#i really liked them in the narrative and joe is still a win for us citizens in yaoi nation

[please-let-this-work-oh-my-god]

Ah so Bluepoch CHOSE not to give us a playable black (?) character in 2.0...

[steveharrington]

can you elaborate more on steve being abandoned by the narrative?

yes <3 so i think there are two very unfortunate circumstances surrounding steve's character that have led to the current state of his plotline: 1. after not killing him in s1 like they originally planned, the duffers have never really had a plan for steve and 2. they are extremely influenced by audiences. when they were conceptualizing steve to fit in among the ensemble cast, the duffers were picturing him as a douchey boyfriend who unceremoniously dies. lonnie was originally going to come back to the byers house to save jonathan and nancy. there was no need to picture where he'd be 4 seasons down the road, so they just didn't account for that. then joe keery charmed them so hard that they literally couldn't bear to kill him, so steve ends season one still somehow alive.

but we've already established the nancy/jonathan plotline, because jonathan was once the duffers' self-insert who must defeat the evil jock and win over the girl. they couldn't just backpedal on that right away, so they needed to give nancy and jonathan a plotline alone, away from steve. but steve only ever functioned as an extension of nancy until this point, so what do we do with steve now? in an accidental stroke of genius that the duffers have admitted was a last second decision, they pair him with the children and make him into a babysitter. it almost instantly boosts steve into being tied with hopper and el for most popular character from the show, potentially even beats them both out. in 2017 when s2 aired, you could not escape mom steve jokes. it was everywhere, steve was everywhere, joe was everywhere, it was arguably the second coming of #justice for barb, which, in netflix business-y terms, was the exact viral meme type situation that the show wanted and needed to sell merch and remain relevant and say "see we still got it!!!"

you know who has the 2nd most lines in the entirety of season three? directly behind hopper? ahead of winona ryder? steve. think for a second about how absolutely insane that is. the character who was written specifically to die in season one. joe keery's name wasn't even in the season one credits, because he wasn't considered a series regular. and now he has the 2nd most spoken lines in the big blockbuster season because he rocketed up in popularity so intensely. season three marketing features the mall so heavily, creates a literal physical shrine to 80s nostalgia, and when the very first promo is released an entire year before the season airs, who's the star of that teaser trailer? and who, pray tell, is featured in the main brand sponsorship ad that plays in movie theaters worldwide? thats right its america's little darling steve harrington.

but here is the issue. the duffers look at what made steve popular and they see: funny exasperated babysitter, heartthrob action hero. they're like oh okay so we should keep putting him directly in the center of the action, bang him up every season to give him his classic bloodied aesthetic, but. he still needs to be funny. we can almost kill him, but we can't actually kill him because he's profitable. we can let him get horrifically injured because it's badass, but we still gotta let him crack jokes. it creates this very weird tone to steve's role in the story starting in season 3 because he's both the action hero and the comedic relief and protected by plot armor, so we get scenes where he's being literally tortured until he's begging for his life and gasping for breath but the tone is still.......fun? comedic? light and goofy? i think the duffers also forgot he's supposed to be a teenager.

now this is partially me making educated guesses but i feel pretty confident about this: once again, like gollum, joe keery uses his big shiny eyes and manages to evade death again in season four by being so likable and charming and marketable that netflix execs or shawn levy or maybe even the duffers themselves were like oh fuck we just can't do it. they were obviously tossing around the idea of taking mom steve all the way by letting him die sacrificially for dustin, so in season four they make eddie, transfer steve's relationship with dustin directly onto him, ctrl f steve's name in the death scene and just type in eddie instead, and once again steve is alive but he's directionless.

so what does he have now, in season four? i think the duffers have a whiteboard somewhere with steve's name and around it are little circles that say "funny" "cool" "DO NOT KILL" and steve is now stuck in this endless cycle of getting beaten up, popping back up somehow unharmed like a looney tune, saying something cute and oblivious, rinse and repeat. because that's what worked, that's what made him popular all the way back in season two. that's what the duffers are obviously keeping in mind when they're writing steve: popularity. not realism, not depth, not growth, just literally how to continue making him popular. meanwhile, other characters get to be part of the actual story. other characters get to serve a purpose other than selling merch. when el is bitten by a monster, she gets to actually feel pain and need help because that's realistically what any human would need. when hopper is tortured, he gets to suffer and ponder his existence and reflect on the relationships in his life. steve never gets any of that, because the writers just don't see steve as the 19 year old boy on his 4th straight year of traumatic events that he actually is.

they literally just see him as a money maker, there for cool viral moments and witty lines and maybe the occasional emotion experienced but only if it's about his romantic prospects. and the narrative that other characters get to have and be apart of just kinda runs parallel to steve. he's there, technically, but he's not really in the story. and it's like actually crazy because you'd think after all the funko pops he sold, he'd have earned an actual storyline!!!

[lorata]

I loved the new Alec fic! He’s a LOT smarter than I was at 12, that’s for sure.

It’s interesting to get the external perspective on the 67th, the alternative to “Fixed to a Star.” Plus, you can SEE how traumatized Joe is, but he doesn’t have the system set up to help with the trauma, to make it less of an issue, and it’s so clear that he’s taking that trauma out on/passing it onto Alec.

(I know that Detox is supposed to help the trainees with the transition, were they not able to help Joseph, or was it something that was so fundamental to his personality at that point that it couldn’t be unwritten?)

Also, I noticed that Alec *never* said Claudius’ name throughout the narration, not once. Is that because of the Centre training, that sense of they’re just numbers/statistics? Or because of the Games narrative-once they win, they’re a person?

I'm not sure Alec is smart so much as he is abuse-induced hypervigilant?

he's so used to watching people around him and trying to analyze everyone's emotional states to keep himself safe (or as safe as he can, anyway) that it accidentally translates into a meta commentary on the games and occasionally on society in general.

the problem of course is that he's raised by Joseph who takes out his own trauma and fear onto Alec, so if he DOES start to see the strings he reacts by recoiling and locking that down instead of following the thought to its logical / rebellious conclusion

re: Joseph, I think detox just .... wasn't set up that much yet? they'd only had Careers for about 15 years by the time he graduated, I feel like they were still really working things out. by the time we see most of the cast in the 60s and 70s it's a well-oiled machine but I feel like coming up to the 2QQ is where they really fell into the groove

also you're right! Alec never says Claudius' name in this one and I'm pleased you noticed :) in other years they do! but this year everything is so tense it just feels like a really bad idea. D2M is Bad News, Dad doesn't like him so he feels like it's a good call to keep as much distance, emotionally, between them as possible

in other years they do though. Alec was just nervy this time

[90363462]

and the winners are…

Our first award goes to Lawrence Taylor. He wins our “Trump Should Be On the Same Registry I’m On” award! Best of luck LT! Stay away from parks, schools and playgrounds tho. Because.. him accused of being a rapist

Our second award goes to professional community peen and hypocritical freak-a-leek Le’Veon Bell. He wins the “I’mma Hoe and You Know I’mma Hoe” award for tried it with him calling Kamala Harris a tramp. Meanwhile back on the ranch Bro got six kids by seven baby mamas. Shaq literally wrote a song about cats like you 30 years ago! Look it up!

Next up is Antonio Brown. He wins our “CTE Got Me Showing These Cheeks” award. His sexual assault and battery cases have been well documented but dude literally fumbled Keyshia Cole. It’s actually a blessing in disguise for the singer not to end up being with him still. Anyways None of his opinions should be taken seriously

Following up we have Waka Flocka Flame. He’s the winner of our “Bro Are You Serious?” award because he literally wiped his nasty ass with a Trump jersey in 2017. Now he’s riding so hard for Trump the skid marks have tripled up. Good luck and please wash between them cheeks.

Next up is Kodak Black. He’s the winner of our “Harriet Tubman Would’ve Doubled Back and Shot Him Twice” award. This dude rides so hard for Trump he got jewelry and t-shirts made. Same sexual predator tendencies. So I see the connection.

Now we’re headed into rare territory with Kanye. He’s the winner of our “Banana in the Tailpipe Lifetime Coon Achievement” award. Y’all tried to say he was a “freethinker” but he fumbled the Yeezy bag and now he’s making music dedicated to Norwegian death metal Nazis. Meanwhile his arch rival Taylor swift is supporting Kamala Harris, and telling her fellow Swifties to vote in this year’s presidential election. Anyways he’s Weird. You know that one person whose actions you can never forgive? He’s that guy.

We have some newcomers on the scene so we got give it up to Sexyy Red. She receives the “We Defended Your Stupid Ass Bootyhole Brown Lyrics For This Shit?” award. We even did it at the BET Awards. In front of Bobby Jones. The guy who was known for his Sunday morning gospel show that black folks watched before heading to church. Now you out here embarrassing us. Trifling. I will never forgive Drake for even collaborating with you twice. Twice.

Next is Ice Cube and we give this out with heavy hearts. He receives our “Quit Talking to Us Like We’re Day Day” award from trying to pass off that Platinum Plan like it was something revolutionary when the Biden administration was already doing or had done most of that shit.

Let’s not forget Fifty! He wins the “Culture Vulture of the Year” award for selling “Black stories” to the masses in the form of stolen narratives lived by hood legends. He wasn’t really feeling “the culture” when it comes to paying taxes on those shows he’s profiting from tho. Sure he’s going on a anti diddy campaign but this can’t be erased

Next up is Herschel Walker. As a politician, he was a helluva football player. He wins our “Y’all Just Pick Any Random Dude Off the Street Hunh” award. Dude was accused of battery and paying for multiple abortions. Ran a “pro-life” anti-choice campaign tho. Right.

Next up is the Herman Cain. He posthumously wins our “These Motherfuckas Will Kill You And Keep On Stepping” award. Bro went to a Trump rally unmasked. He was hospitalized two weeks later and eventually died. Trump’s staff even admitted their negligence “killed him.” Wild.

Next is Ben Carson. He wins our “I Know His Breath Stank From All That Ass He Kissing” award. Dude is a neurosurgeon. Trump picked him as HUD Secretary. Why? Cause when he thinks public housing he thinks “Black people.” This was after he compared him to a child molester.

Next up is Joe Brown. He wins our “Negro You Had One Job” award. As an irascible TV judge he was fine but when he tried to shame Kamala as a harlot he is and was out of pocket. Same dude who made homophobic remarks about a woman in 2014. Seems he’s got an issue with women. I know he hates his mother

[bisexual-kane]

So, I think this is a really interesting paragraph about how not only discussions around AEW are broken but how all punditry sucks now more than it ever has.

This is from Scott Keith's review of AEW Double or Nothing. He's a blogger who has been reviewing matches and giving them star ratings since the 90s, sort of like a much-less-well-known Dave Metlzer. I have been following him forever. He legitimately likes AEW, but this is his final paragraph of his recap:

It was a genuinely positive review overall. In this paragraph, it is reflected in the phrases "strong thumbs up show, "a ton of newsworthy stuff," and "a tremendously entertaining show."

However, the paragraph and the review ends with doom and gloom: "just another night . . . with forgone conclusions that we'll probably have forgotten about in a couple of weeks."

This is a wrestling blog, and I talk a lot about the weird doomposting spiral culture on the Internet about AEW. We do this every pay-per-view where AEW has a fantastic show, but a week later the narrative is that AEW isn't doing well. I think it was most absurd last year when they sold tens-of-thousands of tickets for Wembley Stadium to become one of the best selling wrestling shows ever, but a couple of weeks later the narrative was AEW is definitely going to die.

