#i mean take it all with a grain of salt

[isatartdump]

Would do the entire dialogue but drawing Bonnie crying is the bane of my existence! HA

Anyway my reaction to when this entire dialogue was over was just. Hihi.

[youmagnificentbeast]

apparently this happened

[cometblaster2070]

another funny thing i noticed while watching of the episode was how they have different uniform styles; specifically, how jax and ragatha have the same uniform styles while zooble, pomni and gangle have the same uniform styles.

like it's interesting to me that jax and ragatha are wearing the more modern version of Japanese school uniforms yk, the blazer style uniform, while gangle, zooble, and pomni are wearing the older, more military/sailor style uniforms.

to be honestly i mean it's probably just a reference to gangle and her love for anime and all, but I just thought it was a neat detail.

[applestorms]

on another note. it genuinely kinda surprises me how many people interpret ivan to be the type of person to Repress and Deny his feelings when, from all the evidence we actually have, he actually seems to be quite open about it?

he does do the dumb stare and watch from afar thing that till does with mizi, yeah, but even there i don’t know if i would necessarily interpret that as ivan like. pushing his feelings away. compare the difference between how till and ivan are framed in these two shots:

in till's, we are pushed way farther back, seeing his full face and a good deal of his body as he slouches back. the colors are bright, fitting in with most of the happier mizisua angst memories, and you can read till's expression pretty clearly, even with his face beaten up. it's cute and mostly innocent, the kind of thing that makes you want to gently push him out from behind the wall to watch him stutter and get all embarrassed but reach out and play with his friends.

in ivan's... jesus. i mean, he looks like a freak (affectionate). you can't read his expression, despite the fact that we are zoomed in much more closely, only really seeing his eye as the placement of his hand covers his mouth. there is very little body language to convey the same type of sweet, childhood Yearning that till has in his staring shot. instead, for ivan, it all comes down to the Eye, how intently he stares as he watches till and mizi. it almost doesn't even feel like he wants to join in at that moment, or not yet, like watching alone is enough to feed the starvation.

don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of Yearning and Angst in that boy-- round 3 alone is enough to demonstrate that. but what i think people sometimes forget to account for is the fact that ivan acts like that specifically because he has already been rejected.

up until [whenever this moment happens in the timeline] ivan seemingly has absolutely no qualms about getting all up close and personal with till. we see this in plenty of the round 6 flashbacks:

he is plenty comfortable getting all up in till's personal space, whether it be to beat him up or just exist near him.

i also like how in this shot (below) we can see him specifically stand up and move seats, just so that he can bother till during lunch and have his little vampire weirdo moment (aww).

ivan's behavior only really shifts after till has already rejected him-- which, i'd also like to note, seems to genuinely catch ivan off guard. perhaps he genuinely didn't even consider the possibility that till would ever push him away?? i guess it's hard to know the specifics of what he was feeling or thinking in that exact moment, but at the very least this speaks to the ease with which they existed around each other previously.

thus: ivan doesn't begin with the belief that till could never love him. he only starts to doubt whether or not his feelings are requited after he has already been rejected, after he pushed too hard and too quick.

after the failed meteor shower date, his affections become a lot more subtle-- sneaking around to take care of till when he needs it, but only when his eyes are closed. the love and obsession and watchfulness is all still there, but he takes more care to hide it better now. until... well, y'know.

he lets the selfishness win. :]

[faunandfloraas]

The Nobleman or 양반 (yangban): The smiling face represents the bluff and composure that an aristocrat is often known to have. The chin is a separate piece from the top of the mask, and the actors can lean forward and back to make the mask smile or frown as needed.

This monk who abandons his doctrines, or 취발이 (chwibari): Chwibari was originally a monk, but he had no intention of joining the monastic order, so he came down to the world and wanders. Represented with a forehead full of wrinkles and spots.

The widow or, 부네 (Punae/bune): represented to be a widow, or a kisaeng ( a woman who sang, danced, or played an instrument to provide entertainment for company at a drinking party), or a mistress of the Yangban. She has a very small mouth, round cheeks and forehead- giving a general look of happiness good-humor.

