#just because its a podcast

[giftedpoison]

Me trying to figure out where all of my friend's suddenly alt right ideology is coming from 🤝🏻 she tells me her cis het boyfriend has been playing political podcasts in the car on drives for his job that she partakes in.

Me: ah shit.

[markantonys]

i'll be interested to see if this holds true for WOT s3 since the s1 finale had so many extenuating circumstances and can't really be included in the comparison, but based off of the s2 finale, i believe that season finales tend to bear the brunt of "It's Different From The Books!" ire because they are the culmination of all the smaller changes made throughout the season.

this turned into a bigger analysis post than i expected lmao par for the course with my blog! read on for exploration of how the 2x08 conclusion of each season-long arc is the the most emotionally satisfying conclusion and/or the most thematically appropriate conclusion possible based on the show's particular version of the story, plus a bonus tangent on the nature of adaptation.

for a finale episode, the writers' prime concern 100% has to be "wrapping up all the season's arcs in a way that feels satisfying with everything that's happened in the first 7 episodes, using the book version of the finale event as the framework" rather than "recreating the book version of the finale event exactly as it is with all the same scenes and themes". the nature of storytelling inherently means that every single person who tells the same story will focus on different themes (just think of how many versions of the hades & persephone story there are), and a good adaptation knows that being internally consistent with its own Emphasized Themes is more important than copying-and-pasting scenes from the source material without making any changes to account for the specific way this adaptation is telling the story.

(but a lot of people can't even get past this first point because they don't understand that this is how adaptations - how storytelling in general - work. like, person B literally cannot tell the exact same story that person A told without putting their own spin on it. it's not possible! unless they're simply reading out the exact words that person A wrote, which can't be done when putting 14 massive books into maximum 64 hours of tv. so many readers like to meet this point with "but why does the books' version of the story need to be changed at all?" which is just a non-starter because a) medium differences require a ton of changes, and b) even if no changes were *required*, they would happen anyway because that is human nature when it comes to storytelling. when it comes to story-listening too! ask a hundred different book fans what WOT is about and you'll get a hundred different answers. rafe & co can't possibly make an adaptation that captures every single reader's idea of What WOT Is About, and nobody in the world could ever re-tell the story of WOT in the exact same way that RJ told it, not even the most die-hard book fan; all rafe & co can do is focus on making sure the show honors the core of the books' story while also telling a good story in its own right, independent of the source material.)

i was a classics major, okay? it gets to me! anyway, corralling myself back on topic.

for 2x08, it's very telling just how far Minority Reader Opinion deviates from the general audience opinion. general audiences fucking LOVED this episode (it's the highest-rated on imdb out of the entire show, currently at a 9.0; most episodes are in the 7-8 range), but a bunch of readers call it disappointing and one of the worst episodes of the show. if it was actually a poor quality episode of television, the general audience ratings would reflect that too (as they do for 1x08, currently at a 6.4 (i personally think 1x08 gets way more hate than is deserved and i thoroughly enjoy that episode, but i accept that's just me)), but they don't.

so what does that mean? to me, it means that 2x08 is objectively a very good episode of television which general audiences found satisfying, but which some readers disliked because it prioritized the emotional & thematic needs of its own version of the story over the exact nature of the falme events in the source material. which is exactly what a good adaptation should do! if you forget the books and just look at the show (which the vast majority of viewers are doing), then every resolution that happens in 2x08 is the most satisfying resolution possible and/or the only resolution that was thematically permitted for that particular season storyline.

egwene: her season arc was about learning to stand on her own two feet and not cling onto her mentor figures or compare herself unfavorably to others. thus, her freeing herself from the a'dam is the most satisfying possible conclusion to her season arc. nynaeve and elayne freeing her in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut egwene's Overcoming Impostor Syndrome arc to go "yeah actually it's true that she's not good enough on her own and when it comes down to it she does always need nynaeve to help her out". that version worked in TGH where she didn't have an Overcming Impostor Syndrome arc, but it wouldn't have worked in the show where she did. (but, yes, egwene learning in 2x08 that she doesn't have to rely on others is a double-edged sword, which nicely sets up her later-series struggles with trying to shoulder too much herself and not letting even her friends or partner help her.)

