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trappedward · 2 years ago

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In a deep, dark forest

To begin this blog, I felt it only appropriate to address one of the topics that was the main reason I started this in the first place.

That's right baby we are starting off strong with Kikuo. It should be of no surprise then that Kikuo is my favourite artist, considering I partially dedicated this blog to him and my first post is about his latest song (that you were going to discover as you read on).

So, In a Deep, Dark Forest has finally been uploaded to Spotify after being teased on his Instagram and formally released 2 weeks ago! To be honest, it's felt way more like a month than 2 weeks but also my concept of time has been so fucked up recently. Regardless of that, let's move on to what I really want to say about this song.

(Feel free to give it a listen if you're a passerby or a fan that hasn't heard the song yet so you can gather your own opinions before reading mine)

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Again, to no surprise, I LOVE THIS SONG. I never listen to songs on repeat, usually I'll put a few songs in between and then re-listen. HOWEVER I could not help but put it on repeat a few times when It released on Spotify just a little bit ago.

It's classic Kikuo; upbeat yet distorted tempo and whacky little sound effects if you listen carefully. It's why I love his music so much. I've rarely found music artists quite like him and every time I listen to his music, I either find something new or find that I listen to it differently than I last did - if that even makes sense?

But I'm not here to just summarise. After all, I've DEDICATED this blog to my interests. That means I'm doing this properly baby - I'm breaking down every aspect of THIS ONE SONG that I feel like talking about for my own sick pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, let's properly start the blog.

QI XUAN

For this song Kikuo diverted from his usual use of Hatsune Miku and instead decided to use Qi Xuan as his vocalist. Now I'm fully aware that this is not the first time Kikuo has used Qi Xuan's or another Vocaloid's voice bank - he has dabbled with Stardust Infinity and his song ローディーローディー/ Roadie Roadie features Qi Xuan. I just felt the need to point this out because for the past few years we have seen KIKUOMIKU 1-6 so I was interested to see that he had tried something else for the first time in a while (aside from collabs with Si_ku and Hanatan, etc). Anyway... Qi xuan! I personally think her vocals were amazing for this song. Don't get me wrong, I adore Miku and I absolutely understand why she is one of the most liked vocaloids. She's always amazing for Kikuo's music. This time though Qi Xuan just seemed like a more obvious choice in hindsight. While her voice is still soft (just like Miku), it sounded a bit more lively in somes parts as opposed to Kikuo's Miku usually being pretty deadpan or emotionless. Qi's smooth, more exasperated vocal seems to fit the flowy aspects of this song and make it sound sort of like a tide. Drawing out and then back in. She just has a bit more emotion at parts idk... maybe I'm just way too used to the atypical Kikuo Miku that hearing something different feels more realistic in terms of making it sound like an actual person.

COVER ART

From what I understand from Kikuo's description on the youtube upload of this song, the artwork was a collaboration between him and Si_ku. Which like.... HELLO?! When was the last time Kikuo drew one of his own album or single covers? And to do a collab with his star artist Si_ku? MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN I say. I absolutely adore Si_ku and her artstyle and that she is constantly working with Kikuo. Having them work together to make the artwork is just... it's incredible to me. It's got the usual style of Si_ku mixed with that "grimeieness" that Kikuo usually exploits. I've stared at it for so long just looking at the intricate details and colours hidden within all the lines spewing out from the main subject. Imagining Kikuo and Si_ku in the same room making this is so cool to me and IDK MAN I'M JUST FAN-GIRLING SO HARD RN.

INSTAGRAM STORIES

I follow Kikuo on Instagram. As much as it is an annoyance to me, I use Instagram a lot (more than Twitter). Can you imagine my surprise when I saw Kikuo's icon at the top of my screen in the stories bar? The speed at which I clicked was that of mach 20. I. WAS. NOT. DISAPPOINTED. This is probably not the right spot for this segment of the blog but do I care? No. Anywayssss seeing his behind the scenes process and getting casual updates throughout the week was awesome. I've always enjoyed watching him deconstruct his process especially since he doesn't actually know anything about music theory. He just does whatever sounds good to him and it's so garbled but insanely interesting as he explains why he makes the choices he does, how it isn't based on any logic in regards to making music but because of some reason that is akin to his creative process. If that makes sense. I'm sorry if my speech is hard to understand because I'm multi-tasking atm and rereading my sentences doesn't always help me edit. Ok I digress for the millionth time. Kikuo's instagram stories were not something I thought he'd take interest in starting considering that he really just works at his own pace being the NPC he is. Not complaining though and I will happily eat my meal.

ENDING SEGMENT

I would love to continue but I have lost track of my thoughts because I had a 2 hour interval at one point when writing this because I got distracted ACK. I may do a part two but that is only if I can get my shit together and not have like 5 different people trying to message me at once (I'm grateful for all of you though FR). For anyone who somehow is interested in this or has made it to the end of this post, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me your thoughts on the topic / this song! I would love to discuss it even if only briefly in the notes. That's all, bye bye.

#kikuo #vocaloid #Youtube

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littlelife-bigdreams · 3 months ago

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blows dust off of blog like a newly discovered ancient tome

…Hello? Is this thing on?

Whew! Hello, peoples and friends! I did not intend to stop posting neither suddenly nor for so long, but… things happened. I’ll write it out in a list so you can keep track of it all. Bad news first.

(mentions of illness and abuse)

1) My mother is in the hospital. Decades of smoking have resulted in lung cancer (which, in hindsight, is obvious), and she’s doing okay at the moment, but we’re not sure if she’ll get better. She hasn’t smoked in a few years, actually, but her sudden shift to a healthy lifestyle around a year ago might have triggered too many changes in her body all at once, and now, the cancer’s caught up to her. All we can be thankful for is that it’s only stage 2, and the chemotherapy seems to be working. I call her everyday to make sure she’s alright. 🤍

2) I don’t talk about my dad much, but ever since mom’s been sick, he’s been… kind of back in my life. To shorten an incredibly long story (and to spare myself from unnecessarily reliving my trauma), my dad abused me as a kid. Ever since mom got custody of me at 12, I’ve been no-contact with dad. Partly because he served time, partly because I had no desire to contact him once he got out. The night that mom went to the hospital, dad was just… there. I think we kind of startled each other. It wasn’t until mom was stabilized that he asked me how I’d been doing. We held a pretty normal conversation, all things considered, but he ended it with a gentle squeeze to my knee, and “Missed ya, buddy.” Mom doesn’t want to see him, but he wants to make sure she’s okay, so I’ve been occasionally updating him as well. I don’t know how I feel about him right now, but he’s conducting himself respectfully, and that’s about all I can wish for at the moment.

(Okay, good news!)

3) I still can’t believe I can say (write?) this. I have… a fiancé! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩!!!! Ben proposed about a month ago, and I’m completely head-over-heels for him all over again. He took me into the city, bought breakfast for us at my favorite cafe, treated me to a visit at a nearby bookstore, set up a picnic for lunch in the park, surprised me with an hour of ice skating, allowed me to drag him into the local animal shelter, took me out to dinner, surprised me again with an orchestral concert, and then popped the question outside the performance hall!!! One of the official photographers for the concert noticed us at the right moment, and took pictures of the entire thing. It was so magical!!!! Obligatory ring pic:

(ripped straight from the online catalog, of course)

4) Ben and I are also going to move in together! The move has been slow-going, but we’re making progress. Between our yearly camping trips with his family, though, it might take a while before we’ve officially moved in together. Still exciting!

That covers it, at least until next time. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to return any overdue books!

— Luca 📖

#luca's chronicles 🖌#oc rp #fanfazgang

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years ago

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…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4

Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.

Persistent Pam

Curmudgeonly Carl

And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.

No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once

All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)

And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo

Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips

And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)

She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub

Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.

As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.

In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.

Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.

However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.

Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…

On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend

BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…

… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.

Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.

But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.

Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.

Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?

Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.

Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.

The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen

Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.

Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.

BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.

Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.

And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!

This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS

And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…

You can frankly go and screw yourself.

On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.

Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.

I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.

But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.

There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…

And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.

What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.

For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?

I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.

Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.

Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…

And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen

And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.

As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.

Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.

Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.

Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.

There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them

You failed.

Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.

Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.

Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?

Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.

The comic here is actually called politics. … ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.

Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.

Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.

When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.

Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?

And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.

It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!

… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.

And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!

And that is it.

Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.

Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.

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#adobsoncomic #Andrew Dobson #Tom Preston #comic #webcomics #syac #so...you are a cartoonist #review #master review

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popculturebuffet · 3 years ago

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Amphiba: True Colors Review or FINALLY THE FINALE

We’re finally here all you happy people! Ten Months, 36 episodes, 20 half hours, a lot of gay subtext, a lot of bloodshed, and a lot of build up have lead us all here! One absolutely STUFFED finale: A trust is betrayed, a rebllion is had, a conquerer rises and NOTHING will ever be the same.. and yes htat’s thrown around a lot but this is one of those times where NOTHING WILL BE THE SAME. This is that kind of finale folks.

But before I can get into all the juicy stuff you’ve been waiting for there’s a few things to discuss.. and the first is obviously the fact we had to wait three goddamn extra weeks to get here after spending all season leading up to this.

You all know the story by now. Hell I even angirly ranted about it when it happened and rightfully so. But frankly the colossal delay is going to be such an integral and permeant part of this episode and this show’s history that not talking about it in this review would do it a diservice: So to recap: The finale was posted to air May 1st, a weak after “The Dinner/Battle of the Bands”. I had it set in my schedule, it showed up in that month’s press release of Disney Channel Episodes, We were all ready to go with all the tight and intense build up leading up to this.

Then the worst happened and Disney aburbtly, and with a funny face image trying to play it off as a joke annoucned via it’s animation twitter the episode would be delayed. Now in fairness to the twitter person there, they were PROBABLY trying to help massage a blow... but seriously dude, read the room next time. Thankfully creator Matt Braly stepped in and explained it was technical delays. After what happened the next day I ASSUMED he was just trying to cover for them as it would turn out the episode was finished.. turns out, and I had to edit the review to reflect this the truth was somewhere in the middle. Edits were more discussed, likely due to the episodes very violent nature, and the episode was given a content warning. Given what happens.. I can’t blame Disney for wanting one or for thinking of editing it.. but canblamehtem for the “Things that could’ve been brought to my attention YESTERDAY’ nature of the edist and the insuing delay.

I can also blame them for leaking the episode on ITUNES. Yeah if they were REALLY concenred abotu content then they would’ve held off longer and not brought this up five minutes before it aired, delaying the episode for many. Hell I DEFENEDED them in the original version of this, but they had MONTHS of this episode being in production to fucking say something. WHy do this five mintues before it’s finished?

It just smacks of laziness and overly panicy stuff. A content warning would’ve been FINE. You ahve it for racisim on Disney Plus, just put one here and call it a day. You haven’t objected to the horrifying content in the series up to this point why start NOW. And they STILL never apologized. For any of this. For the leak, for the delay, never properly explaining the delay (Matt didn’t either.. but given how twitchy comapnies can be about what their creators say, I can’t blame him for not wanting to clarify it was a post credit’s thing till closer to airtime), just in general not giving a shit abotu the kids or adults watching this. Just because kids watch thiis dosen’t me older kids don’t have social media, and it dosen’t mean teens don’t. If you want to pretend us adults watching this don’t exist.. fine. It sucks but I can’t do anything. But do not do this shit to kids and then not go to them. And again Matt could’ve.. but it’s not his fucking job. His job is to make a show, help make sure it gets to air and be a sweeheart. YOURS is to make sure things run smoothly and when their is a hickup,get your house in order.