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[helloarchivist]

I don't have a problem persay with the portrayal of Jonah/Elias having problems with empathy or emotions or human connections (beyond my generalized issue that any time anyone behaves meanly they're immediately stamped as low/no empathy which. is annoying, but that's a conversation for another day), but I don't think I agree with it entirely, either.

He doesn't behave the way he does with the Archives crew or with Jon because he's incapable of understanding or perceiving their feelings, or of identifying with them. On the contrary, he's really very emotionally perceptive with the people around him, and engages fairly openly (for his personal given value) with them right up until like. mid-season 4? He's playing mind games left right and center, of course, but again that isn't because he doesn't understand that it might upset people to do that. I don't even really think it's because he doesn't care, at least not exactly.

We are following this unraveling existential fear nightmare with a group of people to whom it is new. And upon first listen, it was also new to us! Do you know who it 100% was not new to in any capacity? Elias. And in fact, it has not been new to Elias in like. 200 years.

The Archives crew and all of us listening in are babies in a scary new world, knocking into things and fumbling around on wobbly legs trying to identify what's safe and what isn't. It's not that Elias is incapable of understanding or identifying or even empathizing with how upset everyone is, it's that by comparison these are children who have skinned their knees at the playground, and he is an ostensibly 200+ year old adult who knows that, if they just get up and keep playing and learn more about the world, they're going to be fine (for his personal given value. 'you're going to like it here, in the world we've made' etc etc).

In fact, the few times that Jon directly goes to Elias for explanation or comfort or to confide his concerns, Elias actually does give him those things. He's literally, very VERY literally, been exactly in Jon's position, except when he was there it was totally without the benefit of guidance or context. I don't think his conversation about "even when you had the entire archive at your disposal you only made it through a couple a week, why do you think that is?" was insincere or unhelpful. Wanting all the answers and for everything to make sense immediately is understandable but not possible. Not for the version of Jon demanding those answers. Not for Jonah, when he was careening through all of this on his own.

This is a man who started off passionate and curious and brilliant, who poured himself into understanding and prevention of the damage done by the Fears, and it's also a man who watched everyone else in his little cohort die, who outlived them all, who watched the world changed and gained the understanding he sought and found that desperate death grip on fighting the good fight to be futile.

It isn't that he doesn't have emotions or feel empathy. It's that he has a completely different world view, different conclusions, different ends, and has had time enough to let go of the reflex to wring his hands about it all. Has that made him very nice, particularly? No lmfao. But I feel like it flattens some of the nuance of his character to be like "oh he just doesn't get people or feel human emotions and that's why he acts that way."

[greenfiend]

On the topic of Band-Aids…

Sure Will “ripp[ed] off [the] Band-Aid”, but where did it leave us? It left us with an enormous wound, spreading all across Hawkins.

A heart shaped lake ripped apart in the centre.

Obviously, that wound needs to heal, and somehow I doubt Mike and El’s “love” for each other will help matters. Especially since Mike’s “love” speech to El occurred right before this wound opened up.

People who simply study scripts and script writing only know a portion of what’s going on. A lot of clues come from the visuals and subtleties that are not written on a page.

[hamletkin]

just read an article stating that there was no way that hamlet could be gay because:

he loved ophelia

it's homophobic to say misogynists are gay

not all gay people are depressed

and then went on to say that the ONLY reason people think horatio is gay is because they're trying to project a personality onto someone who has none

this is my villain origin story

[thirdwheelravi]

i know people probably will doubt this but i truly believe the main goal of this press tour was to get buddie romance in the eyes of the GA and public., so that S9 can finally give us all of this. I firmly believe Buddie was going to become canon in S8 but Tim got derailed by killing off Bobby that he shoved Buddie into S9.

if im gonna be super blunt i think it was to sell ads lol. i said this on one of hima's posts but like upfronts are LITERALLY about selling ads. and you know how when we see the ratings for tv shows there's that "key demo" number? which is describing how many people ages 18 - 49 watched the show. which is an important number because that's the key demographic that (is thought to) spend the most money. ie the best demographic to advertise to. network television naturally skews older and i think a lot of this stuff--buzzfeed thirst tweets, ET, buddie as a concept--is a way to show that 911 has younger appeal.

