#for context it’s not that I hate sci-fi btw
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bxriles · 3 days ago
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A lot of creators in bookish spaces (ones who I really respect and share similar tastes with) keep talking about how amazing The Locked Tomb series is and I want to try it, but then I hear it’s sci-fi and I’m just immediately put off.
I don’t really fuck with the genre too much, but I want to give this series a chance, especially after seeing what people have to say about it. But then I’m afraid it’s going to be SUPER HEAVY sci-fi, and that would nottttt be a good time for me.
So my question for the masses is this: is it worth trying out The Locked Tomb series if you’re not a huge sci-fi fan? And be honest lmao. If you think it’s super heavy on the sci-fi elements and that it might be off-putting to someone like me, let me know! But if you think it’s worth pushing through, I want to know that too!
PS - I know the books are confusing as hell and difficult to follow at times, but I’ve already read Malazan Book of the Fallen, so that doesn’t scare me. If anything, that’s a point in TLT’s favor.
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autistic-ben-tennyson · 2 months ago
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Steven Universe: A Complicated Relationship
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I’m starting to fall out of love with this show. I used to be obsessed with it and it was important to me as a way of figuring out my gender and sexuality. Yet, my relationship to it has become more complicated as of late. I’ve defended it myself and have been passionate about it, yet seeing the way a lot of stans have acted has kind of ruined it for me especially due to dismissing any criticism. This is not me saying I hate it or think it’s irredeemable Nazi propaganda but not everyone who dislikes it watches Lily Orchard and there are valid things to criticize about it.
There’s definitely bad faith criticism of the show such as flanderizing Steven into a crybaby with those Jack Horner/Hitler memes or claiming it was made to attack Christians but some people do have valid points. The episodes Bismuth and Gem Harvest may have not intended to come off as racist but one could interpret them as forcing people to forgive their abusers or bigoted relatives. As someone who’s Asian and knows about the way we’re represented, the way Priyanka and Doug were portrayed in the early seasons as tiger parents has not aged well.
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One other criticism I’ve seen is that the show copies a lot of old sci fi or anime tropes without recognizing the issues with them or removing them from their original context. I and others have compared the show’s ending to the Highbreed arc from Ben 10 Alien Force. The difference is that the Highbreed were treated as supremacists who needed to be stopped, not as abusive family. People can debate over whether they should have gotten more consequences but they were not treated as dorky relatives. The only one Ben befriends was a low ranking officer who became the new leader and convinced the high council to accept having their DNA changed. There’s also the human zoo, another sci fi trope that’s aged badly with the racist implications.
The series is also compared to a lot of anime. There’s references to Ghibli, NGE, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball and many have compared the show’s idealism to that of magical girl shows like Madoka Magica. The difference is that those shows didn’t use subjects like colonialism as a backdrop for family drama. SW suffers from that as well especially with the rebels only wanting to restore the old liberal system while taking imagery from the Viet Cong. People who wanted a revolution story weren’t necessarily wrong as that’s what the early seasons did set up.
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Some will accuse me of fandomizing the war but I’ve noticed a lot of the hardcore stans are white queers who support Israel or demand complete support for democrats. Not saying every SU fan is a bad person btw. There are a lot of decent people who are anti Zionist and like the show but a lot of these pop progressive cartoons as well as SW, Disney and Marvel/DC are used by people with gross beliefs to infantilize themselves and dismiss any criticism from POC fans. If mainstream kids media is where you’re getting your all political takes from then maybe you do need to branch out and watch more mature stuff. Watching NGE helped me grow up a lot and learn nuance.
As a recap, I’m not saying SU is a bad show or that people are bad for liking it. It was important for my own development as well as a lot of lgbt youth and was a jumping point for a lot of my current interests such as classic anime or Lisa Hannigan, who’s an amazing musician and is pro Palestine btw. Future did help me a bit with mental health yet people are allowed to dislike it or find that even if it wasn’t intentional, there are some implications that should be addressed. I don’t hate it and there’s some stuff worth defending in it but it’s not the greatest show ever and people who get all their politics from it need to grow up. Between it, TOH, Dead End and She-Ra, I think a lot of the pop progressive media that we have today will not age well and that’s something we need to accept.
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sleepynegress · 1 year ago
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HELLO! I'm sorry you've been getting idiotic anonymous people being rude about Uhura. I saw your lovely post about her and it made me happy to see that people appreciate her! She is so much more than lots of fandom pretends. Also I high-key agree that Karl Urban absolutely nailed his performance of Bones. It was so dead on!!! Zoe's Uhura was lovely too but as you say, sharper around the edges, and personally I felt her relationship with Spock was very sweet but difficult initially for me because I really get stressed when one person doesn't get the emotional needs of another. So their really gentle scenes made me SO happy when they finally happened. The warmth and gentleness shone through and won me over entirely. Zoe played sharp with just enough warmth. But I still love Nichelle's too. Uhura is great! Anyway didnt have a huge point here just happy that you also love her and call people out LOL
The main issue is the misogynoir and perhaps TERF leanings against the most recent player in the part, Celia Rose Gooding. She is non-binary and goes by she/they pronouns. She also has a short close-cropped style which beautifully frames her face. The troll is hyper-fixated on attacking that, disparaging her presentation of femininity using coded language to imply aggression or masculinity. This is extra backward because, of the three players who took on Uhura, she has the darkest skin tone, has the fullest lips and a wide nose bridge, and her hair is the only one not in a straightened or processed style (which is fine for an option BTW). All of these things together are rare aesthetics for a Black woman, and appropriate, especially for an sub-Saharan African woman's character presentation, especially in a futuristic sci-fi mainstream iconic franchise, like Star Trek and so important for young people to see as normalized femininity. I think of Lupita Nyong'o talking about the effect Alek Wek had on her...just being there as this South Sudanese supermodel, with very dark skin and short natural hair...
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Celia Rose is the particular target this troll has framed as their "fanhood", with thinly veiled insults and backhanded "compliments" that keep dogwhistling in their posts with various account names.
As for Zoe's Uhura, that professionalism and sharpness, when it came to her abilities and focus on her studies was an obvious intentional writing choice to stave off the very criticisms *she still got* because of the misogynoir of that era...
People were accusing her of coercing Spock into her ship assignment and even assaulting him(!).
That mess never makes sense, but hating Black women for existing or having what we are perceived as not "deserving" is sadly an old tradition (see those who make a hobby out of hating Megan Markle). And now, I see people praising the OG Uhura, Nichelle, for aspects of her character that were actually forms of limitations on her because of production bigotry...i.e. the forced interracial kiss, that people constantly cite as some forward thing w/o the context that it was forced because the implication was that no one in her crew would willingly kiss a Black person. IOW, aliens assaulting them for their entertainment was the lesser evil and more palatable to white audiences than someone choosing to love on Uhura (and I would add *especially* someone white, because even showing Black affection and love in that time was a rare thing, and her episode showing some yearning towards an old love showed no physical affection between them either). Anyway, all that to bring it right back around to ALL the Uhuras are great. And the weird microaggressions, macroaggressions, hatred, and attempts to shove them into a particular box are misogynoir; a microcosm of the kind of bullshit too many Black women go through on the regular just for existing.
Celia is a Rose and I hope she shines, gets loved on, has friends (including some Black ones) who are genuinely concerned for her well-being and actually help her when she's in need.
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P.S. I missed this reading way too fast before but this bit is sus IMO Zoe's Uhura was lovely too but as you say, sharper around the edges, and personally I felt her relationship with Spock was very sweet but difficult initially for me because I really get stressed when one person doesn't get the emotional needs of another. If you meant Spock not reading Uhura? Then yeah, I agree. If you mean Uhura not reading Spock?? I can't walk with you there because Spock literally almost hindered Uhura's career and got her on an exploded ship(!) because of his emotional bias and almost killed Kirk on the bridge because he was not managing his emotions well. Meanwhile Uhura read him well enough to provide some comfort after the loss of his mother.
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yurisorcerer · 10 months ago
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What an incredibly frustrating piece of fiction this is shaping up to be.
Where do I even start.
OK, on the one hand, the needlessly esoteric and vibey storytelling is kind of a plus. That's not a thing many anime do anymore and I kind of miss it as someone who was first exposed to the medium in part by very high-concept sci-fi anime. Also the action is great; any time a fight happened I was at least consistently having a good time, the choreography and animation are really good and I absolutely love the combat theme and find it weird how rarely they use it. In general I love how the show looks and it will remain watching for its visuals alone even if nothing else comes together.
Which is good, because everything else is a huge mess at this point. Add it to the list of anime I regret giving the benefit of a doubt.
Everything Metallic Rouge does or tries to do is held back by the fact that Rouge Redstar herself has the morality of a gradeschooler. In the early episodes, this was kind of cute and it seemed like the show would be in large part about her shedding that idealism to become....I don't know, pick one; a hero to the Neans? Some kind of cosmic avenger bound to neither side in this conflict? At least someone who has SOME kind of convictions beyond "I hate fighting!" ?
