#kinda??? it's more like. analysis of the world structure and idk.

[wellcomeoneileen]

PROCESSING QAF POST 3/?

To me, season 4 was totally bearable, because I understood what the writers were aiming for, and simply squinted while I watched and revised in real time. Season 5 was beyond the pale.

An English professor once advised letting current emotion into writing even if it’s not related to the story, that passion can bleed through and you might be able to use it. Speaking ENTIRELY as an armchair psychologist here, I think this season was written with some real…displeasure on the part of the writers, and that was felt by the audience instead of being edited in a more constructive way.

I have done some googling, and this could be true and they were angry at the audience and/or cast and/or state of the world. Or, fans from 20 years ago were just coping like I am today.

However! Please allow me to present some ideas for what they could have done with their plotlines instead of (what I feel like) was repeating plotlines and throwing things at the wall. Angrily. Plenty of these ideas honor what the writers already created or even kinda got at during S5 itself.

This is very Britin oriented, because thinking about The Girls or Em truly sends me into a tizzy from which I cannot articulate useful ideas.

These ideas are rooted in my belief that S5 dropped the thematic ball that they had been steadily building, mostly with Brian, as referenced HERE.

These are pretty broad strokes, will maybe do a more structured/detailed rewriter vision later, with textual evidence.

First big point is if B/J stay together. Honestly, them splitting is a good move on the producers/advertisers side, because shows lose ratings when the main couple  stays together. However, advertising means nothing to the story quality. Let’s discuss both!

Either way, I wouldn’t want any of this to be about monogamy. Like I’ve said, I always thought monogamy was just the stand-in issue in Brian’s life for his deeper inner issues. 

If they break up:

Maybe the dust-up is Justin comes back from Hollywood and Brian is like live with me and let me pay for school again and Justin is like I’m a man now I have to figure this (living situation, no job and no education) out on my own I love you but I need to grow up.

Idk. Not married to that at all.

Then Brian is so hurt that Justin didn’t move in he blows up at the gang at a party and they cold shoulder him. Again, spitballing. Not attached to the idea for the inciting incident! 

For Justin:

Honestly have put less thought into tangible actions and motivations for Justin. That analysis requires more effort because the writers treated him as a plotpoint and mouthpiece instead of a character in S5 so I would need to give some deep thought to how to fix him, and I have only given that to Brian so far. But here’s what I think off the top of my head!

After this start of season dust-up, Justin is living on his own and he’s really processing all of the failed illusions of being an artist. We saw PIFA not go well for Justin. We saw Justin fired from Vangaurd. We saw Ethan have to sell out to be a successful artist. We see the Rage project being shut down for staying true to the source.

All of these are different disappointments with the reality of being a working creative that Justin could’ve been processing as a disillusionment of his love with art. And throughout the season, as he’s determined to make it on his own for the first time, we could see him being sort of resigned to a fate of having a typical day job. Being lucky if it’s in graphic design and maybe doing art as a hobby on the side.

And then I think the Jennifer and Tucker storyline could be really, really integrated into this. I think she could be the one to pull him out of this and say “When I was your age, I loved art but I got married to your father, started having children, and gave my passions up for a safe life. And now I’m a single mom, living on my own dating a hot younger man, and it’s scary and it’s hard and I get judged for it, but I’m finally living the life that I always wanted. I encourage you to do this dangerous thing of being an artist and yes, it’s going to keep being hard but you can do it.” 

And we see this rebirth of Justin as someone who is still incredibly optimistic - he just now has a more mature framework for that trait.

I could see this happening if there’s no B/J breakup to start the season as well, and he’s simply not letting Brian pay for things within their relationship, or something to that effect. Which!! I hope to later discuss their gendered roles and Brian’s internalized homophobia and patriarchal ideals 

For Brian:

Meanwhile, I think Brian line for season five it was actually really well set up for the writers. They just didn’t follow-through! We see in season three just Brian loses one of his most treasured assests: his wealth and career, but he still has his friends. In season four he loses his other most treasured status :His virility, but he still has his loved ones.