i dont think it means anything one way or the other about what they are planning to do story-wise, but they are pretty clearly using Oliver, Ryan (the youngest of the main cast), and the ~concept~ of Buddie to show that 9-1-1 has broad appeal to young and older audiences which is what ad buyers want to hear

[oldmanfuckerbrigade]

please tell me you're going to expand on why the newsies movie is perfection and the musical is ass, I'd love to see it

(because you are right)

yknow, i was gonna save my rant for my imaginary video essay but it’s too in my head now so i might as well do the deep dive here. you asked so i shall deliver! (Be forewarned this is long as fuck i didnt know how much i needed to say until i started writing this)

Newsies is a (Gay) Love Story and That’s Why The Musical Fails™️

Ok. So. First and foremost, let’s talk about Newsies 1992. To be fair to my own biases, I have a very strong personal connection to 92sies, it was the first musical I ever saw on screen - one of the first movies I ever watched PERIOD - and some of my first memories are of listening to the soundtrack. So you could, on a certain level, chalk up my vehemence about its quality to my fondness for it, and I will gladly admit to that.

BUT. I have now been on this earth for 20 years, and in those 20 years I’ve watched a lot of movies, and a LOT of musicals (and am now studying film full time yippee for me). So I think I can say confidently, with my broadened tastes, that Newsies (1992) is a goddamn masterpiece of a movie musical.

It succeeds spectacularly in both regards, as a film and a musical. It had a stacked deck going in honestly, with directing and choreo both done by Kenny Ortega of High School Musical fame, as well as music by the inimitable Alan Menken. You know this shit was boutta pop off. From a filmmaking standpoint, it’s beautiful. Gorgeous matte paintings in the wide shots, fantastic set work and costume design, as well as the lighting and cinematography being on. fucking. point. every damn time it’s so good it makes me sick. You don’t even need me to say anything about the acting, cause we already know it’s phenomenal.

As a musical, it’s also right on the money. Every tenet of musical theater is respected, we have our intro ensemble number, introducing us to the world, the people within it, and the stakes of the story that we’ll follow. We have our absolute fucking BANGER of an “i want” song which Christian Bale puts his whole Baleussy into. And ofc we have some fantastic call-to-action, come-together, and uplifting songs and dance numbers.

But most importantly, every song does the one of two things any musical theater number should do: advance the story or give us insight into a characters thoughts and feelings. Let’s talk about them all in order (i promise this is gonna tie in to the stage show in a second just bare with me):

The Music

Carrying the Banner is ofc our opening theme, introducing us to the world and characters. Where and when are we, who are the heroes of our story? This is the “known” part of our hero’s journey, the home base and the place to which we will return. This is our Normal Time.

Santa Fe is, as we all know, Jack’s “I want” song, the song that tells the audience the hopes and dreams of our main character, so we can understand, well, what he wants. We can discover through this song what Jack’s character is all about. Through both what he has, what he lacks (or perceives he does) and what he hopes to gain. Jack has no family, he’s alone, but he has seemingly given up on ever being NOT alone, so he pins all his hopes for a better life on the mirage of Santa Fe. If he can pave his own way in the world, leave the city which has done nothing but take from him, maybe he can feel whole again. He’s a dreamer, despite his rough exterior, and he dreams of a life of freedom, beyond what he can find in New York. So there we get, all wrapped in a tidy bow, the essence of Jack Kelly’s character. a deeper look beyond what we have seen up until this point. Ok moving on.

In between Santa Fe and The World Will Know we have a small song which Medda sings. While that song in and of itself isn’t terribly important (it’s just part of her show), the scene that it’s in is VERY important. This is where we have an introduction to one of the few people we could consider part of Jack’s family, as a sort of mother/aunt figure. Overall it serves to give Jack more humanity, therefore giving our audience surrogate David (and hey i’m gonna go off about Davey just gimme a minute) more reason to trust Jack, and thereby the audience can trust him as well. We also get a little interaction between Jack and Davey that was pretty much ripped wholecloth from the movie and supplanted on Jack and Katherine in the show. It’s literally the same shit, Dave and Katherine are mistrustful of Jack and his intentions, they argue, it’s homoerotic as fuck, and it all takes place at the theater. (And also we get the one scene in the movie that does a weak ass attempt to un-gay David by having him drool over a pretty lady. It does not work lmfao).

