#it's just so fascinating seeing the change. and how it isn't an easy decision.

[fungi-maestro]

The Question #4 (1987)

[emin-folly]

(@ftl-faster-than-life HI THIS TOOK A HOT MINUTE WEH Also thanks Tumblr for eating my asks again smh) oH BOY, WHERE DO I START Oh Barry, Barry, Barry, my sweet babygirl, how you've been so incredibly villainized by this fandom I'm going to take this opportunity to address and debunk as many misconceptions about Barry's character that I can remember, in the case if someone who doesn't really know Barry all that well is reading this or to hopefully change some people's minds~

* "Barry is boring": Well, yes but actually no. That's the beauty of Barry--he is designed to be your average, unassuming everyday kind of guy. Problem is, a lot of people think that's all there is to him, but that's really only just the surface.

He has flaws. He's prone to making decisions without consulting his family if he thinks it's for the greater good. You need to explicitly tell this man if you wanna be his lover because he absolutely can NOT read romantic cues to save his own life, he's a guilt sponge, he's weird, he LOVES science and comics and is a huge nerd!! He gets jealous!

Guys-Guys?? He's aN ELDRITCH HORROR??? HELLO????? He is CONSTANTLY living in sheer and utter denial and is desperately grasping his extremely thin veneer of being human, and yet, because of this, he actually puts his family in more jeopardy. Do you even realize how fascinating that is

Barry is a character who also deeply craves companionship/people. He struggles with depression and suicidal tendencies ever since being resurrected. He tries so hard to be what everyone else wants him to be and meet their expectations while failing to take care of himself in the process. He's so much more complex than just "Wally's nice father figure who died in Crisis". People also tend to equate "boring" with "being good/kind" which, you know...I very much disagree with but that's just my opinion * "Barry is racist!" LOL This one is just so wildly incorrect. The origin of this misconception comes from an out-of-context panel Justice League of America #173) of Barry being angry about Black Lightning joining the JL. If you read the whole page the panel comes from, you'd see that in actuality Barry is NOT angry about a black man joining the League but rather, he's angry that that seems to be the only reason Oliver wants him and Barry is (rightfully) calling Oliver out on that. There has been no other time where Barry has a problem with people of color

* "Barry is a Republican" I don't even know where this fanon came from. I think this may have originated from Wally's run where Wally was a conservative and he just assumed?? Barry was the same??? Which is SO laughably wrong (Wally bby, stop projecting on your uncle challenge) For the major part of Barry's original run (and honestly, the majority of the Flash runs after that), he remained largely apolitical . People see a white guy from the 60s and automatically assume he's right leaning /shrug * "Barry's a cop!" Yeahhh, not quite actually. He's a CSI, a forensic scientist, not a blue collar badge sporting cop. He's the behind-the-scenes guy, the one who studies the crime scene and tries to piece together the evidence and bring the culprit to justice. There IS a difference. But people don't really care about the technicalities, tho, they just want to hate Barry and him being "basically" a cop is a fast and easy excuse to do so. And DC certainly isn't helping matters with them constantly pushing the cop agenda for him (thanks a lot DC) * "Barry is sexually-repressed": This is a headcanon I seen a fair amount of and--okay, I get it. Barry is shy and reserved and blushes up a mad storm when someone compliments him. I can see how that might lead people to interpret that as him being sexually repressed/being a prude. But like....Buddy. Homie. Amigo.

This man had more canon sex than Hal Jordan. He and Iris were getting it on FREQUENTLY in the Silver Age and that's not me exaggerating. Just look at Flash #197 where it was Barry's birthday and he and Iris made out and stayed in bed practically the whole day together. Maybe you could say they just did that in the morning and they did other things later buuuut I don't believe that for a minute lol. Or! In Flash #195 where Barry was late to a ceremony of a submarine departure because (you guessed it!) he was too busy exploring his wife's mouth. Just because Barry doesn't make sexually-charged remarks or cop a feel from Iris constantly doesn't mean he's opposed to sex. I see it more as him just being way more private and reserved about it, but he IS very much down to fuck as she is (or Hal! Whichever your ship may be~)

While we're kinda on the subject, I'm really not a fan of the whole Barry being "shojo-fied/uwu-fied" thing, if I'm being honest?? Like, yes, if you give him any kind of compliment, he will blush furiously and stutter. But that's different from him being totally ignorant on what sex is/being a weak, delicate little flower who needs a "Big, Strong man" like Hal to save him (also, like...can we stop treating Barry as the "girl" of the ship just because he's skinnier and smaller than Hal pls and thank you). He is an mid-20-30 year old adult man. And a forensic scientist who probably seen a lot of sex-related crimes in his line of work. I'm pretty sure he knows what sex is, guys (in fact, he would be the guy who actually hosts Sex Ed classes bc the misinformation out there is staggering lol)

"Barry is weak/one of the weaker superheroes": Ok, I've never seen anyone say this persay, but it is very evident in how people portray him a lot of the time. They see his smaller frame and the fact that he runs fast to mean he's a glass cannon (Honestly they do this to a lot of the other speedsters as well) which hi! Wrong again! Speedsters are actually INSANELY durable little dudes. He could tank a punch from Darkseid. He can drag MASSIVE SHIPS behind him!! Wally once punched Eobard with the equivalent force of a dwarf star. Yeah. Now I get whump, I personally love it, I do, but I also enjoy seeing Barry being the absolute powerhouse he is. He can vibrate through solid matter, he can manipulate frequencies, and he's incredibly smart with how to use his powers, always thinking up on the spot improv strategies and techniques! Please stop nerfing him, guys, speedsters get too much of that from the writers OTL * "He's conservative because of his buzzcut!" Ok this one actually had like, a whole article?? On it?? And it truly is so wild lmao. When the only thing people can find to hate a character on is his haircut, you know they have no basis for their argument lol * "Barry is abusive!" Nope. Not even close. People love to pull this as a "gotcha" to Barry fans, regarding the panels of "Barry" beating up Wally and verbally abusing him (The Return of Barry Allen). Except....that wasn't Barry, that was Eobard disguised as him. You know...if you read the full run, you would know that lol You literally couldn't find a more least abusive person than Barry lol. Which actually leads me into the next one... * "Barry was an example of toxic masculinity!" AH yes, of course, with how he's so openly kind and compassionate, how he loves kids and animals, how he openly cries and shows emotion, how he's super respectful of people regardless, how he chugs Respect Women juice all day everyday, how he's contributing to fundraisers to help impoverished people and further medical progress, how he's so concerned about the state of the environment and is firmly against consumption of fossil fuels, how he constantly tells his son nephew he's so proud of him and that he's his hero, how he runs home after work bc he's genuinely so excited to see his wife, how he loves her SO much and smothers her with kisses every chance he gets UGH. How does Iris stand him /s And since we're talking about Barry and how the fandom treats him, I can't not talk about the elephant in the room--Flashpoint To start off, lemme preface this real quick:

FLASHPOINT WAS NOT BARRY'S FAULT

He DID NOT intend to trade the lives of his family for his mom He DID NOT run back in time because he was jealous of Wally (uhh lmao what???? Yeah, I can't even begin to explain how wack that is) He DID NOT run back in time because he was "selfish" and "wanted his mommy back" (unfriendly reminder that Nora is a separate character and shouldn't be treated as just an appendage of a male character <333) Some actual context for non-comic readers: Eobard killing his mom is actually an aberration of the true timeline. It was PERFECTLY REASONABLE to assume that it would restore itself to its original version!! Barry had also traveled in time before in the comics without any repercussions or ill effects, so there was NO CONCEIVABLE REASON FOR HIM TO THINK ANYTHING OF THE SCALE OF FLASHPOINT WOULD EVEN HAPPEN If people had read the issues preceding Flashpoint, they'd see Barry did all of that for Nora!! Because he despised the fact that she had to pay with her life because of a villain of his!! That it wasn't right for her to die for his sake!!

"But Eobard said Flashpoint was Barry's fault-!" EOBARD is A BITCH ASS LIAR who purposely twists the truth to hurt Barry as much as he can!! Of COURSE he would say that!! What ACTUALLY happened is that Eobard is the one who somehow made Nora's death such a critical and important fixture in time to the point of just tempering with that can cause a catastrophic domino effect. Flashpoint is EOBARD'S FAULT and HIS ALONE (and Idk, Doctor Manhattan's too ig if you wanna include him)

Barry loves his family and cares so, so, SO EXTREMELY MUCH. He could literally not be any prouder of Wally if he actually tried!! Everything he does is for his family, even sacrificing his own mental health and happiness for them and it makes me SO sad to see everyone cling to this butchered version of him in their minds (though it's not entirely their fault, DC is also definitely to blame)

[hotheadedhero]

Love at First Fight

We can have an adoration for someone but sometimes it takes a special moment to realise how we truly feel about them. This moment is different for everyone and isn't always... conventional

Raphael x Reader

Watching Raphael fight and spar has always fascinated you from the first moment you spotted him from your apartment window. It must have been after he had one of many arguments with his brothers because he was clashing with a gang of Purple Dragons on his own. You’ve always been a night owl, so it was only a matter of time before one of these battles fell before your wondering eyes. After getting over your initial confusion about his appearance, you found yourself utterly enraptured by his moves and how he fights with a lack of reservation. Curiosity got the better of you that night and urged you to take a closer look - a decision that has snowballed into you being here with him and his family now. 