Code Eve is here revealed to be the work of Rouge's mom(?), a biophysicist, and assistant to her surrogate father, named Dr. Eva Kristella. She is the one who installed the Asimov Code in Neans in the first place, which means that in this universe, all of the oppression that the already-wonky analogue for minorities face was the work of a single person. If you disregard any stab at symbolism here, this is a fine plot twist *in a vacuum*, but when put back in the context of the show it completely defangs anything Metallic Rouge has done or seemed like it wanted to do with this material. Systemic oppression happened because Dr. Kristella did an oopsie and ended up regretting it. That regret was what caused her to make Code Eve, which can somehow disable the Asimov Code, but she didn't activate it herself (maybe she couldn't? This isn't elaborated upon) and instead planted it within the "soul" of Rouge and the other Immortals.
It's kind of impressive how thoroughly that strips out any applicability. There is no way to read anything as subtext anymore, because this is purely a genre thing and has no connection to anything real. Any bite this series might've had is gone.
But OK, fine, let's ignore that and just take it as a weird sci fi thing. Surely at least Rouge recognizes that the Neans are being oppressed to shit is a bad thing and joins the resistance, right? Especially now that Naomi has betrayed her (a plot twist that comes out of fucking nowhere btw) and revealed her true colors? Nope! A decent chunk of episode 8 is taken up by mealy-mouthed moralizing more or less dismissing the Neans' situation because, well, The Immortals Are Violent, so it's impossible to say if they're justified or not. Gene, Rouge's brother, says something to the effect of this not being "the right time" to liberate the Neans and that the inevitable violence of a revolution would only make things worse for them. I'm not crazy for reading this as complete fucking lib shit (a term I don't use lightly), am I? The show seems dead-set on playing Rouge's naivete as something admirable instead of something deeply offputting and inappropriate to the situations she finds herself in.
Like, I'm being A LITTLE uncharitable but honestly not particularly so? I'm mostly just confused, like, what even is the point of any of this? A thing I suppose I had conveniently forgotten about some of those sci-fi shows I mentioned in the opening paragraph is that they're occasionally not actually about much. Sure, the GOOD ones are, but there are plenty that have been mostly forgotten because they don't use the genre to do anything or say anything of note. Metallic Rouge's mix of aesthetics is still interesting---all of the Immortals look really cool, for example---but I would be VERY surprised at this point if the series pulled anything coherent together in its last four episodes.
Then again, who knows, I thought I had this show figured out once before and then episode 5 happened, so honestly who can say. Maybe it WILL find some way to justify its milquetoast politics and Toynbee Tiles-ass worldbuilding in a way that's actually coherent and interesting. I really doubt it, though.
The worst part is that through all of this I STILL don't actually think the show is outright bad. It has enough going for it that I'm going to watch the remaining third of the series and I will probably not completely hate those 2ish hours of remaining story, but it has JUST enough going on that the ways in which its deficient are hugely frustrating instead of being the kind of minor flaw that it's easy to brush off.
At this point my favorite character is probably Cyan, who shows up barely-foreshadowed in these episodes to try to kill Rouge for no obvious reason, but she has a fun design and a clear motive, so that makes her easy to root for, in my book.
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millimononym · 2 years ago
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Choose violence ask: 10, 12 and 25 for Galactik Football
k imma be honest this was really hard cuz like. Galactik football is a really small fandom so we don't really have a general "fanon" consensus or really a general Anything consensus so i had to think abt it real hard
10. worst part of fanon
ok so we don't really have a fanon (again) but something i saw in some fics (not bashing anybody btw) quite enough was making the other SK super unlikable to the point of OOC just to make another character seem better or more sympathetic (it's Micro-ice). Just. Complete assholery to a ridiculous level that would never happen in between the main cast(at least in the first 2 seasons) just to make u feel bad for the guy.
And i don't understand that. Because like. Micro-ice is already kind of mistreated in canon? he literally never got an apology for the way he was treated (which made him RUN AWAY IN THE FIRST PLACE!!) and everyone just returned to being friendly with each other despite them never addressing Micro-ice's feelings in a proper way imo. So WHY would you feel the need to make the others OOC to a ridiculous degree to try and make people sympathize with Micro-ice??? He's ALREADY SYMPATHETIC!! Just adress his feelings !!!
Oh and this was also done mostly for shipping reasons because...of course.
Can't have a character have a healthy support system outside of the one person they're dating!! Nope!! We HAVE to isolate a person from their friends by making them uncharacteristically horrible just to make the only outside option look better!! Peak romance!! /S (literally it's just the family friendly version of that fanfic trope where writers kill off canon characters who 'get in the way' of their ship lol)
12.the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them
Ok so i know "unpopular" in this context means hated or unliked but... I think i agree with most of the fandoms opinions on this one lol. Just to check, The hated characters that come to my mind are Yuki(don't really hate her on her own, but her relationship with Micro ice makes me wanna throw myself off a cliff so as a side effect i dislike her), Mark(no strong opinions to give except "he's boring" which we've all heard a million times by now), p much everyone in s3...idk i can't really remember anyone else. I personally find duke Maddox annoying but that's not the point of the question
So I'll take this as LITERAL unpopularity. You may have noticed but a while back i was obsessed with The Shadows and giving them personalities since i was upset that as the rival team they never got screen time. I think i was the only one that cared about them lol so there's that. It's just...Sinedd was a semi-main character! And they made a big deal out of him leaving for the Shadows!! And then NEVER expanded on them as a team other than "they aggressive 😢" !!! They should have done something with them!!!! Also the other rival teams as well. We should have gotten more alien content in this sci fi series goddamit!! They all have lots of potential that was unfortunately unused imo
25.common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing
I agree with most common fandom complaints..but as this is a small fandom, so we probably think of different things (or I'm just forgetting something)
The most common complaints i hear are that the pirates subplot took up too much time, clothing design being wack and generally disliking season 3. i agree with those, personally.
Again you and i probably think of different things when we hear "common fandom complaint" so feel free to tell me which ones i may have missed because I'm probably forgetting a lot
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destinyc1020 · 1 year ago
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I dont think leo and tom can even be compared. Leo was doing some incredible work prior to titanic and he played into and capitalized on the young heart throb image after titanic. Im not sure you could call leo typecast after titanic. Leo after titanic was a hot commodity, danny boyle , speilberg, woody allen (nasty ass white man) were seeking him out along with the fact that marty was interested in working with him right after titanic, its not until gangs of new york that they were able to work together. Plus titanic and spiderman films while both blockbusters are different in that one of them is a franchise and they existed in two different contexts and fame being something different than it was in the lste 90s and esrky 2000s. Its not until he teamed up with speilberg and marty who both were able to channel his talents and present him with great scripts that allowed him to expand as an actor. I think leo saying no superhero films is probably b/c he doesnt like superhero films or that the contracts disney gives out was both long term and didnt give you ( the actor) any power in addition to the crazy amount of fame.
Tom is on a decent trajectory he just needs to team up with directors that know what to do with him and give him the space to learn and improve.
Tom nor leo aren't typecast. B/c tom played an iconic role it has been hard for people to see him as anything else. At the end of the day, tom likes certain roles and plays them b/c its what he knows. Tom should take more risks with his choices imo ( by risk I mean try different genres like horror, rom-com, sci fi, or take on character that are more morally complex and not always redeemable etc and go outside box)
Tom and Robert pattison I think have much more similarities and robert did alot to get out of the twilight image.
Thanks Anon for bringing more insight to the whole Leo thing.
I mean Leo was an Oscar Nominee at like 19 right? For What's Eating Gilbert Grape?.....Which he probably should have WON imo 👀, but you know how the Academy is about awarding YOUNG, attractive male actors an Oscar so early in their careers lol 🤭 It's a tale as old as time lol. I think some of those old wrinkled men in the Academy are just JEALOUS tbh lol 😆 😅
Anyway, Tom started off his film career on solid footing with "The Impossible". Truth be told, Tom's acting in the film probably should have garnered him am Oscar nod as well (he was so GOOD for such a young guy! If Anna Paquin could do it.... ), but again.... 😵‍💫
Anyway, I think most of Tom's projects have been good decisions. Maybe CW (which is Sci-fi btw) probably wasn't the best decision, but I honestly can't name any other film that I would say he should remove from his filmography and should have never done.
I don't think Tom HAS to do a horror film or a rom-com in order to get out of the superhero "bubble" some have put him in.... Leo has rarely really done anything other than drama in his career, and he's done just fine. 🤷🏾‍♀️ He's only more recently been going more outside of his comfort zone imo. But you're right in that Leo has chosen very different roles where he's playing very different people, even if they are in the same genre.