The World Will Know is a standard call-to-action, but it by no means is mid-tier in any way. This shit slaps. HARD. We have Jack as the voice of the people convincing the gang of erstwhile children to band together with him on this, and stand up for their rights. This is also the first real time we get Jack and David teaming up to achieve a goal. Jack may be the voice of the people, but it’s David who’s the brains behind the operation, knowing what to say and do, while Jack has the respect and tenacity to put it forward. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. BECAUSE THE STAGE SHOW ALL BUT BRUSHES OFF DAVID’S INVOLVEMENT IN THIS SCENE, SO IT NO LONGER SERVES IT ENTIRE PURPOSE. A big secondary point of this scene is to illustrate that while Jack and David are strong boys independently, they work so much better together, and are able to achieve what they wouldn’t normally, alone. And the musical does not understand this. But i’ll get to that later.

Seize the Day is David’s first step towards standing in his own power. The newsies are losing steam on the strike train after Brooklyn refuses to join so David is the one to raise everyone’s morale and bring back their fighting spirit, getting all the other boys to take up the call, preaching brotherhood and community, the strength of standing together. Here is your come-together song. But this is the important thing: It’s David who does it. The song becomes an ensemble number as it goes on but HE is the one who STARTS it. David was hesitant to really rally behind the strike at first, but now he’s all in, he’s connected with the boys and he believes in the cause (thanks to the spirit that Jack brought to it, and how much Jack believe in it cough cough). He does start it in the musical as well, but the tone is very different, it’s only after Jack’s urging that he says anything. Bro didn’t even have to say shit in the movie. But whatever moving on.

King of New York is a hard song to mess up. It’s just good. and fun. and I like it. It probably has the least to do with moving the plot forward or giving us an internal look on any specific characters. It’s an ensemble and dance number. I do like it better in the movie rather than onstage, though that’s mostly personal preference. The stage show kind of beats it to death, like why is it 10 minutes long I swear to god. They know it’s a good song and they wanna capitalize on it, which makes it all seem kind of transparently cynical to me. it’s still like, good and the dancers are on top of it but….its too much y'know. The movie just has a good time with it. Because it’s a good time. Also Jack is there in the movie and he’s not in the stage show for some reason, I forget why. Probably because of some plot contrivance they got from trying to shove new elements into an already lock tight story. sorry ok back to actual critique.

Once and For All is like maybe my favorite song of the whole soundtrack. It just eats. Every time. This is the song we should play while smashing in the heads of the capitalist pigs that run our stupid fucking country. It’s a banger. AND it moves the plot forward, which is always a slay. Let’s make that underground pape and radicalize all the child workers being abused across the city!! yeah!!!

And then we got our TWWK and CtB reprises to tie up the ending in a neat little bow, bringing us back around the our beginning, a la the hero’s journey. We’ve completed our circle and are back to the beginning, changed but better for it, with our characters at transformed equilibrium, the evil vanquished, and bright days ahead. Jack realizes that he doesn’t need to chase the illusion of Santa Fe when what he really wants and needs is to be with the people who love him, the family that was right under his nose the whole time. David is a full fledged newsie, has come out of his shell, become more confident in himself, and his relationship with Jack is assured. So. Let’s talk about Jack and David.

Jack and David

Historians would call them “good friends”. This whole section is gonna be me preaching to the choir, so to speak, so I’ll try and keep this concise. We all know they’re gay, everyone and their mother knows they’re gay, so why is it important? It’s not like that shit is actually baked into the story right? WRONG. Jack and David are at the heart of the story of Newsies. Jack may be the “““main character”””, but David is the impetus for the events of the story, the driving force behind the plot. He is, in essence, the call to adventure that our hero Jack receives at the start of his arc.