“I’ll spar with you,” you chime, earning many baffled glances. 

“And risk wrecking that pretty face of yours?” he asks through a teasing, confused smile. “Not happening, princess.”

Your blood warms with both the sly compliment and his skepticism. It isn’t uncommon for the two of you to flirt, whether it’s playful banter or a means of trying to disarm one another. No one is entirely sure how this exchange came to be but everyone has put it down to you retaining a similar fiery temperament. What they don’t know is that this friendly transaction of dallying quips has been hanging hot in your stomach recently. You can’t pinpoint exactly when this materialised but you know that you’ve got it bad. He’s just so iron-willed - brazen in the face of danger no matter the circumstances. You’ve always revered strong figureheads, so you suppose it was only a matter of time before you’d develop a crush on your friend. 

“You think I can’t take it?” you challenge bluntly. 

“I know you can’t. Remember how many times I had to save your ass within the first week of knowing ya’?”

How could you forget? This guy makes a point of reminding you every opportunity he gets - a fact that annoys you tenfold given the feelings you harbour for him. You would love nothing more than for him to see you as something other than a damsel in distress. That being the case is admittedly your fault but it’s time for a change. You don’t expect to dazzle him but it would be nice to feel as though you can stand on his level and what better way than to engage in a sparring session? That is pretty much his language, after all. Hopefully, this will be the defining moment that halts the frequent patronisation you endure. It just so happens that you have a little something up your sleeve. 

A hand makes home on your hip, pushing out slightly as you quirk a brow in his direction. “Will you at least humour me?”

His eyes flicker down and up again to meet yours, noting the absence of any jest. You are dead serious on this one and that alone manifests a new level of respect. It’s stupid, quite frankly foolish to volunteer a match with him, but he will oblige nonetheless. Raphael may give you a hard time but deep down he does care about you (though he’d never admit it), which is why he’s going to go easy on you. He has years' worth of training and genuinely doesn’t want to run the risk of hurting your pretty little head. 

When he caringly rests his sais to one side and stands just a few feet in front of you, you know you’ve gotten your way. Promptly, you dash for your bag, retrieve a small item, and return to your position. His head cranes to the side as you open up the case and slip in your earbuds. A smile from the youngest of the brothers shines from the corner of your eye. Michelangelo was a huge inspiration for this idea and he’s more excited than anyone to see how you follow through. Your opponent merely saunters ahead of you with an unamused patience that is wearing thin, assuming that you must think this to be some kind of joke. In a sense, you do.

After a quick song selection, you hop on the spot and shake everything off before readying yourself. A raised hand that double taps the air is all it takes to beckon him to make the first move. He sprints in and swings a hand around your right, a hit that he holds back enough in case you don’t dodge but you do. You swerve back and your feet crisscross in time with the beat before one leg swings up to jab him in the cheek. The look of stark surprise pressed onto his face with the contact of your calf will be cherished forever; heavy bass and harmonic strings vibrating into your skull make the small victory all the more worthwhile. He doesn’t fall but the shock has him stumbling until he quickly regains his posture. 

Your movements aren’t copies of Mikey’s, so there’s no way he taught you any of this. One wouldn’t trust him to teach to begin with. When Raphael turns back to face you, he is met with an expectant grin. Raised tauntingly, your hand gestures for him to go at you again. He complies by doing so, swinging with less restraint than before and, yet, every jab sent your way is only met with empty air. The rapid movement of your limbs doesn’t give him a clear indication of where you’re going next. In between each side-step, you smirk at him, egging him on with your rising cockiness. You barely attempt to strike him, instead focusing on these effortless evasive manoeuvres. 

As if you can sense his agro, you decide to stop this back-and-forth shuffle and hook an ankle around his knee, knocking him onto his front. This will be a short-lived win, however. Frustration finally takes its helm and Raph pirouettes on his hands before he forces a foot into your abdomen. With a strained grunt, you fall back and one of the earpieces tumbles onto the floor. Your face scrunches up and you gasp against the hysteria of your rattling stomach. 

“Crap!” Any grievance he had before diminishes and he’s quick to try and make amends. “You okay?” 

Once he’s close enough, you lurch your hands on either side of your head, lift your legs into your chest, and use any strength left in your core to spring up and kick. Your shoes make a crisp smack against his cheek and he loses enough footing to fall onto his back, arms pressing into the floor to prevent his shell from rocking. He can’t find it in himself to form any words at this moment. Words have lost all meaning. All he sees is stars. That was… incredible. He had you down on the ground and still, you found a way to turn the situation in your favour. Where has this side of you been hiding? Have you always been able to fight or have you been taking lessons in secret? The latter may explain why he hasn't had to come in and be your knight in green amour as of late. Regardless, he’s speechless. Usually, a beatdown like this would have him going savage but the only thing he feels is admiration and a strange rush in his chest. If it’s adrenaline, it’s like nothing he’s ever experienced amid battle before. This intoxicating, almost painful sensation sends his mind into a spin and he barely registers the small hand outstretched in front of him. Your prideful smile only accelerates the screaming pounding of his heart and it takes a second before he manages to take your grasp.

You help him back onto his feet and chortle confidently. “Reckon I can take it then?”

“I… how…?” These are the only words he manages to stammer out with his slowly furrowing brow. “What?”

“If you think that was cool, you should see what I can do with flamenco,” you joke, crossing your aching arms over your chest. 

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” 

“My old man used to teach me self-defence.” You kneel to retrieve the stray earbud from the floor and place both back into their pod safely. “As for the dance moves: that’s all self-taught, honey.” 

The shot of a wink from your person has him reeling again but he has another burning question that just about keeps him stable. “If you know how to defend yourself then how the hell d’you end up in so much trouble back in the day?”

A mischievous grin brightens your face and you absentmindedly shrug. “Had to get your attention somehow.”

Softly, you pat him on the cheek you had just pummelled - the sting only now registering with your touch - before leaving to check for any bruising. If you want to avoid questions at work, you’ll need to treat them quickly with a cold compress and some aloe vera; a neat little trick courtesy of the braniac brothers. This leaves Raph to stare at the doorway you just left through. A million and one questions are still whirring around in his head but he can’t seem to shake the thought that you have just unequivocally bewildered him. You wanted his attention. That confirmation alone threatens to burn his face, surely worsening the condition of his bruise, but he doesn’t care. The only thing he loves more than your playfully flirtatious banter right now is the fact that he now knows you can handle yourself in a fight. 

Cooing from his brothers’ voices draws him out from the rose-tinted world and he glares them down to the best of his abilities with his supposedly tarnished pride. 

“You just got served, son!”

“Yeah, well, I won’t be holding back next time.” A confident smirk pulls at the side of his lip and his eyes return to the open doorway. “Especially now I know she’s got what it takes.”

A/N: It was a happy accident but I got ecstatic with the parallel of you falling in love with Raph from watching him fight, and him falling in love with you because you proved you could fight. Hope you enjoyed!

[ellin-e]

hey gorg! having some succession thoughts and thought id come bug you about them. what do you think of tomgreg vs kenstewy.

Moki. I cannot describe my joy at receiving this question, it is immeasurable.

where to begin.

To me, these pairings are fundamentally different, partially because one has a little more solid foundation in canon, but mostly because I believe one is an actual pairing of people who (could) love each other and one is heavily situational.

Kenstewy is in my mind a tragedy of the finest sort; it's a relationship that, at the same time, could have been and could never have been. If that makes sense? Under other circumstances, it could have happened, but in this environment, and especially Kendall's environment, it could never ever be, and wasn't even close to being able to be. Ken as gay is infinitely fascinating to me, and it adds such an interesting layer to his lack of manhood in the eyes of his father. He lacks so many qualities that his father deems essential to men, both personality-wise and also physically (he can't father children, for example). Him being gay on top of that just cements him as effeminate and therefore unworthy, yk? I think, in another life, they might actually have loved each other, whilst I view Tomgreg as purely a result of their circumstances, which brings me to:

Tomgreg. It is delicious. DELICIOUS. Tom's need to have someone lesser than him, so he's not at the bottom of the food chain, and his need to take out his marital frustrations on Tom, is DELICIOUS to me. I eat it up. I giggle. I kick my feet. At the surface, Greg would be someone I would pity in this dynamic, but I just can't. He starts out as a total newbie and a loser that would be easy to pity, and I think its brilliant how the show sets him up for that but then refuses to let you fully sympathise with him. He constantly makes morally reprehensible decisions and shows no real moral fibre or even an interest in doing what is "right" or "good".