But I think there is a bigger thing going on that goes beyond the silly world of wrestling, which is all opinions, takes, and punditry have to be encased with doom and gloom.

I live in the United States. And one of the things our media infuriatingly does is judge Donald Trump and Joe Biden on completely different scales. I'm paraphrasing here, but a lot of mainstream, legit news outlets frame stories like:

"Donald Trump is on trial for crimes. But will this actually help him win the election?"

"Joe Biden does good thing (like capping insulin prices at $35 per month). However, here is why that is actually bad for his election chances."

Like, there's two obnoxious things going on here. One is that we can't say bad things are bad and good things are good. The good thing has to be cast as pointless and hopeless. But the other thing is that we are just talking about vibes and other people's vibes. They aren't really our own takes or feelings, but just our fuzzy little perceptions of what we think other people's feelings could be.

The world is pretty not great right now, but it is deeply concerning that we still have to be pessimistic about the good things that happen. We have to anticipate how they can go wrong and frame them as bad, pointless, and hopeless. And this despair, I think, permeates the culture around us, about things that matter way more than grownups in tights pretending to hit each other. We can't be hopeful about a president easing student loan debt, and we can't actually say we enjoyed a fantastic wrestling show forty-eight hours later.

[ileftherbackhome]

Cruel Summer Analysis

So, taylor using bisexual and lesbian lighting during cruel summer is so interesting because I didn't buy that this was about karlie in the way that conspiracy kaylors claim it is but I do recognize the karlie references in the song (karlie was married and had a child by this point... its not confirmation theyre still dating) but the fact that it's about Joe as well really confused the hell out of me but guys okay with folkmore and midnights, I think cruel summer is the opposite side of high infidelity (and bejeweled) and here's why

The song starts with "fever dream high in the quiet of the night, you know that I caught it" which first let's talk about lavender haze being a fever dream high !!! The next line is what immediately connects to high infidelity and bejeweled to me because it's so interesting, I love cheating taylor swift. Okay, here we get "bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price you know that I bought it" this to me immediately connects to bejeweled bridge where she is done talking about the karlie/Calvin situation and she meets Joe for the first time where she is immediately horny for him.

Like, we know when she met Joe, she was begging someone else to put her in the penthouse and not the basement of their heart (Karlie most likely was with Josh and taylor at the same time, probably after kissgate their relationship was never the same... I wanna talk about the conflicting narrative we get about kaylor sometime but not now) and here comes a bad boy who tells her that her aura is moonstone (which is a very pale blue, which we know she sees herself as midnight blue aka deep blue, also in the song she sings she's got a blue feeling) and he is a "shiny toy" which is a call back to better than revenge... very interesting...

maybe she is trying to say that she was flirting with multiple men to get back at "her" and he comes with a price, probably saying that if she chose him she'd had to end the situationship with karlie (glitch vibes) but she's okay with that because she bought the toy anyways.

And the use of the pronoun "you" in the song makes me feel like she's talking about two people and here is why because she starts off the pre-chorus with a very intriguing set of words smashed together. "Killing me slow, out the window, I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below" okay I'm getting so many vibes here from high infidelity here okay

"You know there is many different ways to kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough" is fantastic because it can really be taken to mean either party in the relationship. Either taylor or her partner wasn't fully present (most likely both) and it slowly killed her because she was always waiting out the window for them to show up below or it can even be more deep and mean that she is in a relationship with Karlie but she wants Joe to be the one showing up at her window, waiting for her below so they can run away together???

It's giving love story vibes right, like the concept of Romeo save me!! And then we get the most bisexual line in the song I think, "devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes" like this is a bait and switch!!! Because in the bridge taylor says I love you but it's not to the angel, it's to the devil omg okay I'm getting a head of myself let's go slow.

"Devils roll the dice" coming immediately after "im always waiting for you* to be waiting below" makes me think she is saying here that her heart was torn between a devil and an angel (i.e. karlie) and she was kind of waiting for you* to show up and show her the you care about her. And the fact that "angels roll their eyes" comes after the devil taking a chance and rolling the die (playing games... omg... playing games... and he rolled the die because he wanted to win but the angel it was too risky so she just rolled her eyes?!?!?!?!?!) And then we get what doesn't kill me makes me want you more, which I'm still like in the high infidelity vibes tbh.

And also "flashback when you met me, your buzzcut and my hair bleached, even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me" joe not giving a fuck about her relationship and wanting her anyways...? Like he's flirting with her but she is still with karlie but she wants him and karlie is making her feel... tolerated not celebrated.

And I think I'm right because, then the chorus is about how the shape of your body is new but the feeling she has is blue (i.e. what happened during summer of 2016 she met Joe and wanted to be with him but didn't know if she should leave karlie...? Idk I'm not 100 on this but something happened) and then we get the most telling line for me "it's cool, that's what I tell THEM, no rules in breakable heaven" this to me feels like....

She is saying her relationship with Karlie was breakable heaven and there were no rules so everything is cool. But the use of the word "THEM" I THINK she means both the devil and the angel. She tells THEM it's cool, she's fine but they're killing her slowly because she wants more. She wants to be the penthouse of someone's heart, she wants someone to roll the die and take a risk on her, not roll their eyes at her.

Then we get the second verse, "hang your head low in the glow in vending machine, I'm not dying" like she's lying here obviously, this conversation they're having is killing her on the inside. Maybe the first verse is about the devil and the second verse is about the angel, because it's such a contrast right and to me part of the confusion because it kind of feels like she's talking about two different people and I thinking she is... then we get the reason why she is dying (aka being killed slowly by not being loved enough... in the basement of your* heart) because you* say that "we'll just screw it up" in these trying times, we're not trying. Is an interesting line because it seems to me like maybe taylor is asking you* aka karlie here to try with her and karlie is hesitant because they already screwed it up once???

And she changes the pre-chorus again, says cut the headlights (style?) And summers a knife, I'm always waiting for you to cut to the bone. Like, she is waiting for karlie to say something to her that will cut to the bone so here we are getting vibes of neglect and hurt and just toxicity that are unhealthy and not rep of the kind of love that taylor wants. This is where my comprehension of the song used to fall apart but I think with high infidelity/bejeweled, you kind of immediately see what she's getting at with cruel summer tbh.

Because then she says, if I bleed you'll be the last to know but we know that this isn't who joe is (you knew the entire time vibes, grinning like a devil vibes, oh I love Joe so much) but it makes sense with tolerate it and high infidelity and bejeweled actually. Like this relationship she is currently in cuts to the bone because of the things the partner says but they'll be last one to know!!!

Then we get the bridge and this gives me hits different vibes so hard, which is very interesting because hits different is about a break-up but this bridge feels like she's talking to a casual fling almost... because okay "I'm drunk in the back of a car and I cried like a baby coming home from bar, I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you" but in hits different, we know that the relationship ended so maybe the last part is a double meaning.

I dont wanna keep secrets just to keep you being about having to hide with karlie as well as having to hide her feelings for her "friend" joe????? Maybe karlie and her were broken up that summer and she was flirting with Joe and she caught feelings and this is why the bridge is like this???? Because we get a bait and switch in the bridge when we realize she is talking to the devil, not the angel, in the song. Because like, society wants to be in love with angels right but she really wants the devil (high infidelity vibes... seal my fate... like being with Joe meant it was sealing her fate with karlie who she thought they'd be together forever?) But also because at this point, she snuck in through the garden gate every night that summer just to seal her fate...

She was already living with karlie at that point so why would she have to sneak into the garden gate... unless she was with karlie but also sleeping with joe??? Like, idk, but this to me feels like she didn't mean it in a "snuck in to see you" way but "snuck back in from seeing you" way in high infidelity/bejeweled vibes kind of way because then we get the first time that SHE speaks out loud to the "you," in the song and it's to the devil, not the angel.

Which like, she sets it up so you're kinda on the angel side until the bridge where she says "I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard" and he* looking up grinning like a devil*

Because he rolled the die, took a chance on her heart and made her fall in love with him so he can have her for himself (sealed her fate, he knew all along because he was scheming too, etc etc etc) but the angel all she did was say they'll screw it up and they shouldn't try to make it work again etc etc????

Like, to me it just screams high infidelity/bejeweled/dress bridge vibes????

Cruel summer is the bisexual girl anthem.

[therecordconnection]

You know, I used to think the Gaylor conspiracy theories were really funny and it truly was fascinating to see how far they could stretch stuff to solve "the clues" and fit whatever narrative they've conjured up. But now? It's honestly just gotten really sad and pathetic to the point where I genuinely feel really bad for them (because the evidence that Taylor is gay is largely baseless and unsubstantiated) and honestly... I kind of have sympathy for the devil (Taylor Swift herself) a little too.

I'm aware I don't have to come on here and attempt to defend a billionaire on the internet and I'm aware that there are things she's done in her career that are genuinely harmful (something something "private jet emissions" something something [insert whatever else here]) but so far this year that woman has had to endure having a nasty joke flung at her at the Golden Globes by an unfunny jackoff of a host, countless AI porn images made off her likeness being spread around like wildfire, constant scrutiny and speculation about whether her latest romantic relationship is "the real deal" or just a sham PR stunt, and now, MAGA assholes are believing she and the NFL are in cahoots with Joe Biden to endorse him and help him get re-elected and the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl (which is rigged) is all part of the master plan. Trump allies also just pledged, I shit you not, A HOLY WAR against the woman. You can't make any of this shit up if you tried!

How that woman hasn't collapsed and been driven utterly insane under the weight of all that is beyond me. I think a weaker person would crumble and maybe she has behind closed doors! But she sure hasn't shown it in public appearances and I can commend her for that.

I'm aware celebrities have it way better than I'll ever have it and I shouldn't feel bad for her at all... but there's a part of me that can't help but feel for her. Strip her of all her success and iconography and she's still an ordinary human being at the end of the day, the same as you and me. I wouldn't want to have to put up with any of that bullshit and she shouldn't have to either.

All I'll say is this... I hope her 2024 gets better for her. <3 It's been a real shitshow so far.

[cherryblossomsandhydrangeas]

Sk8 Rewatch Ep12

You know, if Adam vented by dance skating in the rain more often, we might not have the problems we have now.

God the animation of Adam’s shadow as he dances is so fucking good.

Imagine being this poor fucking tailor man. It’s early in the morning, it’s a fucking monsoon raging outside, and then a lunatic in a matador costume bursts talking about making him a suit.

Sketchy is so cute~

Langa, it is not your job to fix that grown ass man.

Kiriko’s search warrant and subsequent raid on the Shindo household was completely erased from the narrative. Like, she had the warrant and never used it?

Miya asking Shadow about his injuries when Cherry probably cracked his skull in at least two separate places, had an arm and leg in a cast, probably some- at least- cracked ribs, among other things. Listen, if the founders are actually gods you can go ahead and reveal that, but at least acknowledge that Cherry’s injuries were far worse than Shadows.

If season two never finishes up Cherry’s hangups with Adam I will riot.

Imagine going to S, seeing a whole ass tombstone at the finish line and not turning the fuck around to go home.