He is also the audience surrogate. It’s through him that we learn the ways of the newsies, the ins and outs of the newsboy life, the trials and tribulations. It’s through him that we come to know Jack’s character on a deeper level. We only get Santa Fe after Jack has met Dave’s family (talk about U-Haul lesbians like my god he knew the guy for a DAY and he was already meeting the parents), and we get to see how seeing David’s loving family is painful for Jack, how he grieves that lack of connection but copes by pinning his hopes on Santa Fe. Most everywhere we see Jack go, we see it because David goes too. (MOST. There are exceptions, like his talk with Pulitzer. But of course, David is still RELEVANT in that scene). We see the story through David’s eyes.

Which is why the musical fails.

Because in the musical, David is so far removed from the narrative you could replace him with any guy and it would still work. He is an after thought, all but scrubbed from the script, and for why???

This I don’t have an answer for, which is really frustrating. My best guess is that it was a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to tighten up the script by placing Jack as the main character. And to make room for Katherine.

Oh Katherine….I used to really vehemently hate Katherine, and her addition to the story. I’ve obviously grown since then, I can recognize her importance as a woman within the story, and how that is important for young people to see in media. But also. She is unnecessary. TO THE PLOT. I won’t speak to her necessity from a larger, misogyny-on-the-world-stage level, but to the actual plot itself she is completely unnecessary. And you know how I know? Because they took movie David’s whole personality and just copy and pasted it onto her.

Ok now hear me out, I KNOW that it is not 1:1, but it really doesn’t have to be. If you step back and look at the bare essentials, it is the same shit. Jack and Katherine have the same enemies to lovers type dynamic that was Davey and Jack’s in the movie. There’s the initial mistrust, the dislike, she’s very professional, and kind of a know-it-all. Jack is the charming street rat, all dry wit and golden retriever energy. They tease and bicker and snap at each other. Exactly like Dave and Jack did in 92. Watching both versions back to back made this almost glaringly obvious to me. Like it was actually kind of shocking how obvious it was.

And the thing is, I understand why they did it! Sarah was such a nothingburger character in the movie (sorry Sarah, love you in fics, hate your actress with a burning passion) that they knew they had to add SOMETHING more to any potential romance subplot, and if they were conveniently sidelining David’s character anyway, why not take some cues from the most powerful relationship in the film? I understand the logic behind it, I really do.

But. That still leaves David, flopping around the script like a severed limb, with nowhere to go and nothing to do to help the plot. Cause here’s the thing, his and Jack's relationship is what makes the movie. I don’t care if I'm fandom-goggling this my tin hat is ON I have a MASTERS in FUJOSHI STUDIES. The movie is at its core, about brotherhood and community. It’s about boyhood and friendship and banding together with your peers to achieve great things. They give us this theme through Jack and Dave.

Dave is an outsider, unfamiliar to the ways of the street kids and working within a community like that. Jack is old hat to it, born and bred in it, it’s his home and his family. They come together through a twist of fate, Jack initially thinking only about what’ll earn him the most money at the end of the day, and Davey rightfully mistrustful of him. But they end up forming an organic bond through the strike, finding common ground with one another, and realizing if they team up they can accomplish great things. We see them struggle together, and break apart for a bit. We see Jack realize he’s gotten too close to this boy, brought him into something dangerous and now he genuinely cares for him which is even worse. David goes so far as to break Jack out of jail, but not before Pulitzer can get to him and threaten him with the one thing Jack will take seriously: David. Jack is forced to destroy David's and the rest of the newsies' trust just to keep them safe.

But through all this, facing incredible adversity, dangerous circumstances, gaining and losing a close friend, David is forced to come into his own, take on a role of leadership and stand up for what he believes in. In this way, his own character arc is fulfilled, by the end of the movie. And the one thing that gets Jack back to the newsies? Why David being in trouble, of course. The one thing he hoped to avoid by agreeing to Pulitzers terms. That’s all it takes for him to take it all back, the prospect of David being in danger.

BRO. WHEN I SAY. THAT THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS WHAT DRIVES THE PLOT. I FUCKING MEAN IT.

And y'know they make their own paper and radicalize all the kids in the city, they go to Pulitzer TOGETHER. BY THE WAY. TOGETHER. Which the musical cannot seem to understand. It’s only as a united front that they are able to beat Pulitzer and win fair terms for the newsies. And then jacks like ahhh yeah im goin to santa fe so long fuckers and then is like never mind actually i wanna come back and kiss Dav- I mean Sarah.