I don't think Greg is gay, I think he's very much straight, but I think Tom might be bi. At the very least I think Tom feels a sexual attraction to Greg, I just don't know whether that attraction is to Greg, or just to the power Tom has over Greg. It's again so heavily intertwined with ideas of masculinity. Tom feels emasculated by his circumstances and uses Greg to supplement that. Using Greg as this punching bag for his frustrations and insecurities makes Tom feel masculine, and in turn "turned on" in that sense. It feeds his ego and that leads to a feeling of sexual arousal.

It might be controversial for me to say that Greg isn't attracted to Tom idk. The only thing that could come close to actually changing my mind on that is the scene at the wedding in Italy, the whole "what am I gonna do with a soul anyway?", where Greg looks at Tom with the most submissive puppy eyes I have ever seen. But still, I don't think Greg is attracted to Tom, I think he's clumsily opportunistic, and attracted to what Tom can provide for him.

So I don't think we could have a coffee-shop au where Tomgreg happens, for example. Because if those power structures weren't in place, I don't think Tom would be attracted to Greg, nor vice versa. Kenstewy on the other hand, I could see happening in a coffee-shop au where Ken has gone no-contact with his abusive father and everyone lives happily ever after.

Phew, yap over.

Please tell me your thoughts!!

[animatedjen]

I have a question about the scenes from different angles! I often wonder why they seem to...jolt or maybe stutter (for lack of better words) and yet the actual finished scene presented in the game seems so much more fluid.

I was thinking of this with the one with Kata boosting herself up and settling herself on the couch you just posted but I've wondered about this before. I know that other examples, like BD jumping into Cal's arms makes a little more sense since BD doesn't actually exist and is added separate where they definitely need to change the angles to make it more seamless but it's fascinating how the raw product (again, lack of better words!) reveals just how much those angles and panning in (not so much out) matter.

Or is this just a technical thing that has an easy explanation and I'm making it far more complicated? LOL

Good question! I'm not a game dev and my animation days were a long time ago, but there's probably a few things at play:

Every cutscene in the game would be designed, polished, and optimized specifically for the end visual. Disconnecting from the intended camera always look worse when the entire scene is built around a specific POV.

Sometimes animators will "cheat" a movement if it ends up looking better from the camera's perspective. Or if a character's hand or face isn't visible to camera, there's no need to fully animate it. My guess is: here Cal's hand "snaps" to BD-1 as the animation transitions from PCAP (performance capture) data to locking onto BD's character model. We don't see it in the final cutscene, so it doesn't need to be polished.

Kata's hands/legs aren't seen in the actual cutscene, so any animation left there is to better serve the in-camera visuals-- could also be the PCAP moving her character rig. Or the animator selected two finger controls while adjusting torso movement, idk for sure. But her face is cute :') Don't ask me about Merrin's leg though.

Notice how the camera is shifting too! That changes how we perceive movement. I'm also very new at capturing game footage and may not be using the ideal framerate/settings to best showcase the visuals, which could definitely add some stutter.

The alt-angle cutscenes are fun to explore (Twitter found one of them and it got a little crazy hah) and it's WILD to "re-film" a scene after it's been created, which is something I can't do in live-action or 2D animation. Outside of VR, most things aren't designed for 360 viewing! And I'll always, always uphold Respawn's decisions with its visual narrative and how they wanted to present it.

TLDR; cutscenes are designed around the camera, animation is super time consuming so prioritizes in-camera visuals, and Jen is still learning how to capture game footage

[marypsue]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on S1 of ST being a tragedy! No main character dies, so I never thought of it that way before

I mean, nobody has to die for a story to be a tragedy (at least, in the modern definition. I'm pretty sure '(almost) everybody dies' is a requirement of Greek tragedies and Renaissance revenge tragedies). But also, no main character dies in season one...if you take season one as part of a series. Which it wasn't originally conceived as.

I am not going looking for copies of the original pitch bible, because I am lazy, and also I only saw them floating around this webbed site. But the show changed a lot from the initial pitch (Joyce had a Long Island accent! Lucas' parents were divorcing! Murray was there and named Terry Ives! Most of what ended up in Hopper's character originally belonged to Mr. Clarke! The original pitch bible is fascinating). And part of the original pitch was a proposal for possible sequels.

The Duffers' proposal for a possible sequel was "It's ten years later, and Eleven is dead".

So that's the setup. Everything that came after season one was made up wholecloth after season one was a hit and people wanted more, but also people loved the adorable little psychic murder child (cue the Duffers shockedpikachu.jpg) and Netflix obviously recognised it would be a bad call to make a new season without her in it. So it makes sense to take season one as a unit, as a self-contained story on its own. You can also take it as part of a whole, but it makes sense to read it first as a complete story. Especially given the thematic drift of later seasons and the way they are...I'm just going to say it, each new season is very much added-on to what came before rather than being built on foundation that the earlier season(s) laid. It is very clear there was never a planned five-season story arc from the beginning. (This isn't necessarily always a bad thing, when it comes to sequels, but it does mean it makes sense to 'read' each season as its own thing.)

Okay, now that we've established all of that. Season one has one very clear goal, one very clear stake for the characters: save Will Byers from the Upside Down. (I like this. It makes the stakes both extremely high and extremely personal, it makes it very easy to understand each character's motivation, it also keeps the stakes grounded in reality. I like this a lot.) And by the end of the season, that goal is accomplished. So at first blush, you're right, season one doesn't look like a tragedy.

But when you start to unpack it a little, you start to see just how many important things were lost along the way. It's most glaringly obvious with Mike and El, with Nancy and Barb. The whole Wheeler family is fractured down the middle, with Mike and Nancy on one side and Ted, Karen, and Holly on the other, and Karen, who's been trying so hard the whole time to be part of her children's lives and understand what's going on with them, is aware of the ever-expanding gulf between them but will never be able to cross it, and will never fully know why. Hopper's finally managed to snatch a kid out of the jaws of death, save a woman he obviously cares about from the pain of losing a child, and Joyce has finally had someone believe her, support her, trust her. But it became blindingly obvious to me on my fourth rewatch that Hopper's plan, from the moment he went to leave the middle school gym, was always to trade El for Will. And that decision (and the fact that Joyce obviously understands that he did something to get the lab to let them go after Will, but she obviously doesn't dare press him on what) has broken her trust in him, and left him with what looks like an equally heavy burden of guilt as what he was carrying before. The lab stays open. The government gets away with everything. No one will ever know the true extent of the hurt they've caused.

And in the end, none of it even saved Will. He's back. He's alive. But he's spitting slugs in the sink. He's permanently marked by the Upside Down, and by trying to hide it from his family, he's putting a crack down the centre of them, as well. They're losing Will, just as surely as they had when they thought he was dead, just without him going anywhere.

And there's still a hole in the world.

The fragile bonds of community, the things that people share in common, the way catastrophe can bring people together and bring out the very best in them, are the major thematic threads woven through season one. Human connection is the only thing that can change what seems inevitable, the only thing that can bring back what's seemingly lost forever.

And it's still not enough to protect anyone from the random tragedy of the world.

The love was there. The love mattered. The love bent the entire course of the world around itself.

And it still wasn't quite enough.

If that's not a tragedy, then I don't know what is.

[theoreticalinsights]

Theory of Planned Behaviour

Ever wondered why we do what we do? Enter the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) – a fascinating concept that dives deep into the complexities of human actions. Developed by Icek Ajzen in 1985, TPB offers a roadmap to understanding and even predicting our behaviors.

So, what's TPB all about?

It breaks down into three key components:

Attitudes: Think of attitudes as our personal scorecards for behaviors. Do we see them as good or bad? It's all about the beliefs we hold and the value we attach to the outcomes.

Subjective Norms: This is the social pressure factor. What do our friends, family, and society at large think? Their opinions can sway our actions more than we realize.

Perceived Behavioral Control: How easy or tough do we think it is to pull off a behavior? Factors like confidence, past experiences, and external barriers play into this.

Now, where does TPB come into play?

In health, TPB helps experts design interventions for things like exercising more or sticking to a healthy diet. By understanding attitudes, norms, and control, they can nudge us toward better habits.

Marketers also love TPB. It helps them figure out why we buy what we buy. Do we like the product? What do our peers think? And how much control do we feel over our purchasing decisions? It's all in the mix.

