#i never post and will not be responding

[eyesonstars-feetonground]

Jamie didn’t forgive his dad’s abuse; he let go of the control his father has over him: Ted Lasso 3x11

Watched Ted Lasso 3.11 last night, and I really regret going on social media to see peoples’ takes before watching the actual episode. Based on some reactions, I went in scared about how bad they fucked up, and came out bewildered at a general lack of media literacy and bad faith people have in shows they profess to like?? 

Tons of people with more relevant life experience have spoken about the controversial plot line of Jamie “forgiving” his dad, but it truly did not read to me like a story of a victim forgiving an abuser and letting them get away with stuff or even inviting said abuse back in their life. His mom, who had the most significant conversation with him in the episode imo, insists that his dad won’t change and embodies the “fuck him” attitude. 

However, this episode also makes it clear that isn’t working for Jamie! He is constantly affected by the specter of his dad (looking back in the stands over and over, clearly worried about seeing him after a long gap), regardless of his dad actually being there. 

Explicitly, textually, within the show, any forgiveness would be for Jamie, not his dad. But also, nothing in the show indicates that Jamie actually forgives his dad, even after talking to Ted. 

Instead, to me, it reads far more like Jamie letting go of the control his dad has over him, despite not even being present. Before the conversation, the stands are a source of fear and anxiety for him (get Phil Dunster an emmy!!), but not only because the Man City supporters are booing him, but because he connects that to his dad (his mom literally says that his dad will be in the stands booing him, for him, all those Man City fans hating him could camouflage the larger threat of his dad).

After the talk, he taunts the crowd back, essentially letting go of that fear to better heal himself, taking control of a threat that isn’t really a threat at all. He is taking his mother’s advice to let his father out of his life, to stop proving anything to him, to stop setting himself up in opposition of his dad - hence the crucial climax of him making a “selfish”, solo goal, despite that being something his dad would want from him. 

In regards to the text to his dad at the end, it was the most bland text I’ve ever seen. There was no forgiveness or emotion to him hoping his dad would be okay, it’s like a text you sent to an acquaintance from ten years ago because you heard their dog died. Instead, this is also Jame in fact letting go of his anxiety and fear - multiple times, he is anxious *because* the last time he talked to his dad was when his dad showed up unexpectedly in Wembley, and he’s constantly paranoid it will happen again. In my mind, this is Jamie taking control of the situation while being emotionally distant in order to cut that sense of anxiety out and make the first step toward that inevitable meeting again. He is reducing his dad from a terrifying unknown to a situation he starts and can control. 

Because this time Jamie knows he will be able to handle whatever is thrown at him; not because he deserves or accepts abuse but because even if abuse is doled out to him as a result of reaching out, the rest of the episode shows how much love he is surrounded by, how much support. When the announcer says “this must be so meaningful to his family,” it is his mom + stepdad, his coaches, his fans, and his team we see first. His dad is an afterthought (though I think it is completely in character for the “forgive and humanize everyone” show to have his dad also choose to heal - completely separate from Jamie’s own journey or even his knowing.)

And that the direction he has chosen to take is in honor of that love, and for that love of his team and his real family. 

People keep saying he should have cut his dad out entirely, but he is already doing that at the start of the episode, and for this specific person and situation, it isn’t working. It isn’t contributing to his healing process, and it seems kind of one note for everyone to insist that all victims be able to or willing to cut people out of their life. Peoples’ relationships to their abusers is not black and white, which the show has already demonstrated with the fact that Rebecca and Rupert can have good times together while she still has strict boundaries and knows he was and is abusive. 

I thought Jamie’s story was a well done, nuanced take that didn’t give an inch to his father’s previous treatment of him, from Jamie or the people around him. I believe even Ted offers the path of forgiveness because he recognizes Jamie is in a place for it - an emotional place where he has moved beyond anger and spite, and a physical place where his dad doesn’t present physical danger to him. The episode was so sincere in showing how badly his dad’s abuse has hurt and damaged Jamie, and how forgiveness, for him, means choosing to let that relationship stay in the past and move on.  