Robert had a hard time too getting out of the "Twilight" bubble as well. He even said he hated that franchise rofl 🤣 😂
But it CAN be done! I think these two older actors are proof that you CAN get out of that "bubble". I would also add Tobey and Andrew in the mix as well. They too had to eventually break ppl's minds free of the Spiderman association.
It can be done 🙂
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mockingbirdshymn · 2 years ago
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Tag Game: This or That Writer's Edition
tagged by @pens-swords-stuff and so. IT IS TIME!!!!
Btw for those I tag, you don’t have to do this or whatever it’s just a silly fun thing I’m doing
- Historical or Futuristic?
Futuristic, if only for the sake of not having to research every single goddamn thing about the 1800s or whatever. Reading wise, though, it’s definitely Historical.
- The opening or closing chapter?
Closing chapter omfg. Like. ITS SO SATISFYING TO WRITE. It’s a cherry on top. It’s what hits the hardest. Opening chapters are amazing to write, but ending chapters? Hit me write in the feels to both read and write. It’s the end of an adventure for both the author and reader.
- Light&Fluffy or Dark&Gritty?
If I’m reading, I adore light and fluffy. Writing wise, and assuming that’s what this context is because it’s from a writeblr account, DARK FOR THE WIN. Angst is so fun to write like. Oh my god. It’s so fun idk how to say it I just love writing it.
- Animal companion or found family?
Kicks my dadvid and momgwen aus under the fridge. Yeah I’d say I like found family. It’s genuinely the best. Finding familial comfort in other people and getting a family when before you didn’t have one. It’s just. I love.
- Horror or romance?
Writing wise it has to be horror. It’s easier lmao. But it also depends on the fandom. For Camp Camp its definitely romance, but overall I like writing horror. I barely write it tho
- Hard or soft magic system?
Idk what this means but I’m assuming it means complex and not complex and I have to say complex. Making those complicated rules is like a little adventure for me. I love worldbuilding sm it’s insane
- Standalone or series?
I don’t rlly write series when it comes to fics. I’ll write sequels and spin-offs but never with the intention for a linear storyline to be spread between fics. For actual books I love writing series, tho I haven’t published anything yet, so I’m going with this for fics
- One project at a time or always juggling 2+ projects?
My current list of projects -
1- Longest oneshot ever, name pending
2- Space Kid Dadvid Momgwen AU ft Max
3- Showtime which I hate now I literally despise the first chapter
4- That one SK and Dolph friendship fic
5- Gwenvid oneshot where the campers play matchmaker and plot twist it works
6- Road trip fic hell yeah
The only real active one is the name pending oneshot, because I love working on it, but every now and then I’ll write a bit for the others.
- One award winner or one bestseller?
Haha I’m actually working on a book right now, and if I end up getting it publish I’d adore it being a bestseller. One, because I adore the idea of that many people reading something I made. Two, because when picking out books to read, bestseller catches my eye more than awards, oddly enough. I mostly write fics tho. Translating this into hits vs kudos, probably hits? But comments are better than everything ever actually. Ily people who do that
- Fantasy or Sci-Fi?
Inhales and exhales. I FUCKING LOVE FANTASY. Oh my god it’s amazing. I wrote a fae fic once for another fandom that was never published. I really liked that one. Fantasy can be so awesome in so many AUs. I like sci-fi but fantasy wins for this one.
- Character or setting description?
I like both lol. I scarcely do really detailed descriptions, but I like both of them equally. Setting is a bit easier and more common in my writing, I think, so I’ll go with that.
- First or final draft?
FINAL DRAFTS ARE SO SATISFYING OMG. To read your fic and fix all the last mistakes, then at least get to publish it? Its so satisfying. Like. It all finally being done. It’s incredible, especially when the fic is one you’ve worked on for a while.
- Love triangle or no romantic plots?
Does a poly relationship count as a love triangle? If so, yes. But I also enjoy writing some good ol’ gen fics. Love triangles where it ends in like choosing one or the other always irks me, idk why
- Constant sandstorm or rainstorm?
Is this a metaphor. My autistic ass could never. But I like the rain and writing the rain soooo ummmmm id say that? Tell me if i missed the actual meaning and I’ll edit it ahdkdjdhe
Uhh ppl I’ll tag to continue this or whatever idk I’ve never done this before lmao: @oreayourlocalannoyingidiot @fruit-kick @personification-of-sloth IDK IF THE LAST TWO OF U WRITE STUFF! SKIP THIS IF YOU DONT
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lostjulys · 2 years ago
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Opinions on superhero and space aus?
WELL. it depends. since my major beef w/ a lot of aus is specifically that most of the time. characters & relationships & dynamics r fundamentally intertwined w/ & informed by the original context. and by taking them out of that framework u lose that contextualization. so unless u do that good & take into account the difference in setting altering characters & everything else. i will not like it.
.... anyway in theory i fucking love superhero aus. i love cape shit. so much potential so many fun interesting dynamics and tropes and archetypes to use and subvert and play around with. SO many interesting possibilities for manifestation of personality or selfhood in relation to power. in practice i fucking HAAATE cape aus!!!! bcos they BARELY EVER!!!! play with the fun stuff!! pisses me off!! maybe this is just because i have very high standards but. !!! >:((( !!!!
like. well i'm gonna assume yr part of mcytblr & use for example the fucking myriad of superhero/vigilante/villain aus that just appeared like toadstools overnight. (there r only two of those fics i like, youre gonna go far kid by greyquills & corpseart's one, but that's less cos of any excitingly interesting premise and more because they're both genuinely excellent writers who know how to make the conventions work.)
they are. all the same. the sbi dynamic is Always the same as in canon despite the fact that it is an Entirely different context. there's never any real backstory other than like, 'he raised them/found them on the street/took them in!' . tommy is Always on the other side. their cape names are always like, really fucking boring, btw. just saying. like. just abysmally boring. so yeahg if u hand me a superhero au i will probably look very pained and unwillingly accept it then stealthily dispose of it. but in theory???? hell yes hell yes. liek. love-hate relationship. one day i'm gonna write a cape au simply because of my dissatisfaction with the genre.
space aus........ HELL yes.never met a bad space au and have in fact met several VERY good ones. SO much capacity for delightful things such as angst and horror and tasty worldbuilding which are all things i adore <3333 i am probably skewed btw because i've read your words destroyed my planet by unda which is.... by far and away my favorite piece of fancontent like. Ever, and i've got a mountain of thoughts on the universe they've created in that fic & the way they go about it, so, idk. biased. (wow that fic's almost at a million words. goddamn) also in my experience. writers who make space aus are usually like. either into Good media or good at what they do. i trust the star trek/star wars/sci-fi podcast enjoyers with my LIFE when it comes 2 well written fic.) okay yeahg this is a long enough post. thank u anony i appreciated the opportunity 2 perorate. <3333
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artnachronisme · 3 years ago
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Since a bunch of you really liked the BUCK-TICK's discography review I made last month (you can find it with #artnachronisme's buck-tick review), I thought it could be nice to continue to talk about my feelings on their music. We stopped at Six/Nine (1995) last time, which was for a reason : the next album, Cosmos (1996) is a clear transition to their industrial years.
Cosmos is remarkable for its very light tones. Six/Nine was very different and varied/experimental from Darker than darkness style 93 but Cosmos appears to be more like its continuation while it's also the path to a very new sound, more industrial, as I said before. A song like Living on the net shows it clearly in my opinion. I like this album for songs like Maria, Tight Rope, Sane, Idol or Ash-ra. There seems to be a new maturity in the lyrics. The guitars are very strong, langourous - if I may express myself this way - and Atsushi seems to continue to try new stuff with his voice.
Next album is Sexy Stream Liner that I absolutely adore, out in 1997. You can feel how much the album was filled with tons of sci-fi inspirations, thanks to Kazutoshi Yokoyama's keyboards (who worked with them since 1993 - keyboards part since 1995). The instrumental song Sexy Stream Liner is very interesting and a clear testimony of their transition to industrial rock music. Songs like Heroin or Lizard skin no shoujo have very electronic sounds in their compositions for example. As usual I'm very fond of Hidehiko Hoshino's music, Rasen Mushi is one of my fav song from this album. What I love is the fact that they never lose themselves with this new type of sounds and songs like Muchi no Namida, Sasayaki or My Fuckin' Valentine are, with their structures, anchored to their roots while being proof of their evolution. I think this album is quite interesting for its various experiments, Imai being, as usual, very capable when it comes to create an homogeneous project.