Even in saving the planet, TPB lends a hand. By grasping attitudes toward eco-actions, societal norms about sustainability, and our sense of control over green choices, policymakers can shape effective environmental campaigns.

But hey, TPB isn't without its critics. Some say it overlooks the power of habits and emotions on our behavior. Plus, its effectiveness can vary across cultures.

In a nutshell, TPB is a powerful tool for untangling the mysteries of why we do what we do. It's a journey into the human psyche that's helping psychologists, marketers, policymakers, and researchers everywhere decode our actions and make positive changes.

So, the next time you find yourself pondering human behavior, remember TPB – it might just hold the key to understanding the intricacies of our actions.

[learningsanctum]

April 27th, 2024

Do you remember when OG "it girl" François de La Rochefoucauld went "perfect valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world" and it changed planet Earth's very core for generations to come? Me too.

Lately I have been trying to up my game on the company I work. Currently I have temporary contract but it does have a promise of promotion depending on my performance and, as most people would, I thrive on this promise. Which is why I'm so far away from my comfort zone - that would be law books, hiiiii law! - researching for books such as "How to Become a Successful and Valuable Executive for Companies" in the administration hub.

Although I think I look a little ridiculous reading those books - because they honestly look fake or one of those authors who just throws shitty advices on a book to earn an extra with the publication - I'm honestly giving those a chance. Maybe they can teach me something! I'm all for learning more so if it's learning something you shouldn't be doing! What if the book is just shitty in essence? Then I will have backhand experience to identify a shitty book when I first star reading it and see it's essence is similar to the last "bad" book I read.

I like to think that everything we do is constructive. "For better or for worse" is something I apply but with motivational undertones so i can channel it into something positive!

I'll soon complete three months working at this company and it's a "big girl job" per say. It's an international company that has a gamma of possibilities for growth and literally can take me to unexpected places if I manage a promotion, which, for someone like me who dreams of seeing the world would be a nice bonus not to mention a dream come true.

However, my dreams aren't merely limited to company growth but if I manage it will be something that will make me feel good and what are we on this Earth for if not to appreciate little pleasures in life?

Since I can remember I have this will to work on an office and be part of something bigger than me. This company aligning with my principles, such as it being environmental conscious and caring for it's workers - I work at HR so I have first hand experience - is the most awesome part of going to work everyday.

In my life plan - which I believe haven't changed much since I was a teen - all of it's goals are constructive, long term and take time to complement each other. When I say I intend to do five years of law only to enroll on temporary (eight years) navy service people tend to say I want very different extremes and I simply can't see it this way.

Corporative life is part of my life but I don't necessarily want it to be all my life! I believe new experiences and a change of scenario can always do good. Also that people make decisions based on the options they have at hand at the time they are picking. Sometimes what you want is not on the table thus why you have to come up with a plan to make it an option. That can take years. That's when we start outlining long and short term goals for ourselves.

I, for an example, had a dream of coming out of high school and doing medicine, with a specialization in psychiatrics later on in mind. The human mind always fascinated me! But as all of us know it isn't that easy to get into law and because of a ton of life-changing problems I had in high school I couldn't really focus on passing the exams to get into public universities. So I applied for law which was my second option and am rolling with it since then. It doesn't mean I gave up medicine. Of course it doesn't!

Carefully I analyzed my options and build a plan from there, always taking into consideration the areas which I have more affinity and seeing how and why they could complement each other. That's the conclusion of months of research and pondering: I would finish law so I could apply to the temporary navy service (TNS) as an Official rather than the lower rank, which will give me a bigger monetary return, allowing me to live with easy and simultaneously saving a good amount so when I finish the TNS I can enroll on an international medicine university and sustain myself while living there.

Of course those are the main goals connecting with each other and people often fail to see the process. What I mean is that in the five years it takes me to graduate I will be studying and training to pass on the military exam and while I'm at navy I will be studying Spanish so I can enroll on my dream med university.

Once, upon telling a colleague about my plans, she said, and I quote, "it is okay for you to want to be the Barbie: a thousand and one jobs" but she also added "you just gotta make sure to have your goals set on stone so when difficult comes you can keep yourself on your toes and focused on the goal" and that's the best advice I have gotten so far.

When people tell for you to work in silence they mean it most sincerely because most of those around you won't understand your plans and, even unknowingly, will demotivate you. Sometimes it seems crazy and most of times it really is but its not impossible and it's exclusively on you how far you will go to achieve your dreams by transforming them in plans and following through and through.

"Work in silence" isn't supposed to be bitter or trendy but is simply stating people don't have the same world view as you, so you won't make sense to them most of times and - good news - you don't need to! They aren't bad for not understanding though. They just have a different color pallet of lens to see the world and it's fine.

Don't give up on something because it doesn't makes sense. Make sense out of your nonsense if it's the true call of your heart.

[impish-knight]

Dark Valentine

I tell myself it's just another day, nothing special about it because the sun will rise and fall just like all the others. Just another day where I see all the sickening cute lovebirds flitting around the town with nothing better to do than mark their property with candy and flowers. Well, they may not call them property, but it's essentially the same. Who are they fooling other than themselves?

I let the hours flow over me in a wash that means nothing other than a marking of time in a dull drone. Soon it'll be dark and all these sick lovebirds will fly home to their nests and do who knows what. Do I really care? Not really, I'd rather just prowl the night with all the loners that wish to drink away their woes of loneliness. Easy prey, or something like that.

If only I was aware that this year was going to be a bit different than the rest.

Being a predator is an easy thing for me, slipping into the shadows and making the bumps in the night that you're warned about. Being the prey isn't as easy for me. Have I fantasized about someone hunting me; sure. Who wouldn't? There's nothing better than meeting a darker nightmare than yourself.

Walking down the dark street I set my sights on a lonely drunk human sitting with their back against the wall of a local store. By the way they keep lifting the brown bag to their mouth for extended periods gives me an idea of how much they'd just love to forget. How much I'd love to just help them forget out of the kindness of my heart. I'm more than happy to be your valentine tonight whispers through my mind so quickly that I can't help but smile.

A soft sound pulls my attention from my prey for a second. I'm fairly certain I have come down this road alone, yet it seems I might have been wrong. There is a feeling prickling on the back of my neck that alerts me to someone else's presence, their gaze fully upon my back. I'm not used to being watched, always keeping to the dark shadows of night as I stroll in the city. It's not matter, I'm sure they'll move on soon.

Stalking deeper down the road I duck myself into the alley, leaning myself up against the corner as I watch my lost little lamb drink away their poor demons. I take pleasure in watching the anguish that washes over their darkened face before anger replaces it followed up by the sadness of hurt. Don't worry, I'll take it away soon. You'll no longer have a reason to raise a bottle to that mouth of yours to make the memories fade away.

Losing myself in the theater before me, I didn't hear the sounds of steps behind me before the feeling on the back of my neck returns. Interesting. Who has the crazy idea to walk down a dark alley at night in a place like this? Maybe I should be turning my attention elsewhere tonight.

"You're getting sloppy." A soft femme voice whispered right behind me. There's nothing else to pick up from them than the fact they've stayed one step behind me. I wonder if they know I let them walk up on me, unwilling to take my eyes off my new fascination.

I contemplate my choices: ignore the intruder and hope they leave due to my silence, or address them. Me, getting sloppy? I knew the risk of being in this open alley after hearing and feeling someone present just a few minutes ago. I just call myself cautiously optimistic.

Grinding my teeth out of frustration I blow out a slow breath trying to calm my ire. Out of all nights for someone to dick measure with me, it had to be this night.

"I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm just enjoying my night." I drone out with as little emotion in my voice. This isn't enough to take my attention away from my planned happy ending of the night. Why should I ruin all my plans because someone has mistaken me for someone else.

"You haven't' enjoyed it yet. But you will... soon." The voice whispers back to me, the sound of a step fall before their last word.

Sneering and more irked that my night is coming closer to being ruined, I make the decision to change my focus from my prey to this new person. Turning on the balls of my feet, I open my mouth to retort something scathing when their hand flashes before my vision and wraps itself around my throat. Surprise makes my mind short circuit for a brief second as they push my back up against the wall, their hand taking my short stutter to tighten more around my throat.

My lips curl up into a sinister smile as I take in their face, or what I can observe from what their mask still shows. Their eyes are just like mine, cold and emotionless. What a pity it will be to end another life that is as cold as mine, but I don't allow anyone to play me for a fool. I reach up to their hand and grasp the thumb that is useless against my throat, leaning forward to use the momentum when I feel it and still.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. It'd be a shame to end this so soon." Their voice whispers again, a slight uptilt in their voice giving away their small excitement. "I've been hunting you for a while. Watching you while you hunt others in the darker shadows than you transverse in. Now I'm hungry."

