#every time they had an argument

[marvel-lous-guy]

Peter: *gasp* Pepper! Why did you change your relationship status to single!? Did you and Mr Stark break up!? Why!? When!?

Tony: We didn't break up. We had an argument and Pepper decided to be all dramatic about it!

Pepper: I'm proving a point! You're so dramatic about everything all the time! How do you like it when other people are dramatic over a little thing?!

Tony: Well this is different! This is one argument between a couple! You know I hate it when couples have one argument then change their relationship status to single! That's like posting "orphan" after you have a fight with your parents!

Pepper: You used to do that Tony!

Tony: Okay, in my defense, that was funny

Pepper: you scared all of America several times! You told the world your dad was dead! They believed you, he had to do a press conference every time you did it!

Peter: Man, this makes me wish I wasn't an orphan so I could do this!

Tony: This? Not the fact that your parents are dead and you can barely remember them?

Peter: Well, that too I guess

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[langernameohnebedeutung]

gonna say, something or someone being misogynistic is on its own a good enough reason not to like it or not to spend time with that person. It's not just that misogyny is so normalised that not watching a show or not spending with someone just because of misogyny is treated as not enough of a reason - it's also that as a woman, you are under constant scrutiny and constantly thrown tests to show that you are 'not one of the difficult ones', that you can 'take a joke'.

But 'your friend keeps saying degrading things about women' is a good enough reason not to hang out with that person or not to go to a gathering. 'i read the last book by his author and it was deeply misogynistic' is a good enough reason why you don't want to read things by that author anymore. 'This comedian specifically makes a lot of mean-spirited jokes about women' reason enogh not to watch that or see that show, even if your friends want to go. 'This content creator keeps going on weird tangents about women' reason enough not to watch their stuff or support them.

and it is especially a very good reason not to date someone.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Seeing people say that we never see the Doctor and Ruby talking for more than 30 seconds makes me think 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble has just clouded their memories because the first four episodes of this era are almost nothing but the Doctor and Ruby talking and bonding.

Yeah, the Doctor-lite episodes meant we haven't had as much lately, but so many are going on as there's been none at all, as if every episode before 73 Yards was like Rogue where they were mostly separated in their own plotlines.

[tornoleander]

Nya has the best writing out of anyone in skybound an I will not hear otherwise

(this is just a rant but I will finish my argument with evidence soon but I was feeling like yelling at phone)

Just watched a video completely butchering her character.

I’m fuming about Nya’s treatment in general like RRRRR SHE IS LIKE THE BEST WRITTEN. Most people I see talk about her never tried to see Nya’s motivation.

And because she’s grumpy and won’t take bullshit treatment. And a large part of the audience Treat her like she’s a brat for it like…

Her ark against all odds is great. The only reason so many people don’t get that is ALL because of the awful framing and them focusing on Jay at all the wrong times I PROMISE YOU.

The audience is made to focus on Jay’s feelings in moments that should’ve been about her.

Nya always thought she would end up with Jay like she said later on. She always loved him She wasn’t trying to hurt or play with his feelings but she had bigger problems, and she simply didn’t want to be dating him. Because she hated how that would make her be perceived. Which was the issues that she overcame by the end.

She is frustrated by way she’s perceived by the city. They only see her as her gender. A self insert of sorts. (There’s a scene about it first ep subtle but boils my blood) Not a person. She HATES IT.

BRRRR

Nya has A lot more going on like it was never her Job to walk on eggshells around Jays feelings. She was having a lot harder of a time that first episode but more screen time was dedicated to Jays moping about her.