Matt shoudln’t of HAD to beg people not to watch it. Various va’s for the show shoudln’t of HAD to record funny messages.. it was appricated but it’s not thier job to prevent this from spreading. It’s yours. It’s yours to open your damn eyes and see adults and older teens watch this stuff too and to head that shit off. This incident is going to stick in my craw for god knows how long and ALMOST convinced me not to cover Owl House weekly (I still woud’ve likely done a review on each half of the season). I ended up renegeing on that and will be starting regular coverage of that in June and continuing coverage of this show whenever it returns.. but it was close.

And it’s ultimately YOU GUYS that kept me hanging in there. It was thanks to a Disney show this blog exists in the first place, and contiunes to get the bulk of it’s viewers. It’s how I got my patreon, biggest fan and bfinacial backer Kev. I’ts why I can do what I love, talking about and analyzing stuff I enjoy and ocasionally loathe. You guys came back week after week for my ducktales reviews and stayed for Amphibia. I”m sure i’ll get even more for Owl House. It’s thanks to all of you I can keep going despite the hardships, the lack of patreons, the long nights, the weird sleep schedules. I wouldn’t of made it through 20 weeks of awesome tv without you. So for you, and for myself, i’ll hang in there but I expect better Disney. And i’m damn well gonna get it. So join me under the cut as the world turns upside down.. and there are a LOT of spoilers. Seriously if you want to wait for the tv airing do not go under the cut

So we open with a flashback to 8 months ago, the day all this began: Marcy was working in the library on her cram classes, getting texts from both Sasha, who was excited about Anne’s birthday, and her own father who wants her to come home right away as there’s something important they need to discuss.

But before she can a book about the strange and what not naturally slips out and Mar-Mar can’t help but thumb through it.. and as you were no doubt dreading.. finds the box which is said in a large tv friendly caption to lead to other worlds.

Naturally Marcie is intrigued and snaps a pick and heads home... and we cut to the END of that conversation as she tearfully runs out of the house , refusing to accept what they’ve told her and her dad coming off hella unsympathetic with his overly harsh tone, especially since we DO find out what he told her... and it’s a lot to put on her and a lot to just say “accept because I helped make you for all of two unsatisfying minutes. “

So while running away she passes the box.. and sets the events from both the show’s opening and the flashback from the last finale in motion. Marcy sent them here on purpose.

Yeah needless to say I DIDN’T see this coming. And it seems obvious in hindsight: Marcy being the one most desperate to keep thier friendship together, as we’ll see at it’s worst through this episode, her barely mentioning going home, and most tellingly the only things she talks about from earth were Anne, Sasha and her dorky intrests. All the things closest to the heart and that she’s most likely to make out with.. but while Anne brings up earth stuff every so often even after getting more screen time in Season 2b... Marcy NEVER talks about that kind of stuff. She has her girlfriends and a real life fantasy novel right here... but she DOSEN’T miss her parents or earth itself. And given her life was already shown to be as an outcast with only two people carring about her, three with her mom now we know, who never REALLY fit in and whose on friends very clearly didn’t share her intrests.. it probably made it all the more tempting: a real adventure, an escape from her problems, and a way to start over: become who she always PLAYED and not who she was. Everything just.. snaps into place with this revelation and makes Marcy an all the more heartbreaking character... even more so soon enough when we find out what her overall plan was.

But that’s half an episode away: for now our party returns on Joe to Newtopia.. though clumsly. Marcy admits that they probably can’t fit more people on him. But with this our heroes are ready to finish this story and with a plan since obviously they can’t just walk into town with two wanted crminals: Marcy will present the box and THEN sasha and grime, who will cloak themselves to avoid attracting attentions, with literal cloaks Marcy hasn’t made a cloaking device yet, so hopefully they’ll get a pardon.

Inside Sprig and Anne talk, with Sprig admitnig he’s sad this is the last adventure.. but Anne has hope. After all they have a way home now and that portal goes both ways. She can hop back any time and vice versa. This sin’t goodbye.. it’s just goodbye for now. And i’ts something I genuinely didn’t think of.. and not just because Andrias’ shady actions and Sasha and Grime’s machinations meant this was NEVER going to end well.

Speaking of Sasha and Grime’s machinations those come to a head: As our heroes enter the castle, greeted by Lady Olivia, and we get our typical end of the RPG speech from the “Good” king.... Sasha swipes the box and Grime uses the hammer to knock everyone off ballance. The coup the two have been cooking up has come to pass.

Anne and Marcy’s reactions.. are telling: Anne is utterly pissed at the betryal and done with Sasha and Marcy is begging both sides to stop as this was not how it was supposed to end. Sasha tries to use a box as a baranging chip, and plans to destroy it if Andrias dosen’t surrender despite destroying her way home. Given it’s implied her home life isn’t great either and she gets to rule an empire instead of a school, it’s easy to see why.

Grime stops him from calling her bluff though by wacking him in the shins and then hodling him at hammer point to get the military of Newtopia to stand down while his covert Toad agents reveal themselves and runamuck. Grime has won.

Anne meanwhile is livid, with Sasha not quite getting why MAYBE Anne would once again feel betrayed that once again Sasha is trying to do everything her way and once again lied to her and harmed innocent people. Anne breaks off their friendship which deeply uspets Marcy.. who weirldy. ISN’T trying to talk Sasha out of this. After all she gets what she wanted anyway. She IS upset when Sasha tries to send them home for defiance.. but the box dosen’t work for her and she simply has the guards escort our heroes and Olivia out till she can figure this out.

Naturally though Anne, being pissed, heartbroken and pissed, and yes that was indeed intentional, HEADBUTTS the nearest guard and breaks them out, with the planatrs starting to fight back. Their still outnumbered.. but help arrives

Or rather the Amphibia equilvent as both wolverines are busy with prep for the Hellfire Gala. Yes it’s General Yunan, who Lady Olivia cuts off probably not for the first time. Your lucky that’s one of her turn on’s lady.

So our heroes sneak out and head to Sals, while the Toads wreck up the town. Marcy... is of course desperate to fix things, but figures it’s easy. All they have to do is free the king, stop the rest of the army from arriving, their an hour away, and cementing grime’s foothold, get her girlfriends to reconcile and fix the inherent power imbalance so a rebellion doesn’t’ happen again.

But Anne rouses them: They may be a goofus, a quick witted kid, an out of touch old man, a literal baby, am etaphorical baby, and a nerd.. but their a BADASS Goofus, kid, old man, babies and nerd... and two other ladies the toads actually know and respect. They’ve fought worse: Canibals, princess bride references, theater bandits, chicken elder gods, Poly’s addiction to angry mobs and paste pot pete and come back stronger each time. They can do this. They might only be 8 strangers, but together they can fuck up this shit. or to have a previously mentioned buddy of mine sum it up

So with that it’s time to split up gang: Marcy, Hop Pop and Olivia will go free the king using Hop Pop’s acting skills...which actually works despite Olvia’s doubts. Polly, Yunan and Frobo will put the hammer down and give them hell, taking out the toads in the city and drawing all of them away from the gate where Spriganne will trigger it thus saving the day.

Meanwhile Sasha is feeling discontent. She got everything she wanted.. but she didn’t think about what to DO with all that power. At home she could do all sorts of things ruling a school but now she’s lost one of the loves of her life. Without Anne and Marcy i’ts just empty. Even Grime’s utterly heartfelt gift of an emerald sword, he knew she always wanted to duel wield that has a heron on it, a sign of how they met and a truly sweet gesture can’t cheer her up. So Grime suggests redecorating and the first thing to go is a sappy mural of Andrias and his subjects. What they find UNDER it though is horrifying.. and i’ts surprisingly not a bunch of spiders like you’d expect.. but a mural of Andrius as some sort of horrible king with an army of robot frogs like Frobo, with a LOT of frog, toad and newt skeletons piled up. Sasha and Grime are glad they dodged that bullet.. only to find Anne scaling the tower with Sprig, the two naturally going to stop them.

The two try and turn the wheel, but can’t as there’s a doorstop... one they DEFINTELY saw earlier when looking out the window of Sal’s.

Regardless they send Polly for that.. and the rematch begins. Sasha TRIES talking to Anne.. but given she stabbed her in the back AGAIN for incredbly petty reasons, that’s not going to work and the two get one hell of a fight. Beautifully animated and rife with emotion as the two clash with Sasha DESPERATLY trying to get Anne to stop for a second and listen and Anne rightly refusing, while we watching know our hero winning will spell DOOM for this world despite her trying to do the right thing. Anna and Brenda’s acting here is just TOP notch. In any other episode this would be the best part of it.. but we’re only getting warmed up.

While they fight, we get a surprising and awesome bout I did not see coming: Sprig Vs Grime. And it gives me Spider-Man vs Kingpin vibes really: A rotund but still far more powerful opponent versus a smaller but quicker one. And that’s how even more shockingly, Sprig comes out the WINNER. While Grime has the hammer and more strength and skill... Sprig has speed and thus gets Grime to whack himself with it. Granted he can’t use the thing and comically spins around afterword.. but it proves Grime’s racist thoughts about frogs wrong and leaves Anne free to turn the wheel once she beats Sasha. The invasion is thwarted.

But naturally given the ooky spooky mural and the other hints of ominous shit like the watcher with a thousand eyes, this isn’t the end. Back at the throne room, with Sasha and Grime as prisoners Anne gives Andrias the box despite sasha begging her not to. But rather than send her home right away.. he has a history lesson for her first. And nothing good ever starts with someone delaying helping you to give a sinister history lesson let me tell you.

We find out the while truth: Amphibia was once a technological empire powered by the box, and prosperity SEEMINGLY reigned, and Andrias, much like our heroines, had two close friends, a toad and a frog. But one day they betrayed him, abandoning him and seemingly stealing the box , leaving his mechanical marvels powerless and Andrias bitter and angry. Hence the whole revenge ploy.

In an unsurprising and invincible-esque twist, he reveals his ancestors were not explorers but CONQUERERS and he intends to finish their work, placing the box on a pedestal that turns his castle into a flying fortress glowing blue. It only gets worse from there: the castle’s awakening also activates factories around Amphibia similar to the one we saw back in “Fort in the Road” that gave us Frobo and it turns out their dark purpose.. is to create armies of unstoppable soldiers to secure his dominon.... and spread it to the other worlds. The reason he didn’t send the girls home is he figures correctly Anne and the others will try and stop him from TAKING it.

So yeah Anne’s reaction is very naturally...

And despite being outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned she plans to make an all out stand. She realizes that her own fight with Sasha only allowed something FAR WORSE to take hold. She’s not WRONG for fighting her, Sasha was being a shithead taking over and did so for flimsy and selfish reasons and she had no reason to listen to her.. but had she at least thought over giving him the box and not simply given it to him to spite her none of this would be happening. So she and the plantars get ready for round 2, with Sasha having her back this time, and Grime having Sasha’s. It’s a really sweet moment, showing Sasha has realized just how much her own greedy and controlling ambitions have cost her and that she’s brought about something far worse thorugh them, and is ready to make amends and Grime as always ready to stand by the only true family he has.