I'll be damned. So not only do they have a sharp wit, but they also seem to enjoy other sharps. I'll play their game for now. I'm curious to how this will end.

~~~

((I'll add onto this later.))

[randomkposts]

K:-Hey Eclipse, Imagine Claude decided to wait/ it was full, and so Lornz was leading the Deer that year.

I mean, I can't really see any of the other attending nobles leading in that house. Hilda is too lazy, and Marianne is uncomfortable enough with people already. And no matter how adult she wants to be seen, Lysithia leading would not go well. 

Though that could be an interesting AU. Hilda having to step up to lead.

Admitibly, I don't go out of my way to look, but has there ever been an AU where Edelgard just died at the beginning? Byleth was too slow to save her, and so never unlocked time manipulation powers. 

Cause that alters the plot soo huge.

What would Slithers do? 

I know that members of them can shapeshift??? Maybe? Or maybe its more akin to possession? 

But like, imagine she shows up to be the flame emperor due to being impersonated, to lead the empire into invasion, and Claude, Dimitri, Jeralt, Byleth, and Alois are insisting that she was dead, and everyone else is like "where were you if you were not dead?" whereupon Edelgard accuses the church of being assassins, and claims she faked her death. Or something. I haven't thought it through yet

Then I think what kind of mystery trying to be solved would be route dependent.

E:-Wow that would be AU in here take if Claude wasn't there yet. Lmao Lorenz leading isn't any better either ahahah.

K:-I mean, of the remaining nobles if Claude wasn't there, who would you put in charge?

Leading Hilda AU has Anxiety. She cant afford to slack, shes leading, and she doesn't what dead friends due to her lack of leadership. She can't calm down, shes in charge. How does Holst do this?!?!?!

E:-Leading sucks cause now you got more stress and anxiety.

K:-Even one of the house leaders changed makes a big difference in direction, but what  if we  swapped out all the house leaders, with Ferdinand and Felix as leaders. They are both trained and expected to lead, but their social skills are based in different flavors of Autism, I think, which does not always make for easy communication. 

 Which means Dedue is not going to Garreg Mach, opening to 4 potential commoner OCs in the year. Or world building nobles. 

Dimitri is the hardest one not to be there, a reason for which could potentially be Rufas and the slithers getting impatient, causing Dimitri to flee for his life with Dedue, which causes the war to start early. 

All of them missing means the plot is in shambles, Eclipse. 

A  plot swap could be interesting to see here though. Hubert, spotting strategic weakness in Hilda makes the decision with Fake Edelgard to hit Leicester harder at first, which goes really rocky for the Later without Claude, as Faerghus breaks into Civil war when Prince Dimitri and Dedue comes to the Blue Lions with news of his Uncles actions and tales of Conspiracy. As war breaks out around them, and Edelgard being even more sus then canon, the Black Eagles have to decide what they stand for, as in this version, who they supported with has an influence on their priorities. 

That would be an intimidating thing to write, but a lot of potential to be fascinating to read

[anonypeng]

Modules and Post Show Depression... Day 29

Every day I have made it my goal to finish a module from my course and I have kept a good 3 days pace with it. I feel like I am learning so much about this course and this career and I am so excited to finally do something about it. It isn't easy after work and doing NY exercises. I'm lucky to be able to do such work while living at home. having someone cook and take care of the bare necessities when you have a lot on your plate is nice. I am eternally grateful for it. I definitely can recall the level of understanding it takes to be in a course... studying, remembering, and recalling information is difficult but its a topic I find interesting so I do look forward to it everyday! Debating about doing it on weekends but it's not like I have anything planned... plus I can always do it before I sleep or when I wake up. Depending on the day's schedule!

I haven't gotten over NANA obviously... oh to have a man like Nobu. I'm so fascinated with the show and excited to read the manga on it! I love the characters and how they are perfect in some ways, and imperfect in others and how each character changes throughout the story! I love the unexpected plots and mini-plots that lead to the bigger picture! I really wanna read and see what the differences are between the manga and the anime.

Thinking on it, whenever I watch NANA it makes me wonder and reflect on my past relationship. I know some things about E and I can say I am content with my decision on where it ended. Sometimes I wish I was still in it but I don't think it was a good idea to continue it for various reasons. E and I just aren't ready for a relationship. I think we need time to develop still. But maybe we could have worked on things like Ren and Nana... or maybe we just might end up like Nobu and Hachi. I don't know... the what ifs are hard to not think of but also hard to define since they are just unrealistic scenarios that appear in our imagination.

Anyways... peace out!

[superconductivebean]

Just my thoughts—as a fandom hermit of sorts.

Creating for nobody but yourself is actually discouraging when it's done repulsively. You'll feel its hard slap later down the line—unless your inner reader began to enjoy you as an author. They will gradually subside your inner critic and might teach them few lessons in how to appreciate maybe not the work itself—who of us doesn't have an one we dislike in some way?—but the craftwork went behind its creation.

How to do that?

Surprisingly easy.

Watch your creative decisions. Introspect. See yourself in your work.

You are inseparable in some way or another, your reflection is present within it, and by that I imply how you felt writing it and why did you think something would or wouldn't work. The only one who usually know is you, so, if you feel something is wrong, it probably is. The best is the enemy of the good, yes, but I'm not talking about perfectionism. I'm talking about the need to listen to that tingle and being able to assess it before editing.

Perfectionism is, in a sense, artistic pessimism. It tells you everything is wrong but it can't be an objective truth. Then some scenes must be wrong, and alright, good, the field is narrowed down. Which ones? Where? Why? At that point, put the work away for a day or two, then re-open, re-see, realise, that yes, that could be improved, except it isn't a scene. It's a sloppy word choice. It changed the sentence, that avalanched into a little rearrangement, and voila, everything works.

You fight the pessimistic outlook with a little bit of rest.

The more you learn how to treat your work, the more you might grow excited to try new things and not because you want to show them to the world but first to yourself.

That little part of you is who actually matter. Learn to love these little emotion abstractions. Care for the little guy, nurse them, feed them different ideas, styles, work them up to your master and see yourself forming in directions you'd never thought you would be able to simply because them—you—wanted to try something new. It would not matter if those were successful or not; when the entire process is a journey, the output's performance begins to matter very little.

Besides, the little guy would want company—and that's when other people come in. The reader doesn't like negative responses or no responses at all, true. Know who does? Your inner critic.

They're all too eager to overthink things and they're the perpetrator of your pessimism. So make them analyse why something clicks for many people and why something goes under their radar, make them a little analytics-building machine (which is also a skill), and just keep its outputs close in case you're curious how different fandoms or communities work. It's mostly a useless information. But you will be certain about things, and certainty brings comfort.

It will help to find readers in case you'd need more, too. Or if you'd like to meet someone new. But is it a guaranteed method? No, it isn't. Sometimes you'll write the most influential fandom monsterfic and all these people will pass by. Othertimes you'd write the smallest fic in the fandom but all its people will get around it because they liked your take on things or became curious with your ideas—and they can actually stuck around. You may never know. Fandom isn't business, it is rather a wild fair with barely predictable events in its main mystery.

Besides.

You can't make yourself a miracle to everyone; but be the miracle to yourself, and people will notice it and will try to comprehend you. Be Original, they say. They lie. They want the same jacket but red. Or the same jacket but sewn from kelps. Be Familiar But Be Outland-ish. Do your thing, that everybody else does, in your own fascinating way. Be the artist after all, be that bitch and leave people with the art-shaped holes in their thoughts.

I used to play an instrument once. I was bad at it, well, I was taught poorly and was only ever learning how to play from the sheets. It never go outwith or far and the instrument is long-sold, but I'm still able to recall the emotions I had while playing it. Heartbeat was the metronome, the hands were going in perfect synch, the entire body was able to feel the timings, and at some point, it wasn't simply the flow and going along with it. It was being the flow. The architect behind its creation—well, yes, the music wasn't mine, but being able to recreate it and make it sound as it supposed to sound was utterly captivating, enamouring, absolutely wondrous experience.

Years later I became enamoured with the writing—the process of it. If I manage to build the flow correctly and sail down my own rivers with little to no bump, unless planned, I'm overjoyed and amazed.

But will it go far? How well will it perform? Sometimes I do care if I know people might be interested, but beyond that, it's just doing its thing and bringing me joy because it's a puzzle, because it's a never-ending fascination—and because it's even more than that when done in the completely different tongue. And people take to it. Because it looks fun, perhaps, or it's something they had rarely seen before done in the language, or maybe it's just the way I tend to pick words and arrange them. I always get different answers. But what I know for certain: that something I found within me works both for me and people liking my things.

That what matters.