rand: his season arc was about learning to lean on others and not isolate himself or try to protect his friends by withholding his burdens from them. thus, him failing to defeat ishamael until all his friends come to lend aid in various ways is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. rand defeating ishy singlehandedly in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut his Learning That Strength Is In Numbers arc to go "yeah actually it's true that rand is capable of winning his biggest battles all by himself and thus it's no problem for him to push his friends away". given the themes that s2 emphasized for rand, the only appropriate finale outcomes were either success with his friends' help or total failure on his own, and they chose the former. (that being said, rand pushing his friends away is a continuous issue for him throughout the series, so i doubt he's perfectly learned his lesson after 2x08; we shall see!)

interesting to note that rand and egwene have inverse arcs in a way (foils!) and that some elements of their book falme climaxes were swapped, and that the way the show has done it subverts the expected gender roles. typically, men are expected to be Lone Wolves and women to be Team Players, and the WOT books absolutely play into these stereotypes throughout the series (sometimes intentionally as social commentary, sometimes unconsciously as an accepted truth of the world), but 2x08 and s2 more broadly did the opposite with our yin-and-yang co-protagonists. it's egwene who has the arc about learning to be a Lone Wolf and rand who has the arc about learning to be a Team Player. and imo these subconscious gender role expectations are a part of why some readers (esp reddit) got SO heated about "how come egwene can succeed by herself but rand can't", because it feels Wrong to them and Not How Things Are Supposed To Work (they've never questioned why rand can succeed by himself but egwene needs her friends' help in TGH, or all the other times in the books when men succeed by themselves and women succeed by relying on each other). but it's a totally apples-to-oranges comparison because egwene and rand had totally different season arcs and focal themes (but many paralleling & foiling moments within that), and so they each get a conclusion tailor-made to their individual stories.

mat: his season arc was about realizing he's a good, worthy person, finding the inner strength to overcome his worst impulses and temptations, and coming through for his friends after leaving them at the waygate. thus, him getting his Big Damn Hero moment with the horn of valere, getting validation that he is literally a hero, and overall spending the episode doing all he can to support his friends is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. (but stabbing his bff just as he was flying on a confidence high and trying to save the day was a downer note to end on, so we've complicated his relationship with heroism and set up some more internal issues for him to wrestle with next season.)

perrin: his season arc was about learning to acknowledge his inner wolf but also coming to regard it with fear and to believe that wolf & human sides can't coexist and he must Choose One (.......suddenly being struck by the bisexuality metaphor of it all. nice!) thus, him giving into violence to murder a human to avenge a wolf is.....well, it's pretty upsetting for him and serves to reinforce his growing belief that his two sides can't coexist, but thematically, it's fascinating and sets him up for some really great internal (and external) conflicts in s3. he's just gotten what he thinks is pretty strong evidence to corroborate ishy's claim that embracing his wolf side means embracing the shadow, so he's set up for a season 3 of deep-diving into his relationship with violence and his inner wolf. it's also a neat parallel with 1x08: there perrin's avoidance of violence allowed fain to escape, whereas here his embracing of violence has traumatized him (again), so our poor guy is really feeling conflicted in the pacificism-or-violence question because both sides seem wrong to him right now. huh, i guess perrin's full-series arc is about finding a middle ground rather than one extreme (pacifism/tuatha'an/human) or the other (violence/aiel/wolf). i feel like i've just had an epiphany lmao this is why i love the show! it tells the same story as the books, but tells it in a different way that makes me think about it differently and gain new insights!

nynaeve: her season arc was about learning that she, on her own, as she is today, is not enough to protect her loved ones. this is a tough pill for both her and the audience to swallow! but it's needed for her character, and we see it in the books too. nynaeve has an incredible amount of power, but she's terrified of having that much power and wants to pretend it doesn't exist. she's resistant to change, she's used to being in charge, and she's very "my way or the highway". these are all things she needs to grow out of (or moderate, at least) in order to be able to step up and do her part for tarmon gai'don. she has to learn how to embrace her power instead of being afraid of it or being too stubborn to let other people guide her and teach her, so s2 shows her what happens if she doesn't, first hypothetically in the accepted test (everyone she loves dies because she's blocked and refused channeling training) and then for real in falme (she couldn't help elayne fully or rand at all because of her block). so her 2x08 conclusion being Total Failure is not emotionally satisfying, no, but it's thematically exactly what she needed and will goad her into facing her block head-on next season. thematically, like rand, nynaeve only had 2 options for falme: break her block and succeed, or retain her block and fail, and it was too soon for the former (we gotta let her cook a while longer, plus the story will become too easy if nynaeve, or rand, reaches supernova capability too soon), so it had to be the latter. if the show had gone with a third option of her succeeding without breaking her block, then that would've taught her and the audience that it's fine to leave the block in place and she doesn't need to challenge herself to grow as a person, because when it TRULY matters she can always get around the block.