Which is also a hilarious fucking scene to me like that whole last interaction between Dave and Jack is so damn romantic in tone that the only way for the tension to break was with a kiss, so they had to have Sarah come in out of nowhere to kiss Jack 💀 like they knew that shit was leading to something but they couldn’t have the boys kiss obviously so they had to throw a woman in there real quick.

-

So. tldr. I meant this to be a lot more organized and make a lot more sense than it did but oh well. The reason the musical fails is because it fails to recognize that Dave and Jack are EQUALLY both the main characters, you can’t have one without the other, their partnership is the core force of the plot and story, without both of them you are left with something resembling the story you once knew, but with none of the heart and spirit of the original.

Other Technical Things That Are Bad

i wanted to take a second and just touch on some smaller details that also stood out to me, but are less connected to my central thesis.

//

Costumes. Oh boy did they fuck that one up on stage. Now to be fair, I’ve only seen the 2017 pro shot and one (1) local children’s production. Not any of the other runs or anything. So I'm only talking about what I’ve seen here. But what I’ve seen is Not Good. There’s already a lot of names and faces flying around in the movie which are hard to keep track of as it is, but everyone looks different enough from the person next to them that you know who your main players are. Each kid has his own way of dressing, unique color palette, accessories, and other styling choices that make them stand out. If you know who you're looking for, you can pick out any named newsie from any of the major ensemble scenes. You can't do that with the show. Everyone is wearing a variation of the same bland shirts and pants, and the color palette is dull gray-brown across the board. I'm not saying you have to go crazy with colors and shit, the costumes in the movie are believably period accurate, but I can still tell Racetrack from Mush without having to squint. (Also hey shout out to whoever decided to do that little red/blue color palette motif on movie Jack and Dave. I see you, and I appreciate you.)

//

The new songs suck but what can you do :/. Sorry to Alan Menken you ate with the movie my guy but you were just not on your A-game with this one. I didn’t even know it was still Menken doing the music in the stage show honestly, with how different and sucky the new songs were. Personal taste on this one I guess. But I don’t like them. Why does Pulitzer need a song. Literally why. If they had to give any pre-existing character their own song it should've been David! Like literally no question about it, it should have been David. Also why are we doing Santa Fe at the opening?? Did we forget how musicals work?? We never open with the "I want" song! ESPECIALLY if it's a ballad!!

//

The set. Yeah I’m really here to tear everything down ig, I didn’t know I had this many gripes until I started writing this sorry guys 😭 But yeah it’s not as gooood. And I'm like. ok. I know they were never gonna be able to do anything close to the movie. It’s onstage. They had to make sacrifices. But tell me why it all had to be cool toned?? The movie's color palette is so nice and warm, it feels antiquated but also real, it’s homey and nice. But also unforgiving and rough when it needs to be. They could’ve done that with lighting and shit onstage, changing the tone when it needs to, but instead they opted to throw out the warm tones for mostly cool gray steel backdrops. Whatever. I’m not a set tech. They know better than me.

//

THAT KID. IS SO MOTHERFUCKING ANNOYING. I AM SO SORRY. BUT IT IS HOW I FEEL. No hate at all to the kid playing Les in the 2017 pro shot, he was just a child he was doing his best not his fault at all. I’m choosing to blame the writing. But also goddamn if that kid's choices for delivery did not grate on my ears. His voice. just. did not sit right with me idk. Les in the movie is such a cute and endearing kid, I always adored him as he reminded me a lot of my own younger brothers. But this kidddd. is so unlikeable it’s like, going PAST annoying unfunny comic relief character straight into “how the fuck did anyone think this was a good idea”.