Honestly, I love Adam’s second costume more than his first, but actually imagine being Langa, walking all the way up there and seeing your opponent dressed like the grim reaper talking about it’s your day of departure.

Langa using Cherry’s move to dodge Adam’s Love Hug Full Swing Kiss Combo. 😍🤩😭

The Zone is just Adam’s way to not feel any pain- something he’s experienced a lot of in life- as he completes his child murder suicide.

Oliver I feel like you could have visited your son long before now.

Adam: So I never had...an Eve to begin with, did I? No, no you did not.

Adam: There’s not...anyone at my side Okay, now who’s fault is that?

While I agree that adults can learn something from children. This 100% should not have been on Langa’s shoulder (thought narratively I understand why it was).

Adam says friends will ultimately betray you, flashing back to the “I have no opinions” scene (which lol ok), but we never get a scene from where Cherry and Joe supposedly betrayed him, showing that that they never did and that Adam left them first.

Adam: Nobody understands me! They never could! No one in this world can read minds. You actually have to tell your loved ones what’s going on with you. And also, Cherry’s repeated asked you what was wrong and you tried to kill him.

You know, in previous episodes, when someone got knocked down, it was an immediate win for their opponent. But when Langa gets up from him and Adam knocking each other down, and Adam was still struggling on the ground, the match is still on. Bullshit.

This show is trying to make me feel for this man, but it’s just not possible. Like, yay, you remembered the fun you used to have with the guy you treat like shit. Good for you.

Adam almost killed Kaoru, Hiromi, Miya, Carla, and Sketchy with that parachute.

Tadashi as his boss goes to sexually harass a minor again: UWU

I want Koyomi to attend S in season 2.

Don’t worry shadow, they weren’t shown kissing, that could just be her brother or cousin for all you know!

The end scene tries to play Adam letting Tadashi believe he was going to go to jail for weeks as a positive “aw, he cares” scene, but Tadashi really believed that his life was over and Ainosuke is just like “Yeah, no, you’re stuck with me, dog.” Like, that’s a fucking threat coming from this man.

“You’ll be my dog for the rest of our lives.” Listen, have a pet kink if you want fandom. This is still an abusive relationship between a boss and his subordinate. Adam signs his paycheck, owns the house he lives, and could literally do anything he wanted to him. This is not sexy.

Knowing Reki’s and Langa’s luck, they tied.

[pint4punt]

And the Lombardi goes to:

What NFL Fanbases’ Bullshit Sob Story Deserves it All

Championship Sunday is finally upon us and boy have the scriptwriters got compelling stories this go round! With the playoffs narrowed down to the final four, we’ve got unforgettable narratives for…….almost all of the QBs still in this! Statistics, scheme, and matchups be damned (let’s be honest you’ve heard every prediction imaginable since these matchups were set).

Today we’ll be focusing on what really matters. Who has the most compelling sob story for quality Super Bowl ratings! Who could forget classics such as ‘Tom Brady Builds a Super Team to Prove it was Him All Along’ or the all star cast of Matthew Stafford, Odell Beckham Jr., and Von Miller in ‘The NFL Really Wants the Robust LA Market!’ featuring Snoop Dogg on the original motion picture soundtrack! You see a ‘may the best team win approach’ is fine for a place setter, but storylines put asses in the seats! And don’t worry, as bad as our jokes are, Jo Koy had little to no involvement in this article! So which Lombardi win makes the best headline? Here are the nominees:

Lamar Jackson

Since he declared for the draft Lamar Jackson has had to overcome widespread perception that he was closer to a skill position player than a signal caller. Many scouts questioned his ability to cut it in the pros at the Quarterback position. This stigma was so strong that Lamar fell all the way to the last pick of the First Round.

John Harbaugh believed in Lamar so strongly, that he reinvented himself and rebuilt his entire Offense around Jackson’s skill set. Shit, I would roll the dice too if my job was on the line after several middling seasons with an aging Joe Flacco! Either it works and you look like a genius or it fails catastrophically and you go out with a bang. Luckily for Harbaugh and Lamar, it was the latter with the now presumably 2x MVP set to play in his first AFC Championship game. Lamar has already shaken off the narrative of him not showing up in the playoffs just by making this game. But knocking off the QB who owns a 3-1 record over him for a trip to Sin City would be Oscar gold! Not bad for a running back.

Jared Goff

Everyone loves a comeback story. An underdog achieving in the face of adversity. A character finding a new lease on life and showing all the doubters they were wrong about him. There may not be a better archetype of that narrative than former 1st overall pick Jared Goff and the historically downtrodden Detroit Lions.

After being sent to die in Detroit, a franchise that has seemingly been in a perpetual state of rebuild for damn near the entirety of its existence, Goff watched from afar as Sean McVay gushed over his new QB Matthew Stafford and his old team held up the trophy he could never give them. Following two seasons with no playoff appearances, Goff seized the opportunity to prove to McVay that he’s not a virgin anymore by out-dueling his replacement to give Detroit their first playoff win in 30 years and keep Stafford winless in Ford Field in the post season.

Now he has the Lions on the precipice of a Super Bowl appearance with a chance to give Detroit its first ever Lombardi. Apparently the grass isn’t always greener on the other side……except in this case where it totally is seeing as how the Rams already won their second Super Bowl like two seasons ago thanks specifically to the Stafford trade, while the Lions are still fighting the good fight for Lombardi number one. But hey, everyone’s happy now right?

Brock Purdy

Is there a more inspiring yet polarizing figure in the NFL than Brock Purdy? He’s like a ‘Make a Wish’ kid that the media wants to beat the living shit out of on sight. In fact, we’re fairly certain Ryan Clark has his picture on a punching bag in his home and regularly unleashes a fury of blows onto an 8.5 x 11 cut out of Mr. Irrelevant. But why? Why does the NFL version of Michael Cera incite as much vitriol as….well Michael Cera?

As the last pick of the draft, Purdy was lucky to even make the final roster of a team that was coming off its 2nd conference championship appearance in 3 years. The depth chart in front of him featured a veteran who had taken the Niners to a Super Bowl and a guy Shanahan gave up his left nut for the year before. But Purdy was like that one sperm that ultimately reached conception, despite overwhelming odds, he just wouldn’t be denied!

Following season ending injuries to both Trey Lance and Jimmy G, Purdy took over a Super Bowl contender mid season…..and might have led them to a Super Bowl were it not for a devastating elbow injury in the NFC Championship that ended San Francisco’s dream run. One year and one UCL repair later, Purdy and the Niners picked right up where they left off and now find themselves back in the Conference Title game as if nothing happened. That’s like Greta Thunberg single-handedly fighting off an army of Exxon Oil’s greatest assassins or Joe Biden finishing a Dr. Seuss book with no assistance. We don’t know what’s up the media’s ass, but that seems pretty impressive for a game manager!

Patrick Mahomes

And then there’s Mahomes. The Meryl Streep in all of this. The one who had the least impressive performance with the least impressive story who you just know is going to spoil all the fun of the more deserving nominees. On paper, this fucker shouldn’t even be here let alone have a puncher’s chance with the way their regular season looked. But that’s what makes Patrick Mahomes, well Patrick Mahomes.

He’s like the Lebron James of football. Or better yet, the Tom Brady….of football…. Poor analogies aside, Mahomes defies all logic and drags inferior teams to the promise land. Sure the script doesn’t favor him this year, but guess what? It didn’t favor him last week against the Buffalo team that finally had him their house this postseason! Or in the Super Bowl last year against Jalen Hurts who mostly outplayed him before…..whatever this season was!

The simple fact of the matter is anyone who pays attention already knows how this ends. Mahomes is going to win the god damn Super Bowl….again. Why?!!! Because the academy, the scriptwriters, and the NFL writ large are lazy as all hell! And dynasties keep the fans coming back, just on the off chance that their pessimistic hopes of a downfall might finally come to fruition….even though they probably won’t until the NFL’s new golden boy is well past his prime. And the Lombardi goes to…….the same son of a bitch it always goes to!!!!! Hopefully we’re wrong and we get a fresh story this time around. Otherwise tune in next year for another crappy sequel with a few minor tweaks. Happy Championship Sunday!

[sparxwrites]

Joe Hills, Godmaker

“You realise you've made him a god, right?” says Scar to Joe, quietly, as they both watch Bdubs – him, and Ren, and Cleo before the pair of them looking increasingly exasperated.

“Who?” Joe's chewing on a hangnail, hardly paying attention.

It's suddenly occurred to him that he's never asked Cleo if her hair gets hungry. Working through the possible outcomes of dangling a small prey animal near her head – physical, biological, ethical, moral, interpersonal – is taking an entire hemisphere up, currently. And it's pretty hard to do anything with half a brain, let alone something as hard as paying attention.

“Bdubs.” Scar's voice goes soft when he says the name, like homemade fudge left too long on a sunny windowsill. “You know. With your whole, oh, usually kings get their power from gods, but you got yours from Bdubs. That makes him, by rights, a god.”

They both pause to watch Bdubs bow and grovel to Ren, only to round on Cleo with all the enthusiasm of a Disney villain's sidekick. He doesn't look like a god. But then, they both know that looks can be deceiving.

“A real god, or a narrative one?”asks Joe, with the air of someone who's had this sort of conversation before.

Scar hums, thoughtfully. He's not looking at Joe. He's got eyes only for Bdubs. “Is there a difference?”

Joe gives him a look. “Scar,” he admonishes. “We don't all worship stories, y'know.”

“I do not worship–” Scar sighs, and relents, possibly sensing an argument he can't win without lying. Or with lying, even. “Okay, fine. Narrative god. Mythic figure. Whatever. It's the same thing, really! Mostly. You know. Kingmaker the god, Kingmaker the myth… it's all the same…” He makes a gesture with his hands that might, in Joe's interpretation, indicate cosmic soup.

Or it might just indicate regular soup. It's pretty close to lunch time, after all. Soup sounds pretty good right about now.

Joe says none of that. What he does say is, “Oh! Like King Arthur.” He waves a vague hand at Scar's frown, in a gesture that doesn't look like soup. “Doesn't matter. Guy with a sword. He was king once, too."

“Right! Sure. Just like King Arnold. Except he's not a king, he's a god."

“Right,” says Joe, and then, “Wait. If Bdubs made Ren a king, and he's a kingmaker, then does that mean if I made Bdubs a god, I'm a godmaker?”

Scar shrugs. “Sure!” he says. “Call yourself whatever you want. Just know that if you do, though, you're probably gonna end up making more gods. All sorts of ones! Big ones, itty bitty little ones, really weird ones…”

For a moment, Joe loses himself in the blissful imagining of an axolotl god, made by his own hand – tiny, pinkish, wet and wriggling, held in his palm. He'd name it Godsalotl. No, wait. Axogodtl. Godsagodtl? No, that's ridiculous. Axo–

Then a horrible, terrible thought occurs to him.

“Wait,” he says, slowly.

In front of them, Cleo is very obviously dismissed, and Scar starts getting ready to take his turn approaching the royal throne.

Bdubs – Godubs? – is bellowing something about squabs. Joe's still not sure what that is. Squids, maybe, but wider. If he's a god, Joe supposes they can be whatever Bdubs wants them to be.

Scar looks up from unsubtly shrugging his shirt a little off his shoulders, so the front's held further open. His abs are glistening with what, on anyone else, would probably be baby oil. It's Scar, though, so Joe has to assume it's something more random – cooking oil, maybe, though he's vaguely aware that licking it to check would constitute what Cleo calls a socially unacceptable action.