In 2000, One Life, One Death is released. I don't know where to start with this one tbh. I got lost when I heard Baby, I want you for the first time. It's almost a pop song with this dance beat - but I reminded myself that Du Hast by Rammstein had the same type of flavor and is still close to my heart so... anyway. But using the term "pop" isn't a nonsense since I feel like this album is quite accessible. Once you get used to Sexy Stream Liner, this project is not as interesting in my opinion, because yes, I do think that it sounds more pop - the keyboards parts are probably the reason why I feel this way. But... a little bit of context : in the early 00s, rock music was quite the trend all around the world and we had a lot of this type of productions. Glamourous, as much as I like this song, is kinda... cute (?). But don't get me wrong, Megami is very hypnotizing (guess who wrote the music ? Yeah, Hoshino), a rock ballad if I may ; I LOVE the atmosphere from Sapphire, Rhapsody is quite interesting as well and Flame is a very beautiful ballad too (probably one of my fav). I don't hate the whole project. I just think that it's not as dark and deep as their past ones.
In 2002, Kyokutou I Love You is released. Songs like Oukoku Kingdom Come -moon rise- and Brilliant remind me a lot of Cosmos's atmosphere and are quite light. 21st Cherry Boy is kinda cheesy, build to be a single obviously (never forget the mv where Atsushi is surrounded by two dancers on his chair haha) but efficient in its style. I also like how TRIGGER is structured and the guitars are very nice, same goes with Kyokutou Yori Ai wo Komete. I love Shanikusai -Carnival- and yes... Hoshino is behind the music again ; it's a sensual song, I like how Atsushi sing on this one. Finally, the masterpiece in my opinion is Long Distance Call, so emotional... but well, since the subject is what it is. Long short story : I prefer this album than its previous one. It ends with Continue for the simple reason that this project was supposed to be a double disc with Mona Lisa Overdrive, released in 2003.
Oh... and this album. Where to start ? I have the feeling that it's one of their most underrated project and I kinda don't understand why because I find it very efficient. The songs are powerful. The whole album sounds more straight rock again and yeah... I do like this. The opening song (fed with the ending of Kyokutou I Love You) Nabayuki shows the colors of the project very simply : it's gonna rock. Limbo is a UFO, clearly made for the stage - I like that the lyrics refers to some old songs they created by the past. The main theme from this album is definitely power because everything is catchy, pulsy, it goes straight to the point and I LIKE THAT. I don't have much to say on this project, I appreciate how it sounds in its whole. It's the kind of album that I listen to entirely, but rarely pick up a song all alone. It's a perfect ending point for their cyberpunk/industrial years !
I really appreciate this era because the guys experimented as much as by the past but into a new universe. Industrial rock isn't the easiest kind of rock to create, there's not that much bands who based their entire career on this type of sound and I truly appreciate how they manage to produce 5 different projects.
Btw, Would you like me to talk about their early works from Hurry up mode to Taboo , cause I started with Aku no Hana ?
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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years ago
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Andy on Asian Animation or SYAC: The Master Review 2
Let’s talk a bit about anime and Dobson’s work relation with it.
I think we can all agree, that starting from the late 90s and early 2000s on, anime and manga became extremely popular in the western world. Sure, Japanese animation was nothing completely new to us (Speed Racer, Nadia-Secret of Blue Water, Samurai Pizza Cats, Sailor Moon, Kimba and Akira e.g. come to my mind as properties already known in the west before 1995) but it really was around this time that thanks to “mainstream” stuff like Dragon Ball and Pokemon people became aware of how different Japanese animation was from western. Eventually resulting in the really good shit (like Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon, Kenshin and Heat Guy J) coming over and enriching nerd culture for more than just a few people who knew of it as an obscurity at that point. Now, if you know anything about Dobson, you likely know that his relationship with anime is rather… complicated to say the least. Or, to let him explain it with his own words…
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Dobson essentially likes silly and wacky 90s anime. But later on he hated anime in general, because it got too popular and a bad experience with an anime club in college soured his enjoyment of it. Furthermore, he put the blame on his lackluster art style and storytelling capabilities as seen in the likes of Formera, Patty and Alex ze Pirate, on anime in general, while also claiming that Disney pulling the plug on 2D animation is the result of the “anime inspired” Treasure Planet, meaning anime in a sense deprived him of his chance at working at his dream job and “ruining” western animation.
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Which to me has always been ignorant as fuck. For starters, I can understand not liking certain stories or genres, either for objective or subjective reasons. But to hate on an entire nation’s form of entertainment (not just individual shows or genres), depriving yourself of the chance of potentially watching a lot of good stuff while also being rather insulting to these other works and people enjoying them? Especially when the stuff you can supposedly “stomach” has been rather simplistic compared to other things?
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 Second, blaming Japan for “poisoning” your art style? What, did the ghost of Osamu Tezuka possess you and FORCE you to put sweatdrops on your characters forehead while also going for the rather simplistic character style of Rumiko Takahashi, as well as emulating the slapstick of the likes as Slayers and Ranma ½?
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 Next, if he had emulated them successfully, I say he would have actually managed to tell decent enough stories worth to read online. Not create Uncle Peggy aka “Discount Happosai” or the bland proto-Isekai known as Formera.
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I mean, let’s give some context here: There have been people who successfully managed to emulate certain anime and manga aesthetics into western animation and make it work. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten the likes of Avatar-The last Airbender, Samurai Jack, the Animatrix, Thundercats 2011, Super Robot Monkey Hyperforce Go, Kim Possible, W.I.T.C.H, Megas XLR and Wakfu. You know, shows that are actually awesome as hell.
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Heck, Dobson’s favorite animated show of the last decade, Steven Universe, is heavily inspired by anime aesthetics to the point of being embarrassing.
 But Dobson… well, he emulated anime aesthetics in his work the same way as these crimes against animation did.
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Combined with his general shortcomings as a storyteller it is no wonder his initial comics did not do well.
 Lastly, and sorry for digressing here a bit, but if the Wikipedia entry on Treasure Planet is something to go by, there was no real inspiration by anime involved in making this movie.
Supposedly the idea of making an animated Treasure Planet in outer space movie was already pitched by Ron Clements WAY BACK in 1985 but only came to be after Michael Eisner greenlighted stuff in the late 90s. Design wise the movie was supposed to look 70% traditional and 30% sci-fi inspired and people took inspiration for the art style by illustrators associated with the Brandywine School of Illustration. A western style of illustration established in the 19th century, that had a big impact on the illustration styles for many 19th and early 20th century adventure novels and short stories.
What, is anime supposed to be the only form of animation allowed to have sci fi elements or steampunk in it? Fucks sake, The Lion King and Atlantis, which came out one year earlier to Treasure Planet, were likely more inspired by anime. Don’t believe me? Watch Atlantis and then a certain anime by Studio Gainax called “Nadia-Secret of Blue Water”. Or read up on the controversy surrounding the two.
The truth is, it is not entirely clear what caused Disney to shut down 2D feature film animation in the early 2000s. In fact, if anything, most people put the blame on Michael Eisner and a certain change in the publics taste in movies in general, combined with Disney trying to turn almost every movie they had into a franchise via cheap follow up movies on video and DVD.
And even if Disney did not shut down, are we really supposed to believe that a certain guy with fedora would have made it big at Disney to the point Alex ze Pirate would have been made into a feature film?
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But Dobson could never quite understand this and instead of “reinventing” himself properly, he would rant about anime and its fans in one form or another…
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 And on the peak of his hissy fit create this little art piece he baptized Anime Sux. Alternatively “West vs East”. Or as I like to call it, slap a jap.
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Now, the pic was done in 2008 and Dobson claimed sometimes in the last decade, that he no longer holds his old opinions. Unfortunately, by that point he would also more or less use the chance to vent in his webcomic about anime (or rather its fans), which brings us finally back to SYAC.
 While Dobson never outright thematized in more detail WHY he hates anime and manga in SYAC (likely cause if his comic reasoning was even slightly like his reasoning in his blogs, people would have torn him apart like a bag of paper) he did use the format to punch down on anime fans and their preferences.
 For example, for someone who has a 4chan story going around of having been rather arrogant towards others in college for not liking Ranma ½, Dobson has THIS little college related comic to show off, where he portrays an aspiring manga artist as a delusional jackass.
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Then in this strip titled manga, his manga fan is essentially portrayed as a young woman dressing up like a very stereotypical high school anime girl, who is in the wrong for even just DARING to draw her comics in the direction manga are read.
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On one hand, I get Dobson’s point. She could be at risk of alienating a market of readers as she is obviously drawing for a western audience. Then again, if she doesn’t draw a traditional western comic but a manga, why shouldn’t she? I mean, as long as she enjoys it, which I assume she does as she seems genuinely just happy when stating that she likes manga, why not let her? Plus, this comic was drawn in the late 2000s. I think by then most people kinda knew how to read from right to left, so Dobson’s claim she would alienate or confuse people is kinda redundant. If anything I find a) Dobson getting angry at her just very petty (just let her have fun) and b) portraying a western manga fan as someone who would be confused by the sheer idea of reading stuff from right to left is also in itself just really dumb and insulting. What is Dobson trying to imply? That anime fans are so stuck in the way they consume certain media, they can’t act according to “western standards” again?