//

The ending suuuuuucks boooooo it’s bad I don’t like it I'm kinda running outta steam here but I still got shit to say so fuck it we ball. it’s so over explained that it’s just. just dumb. It just becomes dumb at a certain point. Jack going to do cartoons for Pulitzer??? What??? Don’t get me wrong I actually really love them giving him artistic talent I think that really adds some actually GOOD dimension to his character, but this????? Really????? Everything is just so like *perfectly* wrapped up that it totally destroys my suspension of disbelief. In the movie it’s definitely very wish-fulfilling and unrealistic, but it’s from the perspective of kids. It’s exactly as a kid would perceive it. And we don’t see exactly how the conceding of Pulitzer goes down and we SHOULDN’T!! Because then it gets all bogged down with the logistics of it all which is exactly what happened to the play! We don’t need all the details, we just need to know they won.

//

This one isn’t a gripe actually because I apparently DO have love in my heart: I love musical Crutchie. I love him, I love him so much my sweet boy. I love him being Jack’s little brother I love them having that deeper connection. I love Crutchie in the movie so to see him getting more screen time (so to speak) is just lovely. The one change I agree with. I love you forever Crutchie.

ok i’ve been writing for hours and my hands gonna fall off so im done now. if i think of anything else…well, you’ll just have to wait for my video essay i guess.

[cementcornfield]

Some Positivity

it's not all sunshine and rainbows, obviously, but there IS an upside. and there IS reason to believe he can achieve at least something close to his ceiling with us.

okay. here's a bunch of tweets lol. then i'm going to attempt to make sense of them.

(i'm avoiding joe g and jake's tweets right now because they are hard core stats/data guys and obviously the stats and data don't look great. but even joe admitted he doesn't think this was a 'set a pick on fire' type thing. it's just very high risk, but also high reward. but if you look at the guys who do a lot of x's and o's analysis of the game, who put the stats in context, you can see some better reasoning for everything.)

starting here with max's tweets. two years ago, not at all coincidentally to when sam started to fall off a cliff, our run defense started to decline RAPIDLY. and this past year, as many awful things as you could say about our run defense, numbers DID improve (yeah there were missed tackles in the secondary. but if you look at the stats, our tackling was actually around average?? it's just our misses happened at the WORST times lol)

but why did our run defense numbers improve when our talent certainly didn't?? because we were focusing almost entirely on stopping the run, at the expense of the pass. if you look at our numbers against derrick henry for instance, we were one of the better teams at stoping him. but in order to do things like that, we used ALL of our resources. "loading the box" etc etc, aka bring all our guys up to stop the run, and leaving pretty much no help for our secondary, which, as max says, KILLS you in the pass game. but it was our only choice, we didn't have anyone talented in our run game (sam declining, dj reader leaving) so it's what we had to do. and it's what went wrong in both of our games against the ravens. (i'm forever haunted by that play where lamar knocks sam down TWICE and then scores oh my god.)

one thing we did do in free agency was pick up a true nose tackle in TJ Slaton. losing DJ the year before was devastating and our young guys did not step up (and honestly weren't true NTs anyway). TJ is a true big guy run stuffer, and he'll take over the job of both jenkins and jackson struggling to stop the run in the center, allowing them to do other things like stop the run in other places/rush the guards/maybe even get after the passer a bit.

and we also got rid of sam (rip. i still love you. but it was for the best. enjoy your marriage to a plumbing heiress ✨). when sam was at his best, he was an edge setting contain guy. he DID get some sacks, but his production was never anywhere close to trey's. his job was to stop the QB from running out of the pocket, aka "contain" the edge. and he just couldn't do it anymore. it's clear that the coaches now see shemar as that dude (and maybe myles still. we'll see). PLUS shemar can also apparently kick inside at times, so that's where we could see some interior pressure (i also just learned ossai can also do this. so that's nice!) and if he does pan out, his traits are wayyyy better than sam, so he could honestly be Sam Hubbard+

now we get to mike sans here, who is THE trenches guy on twitter. i definitely trust his opinion in these kind of things. obviously the lack of production is concerning, but mike thinks that it can at least partly be explained by the scheme/coaching at A&M. his point that nolen (rip. i'll always love you and hate the cardinals now) himself also didn't produce as much when in the same system is something i found pretty compelling.

at A&M, shemar was lined up in such a way that he got most of the double teams (this aligns with what al golden said last night, that when he was coaching at notre dame, his offense was most scared of shemar/they were 'always bitching' about him lol).