I would like season five to have him still be vivacious and for Kinnetik to be as successful as possible, but he no longer has his loved ones around him because of whatever happened at the start of the season (if we go with the breakup).

Brian realizes that his career and his body are not as important to him as his relationships. Or at least is forced to admit the three are equal. And we see him start to really evaluate why he is the way he is. I would love for him to dive deep into his childhood, confront his demons, and end the series by making some decisions for his adult self and not based on childhood trauma..

And then he reflects, reevaluates, and reintegrates everyone into his life through a new lens. This is really about him admitting to accepting and embracing the fact that the people around him deeply matter. Accept Debbie as a mother, Michael as a brother Gus as his son, Lindsay and Mel as dear friends and coparent, etc.

I fully acknowledge these were touched on – but he was still mostly given Justin/monogamy plotlines and emotions which I disagree with

SPECICALLY this could look like

Letting him throw down with Debbie? Because Debbie was his pseudo mom, but she always put Michael first. Which isn’t wrong, he was her actual son, but I could see Brian maybe projecting on her, or maybe pushing her away, or maybe just really re-integrating his role in her life and vice versa. That could have had some drama (for the ratings) since she’s such a fiery character. This could also be the inciting incident if B/J don’t break up.

If his second nephew came out as gay and ran away from Claire to be with his Uncle Brian, that could have mirrored season 1 with Justin, and show how he’s grown and learned since then, and forced him to confront his family history and baggage, stop generational trauma, and allow him to prevail over the ghosts of his upbringing, giving him and the audience a sense of positive closure.

And if it was the first nephew, the same nephew who falsely accused him of molestation, that could be some serious tension, and it could further the Justin S1 mirror by also showing a better version of Chris Hobbs –  a sort of what if Chris Hobbs had admitted he was gay and tried to atone instead of turning violent? 

Lots of full circles!

AND that could have sparked a fight between Brian and Michael as they disagree over dealing with their troublesome teenage runaways, if the writers wanted B/M drama. This could be wrapped into the Debbie drama?

I think having the nephew come, his own demons from his past, him fight with Debbie, then the nephew arc closes out and with this encouragement from his mentor trial period, (and having processed and moved on from his childhood abuse),  he realizes that he wants to be more involved with Gus. He then tries and fails and eventually figures out what kind of father he wants to be, and what kind of co-parent he and Mel/Linds are (God what I would do to have more Brian and Mel scenes), he and Debbie reconcile, and he has an active friendship with Ted, would have been beautiful relationships, excellent tying up, none of it focused on romance and all of it not promoting the nuclear family. I say that because the writers said they wanted to not focus on happy romantic endings, but also focused their show on Britin…so….

I also think this is where you could integrate some of attempting to be monogamous plot lines from the end of season five. Again, I wrote about what I think about that in another post, but without reflecting on that, let’s just use these elements that the writers came up with and obviously wanted.

I think he could’ve been the stereotypical father to Gus when he starts to be a part of his life. He’s teaching him to play ball. He’s starting to be strict with rules. It’s just kind of funny scenes. Likewise, he does the same with Ted - he embraces the fact that Ted is his friend, and he starts being kind and sympathetic, and not a bitch to him.

And in all of these situations he would hear from Lindsey and Ted to just be who he is. They love him. They just want him around. He doesn’t have to be a textbook Father and Friend. And I think that would greatly heal his inner child wound which again is something I’ve talked about elsewhere and as I think the big issue with Brian. But if he is able to accept his life and accept him the way he is, I think that could be a lot of his plot for this season.

I just don’t get why they didn’t allow exploration in his already pre-existing, non-traditional, non-romantic relationships. Good for his character, closure for the audience, gives plenty of conflict, allegedly what the writers wanted to get across with the ending…

 

Being separated from Justin or not, this could work.