It all might sound a tad bit mental but it's so important to be in harmony with yourself as an author, as a reader, and as your own critic—who else knows you as much as you? Don't forget the people you have—the crowds will come and go, but the friends will stay.

Maybe this is a hot take, but as creative people, our #1 priority in our work should be ourselves.

It is not, AND SHOULD NEVER BE, what would get us the most engagement. Dispel "content creation," popularity, and monetization from your brain. Write, paint, draw what you want to! HOLY SHIT!!!!!!

The people who resonate with it will eventually show up. But the people who don't? Who cares???? The art you personally create is meant to help you heal, to help you express, to bring you joy and pain!!!!

You need to learn how to work on something because you deeply care for it and can revel in that self-satisfaction. Of course recognition feels fucking great! We all want it. We are humans, but you need to stop creating with the idea of other people consuming your work!!!

Give into the art movement. Create a renaissance for yourself. Fuck other people. Be that bitch! People are not going to be in your lives forever, and when you're left to your own devices, you should be able to look at what you've created and fucking love it.

[thexgrayxlady]

What I read in May 2024

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer - 4.50/5.00

This book is the embodiment of the feeling that the world is ending, and you have to go to work tomorrow.

This is a tense eco-thriller with a messy, complicated main character. The book follows an unreliable narrator, security consultant "Jane Smith," while she blows up her life to follow the mystery surrounding a taxidermied hummingbird in a storage unit. The main character is neither likable nor particularly relatable and I love her for it.

The writing is beautiful and the book is fast paced and surprisingly easy to read. The action scenes are brutal and visceral, there was one scene in a warehouse that was horrifying and I could not look away.

The ending is a little disappointing, but I still loved the book as a whole.

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells - 4.00/5.00

This was a fun little murder mystery that was unfortunately hampered by being a midquel. I appreciate that some of the humans were less stupid and annoying. I'm still not very interested in action that happens mostly in Cyberspace, but there was less of that this time around.

Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee - 5.00/5.00

This book pulls the camera back and spans decades in the life of the Kauls and brings the Green Bone Saga to a stunning conclusion.

The characters are so deep and complex. I love watching them make choices, even really bad choices, because it's what's consistent with their character. Even when they're not always likable decisions. Seeing Wen come into her own and take over pop culture was a neat storyline. Anden growing more comfortable and confident in his own skin and his skills as a doctor is such a big change from the unsure kid he was in the first book. Even though you start to feel his age, Hilo is still a terrifying badass and his moments of good strategy show how far he's come. I liked watching the next generation grow up and find their own place in the world. Watching the Kauls shape the city streets and eventually their country as a whole is so compelling.

The antagonists are fascinating and you really do have the feeling that if this story were from their point of view, they would be the heroes. I liked the parts where Jeun teamed up with the new Horn of the Mountain clan to solve bigger problems.

Bero remains my favorite little cockroach man. He should be dead. He should be dead so many times over. He's responsible for so much shit. But he's just some guy. He's just the worst little guy.

The passage of time in this novel lends it a great sense of scope and scale. Even though it's over seven hundred pages long, it feels like it goes by too quickly, in a good way. You just want to linger with the characters you've come to love for just a little while longer.

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer - 4.75/5.00

What can I say? I needed another hit after Hummingbird Salamander.

This post-apocalypse throws the reader right into the deep end with little explanation and I love it. Set in the ruins of a city ruled over by the giant mutant bear Mord and the specter of The Company, the protagonist Rachel scavenges an organism from Mord's fur and against the wishes of her partner, takes it in.

Borne starts out surprisingly cute and charming, to the point where you can almost forget that as good as it is at imitating humans, it isn't one. His close bond with Rachel is what holds this story together, even as that bond becomes strained and uneasy. The end of part two hits like a truck, especially because you already know what's going on, but to see it said out loud is devastating.

Vandermeer is so good at writing toxic, but compelling people. And as the story progresses, you see Rachel and her partner Wick drift apart and come back together on a brutal trek across the city.

There's so much of this book that winds up being simultaneously gross and beautiful. The urban warfare between Mord and his smaller clones and The Magician and her fucked up mutants is fascinating as a backdrop for the story. Even amidst the giant bears and shapeshifting anemones and leviathans, the most surreal bits of the story wind up being the flashbacks to before the world ended.

I also loved the bestiary at the end, complete with illustrations.

The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso - 3.50/5.00

After really enjoying Swords and Fire, I was excited to start Rooks and Ruin. While I don't think that the sequel series is quite as good as the original, I appreciate that I don't feel like I need to have read the first series to know what's happening.

I appreciate that the author doesn't waste time and just gets right to the plot. I really like that while Caruso's heroines both greatly value diplomacy, Ryx feels very different from Amalia. Vaskandar feels different from Raverra and the setting, a mixed up castle added onto by the whims of witch lords, was really cool. I like how aware Ryx is of the political realities of her standing, their world, and her friendships. Ryx is very sheltered, so you understand why she's sometimes too trusting and I appreciated the instances in which her trusting nature comes back to bite her.

That being said, I feel like Ryx trusted the Falconers too quickly and her bonds with them don't feel earned. I also wish she felt more like the other Vaskandrans.

Legacy of Kings by Eleanor Herman - 1.00/5.00

Cards on the table, I am a board certified, card carrying horse girl, so I'm naturally biased towards Alexander the great. So when I say that this book is probably read to people at CIA black sites, I mean it.

The characters are all whiny and annoying and too many of them have POVs. Jacob and Hephestion are both really stupid and fall for the dumbest tricks and traps. Katerina is aggressively bland and kind of a bad friend. I sometimes forgot that Zofia existed outside of her chapters, which have no impact on the plot. Alexander is whiny and I do not want to hear him talk about how hot is mom is again. Cynane is the only character I liked, if only because she's so edgy she loops back around to being hilarious.

The plot is kind of all over the place and lacks a good sense of time or scale. Things just kind of happen, then they work out fine. I don't think that the hunger games sub-plot is necessary. Katerina has a voyage to an old mentor to learn to use her powers and an entire training montage nearly entirely off page, only to come back for the last battle, all in the last fifty pages.

[blorb-el]

very happy to finally see someone who is as much mentally destroyed by flashpoint kal as me (it gets better I promise) and thanks to you I finally tried the superman radio show and... I don't know if I should thank you or curse you ? I just finished listening to the headless indian and the super sleuth and I fear this hyperfixation isn't going away soon...

But anyway, please pretty please could you give me some recs ? Is there an order I should listen them to or are they more stand alone stories ?

And continue to share your knowledge about superman and comics in general please it's fascinating!

flashpoint kal is literally something i'd daydream up and then go 'no no you're being too self indulgently angsty come on.' flashpoint beyond #3 was worth it all to see him finding a purpose :,)

old time radio the adventures of superman my beloved! (qualified). I've wanted to do a rec list for a while but I keep on getting hung up on how anti-Native/Indigenous a lot of the episodes are, especially in the first 'season.' That being said, I think most people are going to go into a radio show from the 40s aware of both the progressiveness of the show and the instances where it fails to reach the high standard it set for itself, particularly in the postwar era.

When I listened, I listened to The Clan of the Fiery Cross first, then went back to the beginning and just listened straight through. A very knowledgeable old time radio enthusiast did a podcast of every complete serial. 3 caveats here: 1. there are a few episodes missing or out of order but that's pretty easy to figure out, 2. the first 40 or so podcast episodes went missing (look those up on youtube or download those on archive.org here), and 3. while looking it up I only just now found out he's pretty far right-wing. He keeps it off his commentary though.

I think of OTR TAOS as 3.5 eras: the first before it moved to Mutual (40-42ish), the War years which are almost entirely lost, the postwar "S stands for sjw and sci-fi" era (my beloved) (Dec 45-48), and the short last series of half-hour standalone episodes. Here’s how stuff changed over time:

There’s a major paradigm shift between the first era and lost war serials where Superman operates first as an urban legend/cryptid, then switches to operating in the open and the world becomes aware he exists. Weird Justice Cryptid.

There’s a ‘soft’ retcon at some point in the lost serials where instead of growing up on the way to Earth and stepping out of the spaceship fully grown, as in the first episode of the first era, he gets to grow up with the Kents (who, fun fact, are from Iowa). His origin will be retold at several points.

During Looking for Kryptonite, the serial following the Atom Man saga, Clark makes the momentous decision to trust Bruce with his secret identity. This is a paradigm shift on the level of revealing his existence to the world.

In the switch to the last era of half hour standalone episodes, Bruce is then retconned out of existence (RIP). The half hour episodes may as well be a different canon, since many of them are adaptations of previous serials. They do have their own charm though.