Just AAA ggghg

LIKE EVERYONE REWATCH SKYBOUND AND FOCUS ON NYA Specifically. Ignore how much the narrative drags you to look at Jay. I swear Nya’s struggle is shockingly the most well written bit

[potassium-pilot]

i got reminded of the scene in post-stormblood with varis and the alliance and it reminds me of this comic every time i think about it

[mainalias]

thinking about compiling screenshots of golden/silver age batman exclusively calling dick his ward to combat the allegations that it was “initially a father-child relationship”

[tenojan-in-tevinter]

If i had a nickel for every time I've become unreasonably attached to a human male character from a BioWare game with dark hair and brown eyes who you meet in the very first mission of the game, and has trust issues either with himself or others or both, and is also voiced by Raphael Sbarge, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Im talking about them

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

[melit0n]

Hands down, Give is one of Sleep Token's yearn-iest songs. Ever. It's not on par with TLYW, Jaws etc. (because that's a whole different layer of Sleep Token's yearning onion), but it's got a kick to it.

When I say that song is the epitome of desperate, I mean it.

Without thinking about it too much, the first time I listened to it my first thoughts were 'ah, okay, wanting to give all for your lover and be able to trust them, got it', but then I thought about it a bit more.

Like with all Sleep Token songs, it has a bit of an eerie undertone, which borders on slightly obsessive, depending on who you're talking to, with the lyrics. We have "I picture you when you are all alone", "I am the shadow, you're a passenger", "I'll be the limit of your light again" and, of course, "give me all that you can give" with "and if you want to give me anything, then give (give in again)".

Vessel is describing himself as literal darkness; he's a shadow in the gloom and whoever this is is a star glowing in the darkness. A light he aims to dampen because he wants a taste of that light. A taste of them.

However, it's this desperation for attention that gets me. "Give me all that you can give" is an easy example; he's desperately giving all he can possibly give in hopes of getting the same, or more, back. It's repeated over and over, half begging half demanding with soft dulcet tones and promises that he'll be watching for their enemies, to let them know that they contend with him etc.

Give becomes this two-faced thing of someone giving with all their might to someone who is afraid to trust, bringing up empathy from us, and someone who will not accept anything except everything. It's this sexually charged fight between who is a victim (or if there really is one here) and who is the abuser.

Further, to "give in" is to 'cease fighting or arguing; admitting defeat.' It's something primal and angry hidden under, or rather, mixed with passion, and it's incredibly well hidden.

[ladyjune]

Maybe it is because I am Kathony fan and Polin fan, maybe I have been around this fandom too long who knows 😂 But the argument/ complaints about this season are the exact arguments people had about Kathony in S2. Like the “ To many side stories” the “not enough scenes of just them” was literally the same exact complaints people had.

S2 and S3 follow the same outline/ format, and will probably be the same format they follow for the rest of the series. ( Queen Charlotte is formatted as a limited series and S1 came out before they were renewed so they had to put a bow on the stories in case they weren’t renewed ) Do I wish we would have got more Colin and Penelope scenes? Absolutely. Are there things outside of these complaints that I wish were done differently? Sure, I am a firm believer you can enjoy something and wish things were done differently. I have had complaints about parts of every season. But this is something that is probably going to change anytime soon.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[theygender]

I'm in an information systems class rn and we're starting out with Excel which I'm already really good at and use in my job daily and tbh it's so frustrating. I'm successfully completing the tasks my assignments want me to do but then I get marked wrong and when I go to check how the system wanted me to do it I'm like "Why would I do it that way?? That's so much less efficient"

[anotherpapercut]

today a 7 year old at work asked me if I was a boy or a girl and I said I'm actually neither and one of the other kids said "so you're nothing???" and I went "yep I'm nothing. isn't that crazy?" and I heard my coworker snort lmao

[scalpelsister]

also this isnt really proper shade at larian or anything and the writing of this game is SAURE good so dont take it this way but.

i sure do wish. Minthara was not villain batted as hard as she was. Her being locked to "evil" runs and being mutually exclusive with several party members. Her being nothing more than a miniboss for your average player- who does not even know shes a potential party member! Her being so chronically unloved by the community because... shes the "evil" companion. Hell, even the amount of people saying frankly really edgy shit about killing her or hurting her completely unprompted lmao. Like I genuinely think shes been pretty unfairly demonized both by the community and by the meta of just like... the game itself because she's really actually..... kind of, dare I say, sweet? if you get to know her. ugh.