But before the carnage can begin.. Marcy stops them... and then tearfully turns to Andrias “This wasn’t our deal!”. Andrias, now not having to play nice, dosen’t care and cruelly points out of course he did: He would’ve said whatever it took to get her to fill the box and she did it. He also hints at Marcy’s dark secret, with both girls wondering what the hell he’s on about.. but clearly starting to piece it together, with Andrias cruelly toying with Marcy to tell them before he does.. and barely gives her any time before going ahead with it anyway, knowing she’d be unable to. And with this we get the best line of the episode and Keith david’s best delivery.. and given he makes a fucking seven course meal of the entire second act, yeah that’s a high bar.

"Did it ever occur to you — Anne, Sasha — that one of you knew more than she was letting on? That one of you might've gotten you stranded in Amphibia... on purpose?"

The line itself hits like a sledgehammer. We knew for the full episode she did this on purpose.. but we also knew at some point it was clearly going to come out and hurt them both.. and to see someone Marcy clearly saw as a better replacement dad, someone she thought cared about her and was offering her her dreams for no gain on his end cruelly tell them clearly for his own amusment as he dosen’t remotely see them as a threat.. it’s utterly chilling as it is heartbreakiing and horrifying.

Naturally Anne and Sasha are upset, Sasha a bit baffled and Anne just utterly broken by this: She’d already been betrayed TWICE by the other love of her life.. now MARCY had betrayed her.. and WORSE?

And it only gets worse as Marcy heartbreakingly reveals her motivation and what this was really all about: Her dad announced he got a new job and they were moving a state away.. and like I said he’s a prick. Not for moving, that happens and it sucks but for having no freaking empathy about it. Maybe if he took a parenting class earth wouldn’t be on the cusp of a robot invasion. Marcy was about to loose her girls and was desperate.... so naturally Andrias claimed to simply want to take them all with him on his journeys, obviously leading out the conquest and likely genocide part, so they could go on and on FOREVER. And this whole thing gave Anne the plantars so it’s not all bad right? Right? But it’s clear she’s trying to desperatly lie to herself this was all okay as she’s been doing ever since she started this all 8 months ago and Anne pointing out she misses her family, something Marcy never considered given her own reasons for leaving and how Sasha likely dosen’t have a happy family life herself.

This.. this is Haley Tju’s finest hour. She’s done good voice work before, especially in this series but here, with Marcy’s anguish, desperation and guilt all leaking out as she tries to get her girlfriend not to turn away from her. it’s all just amazing heartbreaking stuff and I salute her and the animation does her fine acting a service and shows every bit of pain in the poor girls face.

Anne naturally does turn away a bit and Marcy cries.. but Anne quickly recovers... while she obviously isn’t entirely ready to forgive Marcy JUST yet, it’s clear she wasn’t thinking straight and did all of this out of desperation... and that the hulking dickbag who betrayed them all and is gloating about all of this manipulated her, preying on her desperation and anguish to finish his plan. Marcy fucked up big time, no question.. but ANDRIAS is the true monster here, and if he’s not stopped this world she’s grown to love and the one she left behind will BURN. Anne may be many things: impulsive, kinda weird, easy to anger.. but she is over all that a HERO. And there’s a villian to stop

Andrias, while not seeing them as remotely a threat, does admit this will probably be fun and the fight begins, with our heroes, including Marcy, easily besting the Obsdian Swarm.. as i’m calling them now. It’s a cools equence.. but ultimately futile. Andrias is FAR more powerful than he’s let on with the box. And shows it off by destroying toad tower before coming at them with a fire sowrd, easily swatting them aside like flies. They try their best to fight back but it’s not much use, and Andrias NEARLY crushes polly to death under his fist. Yes a fucking child. What a dick.

Frobo saves him... and sadly this is the end for our new friend as Andrias is mildly amused that one of his creations glitched.. then smashes him into robotic paste. Polly rightfully calls him a monster and his response is as chilling as it is wonderfully dickish: “Don’t worry, your next”.

Thankfully though she got out of the way.. because she has LEGS now. It’s also why I keep saying 8 months, though it’s likely more like 9 given it took a month to get to newtopia:

The prophecy has come true! And while she stumbles for a second Polly quickly proves she can really move, she has an attitude and she’s the fastest thing alive by grabbing the box seemingly winning.. except Andrias has sprig in his fist and is going to crush or drop him ulness she stops. And despite Sprig BEGGING his sister to let him go for the sake of everyone else, like any good hero she naturally puts the box back.

Anne begs for him to let Sprig go since he got what he wanted and he’s her best friend in this or any world... but all this does is insprie Andrias to DROP HIM OUT A WINDOW, bitter over his own past and eager to torture her some more. This really shows off who Andrias REALLY is now the mask is off; a sadistic tyrannical bully who relishes in making his victims really squirm, revels in malevolence and is just so damn gleeful about it: Not to say BIll Cipher levels more of a cold, cruel enjoyment of things.

As I said earlier Keith David makes a motherfucking Seven Course Meal out of the second half of this episode, utterly stealing the show now he can play Andrias as he truly is: not skulng in the shadows with ominus hints he’s evil or pretending to be nice, but instead as a sadistic brute who delights in suffering and wants nothing less than everything under his boothill. in short he’s an AWESOME antagonist and while Keith David has played TREMENDOUS villains before, this one will easily be his best if the writing holds. Andrias is Keith David at his fucking best and proves the Disney legend has EVEYRTHING left in the tank even as he approaches 70′s. Jesus I fucking love this man.

So this causes anne to retreat into herself, leaving us in a black void as Anne remembers all the good times.. and goes MOTHERFUCKING SUPER SAYIAN. Well more accurately super sayian god super sayian, or blueper sayian if you will, but still i’ts a n utterly striking sequence and a clear direct shout out with Anne getting her powers the same way Goku did: loosing someone to an utterly cruel bastard. Same with Gohan’s upgrade to super sayian 2. It’s just a truly striking sequence as she powers up in a FULL rage, DEMANDNIG he give him back.

Andrais is stunned, clearly knowing this was something she was capable of but thought she could no longer do as the box shoudlv’e drained her of the ablility, while Hop Pop and Grime wonder if this is a human thing.

So Anne WAILS on the fucker, easily besting a shocked andrias despite his best attempts.. but she tires out and he swats her aside, gleefully noting she dosen’t know how to control it. Sprig turns out to be okay though. Marcy went and saved him while Anne was rippig Andrias asunder.. and then activates the box. Sasha and Grime hold him off while Anne makes a run for it with the plantars while Andrias gives out your standard villian big no. Anne and Fam make it... but Marcy is taking a sec.. and that second gets her GUTTED. Not an exageration or me being a smart ass like usual.. Andrias RAN HER THROUGH WITH HIS SWORD.

His only response is “Look what you made me too and Anne and crew are warped away, unable to save her.

So we end with our heroes landing somewhere and Sprig wondering where they are... where they are is on the top of a car on a busy Los Angeles Freeway... and in front of two very weirded out humans. Anne is home.

So now for the part that wasn’t in the original release apparently: The teaser.. aka THE MOTHERFUCKING SEASON 3 OPENING.

youtube

Hell. Yes. Just a few quick personal notes before we hit the wrap up: I love how the season will be on earth, a nice change of pace, how the Boonchuy’s have very clearly warmly welcomed the plantars, the expanded cast at the title card, and how Disney just let them go ALL out for this one. They’ve clearly stopped being cheap assholes when it comes to letting intro’s change or at the very least got this was the very end of the series and thus important enough to gussie up. But yes the end is nigh.. and probably not till late this year if this year AT ALL And I will return for it. Well return to doing this show anyway, i’m not going anywhere. They’ll have to pry this blog from my cold dead hands.

Final Thoughts:

This episode is the series best so far. My only honest complaint is the Toad Invasion comes and goes really quickly and I question why it was crammed into half the episode. Don’t get me wrong, Andrias’ rise needed the full 10 minutes, but I question why we dind’t get an episode before this settingit up and THEN have it happen over half an episode, epsecially since we spent an entire episode on getting the other toad barons involved only for ONE of them to show up for all of five minutes.

Otherwise though? Yeah no notes. The cast is at the top of their damn game, with Brenda Song, Hailey Tju and Keith Motherfucking David as the standouts, the animatoin is likewise, and it pays off a thing or two you wouldn’t expect like the acting episode. This is a truly outstanding finale, one that has now joined other all time faviorite season finales such as “You’re In Control”, “Reunited”, “The Crossroads of Destiny”, and “Moonvasion”. I will be watching this again when it comes to Disney Plus. Masterful stuff.

As for the season as a whole.. this was a great season. While it did start a bit rocky with the road trip arc, which I’m still not a huge fan of as I feel it mostly wasted an awesome idea of them going on a world spanning roadtrip with some fairly weak episodes, with the exception of standouts “Truckstop Polly” and “Wax Museum”.

But once we got to Netwopia it got better, with better spotlight episodes, the pacing picking up and Marcy joining our merry crew. And it hit it’s peak with the second half of the season: the return to wartwood effortlessly combined slice of life with the compelling temple episodes. It was also a nice break before the utter hell that arrived in the finale, but still nicely lead up to said finale. This season may of STARTED bumpy but it finished at it’s highest point and with one epic finale to go it’s only going to get better from here.

As for this blog the same holds true: Review wise next week i’ll be taking a break from normal reviews to do a week’s worth of Goofy based content in time for his birthday, from shorts, to goof troop, to hosue of mouse, to an obscure special, all leading up to the Disney Classic A Goofy Movie. So stick around.

And if that dosen’t do it for you I have an ongoing retrospective on the story arcs of ducktales season 2, i’m nearing the end of one on Scott Pilgrim and in the middle of one of The Life and Times of Scrogoe McDuck. and if you prefer weekly reviews, as I mentioned earlier offhandidly i’ll be covering the Owl House! LIke Amphibia i’m starting with Season 2, but just like with this show i’m excited as all hell and hope you’ll join me. And if you need even more I have a patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet, where I have exclusive reviews if you choose to back me as well as exciting stretch goals, one of which down the line is reviewing season one of this very show. So join it and if not that’s okay too, either way.. it’s been a pleasure.

#amphibia #amphibia spoilers #true colors #anne boonchuy #marcy wu #sasha waybright #grimothy #captain grime #sprig plantar #andrias leviathan #keith david #hopidah plantar #polly plantar #frobo #genera yunan #lady olivia #disney channel #disney now

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makeste · 4 years ago

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What are your top 5 Bakugo moments in the series? What are your top 5 relationships (of any kind) in the series?

with the favorite Bakugou moments, I can do you five better -- I have a list of my top ten favorite moments here.

as far as favorite relationships, they would probably be

Bakugou and Deku/BakuDeku - I’m here for this one any way you want to do it. friendship, boyfriends, soulmates, rivals, whatever. I just like seeing them interact in any way, shape, or form. they are the core of the series, for me.