“What?” Scar says, peering at Joe over his sunglasses.

“If Bdubs is a god, and he's a kingmaker, then that means Rendog's still claiming divine right of kings.” Joe sighs, heavily. “Which means I gotta dethrone him. Aw, shoot.”

“Okay, well, good luck with that!” says Scar, in the brightly cheerful voice he only uses when he's not paying any attention. “Anyway, I gotta go speak to a king and his pet god now, so, talk to you later, good byeeeee.”

And then he's gone, down the hallway and into the throne room without a backwards glance.

Joe sighs again, and squares his shoulders. “There goes work on the pinball machine for the next week,”he says, more to himself than anything. “Ah well. I can probably catch up after, with a bit of overtime. Might even be able to get Bdubs to help. …Hey, Iskall. How much faster do you reckon a god can place blocks then us regular folks?”

Iskall looks at him funny, which Joe always thinks is a little rich coming from a guy who built his own eyeball. Which he respects, entirely, but judgement seems slightly hypocritical when the man dispensing it did his own experimental doit-yourself eye surgery.

“Uhm? I don't know?” he says, voice lilting up in confused concern. “I'd have to assume a lot, though. Yes! Uhm. A lot.”

"Yeah,” says Joe, eyes slowly lighting up with possibility. His pinball machine has a bright future ahead of it, with a little touch from a god. “A lotl…”

[scorpionyx9621]

Do you think Jason Todd fandom is kinda toxic? Because it seems like NO MATTER what DC do, there'll always be complains. Forget the bad adaptation like Titans. Even Judd Winick cannot escape the criticism with how he potrayed Robin!Jason. They just never satisfied.

SORRY, IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS. I just moved from Washington D.C. to Seattle, which, for my non-American friends, that's 4442km away. And I DROVE THERE ALL BY MYSELF. And now I'm trying to find new work in a new city and trying to stay mentally healthy and positive. Life is exciting but hard and scary.

*sighs*

As someone who was a fandom elder with V*ltr*n. I've seen some of the worst when it comes to fandom behavior. I'm talking people baking food with shaving razors and trying to give them to the showrunners. I'm talking leaking major plot details and refusing to take it down unless they make their ship canon (I am looking at you, Kl*nce stans) For the most part, DC Comics has had a decades-long reputation of treating their fans like trash and not caring what they think so from what I've seen, we all just grumble and complain in our corners of the internet about how we don't like how X comic portrays Jason Todd.

The challenge with Jason Todd is that he's your clinical anti-hero, the batfamily's Draco in Leather Pants, he's a jerkass woobie, and on top of all of that, he's a Tumblr sexyman. It's a perfect storm for a very fun but frustrating character to be a fan of. It doesn't help that every writer decides to re-invent the wheel every time Jason comes up so his canon lore is confusing at best and inconsistent as a standard.

I guess starting with a general brief on who Jason is and what is uniform about him with every instance he's appeared in comics/media.

Grew up in a poor family in Gotham with a dad who was a petty-mid-level criminal, and a mother who dies of a drug overdose.

Survives on the street on his own by committing petty crimes and potentially even engaging in sexual acts to keep himself alive.

Is cornered by Batman and taken in after Dick Grayson quits/is fired

Becomes the second Robin, but is known for being the harsher, more brutal Robin.

Is killed by Joker after being tortured, but somehow comes back to life and regains senses through the Lazarus Pit

Resolves himself to be better than Batman by basically being Batman but kills people.

Where there has been a lot of conflict in the fandom is the fact that Jason Todd is not a character that is written consistently. DC Comics loves to go with the narrative that Jason was "bad from the start" and was the "bad robin" when, yes, he has trouble controlling his anger, but he also still is just as invested in seeing the best of Gotham City and trying to be a positive change for the world as any other DC Comics hero.

Where I get frustrated with the fandom is its ability to knit-pick every detail of a comic they don't like while completely disregarding everything that makes the comics great and worth it to read. My example being Urban Legends. To which most people had pretty mixed reactions to. I was critical of the comic at first but as it went along I ended up really liking it. I have a feeling DC Comics went to Chip Zdarsky and told him he had 6 issues to bring Jason back into the Bat Family, and honestly he didn't do a bad job. Did it feel rushed? Absolutely. I wish there was more development of Jason and Bruce's characters and their dynamic as a whole. However, where I see a lot of people being angry and upset with Urban Legends is that they feel Zdarsky needlessly wrote Jason as an incompetent fool who needs Bruce to save him.

Whether or not that was the intention of Zdarsky is up to debate. However, and this may be controversial, but I don't think he wrote Jason Todd out of character at all. For as fearsome, intimidating, and awesome as Red Hood is. Jason is a character who is absolutely driven by his emotions. Why do you think he donned the role of Red Hood? As a response to his anger towards The Joker for killing him, and towards Bruce for not taking action against The Joker and for seemingly replacing him so quickly after he died. Jason didn't care about being the murderous Robin Hood or for being the bloody hammer of justice against N*zi's and P*d*ph*les. He only cared originally about making The Joker and Bruce pay. It wasn't until he trained under the best assassins in the world and realized most of them were horrific criminals who trafficked children and were p*dos that Talia began to realize that the teachers that she sent Jason to train under started dying horrific and painful deaths.

The entire story of the Cheer story in Batman Urban Legends was started because it finally forced some consequences upon Jason. Tyler, aka Blue Hood's father was a drug dealer who gave his supply to his wife and kids. And when Tyler's father admitted he gave the drugs to Tyler, it immediately made him fall within the self-imposed philosophical kill-list of Jason Todd. And Jason, well, he proceeds to kill Tyler's father. When this happens, Jason is in shock. Tyler's dad fit the bill to easily and justifiably be killed by Jason. We've never seen Jason having to deal with the consequences of being a murderous vigilante on a micro-level. When Jason realizes what he's done in that he's murdered Tyler's dad, he's shocked. He tells Babs the truth. He does a rational thing because he's in shock. He doesn't know what to do, he never has had to face the consequences of his actions as Red Hood and now the gravity of befriending a child as a vigilante hero who kills people just set in when he killed the father of the same child he was just introduced to.

(Oh here's a little aside because it had to be said, Jason would not have been a good father or a good mentor to Tyler and absolutely should not have been his new Robin. Jason is a man who is in his early 20's (not saying men in their early 20's can't be good fathers at all) who is a brutal serial killer using the guise of a vigilante anti-hero to let him escape most of the law. the complications of having the man who murdered your father adopt you and make you his sidekick are way too numerous for me to explain in a long-winded already heavy Tumblr essay post. There's a reason why we don't advocate for a story where Joe Chill adopted Bruce Wayne or one where Tony Zucco took in Dick Grayson.)

The next biggest argument is that they feel that Jason is giving up his guns as a means to just be invited back into the Bat-Family. To which I will tell anyone who has that argument to go actually read Urban Legends. Already have and still have that argument? Please re-read it. Don't want to? That's okay, I will paste the images from the comic where Jason specifically says that he doesn't want to give up his weapons for Bruce and his real reasoning down below since the comic isn't exactly readily accessible.

Jason gave up the guns because he felt the gravity of what he had done and knows how it'll effect Tyler. Thankfully his mom is alive and in recovery. But Tyler doesn't have a father anymore. And Jason killed Tyler's father. It may have been in accordance to Jason's philosophy, but it was a case where it blurred the lines. Jason Todd isn't a black and white character, just very dark gray. He doesn't kill aimlessly like the Joker. If you are on Jason's list you probably have done something pretty horrific, and also just in general, being in his way or being a threat to him. Mind you, in early days of Red Hood and the Outlaws (Image below) Jason almost killed 10 innocent civilians in a town in Colorado all because they saw him kill a monster. That being said, Jason isn't aimless in his kills.

(Also can we just take a moment to appreciate Kenneth Rocafort's art? DC Comics said we need to rehabilitate Jason Todd's image and Kenneth Rocafort said hold my beer: It's so SO GOOD)

That being said, the key emphasis in the story of Cheer asides from trying to introduce Jason Todd back into the Bat Family and give an actual purpose for him being there, other than him just kind of being there ala Bowser every time he shows up for Go Kart racing, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, and the Olympic games when Mario invites him, is that Jason and Bruce ultimately both want the same thing. Jason wants to be welcomed back into the family and to be loved and appreciated. Bruce want's Jason back as his son and wants to love and protect Jason. Both of these visions are shown in the last chapter of Cheer while under the effect of the Cheer Gas. It's ultimately this love and appreciation they both have for each other that helps them overcome their challenge and win.

Jason Todd is a character who, just like Bruce, has been through so much pain and so much hate in his life. The two are meant to parallel each other. While Bruce chose to see the best in everyone, giving every rogue in his gallery the option to be helped and give them a second chance, hence why he never kills, Jason has a similar view on wanting to protect the public, but he understands that some crimes are so heinous they cannot be forgiven, or that some habitual criminals are due to stay habitual criminals, and need to be put down. But at the end of the day, the two of them both try to protect people in their own ways.

I am aware that through the writings of various DC Comics authors such as Scott Lobdell and Judd Winick, the two have had a very tumultuous relationship. And rightfully so, I am by no means saying that Scott Lobdell writing an arc where Bruce literally beats Jason to within an inch of his life in Red Hood and the Outlaws, nor Judd Winick's interpretation of Under the Red Hood where Bruce throws the Batarang at Jason's neck, slicing his throat and leaving him ambiguously for dead at the end of the comic is appropriate considering DC Comics seems to be trying everything they can to integrate Jason back into the family. That being said, a lot of these writings have shaped the narrative of Jason and Bruce's relationship and have an integral effect on the way the fandom views the two. It doesn't help that Zdarsky acknowledged Lobdell's life-beating of Jason by Bruce at the very end of Cheer by having Bruce give Jason his old outfit back as a means of mending the fence between the two of them. That does complicate a lot of things in terms of how they are viewed by the fandom and helps to cause an even greater divide between the two.

Regardless, I want to emphasize the fact that Jason Todd is a part of the family of his own accord. Yes, he's quite snarky and deadpan in almost every encounter. However, Jason is absolutely a part of the family and has been for a while of his own will. There's a great moment in Detective Comics that emphasizes this. Jason cares about his family because it is his found family. Yes, they may be warry about him and use him as a punching back and/or heckle him. At the end of the day, we're debating the family dynamics of a fictional playboy billionaire vigilante whose kleptomania took the form of adopting troubled children and turning them into vigilante heroes. Jason Todd wants a family that will love and support him. This is a key definition of his character at its most basic. This was proven during the events of Cheer and is being reenforced by DC Comics every time they get the opportunity to do so.

Now, none of this is to say that I hate Judd Winick. I do not, I don't like the fact that in all of his writings of Jason, he just writes him as a dangerous psychopath, and Winick himself admits to seeing Jason as nothing much more than a psychopath. Yet Winick is the one who the majority of the fandom clings to as the one true good writer of Jason Todd because 'Jason was competent, dangerous, smart' Listen, friends, Jason is all of that and I will never deny it. However, what I love about Jason isn't that he's dangerously smart of that writers either write him as angsty angry Tumblr sexyman bait or that they write him as an infantile man child with a gun. There's a large contention of this fandom that has an obsession with Jason Todd being this vigilante gunman who is hot and sexy and while I definitely get the appeal. It is very creepy and downright disturbing that all of you hyperfixate on his use of guns and ability to be a murderer. It is creepy and I'm not necessarily here for it.