Then there is this strip where yet another female anime fan is essentially portrayed as the embodiment of how “ignorant” manga fans are of the idea of different art styles...
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Which becomes rather laughable once Dobson describes his style as a mixture of European, American and  Japanese. Why? Because he is the one oversimplifying things, rather than the anime fan.
You see while anime and manga of all sorts do share certain aesthetics (like the black and white art style, emphasize on the eyes of characters, the way hair is drawn, recurring tropes within certain genres and so on) style wise (both in art and storytelling) there can be severe differences, depending on the artist alone. Akira Toriyama’s style differentiates significantly from the likes of Eichiro Oda, Rumiko Takahashi, Kentaro Miura, Tezuka, Kaori Yuki and so forth.
The same also goes for many western artists. Herge had a significantly different style from Uderzo and Goscinny. Don Rosa has a different style in which he drew Scrooge McDuck than Carl Barks did. Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee draw mainstream superheroes differently compared to how Jack Kirby, George Perez and others did. Heck, Ethan Van Sciver and Jim Lee were closely associated with Green Lantern in the 2000s and look how they differentiate.
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 Which btw is the kind of skill level Dobson would have needed to have, to make it in the mainstream industry
So when Dobson says “I draw in a combination of American, Western and Japanese” all I can think is the following: THAT DOESN’T NARROW IT DOWN! WHAT THE HECK HAVE YOU LEARNT IN COLLEGE ABOUT COMICS? WHICH ARTISTS, WORKS AND STORYTELLERS DO YOU TRY TO EITHER EMULATE OR HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY?
Then there is this little thing…
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Where do I even begin? How about the fact that Dobson’s hand in the last panel looks like he has lost a thumb? The fact that the little boy, anime fan or not, is aware of Sae Sawanoguchi, a character from a short lived OVA and anime series from the 90s, which considering his age, I kinda doubt he would be aware off. Unlike Dobson, who got into anime in the 90s and admits in fact within the posts I loaded up earlier, that he had watched the anime in particular, known in the west as Magic User Club.
Then there is the implication by Dobson, that anime is so “corruptive” as a medium, little kids don’t even know the most basic characters in western animation because of it. I expect in a next panel, that all of sudden some 50s PSA guy comes along and lectures me that if I want this kind of thing not to happen at MY convention, I need to teach little kids more about the GOOD western animation, instead of the BAD eastern one. Then there is this rather unflattering portrayal of a shonen ai/shojou ai fangirl…
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 Which makes me laugh cause honestly, even some of the worst shonen ai and shojou ai can do better in portraying a “realistic” gay relationship than Patty if you ask me.
Also, as much as I think fangirls can be extremely thirsty (I have read my fair share of extremely stupid yaoi and yuri fanfics) I think that in hindsight Dobson is really not anyone to complain about shipping obsession and sex when he himself has KorraSami, the Ladybug fandom and a certain rat pirate under his floppy belt.
As you can imagine, Dobson would get heat for those comics, considering how he himself has been greatly inspired by anime and manga for his major comics. And while I don’t have any explicit deviantart posts of him reacting to criticism in that regard, I do have this comic which addresses it directly.
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 And yeah, if I were schoolgirl number 4, I would just sigh and walk away after telling Dobson that his mistakes and shortcomings are not related to having consumed anime, but rather by what sort of anime (and other stories) he had consumed and the amount of effort he had put in creating his stories instead of emulating just something more popular. Plus, if you really want people to draw more from life, how about drawing more from life yourself down the line? And no, tracing Star Wars movie frames does not count.
Finally, Dobson, considering how very little most people think of your work, I say mission accomplished: People have learnt from your mistakes and know not to be a Dobson.
And at last, there is this comic, which kinda wraps up Dobson’s “vendetta” with anime and manga fans within the pages of SYAC.
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By trying to mock anime fans and make them look just as shallow as he is. I at least suppose. Honestly, the message of this comic is rather muddled. On one hand, I would say the strawman accusing Dobson hates anime just because it is popular is very simplified. After all, Dobson has made his reasons for not liking anime clear in a few more details. It’s just that the details in and on themselves in real life are still rather shallow and boil down to a lot of personal bias rather than an objective criticism of actual flaws. Which I think is worth pointing out.
But frankly, what is Dobson trying to say or point out here? That the strawman is not so different or even dumber than him, because he hates Justin Bieber for “shallow” and superficial reasons too?
Okay, this doesn’t quite work as well as Dobson wants. First, the argument Dobson’s strawman makes is in huge parts based on some verified statements Dobson made for not liking anime. Second, he just says a name and that triggers the guy to express his hatred for Bieber. We don’t know why the guy hates Bieber and you could make in fact the case, that he hates him not because he is popular, but because he has a genuine issue with the artist, his work or his behavior as a human being. Third, if you want to make yourself look like the better person Dobson, try to argue with the guy and make solid arguments why you don’t like anime. Instead you just deflect the criticism by changing the subject and then try to make yourself look like the “smarter” person in the room by mocking your critic in the most condescending manner.
Which as I think about it, sounds like your modus operandi on twitter and tumblr.
Weirdly enough, that more or less marks the “end” of Dobson tackling anime fans and the beef he has with them within the pages of SYAC. Despite how much Dobson’s negative reputation especially in early years was build around him hating on anime and belittling its fans, he didn’t really do more afterwards in the Dobson focused pages of SYAC. And mind you, those strips were also separated by other strips in-between, focused on Dobson just being at conventions.
Unfortunately for him, the strips didn’t really help in any way to diminish that negative reputation and instead just confirmed for many, that Dobson can’t handle criticism about his flawed opinion on anime. If anything, it just made people think even less of Dobson, as the strips just painted him as someone who would rather portray his critics as strawman he can be “rightfully” annoyed at, instead of fellow humans with slightly different tastes in entertainment, who are still worth listening to.
So, now that we have the anime fan related “annoyances” out of the way, what other sort of silly problems in making webcomics would Dobson cover in his strips and are “relatable” to everyone?
Lets see some of these examples in the next part.
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ayankun · 5 years ago
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Agents of SHIELD Season 1 Rewatch Update
Ok so I’m having a difficult time remembering what it was that made me hate this show so much (aside from the unforgivable Minecraft reference) and stop watching in Season 1.
Just got through ep 14 and holy cow, I’m honestly not sure whether the storylines for seasons 2, 3, and 4 were planned this far in advance, but if they were then these folks did such an overwhelmingly good job of keeping their eye on the ball.
Best I can figure, I’m having a good time on this attempt thanks to prequel-goggles.  I already know where this story is going, who these people will become and what’s going to make them into what they will be, and I can appreciate this older storyline in light of the circumstances it precedes -- rather than for what it is without that context. 
(It certainly helps that some of the dumber stuff is already starting to be replaced by the better stuff, like it’s ep 15 and the “night-night gun” was just replaced by the much more palatable “icer,” and they haven’t tried to call the individual dwarves by name for ages now)
Also there’s some pretty good cinematography, the graphics are really respectable, watching this found family slowly realize how much they love each other is sooo charming, and the affectations required of a MCU-spin-off-sci-fi-spy-show are really well balanced with the character drama which is its true heart.
I know ep 1x08 (”The Well”) is six and a half years old so maybe spoiler warnings are not necessarily required but here we go
Remember when Thor 2 came out and then this show had to earn its stripes as co-existing in the MCU so they had to address the fact that aliens ripped up London and the whole world knows about it?
Not being able to afford the likes of Chris Hemsworth was something they obviously had to work around, and plopping in that rando dweeby Asgardian as a twist was definitely one way to do it. 
But the real showstopper is that the through-line of the episode is the examination of the similarities and differences of Ward and May, especially once they both come in contact with the Asgardian rage-stick.
Seeing Ward nearly incapacitated by his traumatic childhood memories serves two important purposes.  First, it makes some good strides towards humanizing the man, who until now has been that hot-and-cocky kind of character that just expects to appeal to an audience but hasn’t yet earned any appeal whatsoever.  By now, we’ve had a reference to his toxic dynamic with his older/younger brothers, and seeing him reliving his experience with the well suddenly opens him up and gives some dimension to that tall-dark-handsome cardboard cutout.
Second, those experiences are a really good twist!!  When it’s revealed that he’s not remembering being tortured in a well by his brother, he’s remembering allowing his brother to torture his other brother down a well and not having the guts to do anything about it.  It’s a good one-two punch because you weren’t expecting to pity the guy, and now that you’ve spent twenty minutes pitying him for being victimized, you get to grapple with the much more complex emotion of the kid!Ward not knowing how to get out of this lose-lose situation and understanding that his current character must be in some way informed by this regret and guilt.