Bakugou and Aizawa - this is a relationship that I’m sort of obsessed with even though it’s rare to get any actual interaction between them in the manga. the thing is, I’m a huge sucker for world-weary mentors forming bonds with confused and wary adolescents with big chips on their shoulders who have too much pride to admit when they need help and guidance. and damned if this relationship doesn’t tick off all those boxes. the moment where Aizawa defends Bakugou during the press conference, and Bakugou listens over in the ol’ villain bar with this little smile on his face, because it meant everything to him to have that vote of confidence in his own inherent goodness at a time when it seemed like everyone else in the world was trying to throw it into question, is still one of my favorite scenes in the series. you can imagine how thrilled I was when it got a callback just recently when Bakugou was rushing in to defend him in return. anyway so yeah I love this. I have probably read every single Dadzawa & Bakugou fic on AO3. there are not enough of them.

Hawks and Endeavor - there is definitely not enough of this, either. plenty of people shipping them, but usually not platonically, much to my disappointment. I’m just a big proponent of Get Hawks A Dad 2020, okay. even if that dad is Endeavor. especially if that dad is Endeavor, because y’all know I’m a sucker for that character development.

All Might and Deku - by this point you’ve probably noticed a definite pattern of platonic dad ships here lol. I don’t know if I have mentioned this on this blog before, but I am aromantic (which is something that took me the better part of 30+ years to figure out, because sometimes stuff that seems really obvious in hindsight somehow completely escapes your notice for a stupidly long time)! which is probably one of the chief reasons I tend to be drawn to gen/platonic ships moreso than romantic ones. for me, familial love is something I can relate to much more strongly, and so relationships like the one All Might has with Deku, where he just loves him so much and he’s so proud of him, and he just ends up basically dedicating his whole life to helping him grow -- that just really hits me in a place I can actually understand. I for reals fucking cried when he hugged him on the beach after Kamino. I still get emotional thinking about that moment. something about the love a parent has for a child, and the trust that a child has in them. guh.

Bakugou and Todoroki/TodoBaku - last but not least, this absurdly stubborn little-friendship-that-could, born of Todoroki’s underrated ability to see right through Bakugou’s bullshit, and his decision to befriend him whether he likes it or not. actually I feel like I shouldn’t even use the word “befriend” there, because that implies that there was actually a process of him gradually becoming Bakugou’s friend, which I’m almost positive there was not. Todoroki literally just woke up one morning and decided that they were friends, and that was that. just like that it became a fact, and Bakugou never had the slightest say in it. any and all protests of “we’re not friends” are shrugged off with the complete and utter disregard that they deserve. Bakugou can say that as much as he likes; he can also say that the earth isn’t round or that the sky isn’t blue. it doesn’t change jack shit and they both know it. anyway so this is another one that, like with BakuDeku, I’ll ship romantically or platonically or anything in between, because either way the core dynamic of the relationship is pretty much going to be the same, and that’s what I enjoy about them. Todoroki basically just sort of adopted Bakugou in much the way one might adopt a stray cat, and that will forever delight me until the end of my days.

so there you go, my top five. at least, that’s what immediately came to mind. I do ship almost every relationship in this series to some degree or other, so there are probably other relationships that I’m forgetting right now which I won’t recall until after I click “post.” ah, well.

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natsubeatsrock · 3 years ago

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Did Mashima fridge Juvia?

Well, it was only a matter of time.

I knew I would have to talk about this some year on August 31st. It just happens that this is the year.

For those who don't know, today is a special day in this blog's history. Six years ago, I made a long post talking about Juvia. Most notably, I was fearful about the possibility that Juvia would die. A year later, I was reacting to chapter 499, where Juvia was presumed to have died. Since then, I've used this day to talk about Juvia dying in some way or another.

Last year, I mentioned that I wasn't willing to open this can of worms. And yet, here we are. To be honest, I figured that this was a topic worth talking about, but not in that post. I was already planning to dive into that this year.

To start, let's talk about the term.

Flashback to 1994. In issue 54 of Green Lantern, the main character walks into his apartment. His girlfriend has been killed and stuffed into a refrigerator by one of his enemies.

Five years later, [insert descriptor here] comic book writer Gail Simone took this incident as the impetus to note a trend in writing female characters in comics. They die or face serious bodily harm to advance the arcs of fellow male characters. She teamed up with other writers to start a website called "Women in Refrigerators". It's a list of female comic characters who fit this trope, to some degree or another. It's still up today, and you can see some more recent inclusions.

My own thoughts on this trope are mixed. I think that there's something to be said about one character's development coming at the expense of another character. Especially if that trend is decidedly gendered. Though, this argument is used in ways that come across in ways that are infuriatingly stupid and short-sighted. I've even seen it argued that women being harmed in fiction is inherently misogynistic. (Please don't make me talk about this.)

In any case, the argument has far exceeded the scope of comic books. (I say as if I'm not talking about comics.) This has been brought up in talking about media of all sorts. Video games, movies, television, and more. If a female character is placed in harm's way, people will argue whether or not she was fridged.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about Juvia's death.

Or false death?

I mean, we thought she was dead, but it turned out to be a fake-out.

Actually, let's talk about that. That happens to be a great place to start.

Does it count as being fridged if the serious effects were reversed?

I know that probably sounds like I'm splitting hairs. After all, it's not as if chapter 499 is wiped out of existence because we also got chapter 500. Mashima ultimately decided to kill Juvia. That's what should matter most to our discussion. Honestly, I might be inclined to buy this argument under normal circumstances. However, there happens to be a group of people who argue otherwise. They've convinced me that this is worth talking about.

Who are these horrible misogynists who would discount this kind of suffering on Juvia's part?

The people behind Women in Refrigerators.

At least, sort of?

As you might imagine, people have argued against the idea of this trope. To many people, more men have been harmed in fiction. In many cases, men in pain are treated as nothing special. In fact, there are examples of men dying to further the character arcs of female characters.

As a response to this, the website has included an article entitled "Dead Men Defrosting." Essentially, it doesn't matter if men do go through similar pain. There is a difference between these situations. In many cases, men who get fridged are eventually restored to their initial state. They gain their powers, are healed, or even come back to life. Women don't often get that same opportunity in comics.

Let's stop and think about Juvia's situation for a second. She was dead for all of one week, as far as fans are concerned. In canon, it was even less time. If Gray decided to stay behind for a few minutes, he also would have been healed by Wendy. In fact, with the continental connection to Tenrou Island, the whole scenario is forfeit. In hindsight, Juvia's life was never in danger.

So, could it be said that Juvia was truly fridged if she ended up being "defrosted"?

No, technically speaking.

Then again, I've been very critical of the writing of this. I've made many posts explaining why I think this was bad. Would ending the discussion here be the right thing to do? More importantly, is that the kind of resolution you clicked on this post to find?

There is also an elephant in the room. For better or worse, Women in Refrigerators also includes women whose states were corrected. Now, does this contradict the point they made regarding male characters? It’s starting to feel as though I should make a post about this trope on its own.

In any case, let’s ignore the fact that this didn’t actually stick. For the sake of this, let's assume that this does fall under the definition of fridging. Or, at least, that it could.

Did Mashima fridge Juvia?

To say that it did would mean that the death was done to move Gray's character arc. And... well... I mean...

Look, Gray is pushed to the edge of his sanity because he believes Juvia has died. That much is obvious, given the context of his rematch with Invel. I'm not willing to argue that this wasn't the case.

But...

I can't say that Juvia's death was so big a reason for Gray to change.

If we're talking about Gruvia, maybe it could be argued he decided to take Juvia's romantic feelings seriously after seeing her die. But that only works if you take his words in chapter 499 in the most literal sense possible. It's more likely that he already had feelings for Juvia and was ready to share them after the war ended.

Outside of that, because Juvia died, Gray fights Invel, who he blames for killing Juvia. When he beats the stuffing out of him, he finds out that Natsu was END and directs his fury towards him. They fight for a bit, but they're ultimately stopped. Once he finds out about the Natsu-Zeref death arrangement, he decides the best way to deal with the situation is to go through with Lost Iced Shell.

You could read this as Gray going through with Lost Iced Shell because of Juvia. If Juvia didn't die (but not really), Gray wouldn't think to go use the spell. However, this view discounts Gray's stated motivations for using Lost Iced Shell: guilt over fighting Natsu and wanting to protect him from dying. Gray obviously regrets how the situation with Juvia went if the final chapter means anything. But Lost Iced Shell doesn't seem to be done because of Juvia. (I may rant about a comment I got about this some other day.)

And now, I will defy conventional wisdom and make probably the most controversial argument possible about this moment. Juvia's sacrifice was for Juvia's character arc. Not Gray's.

It's worth remembering what Juvia's arc is. I know that fandom often questions what Juvia's arc is. However, I believe that her arc is best described as understanding love. When she first fights Gray, she says that she has no need for love. A few arcs later, she sacrifices herself because of her love for Fairy Tail.

The motivation for Juvia sacrificing herself for Gray is her love for Gray. No one questions Juvia's feelings for Gray. However, this moment shows that she's willing to sacrifice her own life for Gray. Do you think that Juvia would do this before Phantom Lord?

This isn't to say that I think Juvia's arc was well-written. It's easy to criticize Juvia's extravagant displays of love seem. Or how Juvia's love seems to center more around Gray than others. Or how there are ways to show that you love someone in non-romantic ways. And fans of the series have shared the problems they have with how Juvia's character was handled.

But we're not here to talk about those things. We're here to ask if Mashima "killed" Juvia for Gray's development. And, despite how bad I think the moment was, I can't say that Mashima did.

Consider I’m the one saying this. Like, it would be something if one of the bigger Gruvia blogs made this argument. (I feel as though a couple of them may have blocked me.) That’s something that could be expected. I’ve outright called this the worst moment in the series at one time. I’d love to tack on another reason not to like this moment.

But I can’t.

“That’s because you’re clearly against the idea of this trope existing, chauvanist pig!“

I’ll assume you missed the intro for the trope earlier in this post. I’m willing to admit that this does happen. In fact, I already talked about how I hate how Last Ages happened. Ultear got done way dirtier than Juvia did and didn’t have the effects reversed. Not to mention, it was ACTUALLY done to further Gray’s character.

In Conclusion:

I don’t think it’s a good idea to call what happened to Juvia “being fridged“. Even if Juvia were to have actually died.

#fairy tail #juvia lockser #fairy tail 499 #fairy tail 500 #i'm trying to be nice #why don't i have an august 31st tag?#i should have some type of tag #oh well...#should i write about fridging?#i'm not sure I should #and yet i very much want to #who knows #i have bigger fish to fry first...

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innittowinit · 4 years ago

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Clair de Lune, L. 32

Summary:

Tommy has a nightmare about Wilbur's death and Ghostbur comforts him

YOOO just to be clear this is an AU that was created before cannon ghostbur and schlatt so all you need to know for this fic is that Wilbur is a ghost that haunts the sleepy bois, he's from the 1700's or something and he was murdered.

Not tagged MCD as a warning because Wil is technically still a character but his death is described a bit so stay safe!