[highfantasy-soul]

I think people underestimate the changes that need to be made to stories when adapting them to different mediums/structures and maybe if they understood, they wouldn't have such issues with scenes/character moments not being 1-1 adaptations.

The structure of episodes is really important when considering how the story will unfold and what to include in each episode. Every single episode needs struggles and payoffs, a goal and an accomplishment of that goal - especially in an episodic show like the animated ATLA. By necessity of this, each 20 minute episode is going to have a lot of stuff going on - and tons of issues cropping up where character can be shown. Also, it's common to only have one plotline being followed per episode per group of POV characters - often it's Zuko's plot (much less screen time) and the Gaang (more screentime).

When you only have 8 episodes, cramming all that in would make the episodes feel disjoined and cluttered. It would be a constant whiplash of 'small struggle, overcoming, small struggle, overcoming, small struggle, overcoming' and all those little struggles together might start to feel insignificant and like the plot is just trying to come up with something for the characters to be doing. An example that might have been frustrating is in the first episode of the live action, having Aang and Katara travel to go penguin sledding, then jump to the fire nation ship where they reveal Aang's been gone so long, then back to the village to yet again talk about how long Aang has been gone (to catch everyone up), then Aang leaves, then Aang comes back, then he's off on the ship, then Katara and Sokka have to figure out how to get Appa to work, then they go to the ship, they fight on the ship, Katara struggles to figure out how to waterbend, Aang goes into the Avatar state, they escape, they go to the southern air temple, Aang plays around, they figure out Avatar stuff, they chase Momo, Aang goes into the Avatar state again, Katara talks him down, then the goal of the narrative is introduced.

While that works spread across three whole episodes - episodes not meant to be watched back to back but rather week to week as well as the writers understanding that since this is a kid's show airing, it's possible the watcher has missed the episode before - it would not work for hour-long episodes intended to be binge watched. When the show is episodic and people might not be able to catch all of them, a unique issue needs to be introduced each episode and resolved that same episode (minus the few 2-parter storylines in the OG). It's just the nature of that sort of structure. Just like you wouldn't want a comic structure in a chapter book or a movie structure in a serialized show, different mediums require different structures.

 So how to resolve this? We've got one hour to do all that in - so instead of having all that time traveling (or gods forbid just jumping to the next setting without any establishing shots/travel scenes), things need to be condensed: which means, take several individual actions that share a common theme - say, how a character reacts to certain issues, and combine it into fewer actions that flow in a single sitting rather than three individual ones. Not only condense individual scenes, but also weave together multiple plotlines that might have been in separate episodes, but share a common theme, and have them all occur simultaneously. This means that specific beats from each of the 20 episodes might not all fit in the episodes, but the spirit of those scenes can be adapted to fit with the situation that's at hand - I think episode 3 in the live action does this masterfully.

A specific example is moving Zuko and Aang's first one-on-one fight from his ship in episode 2 of the animated series to episode 3 in Omashu - combining that with the epic fight between them at the perfume place. Episode 1 had already had many fight scenes and one more might have blended in with all the others - setting this big, impactful fight aside for the moment until it could be…well, a moment, I think was a good choice. It was different, an adaptation, but it held true to the significance of the interaction as well as weaving in to the other storylines.

So again, the change of medium is going to necessitate many scenes to be altered to 'fit'. Though many scenes can be translated pretty closely to the animated counterpart, all of them won't be and if you think every single character beat being shown is a must in order to understand character, then just go watch the OG, a different structure just won't work for you point blank no matter how well it's done. Trust me, you do not want to try to just shift a 20 episode season into 8 episodes with no structural changes despite the raw run-times being similar - it would be bad. Like really bad.