member, appreciate the show a little bit more each episode and that is why, four years later, I continue to keep up with a show that doesn’t get the buzz that it deserves.