Word count: 1536

Google doc with more info on this au

AO3

The air was bitter and cold, cracks in the walls seethed with a breeze that never seemed to go away, it helped in the summer months when the homes felt like a sauna but on a late December evening like tonight, all it did was remind the townsfolk that they weren’t nearly as wealthy as those who wouldn’t be worrying about this.

After having served his time, on account of slandering a wealthy businessman in a song, he had made the decision to invite the gentleman over to have dinner and hopefully reconcile. Bad blood was never a good thing to have with someone, especially not the rich, and even if the intent was not to suddenly become good friends, Wilbur still felt it was important to be civil with him. While the point of his song had been to humour the situation, he still recognised that it had offended the man to the point of wanting legal action to be made.

Unfortunately Wil had been the only one to feel this way.

He had placed down his own food first before going back to the kitchen to get the gentleman’s meal. In hindsight this had been a horrible decision, giving an easy way for him to spike his food with no witnesses at all. That had definitely been easier than planned, perhaps Wil was just too trusting. He had just assumed that now that he had been punished all resentment had faded into what was a potential reconciliation.

The poison hadn’t taken long to fall into place, half way through the dinner Wil would start coughing, only for that to turn into long, breathless gasp, until eventually he was left scraping at his neck trying to grasp for some air as if it were a privilege.

The man watched with humour as Wil suffered, tears streaming down his face as he focused every inch of his energy into his breathing, not fully able to comprehend what was happening until a knife was pressed against his neck, blade cold and sharp as a swift swipe let out all the pressure in his body and left him to fall to the floor.

------ ------

Tommy swung up in bed, arms flailing around the blankets, as if he was searching for physical evidence that Wilbur was okay. Heart pounding and sweat glazing his forehead, he spun his head around the room, as if he was scanning for either Wilbur or the scumbag who had killed him. Knowing Wil was a ghost hurt. Even though they could still communicate through a range of media, even though he could still physically hug him if he possessed someone, it wasn’t the same. He knew Wilbur had been hurt and that just didn’t feel right. He didn’t want to accept that the Ghost who they had lovingly welcomed into the family was hurt by someone, he loved him too much to really accept that as a reality.

It took a solid ten minutes before he calmed down from his frenzy, left just to breathe heavily, rested against the bed frame as if he had just run a marathon.

Despite the fact that he had never known Wilbur in life, since he had learned of his tragic demise, he hadn’t been able to get the horrible thoughts out of his mind, it was like a curse. Wilbur was like a big brother to him, even if he wasn’t exactly alive they could speak easily through spirit boxes and voice recorders and when he was too tired to try and manipulate radio waves, he would sometimes knock things off of counters and shelves to make his presence known.

Learning guitar from a ghost had been surprisingly easy, he had a video tutorial of some song playing and every now and then Wil would pause the video to talk through the spirit box, sometimes giving tips and other times just straight up teasing Tommy for being bad at playing the guitar.

Wiping his teary eyes, trying to remind himself that even though Wilbur was dead, even though he had gone through something bad, he was still there (Not even in those ‘he’s with us in spirit’ facebook post kind of ways, Wilbur had been haunting them, he was quite literally still around) he reached for the spirit box, switching it on and leaning back in his bed as relief washed over him.

There was something about knowing that Wil could freely talk through that, that comforted him. It reminded him that Wil was okay, he had been poisoned, he had been stabbed, but he was okay.

“Wilbur?” he muttered, rubbing his eyes, waiting for the ghost to make his presence known.

Every now and then Wil would go off to mess with Minx or the lunch club, during the night, paired with Schlatt of course, Tommy hoped to God that tonight wasn’t one of those nights.

“Nightmare?” The box spoke back at him, he nodded.

It was hard to talk to the spirit box sometimes, Wil could only talk in a couple words with that, that’s why they had started the family tradition of Wilbur possessing one of them each Friday so they could have some actual time with him instead of mainly one sided conversations.

Today wasn’t a Friday but Tommy wished it was.

“Techno.. Techno won't mind if you use his body.. You can still take control when he’s sleeping right? I just need to hear you talk for real..”

By now, Tommy was sitting upright in his bed, knees pulled up into his chest. They’d been through this exact situation so many time’s that Tommy had even set up a mirror near his bed since sometimes Wilbur showed up in them, He wasn’t showing up today though.

“Yeah. Wait.”

As always, the spirit box was choppy and left room for interpretation as Tommy nodded and tried to think about anything other than the frightening thoughts of death in his head. Tomorrow was a Week-day, that’s why he’d chosen Techno, he would no doubt be pissed that he had missed a chunk of sleep but being sleepy at school had far fewer consequences than being sleepy at work, which would happen if Tommy asked Wil to possess Phil.

After a while of Tommy staring at his ceiling, ‘Techno’ peeked his head into the door and walked over to Tommy’s bed, sitting down next to him.

“It’s Wilbur, you know that right?” Wil smiled, Techno’s glasses -which Wil still needed to wear while possessing him- glinting against the moonlight.

Nodding, Tommy leant his head onto Wilbur’s shoulder, hands wrapping around him and squeezing with as much force as he could muster.

“I shouldn’t miss you this much. I didn’t even know you. Wil, it must have hurt so much”

Wilbur just nodded and stroked his hair as he whispered reassurances and kind words, there was no certain way to fix this, the fact of the matter that Wilbur had died and he probably shouldn’t have let a 16 year old know the fully gruesome details of his death but that being said it was all readily available online and sure enough he would have eventually found out anyway. Wilbur much preferred being the one to tell him himself rather than him reading a blog post made by a teenager that was probably way too into true crime to accurately report what happened.

He supposed what attracted those kinds of people was that he had led a fairly eccentric life, only to be killed and the killer to never be caught.

Wil had always thought his killer to be obvious but the justice system had not been very good in those days, in many ways it still wasn’t very good.

“It did hurt Tommy. I was so scared that was going to be the end of everything but y’know what? If I hadn’t died like that, I might not have ever met you or Phil or Techno. If I had died up in some other city, since I did like to travel a lot, I might have never thought to mess with you guys. If that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have the family I have now”

“But you hur-”

“That was hundreds of years ago Toms, I hardly remember it”

Liar. He thought about it every time he saw people using cleaning chemicals or cooking with knives.

“Tommy you’re a good kid. You’re empathetic, that’s really good, but you can only die once and that’s never going to happen to me again, okay?”

Tommy nodded into his chest

“Do you wanna watch that movie you like? I know I can’t really fix how you feel about what happened but sometimes a distraction helps” “Up’s good. Let’s watch Up”

Ironically, Tommy had fallen asleep right after the wife died but Wil hoped that would give him some closure since it was a very nice film. Not wanting to wake the boy, after him already having such a rough night, he didn’t bother taking Techno back to his own room, leaving his body to sleep next to Tommy as he watched the rest of the movie alone.

-----

“Why the fuck am I in your bed?”

“...I had a nightmare?”

#wilbur soot #ghostbur #fanfic #tommyinnit #hurt/ comfort #nightmares

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ohkimani · 5 years ago

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tbh.

Besides the obvious decisions I’ve had to make, the biggest decision I’ve made as an adult is dedicating my time to living and growing as an actual adult as opposed to spending my time fighting an endless fight on Taylor Swift’s behalf like I used to.

Though I would still go to hell and back for her, I just...have better things to do.

For instance, valuing my career and future over a multimillionaire who has not only her own but her great-grandchildrens’ futures figured out financially just seems far more important to me now.

Taylor has laid the foundation for so many young artists in ANY field to succeed and have their art valued, as it should be. I love the idea that there have already been so many thriving musicians succeeding because they were encouraged and inspired by Taylor's strength. I love the idea that there are women in different fields who may have at least an extra ounce of strength within themselves to fight for the greatness, rewards, and respect they deserve.

However, in my time, spending countless hours, days, weeks, months, and years fighting for a woman who, in the end, doesn’t need to be fought for feels almost....humiliating?

I’m grateful for every second I’ve ever gotten to speak to Taylor and even share the same air as her. yet in the back of my head, i have always thought back to how many nights I've sorted through some mean, sometimes racist, threatening, and discouraging messages because a woman made music that i deeply appreciated.

The social media aspect of Taylor's relationship with her fans has always struck me as bittersweet (as it has most of her fans). I made my first Tumblr account about two years before Taylor joined, forgot the password to that account, then made a new account exactly a week BEFORE she began her first bunch of unbelievable interactions with fans.

I had the privilege of briefly experiencing genuine and warm feelings that came with everything every fan posted. though it was such a brief time, I got to know what it felt like to be a part of a real online fandom. It wouldn't be another 5, almost 6 years until I find this feeling again upon reactivating my twitter account (where Taylor's eye hardly reaches)

Amidst these 5 years, I would find myself almost collecting badges of approval from Taylor, and finding that these badges would provide me an image of invalid importance in the eyes of numerous people which happenstance would find me in the presence of.

One blog would continuously be spammed with likes from Taylor which drew me to an entirely different blog. With this blog, I would face the same supportive spam though coupled with (in hindsight, well deserved) anonymous hate and scrutiny. By the time I had settled onto the third blog (which had been there all along, just not as active) I was smart enough to figure out the formula.

I discovered the simplicity of what not only attracts Taylor's heart but her fans/followers. [this part is incredibly blunt and I would very much appreciate if there was just like....understanding about how undiplomatic I could possibly state this] Something short, particularly sweet, relevant, including the word “y’all” at least once, and rapid-fire posting. That was it. It wasn’t self reblogging constantly. It was posting what you knew everyone wanted to read and repost for themselves. That’s not to say it wasn’t what I actually felt. God knows i said these things MULTIPLE times before I actually posted them. I just knew everyone else could relate.

Pretty soon, this all got to my head (if the above paragraph wasn’t obvious enough). My follower count skyrocketed, Taylor herself was a frequent active follower and all I had to do was abandon my sense of self, devote myself to everything she said and did, and i was in her good favor. simple enough-- right?

It wasn’t until after I started paying attention to my own life that I realized where my priorities should be. Not only that, I noticed something incredibly immature, and VERY human about myself: I had abandoned my one source of validity, and in finding others receiving this attention, jealously racked my nerves beyond comprehension.

Luckily, I didn’t deal with this jealousy in the way most people do where they take it out on others. I, instead, began focusing on what made me who I was beside my passion for Taylor Swift and everything she has ever done in her life. I began to give myself the same love and support I used to give Taylor and when I transferred that energy, I found that valuing the validation her brief moments of attention used to give me wasn’t a bad thing at all. V

aluing the fact that her eyes wandered to my tiny corner of the earth every now and THAT small act giving me new confidence for months to come, didn’t make me less of a person. It made me a lost person.

Embracing the fact that I used to have Taylor's attention--and that this was actually important to me and my self-esteem--became the breaking point I needed to know that I was me before I was a Taylor Swift fan. Embracing this allowed me to love me even more because I knew I had that love to give, I just needed to know where that love belonged.

I’m incredibly drunk and every time I’ve been drunk these last few weeks, I’ve thought about how to formulate these thoughts into something cohesive. I guess this is supposed to serve as a statement to the many anons I’ve received asking why I don’t talk about Taylor as much or even why I’m not as active anymore.