other characters get appropriate resolutions too! moiraine and lan get to work together to succeed after being at odds and failing on their own all season (rand foils!). elayne gets validation that she is an essential and trusted part of the friend group after feeling like somewhat of an outsider earlier in the season. ishamael getting vanquished and lanfear betraying him only to be betrayed by him in turn is exactly where their mutual mistrust was leading them (and it shows us why it's so important that Team Light be able to work as a team rather than as self-interested individual operators; the contrast between ishy & lanfear looking at the seals together while plotting to betray each other vs. rand standing on the tower with all his friends behind him makes me cry your honor. imagine hating that ishy's defeat was a team effort, could not be me!)

(it's also worth noting that the characters who had the least individual success/victory in 2x08 (nynaeve, rand, perrin) are the ones who will have the biggest individual storylines in s3 (tanchico & moggy, waste arc, two rivers arc), whereas the characters who had the most individual success/victory (egwene, mat, moiraine, lan) are the ones who will be taking a bit more of a backseat (of course they all have their own stuff to do, but none of them is *the* lead character of their TSR/s3 traveling group). this is intentional!)

so there you have it. 2x08 is adored by the general audience, and it's because of this: it gives us some damn satisfying conclusions to all the season arcs (and some exciting and visually stunning battle sequences to boot), and all the viewers who AREN'T beleaguered by "But The Books!", which is most of them, recognize that for the good storytelling it is. i for one will always care far more about the show telling a good story within itself than the show being identical to the books, and rafe & co will too, as they should.

the only downside to the episode is that, yes, it is quite cramped for time because there are a lot of arcs to wrap up. this should be less of an issue in future seasons when the season finale isn't "every single major storyline converges in the same place at once". for example, judging by the "goldeneyes" episode title it seems s3 might split it up so that perrin's conclusion in the two rivers is in 3x07 while other conclusions in other locations are in 3x08, giving each more breathing room. whereas 2x08 had no choice but to stuff everything in that episode into that specific episode because it's not like perrin could just do his falme stuff an episode early and take a nap while everyone else was doing THEIR falme stuff in the next episode, nor could the full falme sequence have been split into 2 episodes since that would have disrupted the flow of the story. the only solution would be for 2x08 to be extra long, which is nice to imagine, but we all know that streaming shows almost never deviate from their set episode lengths and so there isn't much point sighing about "this episode should have been 90 minutes long!" because that just is not on the table, never has been, and never will be. the first step to being able to jive with an adaptation is making peace with the limits of its particular medium!

plus, the only things i might deem "missing" from 2x08 are non-essential (ingtar darkfriend reveal - that is NOT important fight me, it's only important in the books as our first example of a morally-gray shadow-aligned person but the show has already been doing that in spades) or will likely be included in 3x01 (the gang spending some time together to breathe and process and catch up). at the end of the day, the show is always going to need to be paced very very tightly with not as much breathing room as those of us accustomed to entire books dedicated to reacting to the previous book might expect. and 2x08 did manage to pack in a LOT of character work amidst all the action and did a good mix of resolving s2 arcs while leaving some unresolved to carry into s3 and introducing some new arcs/issues/conflicts, all within 70 minutes, which i find pretty impressive. in conclusion, 2x08 my fucking beloved <3

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[oliversgarden]

Season 5 Jarthur+ Yorick my boyyyy

I love themmmm and hope they fall down just so many holes and experience at least eight horrors by tomorrow thank you

I haven’t actually listened to 45 yet though but shhhhh it’s fineeeee

Details!!