And then, at the end of the season,

The two of them have separately reached their thesis statements of who they are. They can face each other, and these will be two characters who saw the potential in one another from the beginning when no one else did, pushed each other to potential throughout the show, and they have themselves embraced that for their own sakes, and they can choose each other for the next chapter of their lives.

Even, dare I say, (and this would be a controversial!) but I think viewers would be more open to them having a thank you for making me who I am, goodbye forever talk if we got that whole season of seeing them make that final big push in their maturation arcs. 

Or it could still be Justin going to New York, but instead of it feeling like this bittersweet hopefully they stay together, instead it’s they’ve reaffirmed their love to one another and are very confidently moving into this next chapter. I think this would change the tone of the ending to be, all these seasons have been the bildungsroman and now we are at a place to really takeoff into the future because our foundation is now so secure.

We could even have another “rules” discussion - but this time it’s like “you won’t pay for anything for me for the next three years.” “You’ll tell me when you start to fall in love for the one millionth time for some out of work actor” “you will say when you’re angry instead of ignoring my calls. You don’t have to say anything else.just don’t ignore me. Tell me. “

Shit like that. Because those were their real problems - not monogamy. Not married to that idea either - it could be way too much telling now showing or it could be a good throwback to their first rules agreement. 

[maletofujoshi]

some thoughts on story structure in elden ring

i’m starting to view a lot of the game as like, being compromised of cyclic narratives- separating stories of the world cycle and the individual cycle- the world narrative encompasses things like circumstance, grief, relations between things/definition/domination. there are also "individuals" who are more representative of the world than themselves: gods & lords mostly, though you could imagine some outer gods here as well. primarily also the realm of like, evocative spaces + environmental storytelling. the individual narrative is the struggle of the individual to apprehend the world- currently i see it as individuals becoming either objects of the world, reflections of it, or becoming agents in their own right, acting irrespective of the world as it is, though idk if this conception can really hold. for example a "lord" is a character with agency (mhm) but is more a fixture of the world via great man theory n shit. this side is more in-text narrative + emergent narrative through struggle and mastery.

I'd largely define the world (or civilization?) narrative in stages: great conquest/development -> abundance and a golden age (usually in the core at the expense of the periphery) -> stagnation, suffering, wounds -> abandonment by a "mother" -> universal despair, grief, remembrance + return of things once pushed into the periphery

um so this is obviously a bit prescriptive. but like idk. places you can see this are farum azula, leyndell/the erdtree, haligtree, belurat/tower... arguably the nox as well but like their deal is more like, what develops in the periphery parallel to the core, and they lack that sense of abandonment by someone with their grief coming more from utter defeat. there's some stuff to be said about uhl/uld and the mushroom lords as well, but that's all too vague and speculative lol.

and similarly with the individual narrative: abandonment by/failure of a "mother" + the child bearing a wound (all living characters deal with some kind of loss, or simply present declining circumstance) -> exploratory phase (creating an inner "order" to define self away from external chaos) -> either despair or continued striving (flame of frenzy/flame of ambition) -> martyrdom (or continuing as you were, if lucky.) + at any point you can just like. die normal styles largely it seems like the "fail state" of despair is achieved when one is too obsessed with worldly suffering, or is just too keyed in to the world to really be a person. when i say despair i don't just mean literally like yellow frenzy stuff, i believe the same initial despair leads different characters to differing representations of the world, either in the three fingers, the golden order, the formless mother, miquella, etc. like even ymir is just sitting in his cathedral all day talking about there being no hope for redemption. for characters that don't fall into despair and instead are able to properly self define, death still comes, but they are usually able to effect things greater than them. Millicent returns the sense of self Malenia (and potentially you) abandoned, Melina becomes the fire that burns the erdtree, the three mending rune authors all gestate some kind of new ideology...

im kinda working with certain ideas of chaos and order and of responses to both here, which are kinda vague for me at the moment. there's also a game-spanning motif of like, wounded children seeking answers/simulacra after abandonment by previously wounded mothers, which i think connects. its as much mother and child as it is world and individual and that frame probably explains the more fluid elements of the dynamic better... currently this is kinda exploratory and vague. I'd like to revisit this idea laterrrrr since this is pretty poor analysis currently