What I love about Jason Todd is that despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayal, and bullying, and death, and anguish. Jason Todd is one of the most loving and supportive characters in all of DC Comics. Jason has been through so much in his life, but he still chooses to love. He still chooses to see the bright side in people. Yes, he takes a utilitarian approach and chooses to kill certain villains, but at the end of the day he wants to see a better world, and he wants to be loved. It takes so much courage and so much heart to learn to love again after one has been abused or traumatized. I would not blame Jason at all if he said fuck it and just went full solo and vigilante evil. He has every right to, but he still chooses to be with the Bat Family of his own accord. That's something that I see a lot of in myself. I have been through a lot of trauma and yet I try to be a better person myself in any way that I can. It is extremely admirable of Jason to allow love back into his heart when he really doesn't need to. He kills and he protects because he has this love of society. It may have been shaped by anger and hatred, but Jason has found his place amongst people who love him and value him. I think Ducra, from Red Hood and the Outlaws put it best in the image given below.

To end this tangent, I love Jason Todd and all of his sexy dangerousness, but it's far more than that. As much as Jason may be dangerous and snarky, he loves his family without a shadow of a doubt. I look up to Jason Todd because despite all of his pain and all of his trauma, he still choses to love. Jason Todd is a character who is someone I love because despite all of his flaws and having a very toxic fandom, he still serves as a character filled with so much heart and so much passion. I wish more writers would understand that. But for now I will live with what I have. Even though the fandom may be vocal about it's hatred for his characterization, I choose to love Jason regardless because he is a character who chooses love and acceptance regardless of his pain. Jason Todd is by no means a good person in any sense of the word. He has easily killed upwards of 100 people by now. He is a character who is flawed and complex but ultimately is one who powers forwards and finds love and heart in a place from so much pain and anguish. That is what I love about Jason Todd. After all, to quote a famous undead robot superhero, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Jason Todd chooses to love despite all of the trauma and pain and grief. Yes, he is hardened in his exterior, but inside there is a man with a lot of love to give and someone who deserves the world in my eyes.

[mach-speed-spin]

I was thinking about how later Burst seasons being shorter really hurt them until I realized Beywarriors Cyborg is also 26 episodes long (technically 28 with 2 of them being prequel episodes)

Metal Fury being shorter hurt it because it came out of nowhere. The anime staff couldn't plan for it. Sure, the final stretch of Fury may be one of my favorite arcs, but so many characters who felt like they would get more focus towards the end didn't (Tithi, Chris, Bao, the other Nemesis bladers)

Beywheelz and Shogun Steel are both very similar in how they handled being shorter. Beywheelz had a smaller cast (15 named characters only), while Shogun Steel made sure every character was tied to the main plot (unlike previous mfb seasons, where Teru, Sora, Lovushka, and Jigsaw weren't involved with it). I'd say it worked better for Beywheelz, but both still tried to cram too much content in too little runtime

After Beywheelz tried lightning-fast pacing, Beyraiderz decided to make the main cast even smaller: 7 bladers and 3 non-bladers (only 2 of which are important). The problem? It dragged on for longer than it should. Beywheelz wasn't fast because of the number of characters, but because of the number of plot points it has (face Dominators in 2v2, get more members before Judgement Bey, fight at Judgement Bey, stop the portal). Beyraiderz only has 2 of these (revive sacred beasts, defeat Kaiser Grey)

GT's first half presents a unique way of handling the shorter runtime by doing something only longer seasons dared to do: introducing characters and dropping them soon after. Is it a good solution? Not in the slightest. Joe and Lodin should've showed up at Battle Island. Fumiya, Pheng, and Lodin should've been more important after Arthur shows up. The second half is better about this, hyper-focusing on 4 characters (Dante, Arman, Delta, and Gwyn), with a handful of supporting characters who don't get much focus (Blindt, Aiger, and Arthur)

Sparking did the Beyraiderz thing with a larger cast. There are 10 main bladers (Ultimate Tag Series competitors), 4 non-main bladers (Wakiya and the rest of the Comets) and 3 non-bladers (Hanami and the MCs' parents). There are 2 tournaments, the Legend Festival and the Ultimate Tag Series. From the beginning of the season, we know where we're headed (Legend Festival). After that, we have a short time where beys are upgraded and they show off their new abilities before introducing the Ultimate Tag Series, that goes on for the rest of the season. Did this work? Kinda. It prevents the plot from feeling overstuffed and no characters are suddenly dropped, but the plot also has very little depth because of it

DB does something. It presents several barely-connected arcs and we go straight from one to the other. We go from challenging Bell at his house, to Bell meeting BC Sol, to the Great Aerial Tour, to the 3v3 match, to Ultimate Valkyrie, to Phenomeno Payne, to the finale and the transitions are all very jarring. When Cho-Z did this (Luinor Cup to Battleship Cruise to title matches to the Dread Tower), it gave us a narrative throughline for us to follow (corrupted resonance). Despite the transitions being jarring, we still have something showing us the plot progression, while in DB I couldn't tell you what the plot is about if I tried

So that brings me to Beywarrios Cyborg. What did that do? Well, the cast consists of 11 bladers, and 9 non-bladers (not counting the prequels). There are only 2 main plot points on a large scale (get tokens, stop Bran), but on a smaller scale, there is much more going on. Getting tokens is as simple as winning a few battles, but each character has a different reason for doing so, and these conflicting reasons also change character dynamics. Stopping Bran requires getting Gai and August to turn on him, adding 2 smaller steps before reaching the main goal

[ausetkmt]

Oct. 5, 2022

Suzan-Lori Parks is drawn to archways. Early on in her New York life, long before she became one of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights, she lived above a McDonald’s on Sixth Avenue — the Golden Arches. Then she moved out by Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, with its triumphal Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch. Now she lives in an apartment overlooking the marble monument honoring the nation’s first president at the entrance to Washington Square Park.

“It’s very symbolic,” Parks told me. “I’m always orienting myself to arches.”

Arches, of course, are gateways, portals between one world and another, and Parks is endlessly thinking about other worlds.

This season, audiences will have ample opportunity to join her.

A starry 20th-anniversary revival of “Topdog/Underdog,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning fable about two brothers, three-card monte and one troubling inheritance, is in previews on Broadway. “Sally & Tom,” a new play about Parks’s two favorite subjects, history and theater, but also about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, has just begun performances at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. “Plays for the Plague Year,” Parks’s diaristic musings on the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and a coincident string of deaths, including those of Black Americans killed by police officers, is to be presented next month at Joe’s Pub, with Parks onstage singing and starring. And “The Harder They Come,” her musical adaptation of the 1972 outlaw film with a reggae score, will be staged at the Public Theater early next year.

“I’m like a bard,” she said. “I want to sing the songs for the people, and have them remember who they are.”

At this point in her career, Parks, who in 2002 became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in drama, is a revered figure, regularly described as one of the greatest contemporary playwrights.

“She occupies pretty hallowed air: She’s the one who walks among us,” said the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who teaches playwriting and performance studies at Yale.

“She’s the reigning empress of the Black and weird in theater,” he said. “And she really is the most successful dramatist of the avant-garde working today.”

PARKS HAS BEEN TELLING STORIES since she was a child. She wrote songs. She tried writing a novel. There was a period when she made her own newspaper, called The Daily Daily, reporting on what she saw through a Vermont attic window. (She was born in Kentucky, and moved frequently because her father was in the military.)

While an undergraduate at Mount Holyoke, she had the good fortune to take a creative-writing class at nearby Hampshire College with James Baldwin, who suggested she try playwriting, and, even though she feared he was just trying to politely steer her away from prose, she did. “That’s what I’m doing still,” she said. “Trying theater.”

Her apartment is filled with evidence of a furiously busy creative life: shelves heaving with plastic crates containing thoughts on pending and possible projects; elements of a second novel marinating on a wallboard cloaked by a blanket; index cards in Ziploc bags; a laptop perched on a crate atop the dining table; lyric revisions in notebooks on a music stand by an ever-at-the-ready guitar. (She is a songwriter who occasionally performs with a band; this season’s four productions all feature music she wrote.)

“Writing, I think, is related to being kind of like a witch,” she said as she showed me around. “Writing is magical. I loved mythology, and folk tales, and I could hear them — old stories — not in a recording of something that somebody living in my presence had told me, but if you listen, you can hear organizational principles of nature, which includes the history of people, which is narrative.”

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So writing is listening? “Not in a passive way,” she said. “I’m on the hunt.” By this point, she was on her feet, pantomiming the stalking stance of a wild cat, preparing to pounce. “You’re being drawn toward it, and you’re reeling it in at the same time, like a fisher.”

As she talked, she kept cutting herself off, reaching for ways to differentiate her craft. “There’s a lot of writers who have ideas, and they have an agenda, and that’s cool,” she said. “I think I’m something else.”

Digging in to the question of why she writes, she became more and more expansive, reflecting on the songlines of Indigenous Australians, which connect geography and mythology.

“We have our songlines too — we just forgot them a long time ago,” she said. “They’re encoded in all the religious texts. They’re in African folk tales. They’re in the stories that your mom or your grandmother taught you. They’re there, and I can’t get them out of my head.”

“If you can hear the world singing,” she added, “it’s your job to write it down, because that’s the calling.”

PARKS IS NOW 59, and her work has been in production for 35 years. In 1989, the first time The New York Times reviewed her work, the critic Mel Gussow declared her “the year’s most promising new playwright.” In 2018, my critic colleagues at The Times declared “Topdog/Underdog” the best American play of the previous quarter century; explaining the choice, Ben Brantley, who was then the paper’s co-chief theater critic, described Parks as “a specialist in the warping weight of American history,” and declared, “Suzan-Lori Parks has emerged as the most consistently inventive, and venturesome, American dramatist working today.”

“She is a genre in and of herself,” said the playwright James Ijames, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in drama for “Fat Ham.” And what is that genre? “It is formally really dazzling, in terms of how she structures the play; there is humor underpinned with horror and political satire; there’s this real thread of the blues and folkways and things that are just root Black American signifiers; it’s musical, it’s whimsical, it’s playful, and it’s dangerous — all of the stuff that’s so exciting to see onstage.”

Her early plays were experimental (“opaque,” Brantley once wrote). The recent plays have been more accessible, for which Parks makes no apologies.

“People — not you, but people — when they ask that question, they’re like, ‘Oh, so now you’re selling out! You’re getting more mainstream and you’re not being true to your roots!’” she said. “Oh, no. I’m becoming more and more and more true. Trust me on this one: I’m following the spirit, no doubt. So, yeah, ‘Plays for the Plague Year’ looks like real life, cause it is. So maybe we ought to think about what am I writing about, and if I’m true to what I’m writing about.”

Reflecting her singular stature, Parks has an unusual perch from which to work: She is a writer in residence at the Public Theater, where she receives a full-time salary and benefits. At the Public, she also conducts one of her great ongoing experiments, “Watch Me Work,” a series of events, in-person before the pandemic and online now, at which anyone can work on their own writing while she works on hers, and then they talk about creativity. Early in the pandemic, Parks held such sessions online every day.