I am well aware no one will read this but I felt it was important for myself (and my blog for that matter) to be laid out as plainly as possible.

A rich white woman does not need my help living her life any easier and I think she knows that.

I love you and hope you love you as much as I do

xoxo

#p #taylor swift #taylor #reply #music

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university-blues · 4 years ago

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So I just read this article called 5 Pursuits That Will Destroy Your Creative Spark and I'll be honest, at first I didn't think it would be very useful to me, that it was just going to be stuff I already know, stuff that doesn't really help. I was wrong. I recommend you read the full thing, but here's some of my thoughts and highlights.

The pursuit of virality

I've been there, constantly checking for likes and reblogs in the hours and days after I post something. I don't like it. I don't want to do it, but, it's so hard to resist the urge and even harder to not let the numbers get to you.

This made me wonder if there's a way to hide all the likes and the claps and the shares and saves and the reblogs and the retweets on the content we post. At least from ourselves. Not the comments though, that's where the actual meaningful interactions happen. But everything else, it just seems to be doing more harm than good. There should be a way to hide the numbers, I don't think there is. I don't think these websites and apps would want it, considering how they make their money, but maybe there's a market for a browser extension to hide all this stuff. For now I think I'll just disable notifications for everything but comments and rely on my forgetfulness to not reach for my phone every 5 minutes after I post something anywhere.

The pursuit of inputs

“How could you not be creative with all that new information?”, I asked. She had a simple, yet profound reply: “Because I didn’t do anything with all that new knowledge, Mike.”

Learning new things is great. Putting them into practice is better.

Teaching someone else about the thing you just learned is a great way to make sure you've actually learned and understood it yourself. It's so obvious in hindsight, but so so easy to forget in the moment. This was a good reminder that it's not all about the learning, there has to be some doing 😄.

The pursuit of the outcome

The numbers will never be enough. You'll constantly move the goalposts for yourself. Instead ask yourself 3 questions before you make a thing:

- Who is it for? - What is it for? - What value am I hoping to bring to the person consuming this content?

These are excellent questions. They help put things into perspective. I make things for me, and for others in a similar situation. I hope the things I make help or inspire whoever sees them. It can differ from thing to thing, but in general, that's it.

The pursuit of perfection

“Now I know what I want to do, Mike, I want to bring value to people,” Janine said. “But I’m filled with fear and then I procrastinate doing anything because of it.”

“Janine”, I paused… “What would happen if you stopped caring so much about what other people think?”

Thank you Janine for putting it into words and thank you Mike for asking just the right question!

For me, the answer to the question is: I would actually do the thing and probably be happier and less stressed. Gamechanger.

This whole thing just reminded me of some blogging advice I read years ago that I distilled into "No one cares, do it anyway". That wasn't exactly what it said, but (for me) that was the gist of it and I've tried to keep it in mind and apply to everything I've wanted to do, creative or not, over the years. It's not easy to reprogram your brain, but recognizing the bad patterns we fall into can be a good start.

#advice #article #on creating #creativity #university blues rambles

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undeadmanbun · 6 years ago

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Hi @nanyallen13 ! Thanks so much for the asks and blog compliments and sorry for the delay in replying. To make it easier to reply in one post I’ve screenshot the asks and anyone reading will need to go from bottom to top (they’re numbered).

I’m so glad you got in touch, it’s really great to get other opinions and takes because the nature of our ship and theories (and people’s knee-jerk reactions to them) means we’re often in our own corner of fandom, so non-jonsa opinions and input is great to hear. I hope all the jonsa meta people see this, they’ll be please to hear you enjoy their posts. And your English is amazing btw!

We never, ever ask that anyone ships it, all we really are out here doing is saying to folks “look, look at this foreshadowing, look at this evidence! we’re not crazy like you say we are!” and mostly we get crickets or yelled at, so it’s really nice to hear from a "neutral” that you think it could happen. Ok, this might be a bit messy because I’m out of practice, but to answer your questions...

What did I think of Dany before season 7?

I agree with what you said, but I began to take issue with her a little ahead of season 7, maybe season 5. I was still thrilled when she left for Westeros in season 6 because this is what we’d been waiting for all this time, but season 7 really sealed the deal for her arc taking a darker trajectory. I didn’t have especially strong opinions on Dany after season 1, I actually found her non-Westerosi arc kind of uninteresting for a long while and cheered on her “badass” moments, but, in hindsight, I think that’s because on first/second/third viewing I hadn’t realised where this was going.

I think I started to question some of her actions in season 5, when she burns the guy using the dragons, when her dragons are out of control and burn the child, when the teacher tells her it’s not a black and white situation (I’m writing this quickly, haven’t gone back to check names etc) but didn’t think too much about it until she was on the doorstep of characters I care for. That’s when it really hit home. Suddenly she was a threat to the characters I love. I wasn’t convinced of her being a full blown antagonist for a long while, but I’m more and more convinced she is as time goes on. A recent rewatch solidified this for me because when you go back in looking for it it’s kind of obvious (season one is FULL of foreshadowing, it’s amazing).

And you’re right. Perfect hero Dany is absolutely not an interesting character, she’s bland, unrealistic. But beautiful, dangerous, complex, flawed villain origin story Dany? Well, she’s a different matter. Dangerous and unpredictable “dark!dany” is a far more interesting character, and one that will go down in the history of female characters. We’re getting to see how a Cersei comes to be, and that’s fascinating stuff.

The stans have sadly created some power fantasy projection of the character wherein they want her to not only get everything in the story, but to be everything all at once to them, and she simply cannot do/be that, she’ll be human, she’ll be flawed, she’ll fail, she’ll die (and I agree, definitely not in childbirth, which is a dreadful ending for her, she deserves much better).

What did I think of J*nerys before Jonsa/Season 7?

Hmmm, let’s just say nothing good lol. I started to take issue with Dany around season 5 and I also had finished reading the books around the same time so I expected the ship to sail in some form. It was the obvious ship, too obvious in my opinion. It seemed like the dreadful, predictable male hero + female hero ship that I expected from a lesser series. So I expected it, but my hope was that the likely Chekhov’s gun of all these sycophantic men surrounding her that want to serve and love her (which is terrible, tedious storytelling unless there’s a twist) would go off, and that it would be a Jon-shaped pistol hanging on the wall.

When season 6 happened I was blindsided. I never, ever expected to be here now loudly shipping Jon with his “sister” Sansa (bear in mind I shipped nothing in this show really, but was aware of Brienne and Jaime being a slow burn, it’s hard to miss). I obviously had a clue they could reunite because season 5 had Sansa escaping Ramsay and she knows where Jon is. But when they reunited I assumed it would be platonic and it just didn’t have the sister brother platonic vibe it should have had. Suddenly Jonsa was doing all these tropes and by episode 10 of season 6 I’d jumped on board as a fully fledged jonsa shipper, and then down the theory/book/show evidence rabbit hole I went for another 2.5 years (jesus fjfdjfhkdjf). So by the time season 7 came around I was convinced of another endgame that wasn’t J*nerys.

On the topic of season 7, I totally agree with you regarding Political Jon, and my hope is obviously that it’s true, but if it isn’t, well, I will be very frustrated with Jon (because I love that dumbass). Fortunately there’s a lot pointing towards it so I’m hopeful. If he’s legitimately in love then it’s just a truly awful love story and an insult to “the north remembers” narrative (and to Jon’s character).

As you said, it seems like it is very intentional on the part of the show runners that all of these things are happening at once. They’re not mutually exclusive theories, but they are incredibly complimentary. You have to believe that a lot of people are crazy to be able to rule this “theory dissent” out, and I just don’t believe we are as “delusional” as we’re accused of being.

So, in summary, I never expected a) dark!dany or b) jonsa, but much analysis later I’m convinced of both, there’s just too much evidence for these theories for me not to expect them in some form. Maybe me and everyone else here will look like clowns in a few weeks, but I’m quietly optimistic. And absolutely nothing in the promo season has convinced me otherwise, only 22 days to go!

#dark!dany #jonsa #anti-daenerys #just in case #it's not really anti

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alicezan-ncgred · 6 years ago

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Bleeding Red

Preface: I’ve been bitching around the bush of this long enough. So, I’ve been really silent on a bunch of stuff that’s been eating me alive which has made me both inactive and unproductive. I’m going to get straight to the point, starting off with the TL:DR from my post on my main blog. Context: An anon asked me if I was alright because I hadn’t updated in a while.

TL:DR You probably didn’t ask this to hear about all the bad shit of my life so here’s the short of it. No, I’m not doing fine. I will try get next weeks post out on time and I’ll work on making up on the lost posts. Updates will return regularly, ‘ite.

Time for the thick and thin of it.

Insecurity and being shafted: I’m stoic, even at my worst I won’t say anything. I’ll push through regardless of my current condition and since I’ve gone years like this, it’s not hard for me to do. In my real life situation, I’m currently in a place of social isolation. This has lead to a somewhat near reliance on Tumblr to be my social outlet. This present many issues.

The main one is that I’m quite the isolationist. This has only been reinforced by many interactions throughout the entirely of my life. Because of this, I can’t say I’ve ever had anything really more than two friends at a time. While in a way this has helped me express myself so well through writing, it’s come at the cost of social skill. I don’t talk to anyone.

With this kind of issue you could easily imagine that the THREE PEOPLE (four now, but very limited) to ever directly talk ended up in a way shafting me. The first blocked and disconnected with me without warning or reason. At this point we’ve been talking to each for about a month and we hit it off very well and then one day, silence. Never heard from them again. That fucked me up hard when I finally realized what happened.

The second person left during the Tumblr P**n Purge. We were talking about how to contact each other on other platforms and then they stopped responding. I had already given contact to other platforms of which they pinged me in any way. Another person that I trusted massively on here just abandoned me and I’m still hurting from that. Wasn’t fair at all.

Then the third person was someone that I been following for a while. This person is actually the reason that I’ve been putting this off for so long. I don’t want them to see this post but they will. I got an ask from them that ultimately turned out to be misinformation. I said I wasn’t mad but I was. I was so fucking angry about it and I’m still kinda mad, but I didn’t want problems. I still don’t. I just didn’t want them to worry about it. This will come back later.

I try my best to be as inoffensive as possible. The problem with that is that much of the things I believe or enjoy are highly divisive. Hell, even my own identity can be seen as offence. I’m bisexual, non-binary (I’m currently still questioning this. I might actually be gender fluid but in the overall scheme, that’s worse than being non-binary), and nonreligious. I’m in a very religious area so you I’m still “in the closet” about much of this IRL. I though it would better online but with how much people are saying bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that non-binary isn’t a valid gender (or that being gender fluid make you insane and you should be locked up) and all the hate people who say they are this are getting, the very community that’s supposed to accept me, HATES me. I had a bi pride flag icon last year during Pride Month. I never doing that ever again. It was terrible.

I’m trying my best to come out of my shell like I said I would when I made this blog but it seems I’m just crawling further into it. People I think I can trust keep setting me up to fall, people I know in real life won’t ever accept my existence if they knew who I really was, and my own mental health problem and self loathing are eating me alive. But that isn’t the total of it.