[arthurtaylorlester]

i can’t believe i’m having to say this but arthur calling john a child ≠ john actually being a child

[izel-scribbles]

things that would kill arthur lester: the entirety of skibidi toilet

[bluebirbbb]

little arthur malevolent lester portrait because my brain is full of him

[two-crows-in-a-trenchcoat]

rusty quill has turned me into a sleeper agent I swear. literally every time someone asks me what the magnus archives is I just respond like clock work

the magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial share alike 4.0 International licence

i can't help it. it just slips out

[soup-child]

So I found this old meme I made a while ago about jane/lizzie and marco/grant but now i guess we gotta add tonys gay dads to the list

[iintervallum]

Sometimes I think about how the dndads cast should be on tumblr, with them having a subreddit(you know how they can be) and dndadstwt being like 10 people, tumblr would be the perfect place for them to see more of the fandom, if they wish to that is. Since quite a lot of people on here are way less honed in on negativity than reddit and twitter.

My edit of this is getting long lol so I'm putting it under a cut

Especially reddit, the people on there honestly I think just get too attached to a specific format or way of doing things, its a common pattern in any long running show fandoms i've been in where its reddit that constantly complains about the "good ol' days" and hate any new changes made. I would sometimes drop in and just see a lot of Scary hate at times, or people getting very irritated with the rule breaking, or just complaining that they're "forcing" the humor. I saw a post like that when i just started s2 and that couldnt have been more incorrect (yeah the piss jokes got a bit much but every other part was golden!...pun not intended)

There were absolutely points where I felt my interest wanning, but I think people would get pretty vicious about it and make a lot of mean spirited accusations. Like if anything the things I really enjoyed about this season was how different it was to s1, the contrast was really nice and i liked a lot of the story choices made, i still think about the apollo four teens and the fucking goof realm episodes, they were amazing. Which is why I remember thinking it was odd that they suddenly started involving the dads from s1 more, but knowing now that Anthony was struggling with people not liking this season as much it makes perfect sense.

Idk if it were just me, but i liked the earlier parts of the season for how the teens were still kind of discovering more about themselves and through gathering each anchor, learning more that their parents are people too, with their own fuck ups revealed and the teens have to clean up after them, so having it shift to be about Willy again was a little odd if i'm being honest(I didnt hate it but a repeat villian is hard to do, and for what its worth i think Willy did get the end he deserved and i loved the finale).

Funnily, in its own way it fits the theme of being a teenager and having to live up to your parents expectations. In a meta sense this being the successor to the first season and it being awkward at points and having issues with its identity is very fitting and just like how teenhood actually is.

I've gotten off topic but my point is fandom is just fandom, and letting it influence the way creators can view their own work is an interesting side effect of the internet and the way we navigate with the media we enjoy or hate. And spaces like reddit are grown in a way to encourage more brutally critical ways of analysing media which has very little consideration for the creator. By no means am I saying that the creators of things should be coddled, heck I literally airing my own annoyances with the podcast in space where i'm uplifting the positivity of tumblr over those spaces lol. I just mean that seeing the more genuine side of the fanbase would be more of a better time for them.

EDIT: (I just phrased things better, fixed the spelling and grammer errors and added more thoughts) The more I ruminate on this the more I think that it would honestly be a good idea. Like I do get the base worry of being too close to the more intense side of the fandom, as people on here are unafraid to gush about the show in ways that can be a little much and theres parasociality and all that jazz.

But it would be really good at least to see some actual genuine positivity, so many people provide their thoughtful meta and theories that even if widely off base are just interesting to read through because of how various different people see themselves in the characters they play. And even the critiques people give are not unkind, they come from a place of wanting to understand the choices made better.

I mentioned this in the old version of this post but having a blacklisted tag that only the people who don't wish their post to be seen by the cast use, something along the lines like how the magnus archives fandom has "do not archive", would be a very useful tool to create a barrier in the fanbase. I know i'm someone who feels very nervous about creators seeing the posts I make. Something like "not safe for dads" could work well or any other joke or pun about it being hidden. I doubt it would be filled with discourse or whatever it would mainly be people hornyposting since i know fandom well enough lol.

[scarysanctuary]

im never going to understand the "ugly" allegations against adam driver when he literally looked like a disney prince when he played kylo ren

[koszmarnybudyn]

A wip because i dont have time to finish it today and i will probablly be busy tommorow.

[non-plutonian-druid]

[ID: Three drawings of the four main characters of the podcast Midnight Burger, in three different outfits. Ava is a fat woman with short brown hair and light skin. She has a sleeve of tattoos on her left arm and a smaller band of tattoos on her right. Gloria is a chubby woman with medium dark skin and dark brown curly hair. Caspar is a tall skinny man with light skin and short sandy brown hair. Leif is a sturdy man with light skin and dark brown hair. It covers one eye, and the tips are dyed purple.