THIRD, after seeing Ward go through all this and barely hold it together, we get to see how May handles this level of relive-your-worst-trauma-and-incinerate-yourself-with-unbridled-rage when she has to pick up the rage-stick and .... instead of it leaving her on the ground like it’s just done to Ward, she somehow experiences 0.00000% change in personality or capability WhatSoEver.
She not only isn’t affected, she summons all the broken pieces of rage-stick and effortlessly wields the fully formed berzerker staff to defeat the rest of the baddies single-handed.  It says so much about her character, about the depths of the trauma that sent her to the place we met her in in the pilot.  We still don’t know what happened, but this her “my secret is I’m always angry” moment, and it’s a  level of anger has been repeatedly and thoroughly cataloged throughout the episode so far.
It also gives these fools something to bond over.  And while I’m seriously disinterested in their weird little Thing that didn’t go anywhere and didn’t really impact much, it was a nice way to avoid progress in the “Skye’s falling for her SO” storyline that I don’t care for either.
But Skye makes her move in this episode!  She and Ward dance around the possibility that maybe they’re into each other and they could possibly move from antagonistic strangers to folks who are a little into each other.  But he does the gentle thing and turns her down! (without closing the door entirely, I must add)  And then he wanders off on his own and ... May’s wandering off on her own ... and they share some micro expressions and then, seriously you guys this sequence is so tasteful and understated, just look:
Ward leaves Skye at the bar with a parting “I’m beat, another time, maybe,” and off her wistful look we cut directly to this chiaroscuro hallway.
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Ward enters the frame, starts unlocking his hotel room. He's just another monochrome shape in this monochrome place.
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But then there’s May entering the shot at the far end of the hallway, and her motion and his turning to look at her frames her monochrome shape in this nice little white triangle between him and her door.
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And there’s a tasty little rack focus that pulls the instant she passes in front of the door, making sure our attention is on her and the little white label of her bottle that really pops in the sea of black.
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By this point in time, we’ve been shown, graphically, intimately, a dark shadow in his past, and we’ve been shown the physical and emotional toll its taken on him (an insight provided by the magic alien macguffin, btw).  We haven’t been told anything, we experienced his experiences with him via the power of cinema.  Her specific trauma is still a mystery at this point, but we’ve been given enough information to understand and appreciate its effects on her character.  So not only can we sympathize with Ward now, we can sympathize with his empathy for May in this moment.  
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She catches him looking.
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I mentioned micro expressions and screenshots do not do these performances justice.  How does one catch in a single frame the millisecond that an eyebrow ticks in asking a silent question?
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Typical for her, May’s answer is also communicated through body language.
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From that canted, inviting look, we pan down as she unlocks her door and enters.  She passes through the frame and disappears inside, after giving us a reminder that her plans are to apply alcohol to her issues.  (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation at a bar of all places)
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Oh, and what has our framing left us to contemplate?  Is that a bed I see in there?  (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation)  Let me point out that this shot of just the bed after May walks by is on screen by itself for maybe a fraction of a second.  Just a suggestion of a thing, really.
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Ward contemplates.
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I love returning to this shot because it’s literally the same set up, and my instant reaction is that it’s another insert, a POV shot, and I fully expect to return to the single shot on Ward to discover his decision the second he makes it.
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INSTEAD.  Ward walks immediately into THIS FRAME, too, black-shape-on-white-shape in the same way May was introduced to this scene.  And we stay here as he closes the door behind him ...
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Letting us know everything we need to know without a single word needing to be spoken.
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Another fraction of a frame dwelling on that shot and then immediately fade to black.  Credits.  Show’s over, folks.
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And not that there’s any particular meaning in it, but they were super careful to minimize what colors were allowed to appear in this sequence?  Like there’s a particular sort of green in that weird armchair, which sort of matches the green-glass of her bottle.  And there’s the red of the fire alarm fixtures which more or less matches the red of his, y’know, fresh facial wounds.  EVERYTHING else (other than, I guess, their skin tones) falls somewhere along the white-black spectrum.  NICE.  BEAUTIFUL.  I LIKE IT A LOT.
And the Netflix synopsis for this episode is “In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Thor: the Dark World, Coulson and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team try to pick up the pieces.”  1) I’m realizing that they literally go around picking up pieces of the rage-stick and that’s hilarious but mostly I mean to say 2) this MCU-tie-in episode could have met the brief being as vapid and non-impactful as that blurb makes it sound.  But it took the opportunity to open up its characters for us to see their gooey insides, and hell they picked two of the best characters to dig into for this one, considering Ward’s tragic backstory plays as both a misdirect and actual inciting incident for his betrayal of SHIELD, and May’s tragic backstory feeds a couple of B-plots this season as well as being the major catalyst for a lot what happens in season FOUR.  SEASON FOUR, PEOPLE.  THE SEEDS ARE WAY BACK HERE IN SEASON ONE.
REMEMBER HOW THESE CHARACTERS WERE INTRODUCED THOUGH??  I DO, I JUST WATCHED THE PILOT LIKE YESTERDAY.  WE MEET WARD FULLY ENSCONCED IN HIS GUISE OF SHIELD BADASS SUPERSTAR; HE IS LITERALLY ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHIELD MEANS TO HIM, AND WE GET TO HEAR THE FIRST OF HIS MANY LIES.  WE MEET MAY IN HER OWN PERSONALLY-DESIGNED WHITE-COLLAR HELL, TURNING COULSON’S OFFER DOWN THE SECOND SHE HEARS HIS VOICE BECAUSE SHE’D RATHER STAPLE DOCUMENTS FOR ETERNITY THAN BE OUT IN THE FIELD WHERE SHE CAN MAKE ANOTHER MISTAKE LIKE THE ONE SHE CAN’T FORGIVE HERSELF FOR.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  This show knows how to weave a character-driven story, and it’s done it for six seasons straight, juggling constantly evolving -- grounded, nuanced, impactful -- character arcs with the external factors (Thor: The Dark World, for one) that force certain narrative decisions.
(until they decide to ignore those factors altogether, lol, I’m looking at you, season 5, you wacky maverick you)
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fischotterkunst · 5 years ago
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mokamagica replied to your post: i’m in a ‘yelling about alien designs’ mood so...
Xenomorphs?
THE QUEEN. THE CLASSIC. oh my god their designs make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever BUT THERE’S AN ARTISTIC REASON FOR THAT WHICH I CAN APPRECIATE SO I LOVE THEM ANYWAY
the original design for The Alien was inspired by this original print by Swedish surrealist H.R. Geiger (Necronom IV, 1976):
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Ridley Scott saw this print and tapped Geiger to flesh out the design for the creature in his script. Geiger came back with this:
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(continued below cut; brief tw for homophobia and The Alien being The Alien sooo uhhh. highly-glossed-over suggestions of noncon.)
the concept was a humanoid being in full armor (throwback to that post i mentioned about cyborgs being perceived as separated from humanity because of their mechanical parts? same idea. btw, this was the literal origin and creation of the biomechanical aesthetic. Giger conceived the aesthetic, and the Xenomorph was the embodiment). the phallic suggestions are deliberate, as it was meant to be sexually threatening due to its role in the film, and specifically to appear thus to men as well due to what Scott considered homosexual implications. (hence the mention of potential homophobia. don’t get me started on rape as a horror trope, but then adding ‘homosexual’ context?? i don’t want to dissect this here and now but i am aware its Not Great and i hate it very much.)
so uh. fantastic example of surrealism as an exploration of our fears about the boundaries of our own humanity. and a straight guy wiped his ass on it decided to make it about his own bigotry. 
ANYHOO. the in-film costume that came from these artworks was. A HELL OF A LOT SCARIER LOOKING in the actual film than in this shot of the full costume on display:
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definitely one of those potential lovers who looks better in low lighting. i mentioned in a previous post that i grant a lot of forgiveness to pre-2000 sci fi for not having the special effects we have today. and like i said at the beginning of this post, this is meant as a surrealist concept - it’s not meant to be physiologically realistic because it’s not supposed to look ‘real’. tbh, even though Xenomorphs are extraterrestrials, i really think of them more as monsters than aliens, since monsters to me are defined by being more conceptual. so i’m not gonna go into the physiology/behavior at all because its literally all stupid and nonsensical from a zoological perspective BUT it’s not supposed to be realistic. 
but then James Cameron (yes, the Avatar and Titanic guy), whom i dislike, decided to try to make them look more like actual aliens, and im not about to sit here and not take an opportunity to criticize James ‘Pocahontas But In Blue’ Cameron. 
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there is not one single good or realistic thing about this fuckin thing whatsoever. i love her because she’s the Queen but design-wise she’s a trainwreck. she looks like parts of four or five monsters haphazardly jammed together like Sid’s toys from the og Toy Story. i see elements of dinosaur skeletons, grasshoppers, ungulates (specifically goats), and fuck knows what else. its a wreck. fuck you, James Cameron. 
but believe it or not, it got worse from there. 