[valfruits-archived]

i think in the time since i played shb for the first time i have never seen a proper discussion/analysis of full fathom five. which makes me almost kinda sad because its my favourite :(

full fathom five is the very first version we ever hear, but by the end of shb & its patches i feel like there's a sense of evolution to it; we come to associate the melody so strongly with the past, and it extends to the music itself, where neath dark waters ends up feeling older, and full fathom five feels like the odd one out for not being directly associated with the ancients in some way. except (in my mind at least) it is related to the past, in the same way that the sundered world is related to the unsundered one, as a successor/the thing that comes after.

and to me that feels kinda like a nice little encapsulation of a lot of what shb is about, the relationship between past and present and moving on, how full fathom five carries the same basic structure as the other renditions, but is completely different in every other respect, including the usage of instruments that don't show up in the others, like the melody itself is a remnant of the past, and full fathom five is what it becomes eventually when it takes on a different form, the same way the ruins of amaurot become an ocean.

and this next bit is connected but idk how to segway into it naturally so ill just say it, but on a more individual character level, i think if neath dark waters & its lonely piano is not just for amaurot in general but also more specifically for shb emet, then full fathom five and its liveliness is for the wol and the scions, who make it out alive & healthy despite the dangers they're in & who are full of a desperate hope for the future despite their circumstances, and its for the tempest as it exists in the present, still full of beauty and life despite the wreckage that came upon norvrandt (also still living and still moving forward) -> the contrast between the doomed nature of emet's efforts to regain a past he'd already lost vs the wol + scions whose future is bright & hopeful

[revasserium]

omfg my moment has FINALLY come

here are some market perfumes that will smell similar to each of the boys + fragrance analysis (from someone who proudly works at the largest fragrance house in the world u_u):

disclaimer: no, i haven't smelled any of the actual scently products, this is purely based on the tmd (top, mid, dry) that we're given; and no, i haven't smelled all (tho i do try to rec ones that i have smelled before) of the suggestions listed, so i can't say definitively how similar they will/won't be to the actual scently frags; this is all for fun and games and based off my own fragrance training and industry knowledge <3

leon:

eau d'hermes

massimo dutti

guess men (original)

olfactive family: aromatic fougere

breakdown: so what's interesting is that the structure of leon's perfume is really classic -- like truly, if you look at the stuff that it'll smell similar to, all those are from like the late 90's, bc leon's frag looks like a super classical aromatic fougere composition, which is something that was popularized in the 1880's in france, basically with a lavender/citrus top and dries down to a warmer, dark woody/mossy base. we don't really see the dark woody base specifically in the notes called out on leon's frag, but jasmine tends to have a darker, almost leather-like animalic note in it (indole). a few interesting things i wanted to point out is that linalool is not usually listed as a "note", it's usually listed as a potential allergen, but it has a citrusy floral kind of smell and is wildly popular in anything fragranced, from perfume to like lysol wipes; jasmine, clove, thyme are more popularly listed/used as mid/heart notes, but they can definitely be used as base notes depending on how they're used. overall, i think leon's fragrance will be super duper "vintage men's" fragrance, which. kinda fits with his persona.

chevalier:

giorgio

overdose

eudora royal

olfactive family: fruity floral... chypre?

breakdown: bro. wtf. lmao okay no but srsly, these ingredients gave me a bit of pause and also trouble, mostly because wintergreen is so not a "traditional" perfumery ingredient, but it is way more common in east asia and it has an almost... pine-y freshness to it which would contrast nicely with the green apple and the sweet orange (lmfao wat on earth), so i get it -- i see the vision here (hence the chypre? classification). setting that aside, just looking at the notes here, this almost skews into a traditionally feminine perfume, mostly because of the insane amount of white flowers -- jasmine, lily, gardenia, ylang/ilang, like this is a true white flower bouquet with like... a fruity sweet top and some cool, aromatic spices folded in. idk if they were really considering what the fragrance would smell like or if they were just like "lets use exclusively white-colored ingredients" but... lmao. this frag would most likely be super super floral and sweet, and last not that long, bc literally where are the base notes LOL. which. is fascinating considering chev's character (or at least what i know of it???) cause... they could've gotten really interesting with some darker/harsher base notes or with something with a bit more contrast. also, whiterose is not a real perfumery ingredient, but there are such things as "fantasy" ingredients, which is just an accord that is inspired by the thing, so in this case, the vibe of the white rose lmao.