“Her great subject,” said the Public’s artistic director, Oskar Eustis, “is freedom. It’s both what she writes about, and how she writes.”

As part of her arrangement with the Public, Parks is also an arts professor at N.Y.U., which is how she wound up across from Washington Square Park, where she lives in faculty housing with her husband, Christian Konopka, and their 11-year-old son. For years, they shared one bedroom; this summer, they finally scored an upgrade, just 70 steps down the hall (their son counted), but now with a bit more space and that archward view.

She has surrounded herself with a striking number of good-luck charms: not only the pink unicorn balance board on which she stands while typing, but also a tray of unicorn plushies; James Baldwin and Frida Kahlo votive candles; a hamsa wall hanging she picked up at a flea market; milagro hearts from Mexico; Buddha, Ganesh, rabbit and turtle figurines; and a deck of tarot cards (yes, she did a basic reading for me; I drew the high priestess card). Also: she has tattooed into one arm, three times, a yoga sutra in Sanskrit that she translated as “submit your will to the will of God.” (She calls herself a “faith-based, spiritual-based person,” and is also a longtime practitioner of Ashtanga yoga, which she does every morning, after meditation and before writing.)

“All the help I can get, baby,” she said.

THE MANY ARTIFACTS on display in her apartment include a shelf set up as a shrine to Baldwin, a dollar bill Parks collected when, feeling the need to perform, she tried busking in a subway station, and a “Black Lives Matter” placard she held at protests during the summer of 2020, when she also signed the “We See You White American Theater” petition, written by an anonymous collective, calling for changes in the industry.

“Hey, I’m angry as the next Black woman,” she said. “And yet, to get through this, we need to also listen — listen to the voice of anger, listen to the voice of love, listen to the voice of wisdom, listen to the voice of history.”

She added, “Let’s not just stand around telling people that they suck. At least where I come from, that’s not a conversation, and, at least where I come from, that’s not good dialogue.”

The tone of some of the conversation around diversity in theater is clearly a concern of hers — that’s obvious in “Plays for the Plague Year,” which, in the most recent draft, contains a playlet called “The Black Police,” in which three “Black Cops” approach a “writer,” played by Parks, and say, “We’re here to talk with you about your blackness/Why you work with who you work with.”

In our interview, Parks said she was troubled by “the policing of Black people by Black people, and not just in the arts,” adding, “we have to wake up to the ways we are policing each other to our detriment.”

“No more trauma-based writing!” she said. “These are rules. And Suzan-Lori Parks does not like to be policed. Any policing cuts me off from hearing the spirit. Sometimes the spirit sings a song of trauma. I’m not supposed to extend my hand to that spirit that is hurting because it’s no longer marketable, or because I should be only extending my hand to the spirits who are singing a song of joy? That’s not how I want to conduct my artistic life.”

She also said she is troubled by how much anger, at the Public Theater and elsewhere, has been directed at white women. “Not to say that Karen doesn’t exist. Yes, yes, yes. But it’s interesting that on our mission to dismantle the patriarchy, we sure did go after a lot of white women. If you talk about it, it’s ‘You’re supporting white supremacy.’ No, I’m not. I’m supporting nuanced conversation. And I think a lot of that got lost, and lot of times we just stayed silent when the loudest voice in the room was talking, and the loudest voice in the room is not always the voice of wisdom.”

THIS SEASON, SHE’S PIVOTING back toward the stage after a stretch of film work in which she wrote the screenplay for “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” and was a writer, showrunner and executive producer of “Genius: Aretha,” both of which were released last year.

At the start of the pandemic, she assigned herself the project that became “Plays for the Plague Year,” writing one short play each day for 13 months. The discipline was a familiar one: In 2002, after winning the Pulitzer, she began “365 Days/365 Plays,” then she did another daily playwriting exercise during the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. The pandemic play is part personal history — how the coronavirus affected Parks and her family — and part requiem for those who died during that period, from George Floyd to Parks’s first husband. The play, like much of Parks’s work, features songs she wrote. “I was moved into other states, where I wasn’t just documenting what happened that day, but I wanted to sing,” she said.

She’s got plenty still to come — she’s still polishing “The Harder They Come,” which will feature songs by Jimmy Cliff and others, including Parks, who said the story, set in Jamaica, “really captures a beautiful people in their struggle.” She’s then hoping to turn to that second novel (a first, “Getting Mother’s Body,” was published in 2003).

She is planning a screen adaptation of “Topdog,” as well as a new segment of her Civil War drama “Father Comes Home From the Wars” (so far, three parts have been staged; she said she expects to write nine or 12). Also: she’s writing the book, music and lyrics for an Afrofuturist musical, “Jubilee,” that she’s developing with Bard College; “Jubilee,” inspired by “Treemonisha,” a Scott Joplin opera that was staged on Broadway in 1975, is about a woman who establishes a new society on the site of a former plantation.

On a recent afternoon in Minneapolis, Parks settled in behind a folding table to watch a stumble-through of “Sally & Tom,” which is being developed in association with the Public, where it is expected to be staged next fall. The work, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, is structured as a play-within-a-play — it depicts a contemporary New York theater company in the final days of rehearsing a new play about Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings, an enslaved woman. Parks has had a longtime interest in Jefferson and Hemings, and at one point had worked on a television project about the relationship that never got made; the play, she said, is not a straight historical drama, but “about how the world is made, and how we live in this country.”

The protagonist is a playwright who, like Parks, is warm but exacting, and is rewriting and restructuring the show as opening night nears. When I asked Joseph Haj, the Guthrie’s artistic director, how much he thought the play was about Parks, he at first shrugged it off, saying artists are always present in their work. After the run-through, he grabbed me to amend his remarks. “I take back everything I said,” he said. “I see her all over this.”

Kristen Ariza, who is playing the playwright as well as Hemings (the fictional playwright stars in her own play) said “the play is full of humor, until it’s not.”

“It feels so meta, because we’re doing the play, within the play, and we’re doing all these things like within the play,” she said. “She’s constantly questioning, ‘Does this fit? Is it working? Is it flowing correctly? She’s hearing our voices and adding things and making things work better as we go.”

A few days later, Parks was in Times Square, watching an invited dress rehearsal for “Topdog/Underdog.” The set is draped in a floor-to-ceiling gold-dipped American flag, meant, the director, Kenny Leon, told me, to reflect the way commerce infuses the culture.

Two actors who have enjoyed success onscreen, Corey Hawkins (“In the Heights”) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Watchmen,” “Aquaman”), play the story’s brothers, mischievously named Lincoln and Booth. They share a shabby apartment; Lincoln, fatefully, works as a Lincoln impersonator at an amusement park where patrons pretend to assassinate him, while Booth makes ends meet by shoplifting. Their relationship to each other, to truth-telling, and to their shared history is at the heart of the story.

Both actors encountered the play as undergraduates; Hawkins was a stagehand on a production at Juilliard, and Abdul-Mateen read a few scenes as Booth while at Berkeley. “It’s the first piece of material that I ever performed on a stage that I felt like was written for someone like me,” Abdul-Mateen said.

Like many people I spoke with, Abdul-Mateen was particularly struck by Parks’s ear for dialogue. “It’s as if she eavesdropped on these two characters,” he said, “and just wrote everything down as she heard it.”

Hawkins called the play “an ode to young Black men who don’t always get to live out loud.” And he is embracing that opportunity — one night, he called Parks at 2 a.m. to discuss a section of the play; she has also helped him learn the guitar, which he had not played before getting this role. “There’s something very grounding about that peace that she carries,” he said. “When she walks in the room, she carries the ancestors, the people we’re trying to honor, with her.”

Shortly after we hung up, my phone rang: Hawkins again, this time with a reverential plea. “Make us proud, man,” he said. “She’s a national treasure for us.”

[chosetherose]

Submission:

Mr Perfectly Fine

So I've seen a lot of theories about Mr Perfectly Fine. I think we all have. The official narrative is that it's another song "about" Joe J*nas. Gaylors think it's about Taymily. I've even seen the argument that "Mr Always Wins" is Taylor throwing shade at current beard Joe Aly*n. (Which I can definitely see, tbh. This is Miss "and you poke that bear, Taylor Kloss come out" TS we're talking about. She's no stranger to sneaky wordplay.) 

But I was listening today and another idea hit me, which I haven't seen anyone talk about so far. 

I wonder if Mr Perfectly Fine is a song about Scott B*rchetta? Specifically, about the Fearless era, when Taylor was "encouraged" to let Emily go for the sake of her career. We can all guess who would have been behind the encouraging. 

Obviously MPF is like most of the vault tracks on Fearless TV. It's been reworked from Taylor's current point of view, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's angry about more than just the Taymily situation when she sings it now. But it does really fit for that. All you really have to do is change the lyric "I've been Miss Misery since your goodbye" to "I've been Miss Misery since HER goodbye" and boom, you have a song in which "he" isn't the lover but the outside influence who was instrumental  in breaking Taylor's heart. If you've ever read Jane Austen's Persuasion, just imagine Taylor as Anne, Emily (and her other girlfriends) as Captain Wentworth, and Scott as Lady Russell, who talked Taylor out of the match for the sake of her future. 

Verse 1:

Mr. "Perfect face" Mr. "Here to stay"

Mr. "Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away"

Everything was right Mr. "I've been waitin' for you all my life" Mr. "Every single day until the end, I will be by your side"

This all seems like romantic imagery, but it could also be metaphorical. We all know that Scott and Taylor seemed like a match made in (business) heaven at first. Taylor has talked about how Scott took a chance on her. Scott talked about seeing something unique and special in Taylor, and throwing everything behind her. We all know Taylor basically made Big Machine. It's easy to imagine Scott telling a young Taylor she had the perfect face for country. It's easy to imagine him telling her he was in it for the long haul, willing to promote and develop her as an artist even if it took a while for her to break through. It's easy to imagine both of them thinking their meeting was fate - a perfect partnership that would last her entire career. 

Then comes the pre-chorus and the chorus. 

But that was when I got to know Mr. "Change of heart" Mr. "Leaves me all alone," I fall apart It takes everything in me just to get up each day But it's wonderful to see that you're okay [Chorus] Hello, Mr. "Perfectly fine" How's your heart after breakin' mine? Mr. "Always at the right place at the right time," baby Hello, Mr. "Casually cruel" Mr. "Everything revolves around you" I've been Miss Misery since your goodbye And you're Mr. "Perfectly fine"

We know that Taylor and Emily were together for nearly two years before the break up, and it seems like the break up was directly related to Taylor's increasing success. In this situation, it's not hard to imagine Scott as "Mr Change of Heart" - someone who initially encouraged a private (closeted) relationship, but then changed his mind and decided even that was too dangerous. Taylor was better off alone. She was only a teenager, after all. She had years ahead of her to fall in love again. Maybe this girl thing was just a phase anyway. She was too young to throw away the opportunity of a lifetime. "Mr Casually Cruel" is, of course, a reference to All Too Well's "so casually cruel in the name of being honest". It evokes the same feelings here. It's belittling, from someone who thinks they're older and wiser. It's easy to imagine Emily repeating some of these statements back to Taylor later, claiming they come from the same place of greater maturity. You can see how Taylor came to feel no-one was on her side, when she sings about the Taymily break up in Bye Bye Baby. 