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its an even more horrid amalgamation of random-ass animals and its just...like i said, a trainwreck. i honestly don’t find it even remotely unsettling anymore, since the vaguely humanoid body and bipedal pose combined with the other surrealist elements are what made it a successful monster in the first place. they’ve totally lost track of the original intention and at this point are clearly just using the nostalgia for the franchise as an easy cash-grabber.
but i will admit the most recent design is. kinda sexy. 
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alrightsnaps · 5 years ago
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Your dislike for Clarke is inspiring. I haven't watched the show since season 3 I think, but I stopped liking her in season 1, so yah. Raven deserved lead.
Raven had the potential to become the sci-fi female lead.
An impoverished girl that grew up with an alcoholic, neglectful mother and managed to grow into a strong yet kindhearted woman? A downright genius latina mechanic that inspires admiration and respect and saves the day time after time? A disabled woman with chronic pain that simply does not know the meaning of the word give up, because she's a survivor that will always fight for her life no matter what?
She'd be fucking iconic!
Raven is simply too good to be true, and these idiotic writers reduce her to a side character they only remember when someone has to save everyone's asses, torture porn (which is absolutely disgusting) or shoving her with the next insignificant dude that joins the show as a love interest.
But it's not just that Clarke doesn't hold a candle next to Raven of course– though she sure as hell does not. I could handle a character I dislike, we all have one or two of those in every show. It's her sidelining every other character, constantly putting everyone (including Raven and Bellamy that are my favourites) in danger and betraying her people, constantly whining about how she never asked for power yet repeatedly stepping forward as a self-proclaimed leader (and fucking everything up once again) and never ever facing any consequences for her actions.
If you can believe it, I started watching the show more than biased in favour of Clarke. In favour of Bellarke. In favour of Clexa. (you know how hyped up all these are on social media!). As far as I knew when I decided to give the show a shot, it was a surprisingly good teen drama (that many compared to got.... I'm still laughing about that bit) with a badass bisexual lead character. What's not to like?
Needless to say that's....not how I found Clarke. Or the show. By season 3, her arrogance, insufferable entitlement and hypocrisy is so in-your-face I could hardly stand her. (Season 6 is downright comical in that sense, with the writers coming up with a melodramatic martyresque Clarke centred plot to make her come out as the victim, when in last season's finale she sent Raven to get tortured and Bellamy to die in a fighting pit. The lengths to which they'll go to avoid her actually facing the consequences of her actions never cease to amaze me.)
I guess it has to do in big part with how cw shows are in general– no in depth characters that merely serve as puppets to move an action filled plot forward, and zero logical consequence. The 100 feels like watching a Walmart version of the mess that were seasons 7+8 of GoT on a loop. A constant tell-not-show narattive– we'll tell you who's the good guy and who’s the villain, even though our labels don't make much sense as far as the characters’ actions and motivations are concerned.
For example, D&D decide that Dany is the bad guy and start hinting it since season 7, even though her actual actions up to 8x04 directly contradict it. So she's made out to look like an arrogant bitch for not giving some random guy free pass to her resources or agreeing to help him fight some fairytale ice zombies the moment she sees him, her killing enemies in battle after they brutally wipe out her allies is interpreted as some Mad Queen foreshadowing, her not giving North an independence they have no armies to fight for or the skills to negotiate for, is proof that she'll become a tyrant and so on.
And of course the double standards– Dany is mad and too eager to use violence for not mourning her lifelong abuser, killing rapists and crucifying slave masters after they did the same to literal kids, but Sansa and Arya are kweens for smiling after feeding her rapist to his dogs and massacring a room full of people and baking actual human beings into pies respectively. Daenerys shows the signs of a tyrant for executing the men that betrayed their liege lord and butchered their entire House after actually giving them a choice, but Robb barely an imperfect leader for doing the same to Rickard Karstark, without giving him much of a say in the matter either. (The list could go on forever.)
In the same way in the 100 (or in reverse I guess?) Clarke is supposed to be some heroic leader, even though she lets one of her own get executed for a war crime without even demanding (or at least trying to negotiate) that the same price is paid by the opposing side when it comes to their war criminals (especially since this was a war started by the grounders against a group of defenceless teenage refugees in the first place) all to achieve a fragile alliance (btw I'll never forgive the 100 for making me care for Finn McPlainface, whose scenes I could barely watch without falling asleep, but good god, was his death poorly handled. Are these writers ignorant in politics or plain stupid?). After they are betrayed by their ‘allies’ she abandons her people at a crucial time and then.....jumps into bed with the woman that forced her to kill her boyfriend, left them all to die and had her kidnapped (thanks for the quality sapphic rep cw– I hate it). She falls madly in love with her in the span of five days, immediately reclaiming her role as a leader without even asking the actual people she's supposed to lead (and that's just the first three seasons!).
But a hero and a leader she is.
Then there's, once again, the horrifically obvious double standards. How is it possible to blatantly judge your characters based on different standards even within the same season? Clarke can blow up 250+ of her own people to save her ass and nobody even learns about it, much less have her pay the price for her choice. She can literally get into bed with the enemy while insisting on playing leader without asking anyone, and there are no reprecussions whatsoever. But Bellamy’s s03 massacre of an army of people that had repeatedly chased, tortured, killed, threatened and attempted to massacre them repeatedly (and were once again doing that at the time of Bellamy’s actions), will be brought up again and again and again in future seasons because it makes him a Dark Character Beyond Redemption, which the audience isn't allowed to forget.
Or Pike– a refugee that witnessed countless of his own people persecuted and violently murdered by the locals from the moment he stepped foot on the ground is straight up portrayed as shady for distrusting them (never mind Sky people were once again threatened with a massacre at the time). He was literally paralleled to Trump by this hellish fandom (while mass murderer Lexa is supposed to be some Flower Power Badass Queen I guess) and shoved a shitty trope of the xenophobic entitled colonizer, straight up ignoring the show's context (how anyone could make the Skaikru/colonizers and grounders/Native Americans parallels with no shame is beyond me, but apparently some people have difficulty differentiating between colonizers and refugees, as if the two are even remotely close). I'm not excusing anything he did afterwards of course–he clearly went off the rails. My problem is the show portraying him straight up as the Bad Guy for holding actual democratic elections, while the privileged non elected elite that led them to the Mount Weather mess were supposed to be the Good ones. Much like Dany was the Tyranical Dragon Queen from the moment she set foot in Winterfell, because Sansa had prophetic abilities and could predict the clusterfuck of 8x05 I guess!
At the end of the day, I was a fool to trust any recommendations and take a cw show seriously.. if it weren't for Bellamy and Raven I'd be out of this mess loooooooong ago! I'll hardly last this season really, not when every episode is dedicated to praising Princess Clarke Griffin, Bellamy having turned into her hypnotised lapdog with no personality of his own, and her stans constantly attacking Raven for not kissing her ass and *daring* to hold her responsible for her actions.
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purest-love-deepest-pain · 5 years ago
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aight so I have a lot of (mostly non-positive) thoughts on the new episodes of Doctor Who so lemme rant for a bit because I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.
(if you enjoyed the new episodes and liked the storyline/execution/whatever or you just don’t want to get into The Discourse TM, I wouldn’t recommend reading this post, but do what you want):
This rant is mostly for myself to rant a bit, but also to see if anyone else feels the same way, which, is kind of the point of Tumblr anyway but akshjajsa 
this isn’t an attack on Jodie as the Doctor or a “Chibnall ruined Doctor Who!!!!1″ type of post, but a measured critique on the aspects of the premiere of Series 12 that I really didn’t like.
This is only discourse on Spyfall Part 1 and Part 2, as I haven’t watched Orphan 55 yet.
Here we go.
First things first, the things I actually did like:
I actually only watched a few episodes of Series 11, so I’d just like to note I love Team TARDIS with my whole ass heart ahsjahsja they are great companions and have a great dynamic
I liked the concept of the mission they had to deal with it, even if I didn’t like the execution
Sasha Dhawan was EXCELLENT in this. The way his demeanor changes completely when he stops pretending to be O, his portrayal of the Master, everything about him here was great
The plot twist scene was great. The Doctor’s reaction, the Master’s child-like attitude and excitement, Team Tardis being confused af, it was really good from start to finish and Jodie and Sasha’s acting truly made it click. 