yves:

escada 2005

humor no ar

tresor (1990)

olfactive family: fruity floral amber

breakdown: finally some base notes!! and a super classic combo at that! musk, vanilla, sandalwood -- we love to fucking see it. so the makeup of this fragrance is actually pretty commercial, we've got some fruity freshness at the top with that apple, underlined by the cassis (which is just a fancy way of saying black currant, and then a pretty solid fruity-floral mid, to one of my all time favorite base combos of all time u__u. this frag is gonna smell like a cashmere sweater, soft and nuzzly, and will prob sit pretty close to the skin. the powderiness of the iris is gonna pair super well with the creamy sandalwood, and the apricot + rose combo just sounds fantastic. this is also a pretty "young" fragrance, i'd like to say, since the rise of "skin scents" is a pretty recent thing, what with the boom of glossier you and le labo another 13 (both were made by my company, and by my fav perfumer!!!), it really brought on this concept of wearing fragrance not to attract a partner, but for yourself and your own comfort/happiness. i don't know much about yves cause i haven't read his route, but the fact that his animal is a cat makes sense with this fragrance for sure LOL

nokto:

pengaligon's gardenia

semi-bespoke no. 25

classique (1993)

olfactive classification: floral amber

breakdown: another win for the base notes!! lmao can u tell i'm a big fan of musk-sandalwood perfumes, can you. okay, but this is quite interesting, bc we have yet another quite white-flower centric fragrance with some spices and light woods thrown in. the entire "top" is just... white flowers (white flowers is actually an olfactive family of ingredients of... well, white... flowers!), and there's 1 spice in the middle, with a very similar base to the one we saw in yves's perfume -- sandalwood, musk, and heliotrope, which is often used to enhance longevity in fragrances. i think overall, this fragrance would be quite "warm" and pretty creamy, and very, very floral. again, don't know much about nokto other than that he's got the reputation of a womanizer, so it makes sense to me that he'd just smell like flowers. probably like a mix of all the different floral perfumes of the women he's slept with or something like that.

licht:

fleur de frangipanier

women of earth

could be interesting:

night

cafe intenso

olfactive classification: floral fruity

breakdown: this also gave me a bit of trouble looking for stuff that would smell similar, tbh. but again, it's got that vanilla sandalwood base + nemesia, which is literally just a flower that smells like vanilla. so the base of this frag is gonna be... vanilla-heavy for sure. the rest is quite... simple? fruity top with that wintergreen note again, plus the lily, sweet pea, orchid heart, which is going to be quite petally and light. i included night and cafe intenso, purely because i think that they're interesting choices for anyone who wants like a licht fragrance + a bit more depth. i get that they're leaning into the licht = light thing with the frag cause they really did pick a lot of light-smelling ingredients, but i would've loved to see like... a vetiver/patchouli/dark woods base or even something more jammy and resinous, just for that contrast in his character, ykno?

clavis:

michael sheer

l'eau d'issey

senza fine

olfactive classification: floral aquatic

breakdown: first of all, byakudan is literally just the jpn for "sandalwood" so i'm not sure why they decided to make it sound all schmancy for clavis but... maybe that's just in character lmfao. but!!! his frag would thus far probably be my personal fav? mainly because of the use of "sea salt" or "marine" notes, which is one of my fav families of notes mainly bc it smells like... well, the ocean! the zesty citrus top paired with sea salt/marine notes is a super classic combo, floral heart (fyi, muguet is just the fancy french name for "lily of the valley"), and a base of -- you guessed it, musk and sandalwood and heliotrope. but while i think this fragrance would nice and refreshing, it's very... inoffensive. which, i feel like is kind of missing clavis as a character? or maybe they want to highlight how "refreshing" he is? but either way im glad that i get to plug one of my fav fragrances l'eau d'issey -- like pls it smells so good so... light and pretty, just like clavis LOL.