Crumbling Pillar: I’ve always ended up in the position where things were thrown onto me. In which no one wanted to do, I was stuck with. Because of this not only do I have a severe distaste being around my family (beyond everything mentioned before hand) but I grew to have a negative out look on everything. This effect is still quite obvious in my writings, especially my poems. Out of the 14 poems on my poem blog @washed-soul, only one has a happy meaning.

The one happy poem was called dreams. Under a metaphor it talks about how a demon kept me trapped in a dark space. I start to get better and nearly break free before I have a negative relapse back to my old ways. The poems ends with the demon putting a end to itself leaving the nightmare in which it was keeping me in to slowly fade away, letting one crack of light peeking through to become a window to a door until one day I walk free. When writing this poem, I never thought I would find myself rebuilding the nightmare but that’s where I am.

I’m done with holding things together that other people have placed onto me. Because of this, issues have began showing in my private life. Issues that should’ve been solved decades ago are only now being addressed. This change in the status quo of my life has caused many issues in my productive and mood. Between everything else I’m too tired to do anything.

Is that a reason, is that an excuse. No it isn’t but it’s the best thing I got as a reason. I’m doing my damnedest to do the best I can but of course, when it comes to the thing that matter I just fall short. Big fucking whopha my intelligence and capability does me if I can’t use it for anything that means a damn.

Meaningless Triviality: I’m a very emotional person. I’m very strongly bound to my emotions and if everything above hasn’t given it away, my emotions are very negative prone. But it just doesn’t stop there, it goes back into my memories. I can only honestly place 3 happy memories for certain that aren’t either A) a dream or B) me escaping reality through my mind. Besides that, almost all my memories are negative.

People like to throw around the word Nihilist to describe themselves because today's culture is very, god while I hate to use this word, edgy. For those who don’t know a Nihilist is someone who views the world as being completely meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. I very truly struggle with this outlook of life. It’s a daily for me to berate myself saying “just kill yourself” or “I want to die” or just shutting down and crumpling up while say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. Hell, I did that while writing this.

I take things very hard, even the slightest transgression. I’m so used to trying to make things perfect and because people have the image that I’m the smart one, the mature one, the capable one, I’m left with the over hanging expectation of excellence. Almost no room for margin of error or being human. Since I’m the silent type, I put up no challenge and work to meet it. Only time I get any praise for anything too.

I guess as a little self promotion to my main blog, for those that have read the very first few updates of my main blog @the-truth-behind-redacted, or read Defiance’s character sheet, while The Machine and Defiance are separate character, they both share the name Machine. That in part is a reflect of said above expectation. How ravenous and inhuman it can be all under the guise of something human. Those characters are the two sides to the same coin.

Remember how I said I try to be un-problematical and how I try to avoid any potential conflict. In the first segment I told on how I lied about my feelings just so another person didn’t have to worry over something that honestly, in hindsight, wasn’t even really a big deal. But I also said how it consumed me in anger. I just don’t want to bother anyone over anything. It’s part of the reason why I am writing this post, as some way of a self enforced rehab program to get better.

This absolute consumption of negative emotion has pushed me into a non human state before. I hit a point of absolute mental exhaustion and in such a self enforced bubble of actual hatred I became completely apathetic. I felt numb to everything. I watched and heard of terrible things happening to people, and felt nothing. I watched people lives crumble before them leaving them nowhere to go and LAUGHED. “Just another worthless pathetic worm on this rotting carcass of a planet being hit with the hard reality that life doesn’t care for them. What whimsical pathetic bullshit they deluded themselves with to think otherwise.” This isn’t an exaggeration on how I thought, this is what I actually thought. Which brings me too.

The Mandatory Sob Story: Roll your eyes everyone and get the tiny violin. I guess in order for everyone to exactly understand the place I’m coming from when it comes to mental health I’ll have to detail my experiences. I have a long standing history with mental illness. I have professionally diagnosed OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, and visual and auditory hallucinations. I take 600 mg of Seroquel a day as well as Amitriptyline when needed. I’m also still currently in therapy to deal with said OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, the visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as Suicidal thoughts, and my Nihilism. There’s a reason to why I’m so god damn familiar with mental illness and treatment plans.

OCD and Bipolarism run in my family on my fathers side. My Father’s Father had them, my Sister has them, my brother most likely has them (however he refuses to see a doctor because he uses said possible mental illnesses as a get out of jail free card. He doesn’t want to be treated and he has FUCKING ADMITTED IT), my father has them, and I have them. I, however, have the misfortune of having it real bad. I said yes to well over half of all the total symptoms when I was being tested (I don’t remember exact numbers but I remember there being three pages worth of common symptoms) which was very worrying to the doctor. I was currently in an inpatient hospitalization program at the time for both suicidal thoughts and actions, and severe depression.

On that, my graze in with suicide. Before I went into my first inpatient program I was contemplating suicide. I was sat in front of a mirror with a bottle of over the counter medication. It was an unopened bottle of ibuprofen, 1000 200mg tables. What I planed to do was down the whole bottle with benadryl and die in my sleep. I had the small box of benadryl got from the Kroger pharmacy and a hand full of ibuprofen poured out looking directly into the mirror. My suicide note was sitting on the desk on my room with an online copy on my laptop open.

I sat there for an hour in the dead of midnight complicating my life. I had lost all hope in the world, filled with hatred, anger, pain, and despair. I had no god or after life to look forward too, part way hoping that a Hell existed for me to burn in. I hated myself that much. I was close to taking the first handful before before I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. In what was in a weird sudden epiphany I realized that I truly did become what I hated but not for any reason I told myself. I became the very bastion of negativity I sought to fight and rid of in what little friends I did have. That was what set off my path to recovery in spite of the medical system. I guess if people care I’ll make a separate post on that.

Before I move on, I feel I should explain my history with the visual and auditory hallucinations. It should be no surprise that with everything else above, I also had extreme paranoia that led to me having very bad insomnia. Insomnia is, just like most other medical disorders like Depression, Self-harm, Anxiety, OCD, Bipolarism, is romanticized to hell. Insomnia isn’t having one nights bad sleep where you got 5 hours of sleep instead of 8.

You know what Insomnia is? insomnia is being physical incapable of sleeping despite not sleeping in 2 to 3 day while your body suffers massive agony brought on by this. Muscle spasms and seizing, difficulty breathing, your eyes feeling like fire ants are eating them, and of course visual and auditory hallucinations. Now I already had issues with visual and auditory hallucinations even when I could get sleep regularly but the combined effects of my OCD and Bipolarism made this perfect condition of Insomnia, Anxiety, Paranoia, with the already added in disposition to hallucinations and I felt like I was actually losing my mind.

My hallucinations presented themselves in three forms. Disassociation of reality, night terrors, or alterations of reality. Disassociation of reality often were complete black out moments. I would lose any perceived connect to reality and enter an episode of my mind. I can’t remember what they actually were but I do remember what it felt like. Cold sweats, anxiety to point where if I didn’t lock up I would vomit, actual physical pain, mind numbing fear, and intense fatigue.

The second were night terrors often in the form of horrific “things.” I do remember these and most of them were as best as I could describe, forms of things that were vaguely human and formations of industrial machinery. The most vivid one I remember was of a long lengthy apparition that was for the most part human but many locations of it’s impossible physiology were rebar beams and mechanical sockets. It began when I was about to fall asleep and it was next to my window. The thing was making week groaning and gasping sounds before it violently slammed against my window breaking it then letting out a horrific howl that I can’t describe as it tossed itself out followed shorty after with the sound of bones breaking against the dirt.

Now that might not seem so bad, exspecally with everything that is in horror movies or games now, but keep in mind that was fucking real to me. It was as real as the clicking of the keys of my keyboard as I’m writing this. As real as the chair I’m sitting in and as real as the wall in front of me. As far as my mind was concerned that thing, what ever it was, actually existed. It took me physical touching my window to make sure it wasn’t actually broken and checking outside to see if there wasn’t a body there. This isn’t the type of thing I talk about lightly.

Finally there is the alteration of reality. This is very simply but it’s something that fucked with me hard. For very little meaning or warning, I would have trouble interpreting the world around me. My hearing and sight would be warped and there wasn’t any real way to tell what I was hearing or seeing was real or not until the episode was over. The way I got through these was the ultimate fake it till you make it. Obviously, very often I failed and this created issue in my schooling.

Ending Message: I’ve been in a very bad state for a while now and as it is now, no signs of getting better. I also strongly believe my medications are being to fail me which I’ve been telling my doctor and therapist for over a year now but nothing’s been done. Mainly it’s my Depression but insomnia episodes are beginning and my own paranoia been on the rise. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even look at a creepy image or thumbnail without having a very bad episode.

I’ve managed to eat something today which was nice but my body is cramping hard. And to possible stave of a possible comment, I’m biologically male. Like I said I’m not in the best head space, or living for that matter. If this gets better, only time will tell.

#Long post #tw: suicide #TW: Depression #Trigger Warning #TW #OCD #Anxiety #Chronic Depression #Bipolar Disorder #Bipolar #Mental Health #My mental health

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shimanosimp · 6 years ago

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15 Questions thingamajig

Tagged by @hanzopresentingtiddies !

1: Are you named after anyone?

Uhh I don’t think so. I swear my mum used to say I share a name with my great grandfather but I don’t remember her specifically saying I was named after him, y’know?

2: When was the last time you cried?

I actually very rarely cry because I’m big, I’m tough, and I stapled my tear ducts shut three years ago. But I did watch Coco, like, early? last year and my eyes became a bit more moist than usual.

3: Do you want/have kids?

I don’t have any kids right now! Nor do I really want any. I always used to think I wanted children (two because I always thought being an only child sucks but in hindsight it was pretty dope) but then I learned they weren’t mandatory.

4: Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I either never do or I use it wayyy too much. Depends who I’m talking to!

5: What’s the first thing you notice about people?

How they taste. Just kidding. Hmmm. I usually notice their temperament, y’know? Like if they’re a bit quiet like me, or if they’re rambunctious and confident, not like me. It seems pretty obvious, but you can tell about how they carry their voice.

6: What is your eye colour?

Brown eyed bitches represent!

7: Scary movie or happy ending?

I’ve never been big on, like, purely scary films, sooo happy ending.

8: Any special talents?

I can procrastinate to the very last minute and still get multi-thousand word essays + research done to a decent(?) level. Does that count?

9: Where were you born?

In jolly old England, guv!

10: What are your hobbies?

I’m a really boring person so, like, watching crap on Youtube, thinking about writing, and posting about a very big and special bald boi on my sideblog, @shimano-futoshi #sponsored

11: Do you have any pets?

Personally, no, but I live with my nan who has a cat.

She’s called Stripe! (Excuse the mess, my nan let’s her have free reign in the house and she likes the table best)

12: What sports do you play/have you played?

Sports? Is that the one with the feet balls? Joking aside, uh, I used to like tennis back in secondary school.

13: How tall are you?

I have a tape measure so I’ll get you a fresh height right out the factory... only 5.6 feet. Manlet.

14: Favourite subject in school?

English literature/History because I was always alright at essays. My english literature teacher always said she left mine to last because mine were the most fun to read. High praise indeed, huh?

15: Dream job?