There’s some smaller details that happen as ‘continuity’ within the postwar era, but all these shouldn’t trip a listener up much - Poco shows up, Perry gets elected Mayor of Metropolis, Lois gradually becomes more friendly to Clark, Unity House is built, etc.

Under the cut, a LONG list of highlights in order of airing, but tl;dr I’d say my top 10 were: the first storyline, The Black Pearl of Osiris, A Mystery for Superman, The Headless Indian, the entire Atom Man saga including Looking for Kryptonite, The Clan of the Fiery Cross, George Latimer Crooked Political Boss, Superman vs. Kryptonite, The Mystery of Meteor Island, and The Voice of Doom.

From the first era:

the first 21 episodes form a roughly continuous story which I'd recommend highly. this was the only era that they gave individual episode titles so I'll skip listing them all, just stop when you get to The Emerald of the Incas which is five episodes of pure YIKES. (to be fair the last episode is essentially "hey you moron, ask the Native Americans if perhaps they wrote down the statue's inscriptions instead of STEALING IT???" Debatable if it's worth slogging through the five episodes before that. )

Pick right back up again with Donelli's Protection Racket and Airplane Disaster, which were Jimmy Olsen’s first stories in any medium, and go a long way to explain why Jimmy loves Clark. The found family really kicks off here imo.

It's been a year or so since I listened to these but I recall Buffalo Hills, Happyland Amusement Park, Pillar of Fire at Grave's End, and The Yellow Mask and the Five Million Dollar Jewel Robbery were all pretty good, with the last featuring a familiar villain.

The Howling Coyote is a tossup, featuring maybe the one (1) multidimensional, memorable Native character in the whole run, but also more racism than usual. Give it a try if you like Westerns. It has one of my favorite side characters from the entire series, Tumbleweed Jones, a cowboy who took one look at Jimmy and turned to Clark and said i know you're his adopted dad but i want to also adopt him. can i. elder queer mentor vibes. gay little cowboy adopts gay little bowtied city kid and coparents with gay tired superhero. Howling Coyote goes right into...

The Black Pearl of Osiris, which is one of my favorites. Tumbleweed Jones comes to the big city. A decent mystery. Ridiculous side characters. Clark gets gaslit instead of gaslighting everyone else for once. Some racism as usual, though. Note that this one is slightly out of order on the podcast.

Last of the Clipper Ships is slow paced but good if you are in love with Jimmy (I was at this point) and also features an ABSURDLY good Moment in part 18 where they're in a dark room and Clark ventriloquizes a conversation between himself and Superman. It was one of those moments I felt like a kid listening because it blew my mind.

Dr. Roebling and the Voice Machine pays tribute to one of the original inspirations behind Superman with its machine that listens into crime - a fun look at what sci-fi looked like in 1941.

The Silver Arrow, a direct continuation on from the preceding The Crooked Oil Association (a thoroughly meh episode), is a delightful Western treasure hunt with Tumbleweed's return.

The Mechanical Man has an evil Nazi robot Superman gets to punch, what's not to love.

The first three parts of Lita, the Leopard Woman are really good Daily Planet family dynamics, the rest is skippable.

A Mystery for Superman is the last episode in this run, and you are either going to think the solution to the mystery is INCREDIBLY FUNNY or SO STUPID. I think the first. love this episode.

There are almost no complete serials from the war years, a consequence of the master recordings being stored on cheaper materials in order to preserve metal for the war effort. You’ve mentioned The Headless Indian, one of the best serials in the entire show, IMO. Amazing characters, great villain, and somehow less racist than the title would imply.

The first Batman/Superman team up and the first encounter with Kryptonite are from this era and they are both lost and I’m going to die mad about it.

Postwar era favorites:

Dr. Blythe’s Confidence Gang is the first surviving Batman serial; I would recommend it just on those grounds but it’s also a fun story where Batman and Clark Kent work together to clear Lois’s name of a false murder.

The Atom Man saga is the longest connected group of stories. It goes Meteor of Kryptonite, The Scarlet Widow, The Atom Man, and The Atom Man in Metropolis, and technically leads right into Looking for Kryptonite. Big recommendation; although Superman’s faced off against criminal genius type supervillains like the Laugher and the Yellow Mask, this is the first (and one of only two times) he comes up against an enemy with superpowers, and he shows his mettle and courage as he’s almost killed multiple times in this storyline.

Is There Another Superman, another Batman team up, is a little ridiculous but it does delight me because half their problems could be solved if Clark took a nap while Bruce watched him. This makes sense I promise. 

The Radar Rocket is so bad it’s good. Terrible, terrible science. Superman fights moon pterodactyls and moon ants and also Poco is there. Also notable for being the only serial I can remember where Clark spends the majority of his time being Superman instead of Clark Kent.

Story of the Century is an adaptation of A Mystery for Superman, only this time Bruce gets to get in on the fun, and then Clark gets to turn the tables.

The Hate Mongers Organization is the opening salvo of the show’s antiracist campaign. From here on out, this will be the show’s major concern. This is followed by Al Vincent’s Corrupt Political Machine, a similar story which I also recommend, and then comes...

The Clan of the Fiery Cross. Justly famous, a fierce, pointed criticism of a real, present opinion in American society, and it deserves the praise it gets. Although folks coming to this serial from Superman Smashes the Klan may be disappointed to know that there’s never an explicit Superman as Immigrant storyline in this serial, it’s still devoted with a singleminded, refreshing intensity to making sure that the bigot is proven wrong at every turn, and showing the violence and hatred of the Klan is founded on hypocrisy. (ALSO READ SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN.)

The Super Sleuth is another delightful teamup with Batman, where a detective is convinced Clark Kent is Superman and annoys the hell out of him.

The Secret Menace Strikes Again returns to the justice and tolerance themes, this time with the corporate censorship of the Daily Planet, fearmongering, war profiteering, and the kidnapping of Perry White.

George Latimer, Crooked Political Boss, deals with violent antisemitism, Nativism, and the political machine. High recommendation, especially since Latimer will return.

The Dead Voice: Someone is blackmailing Robin. Furious, protective World’s Finest Coparents, Alfred gets to do something, and Dick gets a grandfather!

The Disappearance of Clark Kent - Superman takes a break from corruption on Earth to try to save a planetoid from destruction. A quintessential Superman Moment in here as he decides he has to do what he can to help despite the personal risk. The rest of the serial is bizarre sci-fi. It leads right into The Secret Letter, also recommended, in which Clark returns to Earth to try to reclaim the last will and testament he left for his friends before they open it and discover his identity. Another Batman appearance.

Drought in Freeville returns to corrupt politicans, addressing the tension between newly-returned veterans and people suspicious of and hostile to them. I liked it mostly as a historical document - if you like the political stories listen, if they’re not your cup of tea it’s skippable.

The Monkey Burglar - if you liked The Dead Voice, here is more Robin being threatened!

The Knights of the White Carnation - White supremacists try to destroy a high school basketball team because there are Catholics/immigrant children on it.

The Man Without a Face - international spy espionage featuring a surprise return from Herbert Caulkins, the investigator in The Super Sleuth, and an attempt to sabotage the World Peace Organization/UN.

The Mystery of the Lost Planet - This is Poco’s origin, meaning it’s a rewrite of one of the lost War serials. Possibly the funniest thing radio Clark Kent has ever done in his life in part 10.

Superman vs. Kryptonite - Another of my favorites. Spoiler alert, Superman does not win the fight vs Kryptonite. George Latimer returns, determined to get revenge on both Clark Kent and Superman, and runs steps ahead of Batman as Bruce frantically tries to figure out where Superman is and rescue him. Features a completely bonkers plot twist halfway through which I kind of love, and one of the most memorable ending sequences - I can see it as clearly as a movie.

The Secret Rocket - The only time Clark returns to the Kent farm, in a poignant moment (it’s been sold: the Kents are dead in this continuity). The remainder of the story is a little eh, but a fun core idea of how destructive Kryptonian technology could be in 1947.

The Ruler of Darkness - yet another political machine story, except in this one, Perry White has HAD ENOUGH and runs for Mayor himself. Cue many, many, many attempts to sabotage his campaign.

Batman’s Great Mystery - the mystery is that Batman has turned into a hatemongering bigot, and obviously Dick and Clark must team up to go “this isn’t you.” It isn’t him.

Mystery of the Stolen Costume - Someone’s robbed Clark Kent’s apartment and has found his secret closet with his spare costume. Bruce and Clark work together to try to save his identity.

The Skin Game - More bigots try to de-integrate a track and field team, explicitly because one of the athletes is Black. For reference, this serial was broadcast in 1948, Brown v Board of Education was decided in 1954.

The Mystery of Sleeping Beauty - completely ridiculous in terms of history and sci-fi, but it rolls right around into kind of charming, and plus Superman gets to fight and probably kill a whole bunch of Nazis. In an off-camera 1948 way.

The Mystery of Meteor Island - okay have you ever read/listened to/watched a Superman story where he gets owned by Kryptonite and thought idly to yourself, what if someone ELSE got owned by radiation poisoning? Well have I the radio serial for you. Batman and Robin story.

The Voice of Doom - the only other superpowered enemy in the series. A killer convict acquires some hypersonic voice power in a lab accident. A Batman team up, and also the return of the Scarlet Widow (even though she totally died earlier. Comics style retcon!)

The Mystery of the Letter - the most memorable Lois centric episode, she receives a letter from her sister Diana which brings her and Clark to Paris.