And Scott would be "perfectly fine" after breaking Taylor's heart. Because he's not hurting. He's not part of the loss. I've always thought some of the descriptions Taylor uses for "Emily" in MPF seem overly harsh, and don't tally with her attitude in other songs. But they absolutely fit for 31 year old Taylor looking back at Scott's actions through an adult lens. Angry that he had such influence over her. Angry that he was so dismissive of her feelings, but mined them for a profit. Now she sees it all differently. She feels it was all about him, all about the impact her stardom would have on his label, and he didn't really care about her feelings at all. 

[Verse 2] Mr. "Never told me why" Mr. "Never had to see me cry" Mr. "Insincere apology so he doesn't look like the bad guy" He goes about his day Forgets he ever even heard my name Well, I thought you might be different than the rest, I guess you're all the same

Pre-Chorus] 'Cause I hear he's got his arm 'round a brand-new girl I've been pickin' up my heart, he's been pickin' up her And I never got past what you put me through But it's wonderful to see that it never fazed you

Here is where I think Taylor starts to conflate the past and present. She goes from talking about Scott's first betrayal to his last and worst one. Selling her masters to Sc**ter Braun. Never had to see her cry? No explanation for the betrayal? Insincere apology? Attempts to sign new artists to replace Taylor at Big Machine? Apparent indifference to something Taylor still hasn't got over? All of this checks out for Scott and the masters situation. Especially the line about thinking he was "different than the rest" only to find out "you're all the same". She thought Scott was like a father to her, but when it came down to it he was as greedy and self-serving as Sc**ter. 

She doubles down on this in Verse 3 and the bridge. 

[Verse 3] So dignified in your well-pressed suit So strategized, all the eyes on you Sashay your way to your seat It's the best seat, in the best room Oh, he's so smug, Mr. "Always wins" So far above me in every sense So far above feeling anything [Bridge] And it's really such a shame It's such a shame 'Cause I was Miss "Here to stay" Now I'm Miss "Gonna be alright someday" And someday maybe you'll miss me But by then, you'll be Mr. "Too late"

This is absolutely about a business man. It never fit for Taymily or Joe J*nas. It doesn't fit JA either. ("All eyes on you"? "The best seat in the best room"? "Always wins"? In his dreams!) JA wishes he'd made as much out of Taylor as Scott did. It's like the Mean Girls quote "I like, invented her!" That's what Taylor did for Scott. She put him on the map.

(Just like she's doing right now for JA. Bearding like Scott taught her all those years ago. I think the "always wins" / "alwyn" soundbite is another way of saying they're all the same to her, these men using her for their careers. She doesn't trust JA any more than she trusts Scott. The comparison is pretty revealing about her real feelings regarding JA. Pretty damning.) 

The final lines say it all. Taylor would have stayed with Big Machine if they'd been more supportive of her as a person and as an artist. They could have had it all. All the success she's experiencing now, Scott could have been a part of. But he chose another road, and Taylor was left trying to process it in her songs. Trying to claw back the rights to her work by rerecording her albums. And now all that's left is for Scott to miss what he lost - far, far too late to ever get it back. 

- ❄️🥀

(P.S: You're welcome, Lucky One!) 

[strawberrielarrie]

Music Industry Stunts and why they happen

Stunts are a big part of the music industry, you may not know it, but they are.  The purpose of stunts is to push a certain narrative to the general public. Now this could mean many different things, PR relationship; coverups; or to peak the publics interest. Why? You may ask, why would the artist do this, why wouldn’t they just be truthful? Well, many don’t have a choice, the music industry is a place that I wish no one would have to be in, it is a cruel and awful place to be if you don’t know how to get around it, or if you don’t have the correct connections. In the past (and still now), many big brand music industries, such as Sony Music and Warner Music have controlled artists immensely.

George Michael

As a legend in the music industry, George Michael is a well-known name in the average household. From his time in the hit duo “Wham!”, Michael’s music was distributed through CBS, but in 1987 Sony took over and that’s when things went downhill. Michael reveled in the popularity of his hit album “Faith” in 1987, and so did Sony, because he was earning them money.

But that ended quickly with the news of his next album “Listen Without Prejudice” in 1990, Sony refused to promote the album and appear in the music videos for it. Michael in turn, disputed his contract with Sony, but he could not do close to anything, because Sony possessed the power of approval over everything that he put out. Meaning, George Michael could not release music without it going through the board of Sony, and if he did, he could get sued and fired.

(Sony is a whole other world of fucked up, they fucked MJ up so badly, Sony Kills)

During this whole time, George came clean, saying that the board of Sony, used many different homophobic slurs against him, and wouldn’t let him release any music that seemed to allude to the fact that he was gay.

George Michael brought Sony to court in 1993, claiming that between 1987-1992, he had made worldwide profits of £7.35 million ($9.8 million) compared to Sony making £52.45 million ($70 million). Ultimately, the case lasted till June 1994, and Michael had lost, the judge claiming that it was fair. Michael retaliated saying how Sony is “Professional Slavery”.

Suzanne Kessler, Entertainment attorney at Bone McAllester Norton and former in-house attorney at A&M Records and Universal Music Group stated, “There are two sides to this tale,” she said. “The music business is a relationship business, and he was uneasy with what was happening. A label often wants an artist to continue to trade on their established brand with the public. But after “Faith” Michael was trying for a new direction, to be taken more seriously as an artist instead of just as a pop star sex symbol.”

This brings me to my next point,

 Closeting in the Industry

(Now I could go on for day about closeting in the music industry, but I will only give you the basis and then I will link another post that goes further in depth.)

Closeting is not a rare thing in the music industry, it in fact happens more than you might think. Many different artists have come forward, saying how their management said they should remain closeted to the general public, in order to maintain the brand that has been established. A popular example of this would be Sam Smith, they were offered multiple times by their management to have a beard. More closeting in the industry comes from Colton Haynes, who has been open about how his management closeted him because he “could not be gay and work in the industry”.

Colton link

Beard: A woman or man who fake dates a person of the LQBTQ+ Community, to hide their real sexual orientation or identity

 The Types of Stunts and Stunt Songs

“Pap Pics”

Stunts are common, we all should know that. From the amount of staged paparazzi pictures and videos that get posted to twitter on the daily it is not surprising that stunts happen. One of the main reasons stunts happen is for publicity, I can tell you now, living in LA for as long as I did, the paparazzi aren’t at every corner just waiting for a celebrity to walk past. They are called to meet at a place where the celebrity is going to be, in order to get pictures. This call is made by the artists management normally, and many times it is done against the artists will.

“Relation-shit”

These types of stunts are the relationship stunts, normally it is two popular celebrities dating to gain publicity for a movie or song that they are doing. A popular reference to this would be Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato, Joe was approached by a head of Disney, who asked him to date, at the time, co-star Demi Lovato. This stunt was to push the new Disney movie that both were starring in, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. Now at the time Demi was unaware that Joe was approached to do this, so when Joe and hid dad approached her about it… wow that must have hurt.

Another example of a relation-shit would be Shawmilla. Now before you attack me for this, let’s look at all the facts. Everything that relationship has done has been staged, let’s look at the timeline.

 August 2015

-       the first time they publicly hung out (at the 2015 VMA’s), sparking rumors of them dating

September 2015

-       pictured together at the iHeart Radio Festival, sparking rumors of Camila branching off of Fifth Harmony

November 2015

-       “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was released and performed many different times, Camila was still in Fifth Harmony at the time

June 2016

-       Shawn and Camila win an award for IKWYDLS and accepted together

-       Camilla ultimately starts her solo career

December 2017

-       Shawn is pictured with Hailey Baldwin (Bieber)

February 2018

-       Camila is in a serious relationship with Matthew Hussey, confirmed by a trip to Mexico together

April 2018

-       Shawn and Hailey go to the Met Gala together (Iconic)

December 2018

-       Camila hints at music between her and Shawn on twitter (6 months before Senorita)

https://twitter.com/Camila_Cabello/status/1070381510740598785?s=20

May 2019

-       Matthew and Camila last spotted together, returning from a vacation in Italy

-       Met her family on May 14th

June 20th, 2019

-       Senorita is released, now this had been in the works for over 6 MONTHS, so this was all very planned out

-       On release day, the Senorita music video was also released, which is literally soft porn, I do not know how it is still on the internet, gross

-       But, Camila? Aren’t you still dating Matthew? Why would you release this very VERY touchy music video with Shawn, if you are still dating Matthew?

June 21st, 2019

-       Shawn and Camila in V Magazine, still very touchy

June 26th, 2019

-       Breakup articles about Matthew and Camilla, Weird since he met her family only a month before.

July 3rd, 2019

-       Staged photos of Shawn and Camila out and about

4th  

-       more staged pics

5th

-       Camila at Shawn’s Concert

6th

-       Shawn denies that him and Camila are dating

 https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1147700409919778816?s=20

7th  

-       Shawmila in San Francisco all day

12th

-       That god awful making out pics that shook the entire internet

-       More pics in SF

 Ok you get the point, they are pictured together only when one of them has music to promote, In this case its Senorita. Now for more recent proofs of this entire relationship being a sham. Shawn just released an album called “Wonder” and guess what we wonder Shawn? Why do you not post any pictures of Camila until you have an album to promote? And now you have a puppy? Pulling an Elounor are we?

Senorita is a total stunt song to “prove” to the public that they are together.

“Style”

Now this type of stunt gets its name from the queen of stunt songs herself, Ms. Taylor Swift. The notorious song Style, supposedly about “Ex” Harry Styles, is probably one of the most stunty stunt songs I have ever heard. Like come on! “James Dean Daydream look in your eyes” if you didn’t know, here is a short recap on the icon himself James Dean.

Taylor has time and time again written amazing songs, I would be lying if I did not call her one of the greatest lyricists on the 21st century, the woman can write extremely well. So why would she put a nod to James Dean, a famous actor, who was a closeted, RAGING bisexual in a song so clearly about Harry Styles? She knows what she is doing.

Talking more about the “Haylor” stunt, can we please end that? It was a 3-month PR stunt that happened 5 years ago, please just get over it, they never really dated. And to the hardcore Haylor fans, there is no chemistry between them.

Haylor; The Stunt

“I hate you because I’m getting paid to!”

Now I do not go into this one much, but basically it is when you see two artists publicly fighting and releasing diss tracks. A popular example of this would be, Machine Gun Kelley and Eminem, with their songs called “Rap Devil” and “Killshot”. Their “beef” was totally staged to boost views on both sides, its even more prominent because they have the same record label, INTERSCOPE.

Eminem v. MGK

 I will be adding to this the more things happens, but it you have and questions feel free to ask them!

[butwhatifidothis]

So @nilsh13​ decided that I was in need of torture today and sent me a take about Claude that quite frankly blew my ass out with how absolutely wack it is.

The take in full (two comments, under the cut):

“From what I've gathered of Claude's motivation, it's to prove himself to his Almyran family by entering Fodlan and destabilizing it from the inside. That's why he was trying to look into the Church's secrets and why he talked about possibly learning to harness the power of the sword of the creator for himself. I also think that's why he tries to stay "neutral" in routes not his own. I think he's just trying to hold out until he feels like he can make his move and overwhelm who's left. In VW with Byleth he feels like he can take initiative, and so hijacks the work of Edelgard's Revolution right from under her by killing her in Enbarr. This led to some of the fandom claiming that Claude took Fodlan bloodlessly, when really he just let others do the hard work then swooped in. I also think the reason he doesn't want to work with anyone is that he wants to claim that taking Fodlan was completely on him, no allies. That's why he lets Byleth become the new Archbishop, they're an ambitionless puppet that can be easily be manipulated by him, unlike Edelgard, or even Dimitri.