Respect to everyone’s opinions though!!! I think it’s totally okay to be critical of the show, especially when some story lines are so important and sensitive. I just truly didn’t even see the biggest issue most people have with the plot line, which is a sincere forgiveness of abuse i.e. that the abuse was okay. I definitely also think him blocking his dad would be another way to get control over his anxieties, but not one I think meshes with the tone of the show.  

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I loved the episode—though I do think next week will rip my heart out. 

[isbergillustration]

Looming

[demigods-posts]

thinking of percy going to school as a small child. learning that some of his peers talk to deceased family members in their heads to cope with grief. and deciding to take the time each night to talk to his father. telling him a funny story of how mom laughed so hard, milk came out of her nose. of how he got a near perfect score on his third grade spelling test. of each time he got expelled from school and how much he knew it made mom sad. of how his stepfather is the meanest bully he's ever met. of how he wished the two of them had more time together so they could share s'mores and stories around the campfire. of how much he grieves the father he never had. and thinking of poseidon sitting in his throne atop olympus. tears threatening to fall at the sound of his son's voice. mirroring the grief of a child he never got to raise.

[s0fter-sin]

soap's whole deal being sniper and demolitions gets me going bc on the surface they sound so different but when you get into it, you realise it's bc soap's smart

sniping is all math; calculating distances and wind interference and bullet drop. something i think people overlook is he was listed as a sniper first so it can be implied that he's better at it than demolitions. he does more sniping in both campaigns than demolitions work; in capture or kill, ghost specifically calls on him to take down the aq snipers

and demolitions is math with a hit of chemistry; knowing what mixes with what, knowing how much to use, recognising environmental factors and adjusting accordingly. it's not just about the boom; so much work goes into contained/ planned explosions. especially when having enough power for a breacher charge and not bringing down the whole building is the difference between mission success and failure

the chemical bombs he makes in alone can't just be any old cleaners, they have to have the correct reaction to each other; he just knew off the top of his head what would mix with what to create what reaction. he would also potentially have to recognise them by sight/smell bc they would’ve been written in spanish

soap would also have to know architecture; recognising structural integrity and weak points so he knows exactly where to plant a charge to bring it down and how it'll come down

he has an incredible soldier's mind people just forget that bc he's sociable which itself is a skill

we know he tends to buck against orders he doesn't agree with like when he pushes back against ghost in capture or kill and shepherd when he tells them to release hassan

he gets closer to people and sees if he can trust them and that's when he follows them without question. really think about how he talks to alejandro and rudy; he asks about their home and alejandro's family and rudy's relationship with him. those aren't questions you ask a stranger after a few hours of knowing them. that's not even touching on his relationship with ghost

he also deliberately brings people of higher ranks down to his level; talking informally with ghost and giving him a shoulder punch, addressing alejandro (a colonel!!) by his first name and rudy by his nickname despite literally just meeting them. he personalises all of them and it’s in direct opposition to the reason most characters do that; it’s not due to insubordination or lack of respect, the more he respects and trusts someone, the more casual he is with them

he digs into people; he wants to know what makes them tick and that determines if he can one, trust them and two, follow their orders. once he decides that, he's the ultimate soldier; he bleeds loyalty which makes him vicious when that loyalty is taken for granted

he isn't naive or bubbly or insecure; he's an incredibly smart and aware soldier. he's aggressive and bloodthirsty and loyal and intuitive and i love him so much

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[goldkirk]

I don’t know how to explain any more clearly that it doesn’t MATTER if it seems legitimate to you. You have got to fact check every single headline and post and claim on the left just like you need to do on the right.

The left is NOT immune to misinformation and rushed reporting. And the more emotionally polarizing or shocking the talking points, sound bytes, and headlines are, the worse it is and more frequently it happens.