Damn, this is a hard one because job means work, and I hate work. But, since I created the Shimano blog, I have found that I really do like to create things, y’know? Make things that people like (or in my case, hate so much they can’t help but like it) and enjoy. I also enjoy the interaction I have with my followers there, but I get overwhelmed and kinda nervous when I have more than one (1) asks in the box. I’d love to make something like that into a full time thing (shimano-futoshi patreon coming soon. give me money for the Shimano). Something where I’d make a thing, let it into the wide, open world and lay back while people go wild with it. Shame all I can create are bundles of words (not even written, just in my mind. i’m lazy) and some terrible edits in Paint.net. Not even photoshop. If I had that then, well, I’d be able to burn a lot more eyes!

I’m tagging... anyone who wants to join in! I don’t know who I’m meant to tag and even if I did, I’m a shy bitch uwu. If you are reading this and want to answer these fifteen questions, just give me a tag in your ‘tagged by’ section!

#took me ages to get that pic of the cat #Looks good despite my really shitty phone #Had to dangle a piece of chicken over the camera so she'd look over #SubesWasTagged #Long post

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curiousview-blog · 3 years ago

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Views from my sober self (1)

Chapter 17 of ‘How to stop drinking: A guide for normal people’. A series in which I am sharing my reflections on living, and staying sober, in a fun, honest, down-to-earth way to show that an alcohol-free life is possible. Previous chapters can be found below on www.samwarren.net

Sober hindsight is a wonderful thing. Like looking at a jigsaw puzzle you’ve just finished and wondering how it took so long to put the pieces together as the picture is so obvious. As the tangled jumbled mess gets laid out out piece by piece, you can see things you didn't know were there. Although I didn’t know it then, two of these pieces were corner ones - you know, the ones you always start the puzzle with? These were ANXIETY and BOREDOM shaped. My twin enemies, and big reasons why I drank like I did. I don’t have space to tell you about both of them today, so I’ll leave one for a later post. Let’s start with anxiety.

I don’t like to think of myself as a nervous, anxious person. As a child I was confident and made friends easily despite what I’m also going to tell you in a minute. I’m the same as an adult, always meeting new people and getting in amongst it at social gatherings, when we’re not having global pandemics. But it’s taken me until now to realise that none of this is easy. I do it all in spite of the nerves and even terror. Everything you’ve read on this blog about how much I’ve loved getting to know the sober me, making new friends and relationships without alcohol and so on is perfectly true. But I still find social gatherings so stressful at first that I sometimes cancel going altogether, and any kind of get together sparks a twinge of longing for the familiar comfort of a drink to ‘relax with’.

Packing up my tiny bedroom to move into my first flat at 18... with a can of Grolsch

All this began with a vodka and orange squash at The Thatched House pub in Portsmouth, aged 15. It was easy to get served underage in the 80s. I still remember how it tasted. Sweet and burning. Grown up, yet still the drink of a child. I was drinking because it made me feel normal and like I fitted in. I was doing something bad and exciting that would earn the respect and admiration of peers – especially boys – because I hated being different. I was clever, wore glasses, didn’t share the local accent of my district, and had a double-barrelled “posh” surname. Yet we weren’t posh at all, and had to watch every penny. My Mum cleverly and thriftily made a lot of my clothes, and my home-made lunch didn’t have the same branded “junk” in my box like the other kids. Of course these were wonderful things for her to do really, but it didn’t feel so much like that for me then. I wasn’t lithe and sporty, I was the last to be picked for teams in PE, I did no dance classes and wasn't into ‘girly’ hobbies like horses and ballet (although I secretly longed to be a gymnast despite the fact I could barely do a forward roll!).

Everything about me felt different. Aged 8 or 9 I was given the ‘reward’ of using the Upper School library (I read Tolkein’s The Hobbit when I was 7) but this felt like a punishment! I remember the journey across two playgrounds and up into the terrifying Big School building. Cold concrete steps, tiled walls, my eyes rooted downwards to avoid the stares and sniggers of the bigger kids. It was loud and echoey. A walk of shame, not pleasure and certainly not the reward my teachers intended it to be! I look back with on that little girl with such compassion now, and my parents and teachers were truly trying to do their best, but the awfulness of ‘not belonging’ drove me to overcompensate by trying to belong with people who weren’t like me at all. The thing is, I wasn’t like the good girls either. I wasn't quiet and studious, even though I was bright. I simply didn't know many other girls like me until I was in my mid 20’s.

Real ale ‘recovery’ after the graduation party, 1999

I had been habitually using alcohol for some time by then, as a way to be cool with my peers and often much older boys. I came of age in the 1980s, at the height of ‘ladette’ culture and prided myself on being able to down pint after pint of beer in the pub with the blokes (NEVER a half…) Thankfully, born too early for “shot culture” I became a young adult just at the time the wine drinking woman – Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and these days Prosecco it seems – became the must have accessory for the professional woman, busy Mum, glitzy, sexy girlfriend and boy, was I IN.

Alcohol meant I belonged. The anxiety and awkwardness of always feeling like a square peg in a round hole melted away with the first glass. Yet even in the late stages of addition I would have strenuously argued that the one thing I definitely didn't do was use alcohol as a crutch. But I did. And although I went to university as a mature student where I did start to fit better, because we were students we all drank like fish, this just normalised my habit further. It had become hard-wired, second nature to me to reach for a drink to alleviate the slightest onset of anxiety about social situations. So much so that it wasn't until I stopped that could see that’s what I was doing.

#anxiety and alcohol #living sober #soberliving #sober curious #alcoholism #teenage drinking #women and alcohol #stop drinking #quit drinking #quit alcohol #quit drink #recovery from alcohol #sobriety

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nicholasmaltby · 4 years ago

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2020 hindsight

This has been my best cycling season yet. No longer working in London, I was able to get out on the road more often than I have in the past and I’ve enjoyed the certainties that cycling has offered in a world in which much seems in flux. I got a PB over 25 miles and equalled my PB over 10 miles but, possibly more importantly, I trained regularly for the first time since I started cycling, and the bike took on a new importance for me. It’s become a personal symbol for the worthiness of life’s ups and downs.

Cycling is a rich culture of endless possibilities – one that changes people’s lives. I first got a road bike (part-owned with my two brothers) eight years ago, around the time Bradley Wiggins was riding his way to a TUE-enhanced Tour de France victory. Since getting that bike in 2012, cycling has made me more practical (unless you’re willing to throw money around, learning basic bike mechanics is an essential part of long-term participation in the sport), it’s made me more humble (acknowledging that I’m emphatically mediocre at the sport), more scientific (beginning to get my head round drag coefficient and wattage), and cognisant that cycling is revolutionary. A recent Dutch documentary - Why We Cycle – makes grand claims for the role of the bike in Dutch society, including a claim that in the Netherlands (where bikes outnumber people), children are happier than any other nation in the world because of the liberty afforded by a bike-friendly infrastructure. Who knows? But it’s a credible claim that cycling affords children greater liberties and therefore contentment.

Coming from long distance running, cycling is a funny sport. There is a whole load of ego that seems to come with placing one’s arse on a bike saddle. Cyclists are often people who have come from other sports where they’ve not excelled. The training to performance output in cycling is high; by that I mean – train hard, invest mental energy in it, and the chances are you’ll improve significantly on the bike. The take-it-or-leave-it nature of competition in cycling means it’s a great place to curate a damaged ego. At an amateur level, I’m often amused by the scowling Strava entries of cyclists struggling with their natural lot (one recent TT appraisal from a former clubmate who was just outside his PB – ‘Dreadful. Must do better’, or the member of Reading CC who posts rides led by others with titles such as, ‘Tring and tedium’ or ‘terrible choice of route. Head wind all ride’). Does cycling have a unique claim on mature sports-based self-delusion? Additionally, the marginal role of cycling among professional sports means cultish, often unquestioning worship of its stars. Even successful cyclists nationally are often damp, uninspiring people, tending to fractured sense of selves (David Millar and Bradley Wiggins are obvious candidates). But the nature of having a marginalised (doping-scandalised) professional side to the sport, means where anomalies exist, they can be inspirational.

Among the pros, my all-time cycling hero is Nicole Cooke. She embodies much of what I love about the sport and reading her book – The Breakaway – taught me a lot and created a mould for how I wanted to go about cycling. Her connection of cycling with family. Her extraordinary and precocious attention to detail. Her zero tolerance of the cheats destroying the sport, as well as her obvious actions to distance herself from anyone doping-related. Her zero fucks given about offending male chauvinists. And her intelligence both in and outside of cycling. As a young teenager her level of professionalism was far in advance of the majority of male riders doing grand tours. Like many true outliers, she’s never really been embraced by her (now former) profession in the way that she deserves.

At an amateur level (albeit very much on the elite side of it) Tejvan Pettinger is the other beacon in my cycling life. Pettinger – a former national hill climbing champion who writes a painstakingly researched blog, Cycling Uphill – gives precious advice on how to train and how to keep your bike. Whenever I want a start point on something cycling-related (how to do interval training, the best rain jacket, 16mm fabric rim tape for the inside of my city-bike wheel) I look at Tejvan’s blog. He’s local to me (based in Oxford) and I enjoy the local community element to his writing; whilst I’ll never come close to what he’s achieved on the bike, I feel some spiritual kinship with him and his cherishing of the Corinthian ideal.

My understanding of this Corinthian ideal is that it celebrates sport as a means of a kind of self-fulfilment. But it’s also associated with a kind of wilful amateurism that is criticised by Clive Woodward as cause of delayed development in British sports at a professional level. When I celebrate Corinthian ideals, I’m certainly not endorsing the lazy, self-indulgent view of sports as something resting on natural, untrained talent - the view that Woodward criticises (see his book, Winning!). For me, the Corinthian spirit is kind of the inverse of what Woodward is criticising: it’s the pursuit of professional levels of training by those who are not paid to compete. With that dedication comes deep respect for others’ achievements. In a world where professional sport is basically an extension of corporatized entertainment, Corinthian values – or, at least, the amateur ideal – are pretty much the vessel for all that’s vibrant about sport. In pro cycling, even the appearance of a genuine hero like Tao Geoghan Hart is undermined by the large ugly grin of Dave Brailsford at his side. I’m more interested in watching the performances at a local level, where people with day jobs can turn up to local TTs and do over 30 miles an hour for 25 miles.

At time trials, road races, hill climbs, etc. you basically find the people who keep the sport alive. They might be watching, competing, writing about it, or organising it. The last of these gets the least respect but is also the most integral. Competition would simply not exist without organisation. The team at my club, Reading, organised about 2 months’ worth of weekly TTs during a pandemic. We used the same course – an intelligent practical step to minimise chaos but the organisation was impeccable. For the first week, payments were made with a contactless machine on the day but this quickly changed to pre-event payment online. A full recce of the course was put up on YouTube to show newcomers the way and we even got a video highlights package one week. I don’t think people appreciate how much these guys do. They basically make the amateur sport possible.

I’m not claiming that cycling is the greatest sport. I think it’s rather like being into poetry. The environment is not large, but the dedication is of a high level. Its denizens inspire or infuriate. What you see is hardly any of it. You stick with it till it breaks you, then stick with it till it fixes you.

#tao cycling giro tourdefrance timetrialling wiggins covid sport doping

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