The first image, Ava and Gloria are wearing day clothes; jeans and a t shirt. Caspar is wearing slacks and a button down and Leif is wearing a chef's outfit. In the second, Ava has added a lab coat, and Caspar and Gloria have added an apron and nametag. Leif is wearing casual clothes; jeans and a t shirt that says "Aliens want me fish fear me". In the third, Ava is wearing pyjamas; a nightgown with a cat on it and bunny slippers. Gloria is dressed in a homemade fur coat over her usual outfit from her time in the freezer. Caspar is wearing cargo shorts and a floral vacation shirt, and Leif is instead Old Leif, wearing spacefuture coat and pants. His hair is graying and he has a mustache, and his hair is dyed teal instead of purple. End ID.]

I've been listening to a podcast called Midnight Burger which I really like, it has big Doctor Who energy lol. I have purposely avoided any and all fan-or-canon appearances for these characters that might be out there and gosh have i missed making character designs!

[shadow-the-crow]

The Distortion didn’t like Michael as a who.

I mean, it says itself that it doesn’t want to be Michael. But the who and what thing actually brings us farther than that. It shows us his whole arc.

We all know the quote "i am not a who, archivist, i am a what." When i first heard it, i thought: Makes sense, it’s an inhuman creature, not a person, it just can’t have enough identity to be a who. Like it says itself.

But in Michael’s statement, it talks about having your who torn from your what, and replaced with another who. So it actually did have a who before becoming Michael. And it even admits that Michael also was a who, a who that became part of its being.

I think… it could just never accept being Michael. As it said, Michael Shelley was a constant reminder of its failure – the embodiment of it. The Distortion was forced to become the embodiment of its failure. To think with its mind. Of course it could never accept that. Imagine how horrible that must be – despising your own mind. (I think some people can relate to that, actually. I’m sorry if you can. I can.)

So it tried to disassociate itself completely from being Michael. To pretend it was only a what. I mean, we see that it’s comfortable with it/its pronouns as Michael, but not as Helen. As Michael, it embraced its inhumanity – not because it wasn’t comfortable with being a person in general, but with being that specific person it was forced to become. A person whose mind wasn’t made for the Spiral. Its failure incarnate.

But just before the Distortion in its Michael form dies, he ends his statement with "that is who i am". WHO. (thanks @totheidiot for pointing that out to me ^^) Michael finally got to talk about everything he had to endure. For the first time, he said the cruel truths out loud: How much it always hated being Michael Shelley. He told Jon everything, which also forced him to face the truth himself. And i think facing it finally allowed him to accept it. Accepting how shitty something is is the first step towards learning to live with it and maybe even learning not to hate it.

He could finally accept his mind. His who. Every part of himself.

And not even two minutes later, he died.

(Of course, the Distortion itself didn’t die. But its current state of existence died. It finally accepted its who, only to get it painfully torn from its what again.)

Because he got too lost in his who. Talking to Jon allowed him to be more human. But the cruel world he lived in doesn't reward humanity. It exploits the weakness that comes with it.

[applepixls]

i noticed something while watching through all the povs of build and seek.. while they're drawing their prompts, just before skizz goes grian says "I'm glad you [scott] are writing these prompts because if i was writing them they'd be a lot more nebulous" and if you watch everyone else's pov he says "it'd be like... dog." but in his own perspective he says "it'd be like... the feeling you get on the last day of school" and the thing is i know exactly what he's done cause in lizzie's episode on the imp & skizz podcast she mentioned that sometimes in editing (for life series) she'll change what she said in an interaction to make it funnier etc which seems to be exactly what grians done here small detail, i wanna know if anyone else has picked up on it :)

Edit: ghdjjmk little bit embarrassed, just realizing grian made the joke about "the feeling you get on the last day of school" later on and most of them just included one clip or the other feeling silly but i love grian and scott being somewhat similar and both organizing and making games (be it larger scale like mcc and life series or smaller scale like build and seek and guess the build) the only difference being scott likes his players and wants them to enjoy, have a fun time and want to play again while grian hates his players and wants them to suffer, cry a lot and be coerced into joining again for the content /lh /j

[osteochondraldefect]

i love spreading misinformation about what happens in this podcast aka.: bunch of thangs i drew but didnt feel like posting separately