Learn to verify through multiple independent sources. If you can’t do that, you can’t trust it.

If you have to wait extra hours for the real information to come through vetted channels—NOT just one individual somewhere everyone links to, and not just one single media source either, EVEN if it’s a major news network—thats just how it has to be. What news outside of genuine local disasters near you TRULY needs your outrage and post-sharing in the next hour specifically?

Misinformation works best by not seeming like misinformation and by fitting in with the rest of what you already expect to see. It doesn’t help anyone to not be able to recognize and avoid the stuff.

[sergle]

Every time YouTube nonsense happens I'm always like "I can't wait to see what Sergle says about this" because you're the only person I follow that talks about YouTube nonsense.

Please take this is an invitation for you to talk about the Watcher's apology video lol

I am a filthy youtube enjoyer so you can absolutely count on me and GODDDDDDDDDDD... I mean the apology is not NEARLY as funny as the blunder, so it hasn't kept my attention as much but like the obligatory upfront thing is that, like, it is good that they posted it, they apologized for being insensitive and whatever, they're not scraping their channel clean or going forward with their old plan to only post their shows on their own platform, and these are technically good and correct things, because they could have pretended not to notice all the negative feedback. So like, responding is good. BUT LIKE I HAVE QUESTIONS NOW... Because they took SO LONG to film and upload a video that basically is just "we fucked up, we're sorry, we're not gonna do that anymore", which doesn't exactly take a writer's room several days to cook, but I DIGRESS... They were quiet for long enough for everyone to LOOK REALLY CLOSE. After the initial reaction, people had time to do some pretty comprehensive cost breakdowns for their stuff, and for what they have to be pulling in from adsense, sponsored segments, patreon, merch, and touring Like, they'd need to be really mismanaging their finances, because they're doing very well for themselves, making good, stable money, and the vids they make are super duper advertiser friendly. SO... you take long enough without putting out a holder statement or a quick heel-turn apology or anything, it gives people more time to get comfortable with not liking you, and also to dig around and google things about you, or scrape up info/trivia about you to corroborate their new opinion of you. It gets personal, is what I mean. So pulling this move has still, at BEST, caused some permanent damage to their relationships with fans, in both directions. They all got a huge flood of negative feedback, and even a perfect, emotionally mature, non-entitled person would have a negative reaction to people being upset with them at such a high volume. But now they're gonna remember the things that people have said about them, and there's no way that at the very least, Steven isn't gonna feel spiteful about this. People TOTALLY unloaded on him (funny) (valid) about his evangelical christian conservative leaning tesla privileged out of touch boy gold flaked ice cream eating ways. He definitely is going to remember that ppl said they never liked him in the first place. As for Ryan and Shane, people didn't have any dirt on them, but they definitely still received a lot of angry messages from people, most of which will have been reasonable, but they're gonna remember the really really mean and intense ones. Anyway, they made a booboo dumb enough for jack to want to make a skit about it, so for that I'm very grateful, because I thought it was really really fucking funny

[kinokoshoujoart]

oops all rock (springtime edition)

i’ll be able to draw digitally again soon! ;w; in the meantime i’ve been scribbling a lot on paper…

could not wait for Soon, so i resorted to coloring it using the markup tool in default iphone photos app (don’t do that ever again)

[suchscary]

Too many artists who do commissions, in my experience, don't take their job seriously enough.

It's a meme how some artists take months to complete a comm and "haha im so grateful for having patient commissioners" but that's just poor work ethics on the artist's part.

When you offer commissions, you don't just offer art, you also have to communicate with your client properly, give them proper updates, ask them for feedback during process, discuss things that your ToS doesn't cover if needed, and so on.

Just for example, if you're taking longer than expected, let them know why (just vague "due to personal problems" is enough) and if needed, offer a refund or another alternative instead of making your commissioner reach out to you for updates themselves and possibly stressing them out.