And finally, of the half hour standalone stories - after so long listening to the serials, I’d gotten used to their slower paced storylines, so this wasn’t my favorite format, but the pacing is probably more amenable to most listeners. I liked The Double Trouble, One Minute to Death, Death Rides the Roller Coaster, Mystery of the Mechanical Monster, and The Diamond of Death. The Mystery of the Walking Dead was also okay, but Clark was a bit of an ass in the first part of that one. These were oriented towards adults and were much darker in tone, hence the edgy titles.

Whew. Or as Jimmy would say, gleeps! Fellow otr taos enjoyers feel free to yell at me anytime about any of these serials, or sound off about your favorites. 

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

This may be a minor gripe but something that has kind of bothered me about discussions and depictions of Dan is how often people seem to forget that Dan isn't just an older evil Danny, he's a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost sides. Like people always talk about him like Danny threw away his humanity and turned evil but that's not even true. Sure, we can say that Dan is the result of Danny's action but that's a little unfair. (1/2)

(2/2) Him cheating on a test, coincidentally putting his loved one's in a position where they could be killed, is absolutely not his fault. Letting Vlad take away his ghost powers with a strange contraption might not have been the smartest move, but we are talking about a grieving CHILD here, of course he isn't going to make the best decisions. If anything Vlad's the one to blame here, and even then, it's not like he could predict what happened

---

you aren't wrong, my friend. it really isn't entirely danny's fault and the whole 'if you cheat on a test, you'll loose everything you love' moral is confused at best. i think as fandom we find it more interesting to look at danny's potential evil and moral struggle with himself. so simplifying it to be dan is a worse case scenario of danny makes the conflict less abstract.

particularly because when it comes to self blame danny isn't going to go easy on himself just because it was excusable mistakes.

i think another talking point should be how danny is the target of the time assassination more than vlad is, even though vlad is part of the evil whole. you could argue that danny is the catalyst of his friends death and vlad inventing the claw things. but vlad invented the claw things. maybe because his human side survived and acted relatively harmless from then on? or maybe it's because the observants based on the available evidence recognized danny as more of a threat. i think that fits actually, for all vlad tried to be an evil mastermind, his achievements outside of terrorizing a teenager and theft isn't particularly impressive. danny was the one who got shit done. all his fights he finished one way or another and i could see how that would bleed into dan defeating everyone.

the real question is how to we fix this. ideally we could shape this idea so it's less confused, though i do honestly find the dynamic of half danny, half vlad interesting. if for not other reason. than two half ghosts make a whole. actually that's something else to be said about dan. his self-loathing is what led him to killing his human half, another negative aspect coming from danny.

i wonder if we could frame it like fusion, from su. obviously dan isn't stable or healthy, or based on love. he's most comparable to malichite. but with less internal debate. dan took the best and worst of both of them. danny's determination, danny's fighting ability, danny's anger, danny's sarcasm, vlad's anger, vlads lack of morals, vlads schemes, vlad's control. heck, vlads desire to rule the world. i don't think we ever got that from danny.

maybe if vlad was more involved in the fight with dan it could have been used as an opportunity to compare and contrast their characters. to go we're not so different you and i. danny gets to recognize that he has that dark potential. vlad gets to be humbled by the fact that what he wants isn't good for anyone, especially himself. and to be fair, we do see some of that humbling with future vlad, but none of that character growth is given to present vlad, so, really it's just another vehicle for danny angst. it also depends on what you want to do with vlad though. he's a fascinating character and could be given redemption under the right circumstances or be a character who has the opportunity for redemption but chooses not to be redeemed every time.

that fits him and makes him both a more pathetic and despicable villain. it's hard to pity someone who ignores the opportunities to heal and grow.

as for danny, he becomes far more aware of the consequences his actions, especially his selfish and cruel ones can have. because that potential was always there. he has a history of abusing his powers. perhaps for this specific incident him abusing his powers can be something less understandable than almost cheating on a test that he couldn't study for through no fault of his own. (maybe i just have flexible morals?). maybe it could be something more character relevant, like he did something particularly vlad like, maybe he set up a prank at the nasty burger to get dash but it set off the explosion that killed his family. or maybe he did something particularly cruel and manipulative. there are better catalysts than a test. either way he recognized that he should never go that far again and strive to avoid being actively cruel.

he also has the opportunity to recognize that vlad does have a human half, even the one he's fighting everyday. he can face some conflict in it's not entirely clear what trait belongs to vlad and what trait belongs to him. he can empathize with vlad and he can recognize that situations aren't always in black in white. those who fly the highest, fall the hardest, after all.

it can be a growing experience. and while making it solely a danny goes bad and learns not to do evil kind of story. maybe we could cut vlad from the equation and just have danny face himself, full evil refection. i think exploring both vlad and danny through this fusion is far more interesting. especially because we can build on what's revealed about vlad in these episodes, in later ones. danny sees a future where vlad chills and that maybe his vlad could get their. later he see vlads past and what he lost to become who he is.

and then there's vlads turning point episodes. i don't know when motherly instinct took place but maddie fully recognizing he's a bastard and rejection him, was a turning point for his sanity, and danny helped it along. then we have danny rejecting him repeatedly, then we the clone episode, which we can all agree was a desperate move on his part, that danny once again thwarted. and we can all agree that this was the cannon turning point for his character where he stopped fighting for a family and started trying to be danny's villain. in that episode, i think danny could potentially pity vlad enough to try and reach out. he's not going to justify what vlad did and he's not going to apologize for stopping him. he went too far. he hurt danny and dani, he crossed a moral line that can't be justified even with his desperation. but if he changes...

he lost this time but if he changes, maybe they'll reach the point where they're ready to accept him.

i think the same thing could be said about his relationship with jack and maddie. if he changes, if he reaches out. if acts like less of a crazy fruitloop, his friends would be there for him. jack is still trying to be there for him, even if he's being oblivious about vlad's faults. vlads the one driving wedges into his relationships and pushing everyone away.

and that's so freaking human and understandable.it would be such a cool thing to explore with his character.

i could also see a potential arc where after valerie finds out vlad and masters are the same person she tries to get close to him, both to sus out how evil he is and to understand him as a halfa. afterall danny got her to acknowledge dani as human enough, the same would apply to vlad/plasmius, right? only he's a bad person and the more she uncovers about vlad masters the man, the more she realizes it's not the ghost half that's evil. but this is a double edged sword because, vlad is getting attached to her and encouraging her to be more evil. he's encouraging her to go darker and darker in her fight against ghosts and her fight specifically against phantom. to the point where she finally draws the line and says, i'm not doing that! boom exploring the moral ambiguity of her character and getting her to take a hard stance on her morals, because there's a line too far for her.

and boom a further breakdown of vlads character because he finally had someone outside the fentons to redeem him. she could have helped pull him out of the hole he'd been digging himself into. she wanted to help him. he got attached to her, but he and his bad decisions decided to dig himself deeper instead. so once again he's 'abandoned and betrayed'.

from that point, i think it'd be time for him to finally face jack head on. not through manipulative schemes. not through veiled threats and insults. but the full confrontation of 'i always hated you. you ruined my life. you're the reason i lost everything'. which is really just his own self loathing speaking. and jack... empathetic jack can see that vlad desperately wants help. and jack would offer it to him. jack would try to hug it out and apologize and give vlad the love and friendship vlad's been fighting to steal this whole time.

and vlad would reject it.

he'd probably lash out a jack and go into a full breakdown/world destroying attack. could finally put the stolen crown to use and try declaring himself king and embracing his megalomaniac thing and actually be a threat this time. and THAT would be our series finally. everyone teaming up to fight 'king vlad'. danny probably finding out that he's technically king because he beat pariah dark but the matter being a bit confused because he had help. val and danny trying to find the ring of rage or at least find someone who can make one. secrets are out. i imagine vlad, upon revealing himself to jack would out danny to make danny as sad and alone as him. except nope, his family still loves him and val has had the character development to come around to him. (she's still gonna punch danny for lying for so long.) the ghosts will come and help because no one wants another tyrannical kind and vlads obviously off his rocker.

ah, the could have beens

anyway, i didn't mean for this to become a full vlad character analysis and rewrite when we were supposed to be talking about dan, but hey, i'm a simple creature. i like good writing, and i have to rewrite things myself, so be it. - Hestia