I don't think Claude really cares about Fodlan or it's well-being, he's there for himself. He just comes off as a completely disingenuous ass, yet because eof Joe Zieja and poor narrative focus, he's tricked the fandom into thinking he's actually a decent person.

(for context) A reply says:  Although I don't really agree, you see in both AM and CF that he trusts Dimitri and Edelgard respectively to achieve some of his dreams. I never felt that he was in it for himself; just like Edelgard, he's motivated by a better future for Fodlan, it's just that he uses more sneaky methods rather than Edelgard's more direct approach.

“Nah, I don't buy it. One of the flaws of the writing I think is that we never never see Claude pushed to the absolute edge like the other characters. It's almost like he doesn't care about his goals. But then you find out that's just an Almyran thing. They're warmongerers, but they value their lives more than winning in the end.

So yeah, for Claude, this doesn't mean as much to him as it does to Edelgard, who lives in Fodlan and wants to see it bettered for it's people. If Claude genuinely wanted that, I think he would've allied with Edelgard, since her overthrowing the Church would lead to the kinds of societal changes he claims to want. But he doesn't, because he's selfish and wants the win for himself if he can take it. He doesn't understand that war is people fighting for their home, which is why he's so shocked Hilda was willing to die for his bs claims. I sincerely don't believe Claude cares about Fodlan. He might care about a handful of folks he met, but they're mostly just a means to an end.

Claude is in Fodlan for his own gain in Almyra. Not for Fodlan's sake. He's just fortunate Edelgard started and became the face of war so he didn't have to do it himself.

Very frankly, fuck Claude. I agree with Edelgard. I understand Seiros. I pity Dimitri. No nuance with Claude, fuck him with a rusty lance.

Sooooo there’s a whole lot to unpack here.

“ From what I've gathered of Claude's motivation, it's to prove himself to his Almyran family by entering Fodlan and destabilizing it from the inside. That's why he was trying to look into the Church's secrets and why he talked about possibly learning to harness the power of the sword of the creator for himself. “

And he does this by... stabilizing the Alliance, that was going to fall apart with its head Major House falling to ruin without a proper heir. By being the literal, as-stated-by-Edelgard-herself reason that the Alliance is still stable. Right, okay, makes perfect sense actually. And like..... how do you get something so backwards? Claude isn’t looking into the Church’s secrets because he wants to destabilize Fodlan, it’s because he thinks the Church is the reason for Fodlan’s reluctance to have deep interactions with foreigners/outsiders. He thinks the Church is hiding involvement in big events like the Lance of Ruin and wants to “expose” them for their wrong-doings. And him wanting the SotC is because he thinks it would give him clout, like him wanting to wield Failnaught. Him being able to wield the literal most famous, renown relic in Fodlan’s history would give him so much sway in way more than just oonga boonga physical strength - Byleth being able to is the entire reason people look to them as a religious savior, since it’s physical proof that they have connections to one of the greatest “Heroes” of Fodlan’s history.

“ I also think that's why he tries to stay "neutral" in routes not his own. I think he's just trying to hold out until he feels like he can make his move and overwhelm who's left. In VW with Byleth he feels like he can take initiative, and so hijacks the work of Edelgard's Revolution right from under her by killing her in Enbarr. This led to some of the fandom claiming that Claude took Fodlan bloodlessly, when really he just let others do the hard work then swooped in. “

Or maybe he tries to stay neutral in the war because he doesn’t want his people embroiled in it?? Which fits with how he orders his men to fall back whenever it looks like it’s getting too dangerous?? Like, you do realize that it’s entirely possible to realize you don’t have the power to fight back and also want to keep your men safe because you care about them, right? That those aren’t inherently contradictory statements?

And what are you actually talking about “he just let others do the hard work then swooped in” you mean the “hard work” of Edelgard’s that he explicitly says destroys his dreams? Specifically mentioning how it was her excessive force that was fucking him over? Edelgard instigating war isn’t “hard work” for Claude, it’s something that is actively holding back his ambitions and something that he must get over. He has to improvise his plans around Edelgard’s war because it goes against his wants. The war is not something inherently positive for Claude, it’s something that he worked into his plans because otherwise he’d be fucked.

“ I also think the reason he doesn't want to work with anyone is that he wants to claim that taking Fodlan was completely on him, no allies. That's why he lets Byleth become the new Archbishop, they're an ambitionless puppet that can be easily be manipulated by him, unlike Edelgard, or even Dimitri. “

Which is why a majority of his endings state that he’s leaving Fodlan to his friends, plural, and why none of them state him having influence over Fodlan’s ruling (hence the “entrusting Fodlan” part of the majority of his endings), and why his Lorenz one actually states he’s leaving it to Lorenz specifically, and why literally none of his endings say anything about him taking full credit for shit all, and why in AM he literally leaves the Alliance and the future of Fodlan to Dimitri, and also why he literally, factually, actually works with Dimitri in AM and wants to in VW. This is. So fucking stupid.

“ I don't think Claude really cares about Fodlan or it's well-being, he's there for himself. He just comes off as a completely disingenuous ass, yet because eof Joe Zieja and poor narrative focus, he's tricked the fandom into thinking he's actually a decent person.“

I might actually have a stroke. 

like damn lmao like they don’t think it’s good writing but everything else is pretty close

Second comment 

Reminder for context, this reply:  Although I don't really agree, you see in both AM and CF that he trusts Dimitri and Edelgard respectively to achieve some of his dreams. I never felt that he was in it for himself; just like Edelgard, he's motivated by a better future for Fodlan, it's just that he uses more sneaky methods rather than Edelgard's more direct approach.

“ Nah, I don't buy it. One of the flaws of the writing I think is that we never never see Claude pushed to the absolute edge like the other characters. It's almost like he doesn't care about his goals. But then you find out that's just an Almyran thing. They're warmongerers, but they value their lives more than winning in the end.

This just in folks, if you aren’t pushed to your mental limits then you don’t care about your goals. Being able to keep a cool head despite the circumstances obviously means that you don’t care about what’s happening. 

And the thing is I even agree somewhat to the idea of Claude having a moment of weakness, but that he doesn’t isn’t indicative of his lack of care, like, at all, no matter where he’s from. He still very fuckin’ clearly cares, given that he stayed in Fodlan to help the Alliance. 

And imma take that “just an Almyran thing” for later

Oh but wait, of course, I forgot:

“ So yeah, for Claude, this doesn't mean as much to him as it does to Edelgard, who lives in Fodlan and wants to see it bettered for it's people. If Claude genuinely wanted that, I think he would've allied with Edelgard, since her overthrowing the Church would lead to the kinds of societal changes he claims to want.”

He doesn’t want to see Fodlan get better because he doesn’t live there, which is the only way for one to care about something. Nevermind that he’s been living there for seven years by post ts, nevermind that he’s actually trying to find the truth to help Fodlan unlike Edelgard who just assumes she does without any further investigation, nevermind that the changes he wants to implement get fucking implemented without the dismantling of the Church, no that’s completely irrelevant. He didn’t side with Edelgard so of course he doesn’t want the best for Fodlan, because he’s not brown-nosing the imperialist he can’t actually give a shit. Sure, alright.

And oh yeah, so much societal change Edelgard does, she gets rid of the need for Crests (maybe) and boots a church that isn’t directly tied to the state... and that’s it! Literally nothing else changes with Edelgard, save for one noble house - that has a history of providing magical innovations - getting its noble status back. Commoners rising to power, political or military, without having to marry into it? Never mentioned! Inheritance based strictly on birth? Still very much present! Nobles getting things they haven’t earned? Caspar has your back, Linhardt would but he’s too busy sleeping in his cozy new institute that was made specifically for him and no one else that he abandons in most of his endings anyway so it’s a complete waste, and Bernadetta too busy being forced to take up her family’s work by Edelgard to do anything she might, you know, want to do or anything. One source having all of the power to rule over the whole of Fodlan? Literally Edelgard’s whole plan! Censorship of things the higher ups don’t want the people knowing about? Hey now Dorothea better consult Edelgard before you go just playing any performance you want. Violent quelling of opposition (that’s only levied towards Rhea because she killed people literally caught in the act of trying to kill her)? Well, that’s literally all she has Hubert around for! Not like she cares for his ass otherwise, Miss “I walk my path alone despite having someone who will do literally anything for me” Miss “I have nothing to say about my retainer of like 20 years dying for my cause in any route he dies for me in”. 

Note how none of that has shit all to do with what Claude wants, which is better foreign relations. All of those pertain to endings in CF and the only place that mentions foreign affairs at all is Petra... where she is forced to marry Imperial nobles in some of her endings to gain Brigid’s independence, as per Edelgard’s demands. Yeah, no, this shit wouldn’t fly with Claude’s dreams.

“ But he doesn't, because he's selfish and wants the win for himself if he can take it. He doesn't understand that war is people fighting for their home, which is why he's so shocked Hilda was willing to die for his bs claims. I sincerely don't believe Claude cares about Fodlan. He might care about a handful of folks he met, but they're mostly just a means to an end. “

.....Um.... yes he wants to win the war.... like fuckin’ hello who’d want to lose it? Honest to fuckin’ god, who is going to be on the winning side of a war they didn’t want and go “and I will do nothing with my victory whatsoever” I’m going to stop you ahead of time and say fucking no one. The victor of war is always going to use their victory to do something with it. This isn’t indicative of Claude, Edelgard, Dimitri, Rhea, fuckin’ Billy-Joe down the road, it’s just a fact. 

And hey!!! Maybe he was shocked that people would die for him because like you fucking said in this comment In Almyra - that place that kinda sorta influenced Claude just a tad - you value your life more than your cause! And he valued the lives of his friends more than the cause and that’s why he tells them to retreat in every fucking route! And that him wanting his friends to live and not die for him is not, in fact, him seeing them as a means to an end! 

“ Claude is in Fodlan for his own gain in Almyra. Not for Fodlan's sake. He's just fortunate Edelgard started and became the face of war so he didn't have to do it himself.”

Okay, so fuckin’ riddle me this, if he really wanted to just fuck over Fodlan and claim it for his own and was using Edelgard to spearhead everything, why doesn’t he bust out the full-force Almyran army in CF? Or hell, anywhere? If the goal was really, truly, “100% for his throne in Almyra, fuck Fodlan idgaf” then why does he not just fucking take it over with the infinitely stronger Almyran army? Why does he go out of his way to protect the Alliance people? Why does he evacuate the people in AM and act as a fucking shield for them in CF? Why is he putting himself in this much danger to protect something he apparently doesn’t give a shit about? Why doesn’t he turn to the ol’ King Daddy’o and say “yo pops gimme more men I’ll give ya THE FUCKING ENTIRETY OF FODLAN, OUR CENTURIES OLD ENEMY WHOM IS HATED BY THE MAJORITY OF OUR PEOPLE”?

The Claude you’re describing sounds like a real fuckin’ stupid asshole, good thing he don’t real