Jodie was also really excellent here btw. The way she portrayed the Doctor’s feeling of being frozen during the reveal scene perfectly, her finally getting to show off the Doctor’s darkness, her dynamics with the Master, her seeing Gallifrey in shambles, etc. She killed it
Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan were GREAT additions and I kinda wish they were full-time companions lmao. Also I ship Thirteen and Ada a lot tbh
The whole scene with the back-and-forth between the Doctor’s message and Graham and Graham landing the plane was hilarious. Graham used to be my least favorite new companion but I think he’s one of my faves now
Part 2 was overall much more fun than Part 1, and the characters were more entertaining as well
I mentioned this before when talking about Jodie’s acting, but seeing Thirteen finally go dark is great. I’m excited to see where this is heading towards, and from what I’ve seen, it’s gonna cause Team TARDIS some conflict, which was kind of overdue. I just really hope Chibnall can lower his ego and allow other writers to execute these concepts in ways he can’t throughout the series
I was also left genuinely intrigued by the whole Timeless Child thing and am looking forward to that so. Yeah.
Now, what I didn’t like:
First of all, it’s written by Chibnall himself and he’s the only writer. ‘Nuff said
The episode seems to take a bit too long to introduce the characters once more and show their daily lives before we get to the point or even first see the Doctor. Maybe that’s just me but idk
Like I mentioned, I like the potential of this mission. A CSI-esque episode but make it sci-fi/Doctor Who. My problem lies with the execution. It wasn’t a fun storyline, and after the Master reveal, it just feels like it’s sidelined and simply there as “oh look Doctor, you looked away and the Master started using ANOTHER alien race to get your attention AGAIN”. It didn’t feel fun either, since there was just. So much info-dumping and not enough answers. The problem isn’t that it was unoriginal, it’s that it was uninspired and boring
Not to mention the Kasaavin ended up being sidelined so much that everyone was just ??? kind of confused about them. Also I’ve seen some people say they are literally just the Cybermen 2.0 and I kind of agree
I got the vibe that “O” and Yaz were flirting and just. Ew. I do not fuck with that
Part 1 in general just felt completely boring and the storyline was so generic you could replace the conflict with literally anything else and keep the twist and it wouldn’t change a thing lol
Also, as happy as I am that we have a POC incarnation of the Master, I’m...conflicted. I am going to miss Missy a whole lot, and the Master going back to being a man is...kind of boring, but that’s not my issue. I understand that, after what happened with her, Missy might’ve given up on redemption and decided to go back to her old Master-y ways, specially with the whole Timeless Child thing, that was so traumatizing the Master felt obligated to destroy Gallifrey, BUT it feels like it just inutilizes Missy’s entire character arc during Capaldi’s run and introduces a new plot element just to make the Master go back to their old villanous ways. It’s sorta cheap
Speaking of cheap plot elements just introduced to retconn things Moffat did, we’ll get back to Gallifrey later
The scene with the Master telling the Doctor to kneel made me uncomfortable. Having Thirteen be the first female Doctor (and arguably the gayest Doctor at that) and then have the Master, her antagonist, be a man...meh. But then have him tell her to kneel and to essentially humiliate her by telling her to call him “Master”, that had my stomach a bit uneasy. Like, yeah, Simm!Doctor did much worse to Tenth, but the implications are much, much, different in this context. Idk, I personally was left uncomfortable by that scene
The Doctor turning the Master over to the N*zi officers was so, so fcking shitty like. I’m not mad at the Doctor, I’m mad at Chibnall for putting that in the fcking script. WHY DID HE THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?????
The Doctor wiping Ada and Noor’s memories just felt so...unnecesary. Like, the Doctor has interacted with historical figures in the past and kept their memories intact (Agatha Christie comes to mind as an exception, though that was accidental). And besides, what for? Ada and Noor having memory of what happened interfered with nothing (I might be wrong on this as I kind of erased anything the Doctor said in that scene from my mind involuntarily lmfao but even so, I can’t come up with any good excuses that could be used there anyways, but if I am missing something notify me in the notes) and they don’t seem like the type to tattle about it or smth
Ah, and now we get to Gallifrey, or what I like to call, both the best and the worst example of what a retconn is. Listen, it doesn’t matter whether you liked Moffat and/or his decision to bring back Gallifrey, but you have to agree this is ridiculous. Chibnall didn’t want to have to deal with what Moffat left him with (a restored Gallifrey and the implications of that) so he had The Master just destroy Gallifrey by himself and discarded it like a chess piece, like. Am I the only one legit dumbfounded by this???? First of all, it took the Daleks an entire war to attempt to destroy Gallifrey, and they actually failed in the end, and yet the Master destroys it by himself, no stress. I legit don’t get it. Listen, I have mixed thoughts on Moffat’s decision to do so and I hate Hell Bent as much as the next person, but this is Chibnall discarding yet ANOTHER arc. That’s two arcs in one premiere. Wow. It legit sealed the deal for me that this premiere was a hot mess.
That’s it (that’s it, she says, after writing a whole essay). Again, this is not an attack on Chibnall’s Doctor Who, Jodie as the Doctor or me telling you how to feel about this episode. My opinion seems like an unpopular one from what I’ve seen but I stand by it lol. 
As a closing statement, fingers crossed that Chibnall lets other people write too this series lmfao.
(This is my first indepth critique of anything here so, hum, if you disagree, please be kind akhjahsjahs I doubt this will get much notes anyways but)
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evilwickedme · 6 years ago
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I have to take this western culture class in order to graduate and I hate it so much
Things that happened in the class today
The teacher took care to mention that the man we were studying wrote romantic letters to men and women
Immediately said that we can't call him bi or gay though
I raised my hand and asked why is it that historians are so enthusiastic to avoid calling historical characters with homosexual tendencies gay
He said "the label didn't exist then"
Ok but like
We called him German
And died before Germany was even called Germany
So ok
Then we moved on to another guy and his story Sandman
This is the original Sandman btw
He's talking about the birth of Horror in the context of the Romantic Period
Doesn't even mention, not once, Frankenstein or Mary Shelley
Who
May I remind you
INVENTED SCI FI/HORROR
But I'm still simmering from the queer historical figure question so I resolve to stay quiet
But then he brings up the sci fi element and I'm like????? Shaking in anger?????
This guy wants SO BADLY to be "woke" but can't even bother to mention the CREATOR of sci-fi/horror
So I raise my hand and ask him why we're not studying Frankenstein, which is both a better example for the fear of science angle and, once again, the literal creator of the entire genre
He replies with "well, I had my reasons"
?????????????
So his answer is literally just because
I wanted to fucking scream
I hate this class so much
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hazelcephalopod · 6 years ago
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Random ramble
(Go to “the point” if this is too long for you).
So more personal than I like to get but I grew up Christian, right? Conservative, evangelical, etc. My experience growing up included a lot of sheltering to, protect “my innocence”. Boiled to: “don’t put bad thoughts in your brain.” But mainly meaning that I should be taught from a Christian point of view, and protected from “sin”. This continued to well into my teens, though did change a bit over time but was always about that sheltering. I never really understood what I was being protected from, but it seemed to include, disbelief in evolution, “devoting myself to Jesus”, and tbh the one I remember the most: “purity” -one of many extensions of innocence. This would be the sexual type of purity, which I will surmise like this: “oh don’t look at the sex, or know about it, or the gay. Especially not the gay, that means happy BTW.” Additionally I was strongly encouraged to “wait until marriage”, thankfully it was never framed as I’d go to hell if I didn’t -which is something, not much, but something. Also yea the passive homophobia, because “hate the sin not the sinner” oh boy.
I understood this to mean: be ignorant and judgy. At least in practice that’s how it felt -and feels  However, only one of my parents cared, and I was a voracious reader. Which meant that I read so much that it was almost impossible to regulate the books I’d read[1]. Further, I (an autistic with ADD) would get bored when I had to sit through sermon so… I read the Bible. Whatever version. Kids illustrated, King James, others. It was right there in the pew, and how can you tell a child not to read the Bible? You want to indoctrinate[2] them proper, knowing scripture is good for that. Right?
Now here’s the thing, the Bible? The Bible has murder, incest, rape, etc. That’s just in Genesis -the first chapter. Child me decided that the Bible, like any book should be read from the beginning -after playing the drop and read method for a few weeks. So, I read the beginning, including all of the story of Lot. Lot is a guy who lived in Sodom, with his wife and two daughters. Some angels come visit and… events occur which anger God. So God decides to destroy Sodom, but let’s Lot go because, reasons. So Lot takes his family and they flee, except his wife looks back and she turns into salt. After some time living in a cave, Lot’s daughters decide they want babies. But, well, they don’t know any men. I’m going to allow you to guess what terrible decisions they make, and end the story there[3].
My point, after that long tangent, is: how strange the concept of protecting my innocence is, to me, when there are many disturbing stories in the holy book I was encouraged to read. Ones that in any other context were viewed at the very least with disdain. Horror? Sci fi? LOTR[4]? Strange, possibly corrupting, forbidden.
The point. Aka synopsis?
What was my innocence? My innocence was an idea, created so that I might be molded and shaped into a certain type of person, with a certain world view. My innocence was about control and power. My innocence less about me and more about the feeling and desires of others.
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