#it's not over for me

[scrollll]

Why Playboyy characters can't let me go

Seriously, I keep asking myself again and again why the actors and roles have such a grip on me (first of all: TALENT!) and I have come across another thesis...

All the characters have full first and last names, plus their nicknames. Even if they aren't mentioned even once in the show, they are listed and present in MDL (much to the delight of my fanfic writer heart, wohoo!) Now you might be thinking "So what, they have names then, the fuck, chill?" Babes. Nope. Here it comes We already know from interviews that Phop's character is based on a real character and that View himself was extremely emotionally affected by his story. My guess is it was similar with other characters.

Not that they are all based on real people, but rather that they all have far more history than we were shown in the show. Because as I watched the show (again and again) I noticed how damn real the characters seem in their motivations and decisions.

None of them seem plot-driven, rather the plot develops around them because of their differences and personal stories that interweave. It doesn't feel like "Character X, who has the role of best friend, mental support and otherwise just helps Y to get together with Z."

For almost all of the actors, Playboyy was their first leading role, whether Korn (Zouey), Fay (Porsche), Aun (Aob) or Jack (Soong), to name but a few.

Yet they all seemed natural and complex in their roles, like they knew every detail about their character. They act, like they're 100% confident it what the character is doing and why. Things like Jump's disabled mother (who is only mentioned once, but with a panic that I don't think Jump made her up) make the whole thing so much more detailed than it already is. Nuth's mental state of mind, especially the part of his past with a therapist or therapy (again, only mentioned once), is another example of how much thought has been put into the characters' backstories, what's for and what's against and why. Each character has all these little individual traits and details, habits that are not elaborated on in the show, but that make the characters seem so much more alive. Everyone has their own story, goals and pasts. What I'm saying, screenwriter and director of Playboyy… when there is so much plot around them all, that now is just sitting there, chilling… special ep/season 2 when?

[fl3a-bag]

It’s their greatest invention as of yet

[redstonedust]

phenomenom thats been bothering me that i could only express via an mspaint reverse boomer comic

[hansoeii]

the honda odyssey, huh?

[jamjoob]

Bewitched

[mochasucculent]

Dumb thing that would not leave my brain

[holographings]

someone on twitter said Imagine what s2 jayce would give to talk to s1 viktor just one more time. and someone had a time travel alternate dimension fic ready to go. and i read it. and now my face is being eaten by 3750 feral dogs i think

[azvhaalk]

glorious evolution

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[grovylelover]

Walked into the local marriott and guess who was behind the front desk. yuuuuuuup. the immortal king of legend who vaporized so many people it permanently fucked up the timeline.

[sclappin]

A conversation at the DMV.

[elfdyke]

i think twitter is actually really funny and good sometimes. where else are you seeing shit like this

[magnetothemagnificent]

Randomly remembered how as a kid my mom would always fast forward through the beginning of 'Finding Nemo' because she thought Coral's death was too violent, so for years I never knew why Nemo was raised by a single father and assumed Nemo's parents had gotten fish divorced and Marlin had won custody of Nemo. My dad's biological parents divorced when my dad was young, so I always knew what divorce was and I knew my Grandma had gotten primary custody of my dad, so I just assumed that's what happened with Nemo. It wasn't until years later when I watched Finding Nemo with my grandparents without my mom and they didn't know to fast forward through the beginning that I finally knew what happened to Coral and I was *devastated*.

[puckspoetry]

POV: you wake up from a mouse bite induced coma

[nikkinelson1313]