pass rush stats are apparently complicated (as all stats are i guess when you look further into them) and according to sans, shemar wasn't given a lot of opportunity to use a lot of his talents. and apparently the coaching staff there doesn't spend much time teaching how to actually rush the passer?? 🤔

now obviously he still could have had a better run defense game, as sans also admits, but he still attributes a lot of that to the system there. obviously our coaching staff must have a plan for shemar in our system that will benefit him the most (you'd hope! at least!)

finally this quote from the post-draft interview last night (where he did come off very likable and sweet)

shemar knows that he didn't finish a lot of the time. he knows where he needs to improve. and he knows he needs to follow trey around like a baby duckling (so you know, like others have said, it's important trey is actually there for training camp!!)

by all accounts he's a high character guy (and again. let's all be grateful they didn't draft mike green. no one did, hilariously.) he's smart, always puts in the effort, and is willing to learn. and he has all the traits to get there. our coaching staff just needs to find a way to get through to him to take him all the way. obviously that's not something lou and the former d-line coach could do (see myles murphy) but! maybe this one staff is the key. obviously they were chosen for their abilities to develop. let's hope they actually can.

[meowdom]

realmers know foolish was a king before. but do you KNOW what kind of king he was. do you know that foolish worked his ass off because he was kind and compassionate but most importantly curious about another life. that he was friend first and a king second, king as a title to have authority in eyes of others, to talk on behalf of this incredible life, to make their life recognisable.

do you know that he was also forced into being a king. That the royal blood of parents he despised and awful circumstances made him into a ruler of a kingdom. And despite that he dedicated his all to that kingdom, his whole life force. That his caring nature never drifted, that he lead kingdom to thrive amongst the blood and freezing winter. Because a thriving kingdom is one where warriors can be artists, not where artists have to be warriors.

do you also know he was a foolish king. That he was empty and egotistical and cared only about upholding his ego even if he did it with kind gestures. that he just wanted to be glorified by his people and have fun without repercussions.

Do u see how all those experiences shaped Foolish into a king he is today on the realm. That he is egotistical and he's loyal and he just wanted to create a flourishing environment for those he cares about. DO U SEE IT

[callizinc]

idk if this has been discussed here before but let me say i was Taken Aback Utterly by ena’s forwardness with coral glasses. I thought maybe it was just me then I played with my partner and. yeah.

1) getting all up in that woman’s business by spinning her head around her. then 2) starting off hot with an innuendo where i’m not sure what she’s referring to exactly but sounds like it must be absolutely filthy 3) “please for the love of god touch me and let me get some of your germs on me”

like ena CALM DOWN! the fact she doesn’t act this way with anyone else in the game either

That was Something . I still can't tell what the hell the rolling the window down line is supposed to mean (or however it... went) like WITH LOTS OF ENA LINES IF YOU REALLY STRETCH YOUR IMAGINATION YOU CAN FIND SOME COHERENCY. IMO. But this one : What is she talking about 🔥🔥 She is cooking and the stove is not on🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I do feel like i have to clarify: You're correct, this has not been discussed on my blog before because i don't really. like romance and shipping stuff.. 😭 sorry... DHDFKJDFHSK I just figured i'd say that To make sure you're on the same page, because, Genuinely nothing but my respect to you: But. I just happened to be getting a vibe on where tumblr user "Yurimom"s interests may lie. in comparison to my own. if you get what i mean 😭😭😭

HONESTLY #MyTake I do think it has to do with how coral said she's "new around here" and presumably is new to this whole. ...Location? Place? Area...? Whatever the hell we'd call the Hub, In general, because unlike basically every fucking character we see in the whole game, coral both Doesn't already know who ena is AND She doesn't hate her for no identifiable reason 😭

And like For our poor queen that was probably huge. for her . 😭 ONE Person who doesn't already know of her reputation and is just like . A normal person. (As normal as you can get in ena world BUT STILL)

[origamiyoda]

Literally maybe nothing worse than realizing the dmc1 novel kind of Has to take place before dmc3, making Dante at the most like 16-17. Oh my god.

[project-sekai-facts]

so which robin would get to meet miku in the sekai

damian and jason battle it out for the title of most in need of therapy and the winner gets to meet her