Otherwise, you're treating your commissioner like a nuisance that you're forced to work with, not a client who offers you money in return for proper service.

[maeneiii]

seeing your art makes me feel a lot less sad about my life

messages like these keep me going. I've been getting a bit stuck these past couple weeks with my art, struggling to come up with stuff I want to make, its been frustrating... which has been giving me some imposter syndrome feelings of not feeling like I deserve the attention I'm getting... but these messages genuinely help me feel like I'm doing good.

thank you

[thelonelyshore-if]

Croft(s) be upon ye

[parasolemn]

doodle of Authority? it is my fav skill...

ehe. whoopsies! sorry anon it's been. A Month. and no end in sight

anyways images for you

you can probably already tell some of these are. Older. but yea. there was a lot of "well it's just a doodle I don't need to go super hard on these" and then "this is awful we need to start over" so. there's. a lot of images. most I've drawn this freak ever actually

deserved though. big thanks to my New Buddy who made me see the light like two months ago. he [LONG RAMBLE I DELETED] 🤨 UUGHHH I can't go off on a ramble about authority rn I'm unnormal about him sadly but I have so many words in my brain about him and all the other skills ue ue ue

i should post images...

i did some doodles in my book too when i was working but. eeeh? wasn't really sure if this was what you were after either... also I always take an opportunity to draw encyclopedia hi ency hi. i love throwing ency at the other skills i love thinking about skill interactions

don't mind the date on the last image I accidentally dated it 1st jan instead of 1st feb and couldn't be fucked to fix it. as I said, Old (can i even say stuff is old if it's a month old. uhm. wll i changed my art style so it counts)

parcark: nobody else is autistic about DE skills like you are they won't want to see them blorbified in an ooc but funny way. also parcark:

this was not worth a month's wait. oops.

COUGHCOUGH BY THE WAY . volition design is from @tubrasko (this wasnt the image i asked you abt btw i'm doing a larger one than this RN!!!! grins) suggestion design is from @vesli1 sorry for butchering your boy a bit I only had a pen my pencil broke 💔 empathyyy i stole from @trialofasphodel waves at you Hi ! i know both of u have seen these imgs b4 btw srry for re @ ing you the auth and drama designs are froommmm spilledkaleidoscope I won't @ that's scary.cough

love him. ok bye anon !! i hope you don't mind i know these aren't the best quality o7

[s0fter-sin]

codtwt is going off on brainwashed!soap bc of his new warzone skin and it’s making me think of ghost deliberately getting himself captured by makarov bc he knows he’ll be given to his dog to try and break him; knows he won’t be able to resist the irony, the cruelty of being tortured by the teammate he lost

he doesn’t fight; welcomes the chains around his wrists and ankles, welcomes the hands stripping him of his weapons and gear until he's defenceless

he wouldn't use them anyway

when he stalks into the room, the muzzle, the scars, not even the blank hatred or lack of recognition could make him mistake his eyes

that's his johnny

he doesn't flinch as he digs knives into his skin; would never shy away from his kiss even if it's tinged with rusted steel. doesn't swallow his screams; not when he always loved hearing him, when he spent so long coaxing his voice from the grave

frustration joins the anger in johnny's eyes the longer he goes without giving up information

just jokes; dark and puns alike

just advice when he can't get the jumper cables to spark right

ghost's not trying to escape; not trying to barter his return to the 141

he's right where he wants to be

[l3irdl3rain]

people love to joke about the cat distribution system and how if you find a cat outside you have to keep it, but i actually have no problem finding a new home for cats I catch outside. However we’ve had a number of clients at the clinic who find pigeons outside and I am soooo jealous of them. When is it my turn to find a pigeon outside?

[janeya]

Can you show us some black Janes? I always love to see em 🫶

here's just a few!!!

[catwyk]

referencing one of my crab carapaces for this promised bride painting and turning into crab hamlet