jin:

quasar 2019

mj man

vetiver pour homme cologne

olfactive classification: woody aromatic fougere

breakdown: woof -- this is such a quintessentially "man" fragrance sldkfjsdlkdf. though, galbanum is not usually a top note, so take that with a grain of salt. also, "ho leaf" is a kind of eucalyptus-type green ingredient, hence the aromatic classification. but again, the structure with the citrus top, spicy/sweet middle, and a super duper warm/dark base of oakmoss, rosewood, and amber, you're going to have a very classic "male" fragrance. it's not quite sauvage by dior or bleu de chanel but the core is there -- citrus top, white flower/spice heart, amber/woods base. i think of all the ones we've done so far, this is by far the most currently commercial masculine fragrance. you can probably walk into any department store, ask for their best selling "male" fragrance, smell it, and it'll smell vaguely like this. and, based on what i know about jin... makes sense, no?

luke:

madamoiselle rochas edt

peonypop

romance edp intense

olfactive classification: floral fruity

breakdown: this one is actually quite interesting bc like chev, these are all traditionally feminine coded perfumes, but i do think that this has the potential to smell pretty unisex. so the lychee at the top is interesting, mostly bc rose notes usually have a lychee facet to them -- they're sweet and a little metallic on the nose, so highlighting that at the top could be "divisive" on that some people love that kind of sharp top, and some ppl freaking HATE it. violet leaf is pretty "ozonic" so it also has that "toppy" fresh kind of vibe, and some say that it smells kinda like cucumbers, and i'd imagine that pairs pretty well with the rosey, jammy blackcurrant and apple heart, though it has the potential to lean fruity-sweet. i think this one is a big hit or miss -- you either love it or you hate it, there's very little in between.

sariel:

la nuit de l'homme edt

bugatti homme

epices

olfactive classification: woody spicy

breakdown: wOOf that's a lot of spice LMFAO. and finally! some dark woods!!! vetiver and patchouli are both gonna give that freshly turned earth, hiking on an early morning kind of smell, while the tonka bean is gonna make this very faintly sweet at the end. we've got some nice, "sparkling" top notes with that bergamot and pink pepper, the mint is gonna give it great "lift", and the heart notes are literally all warm spices. this actually has all the makings of a very oud-y kind of fragrance, even without oud in it, and it's gonna appeal to people who are huge fans super super spicy fragrances that are very big and enveloping and warm, but with a lot of "base", like this is gonna last so freaking long on the skin and will probably discolor your lighter colored clothes... good thing sariel mainly wears blaCK LOL

rio:

aqua di gio

mandarine sultane

neroli portofino

olfactive classification: floral citrus

breakdown: YALL. who would've thunk that RIO is the boy to bring both aqua di gio AND neroli portofino HOME LOL. we are at that tried and true citrus + white flowers + amber/musk base. and i think for rio that makes so much sense cause he's the iconique golden retriever bf right like. he's there, he's steady, you know he's always gonna be batting those hundreds when you need him. and maybe its bc i work for the house that created aqua di gio and it's breakdown has been carved into my bones, but i got halfway through the mid notes and was like AYE YO??? is this nOT ??? THE ONE? and honestly, don't knock it till you've tried it. i know a lot of people tend to turn their noses up at the uber popular/well known frags bc "everyone uses it" or it's "cliche" but aqua di gio? slaps! it does super well on blind tests, it's light, it's zesty, it's just floral enough to be enticing, but not so much that it gets overwhelming, and the amber/musk base sits so well on the skin i CRY. anyway, i think it fits rio's character so much, and i'm stoked about it.

gilbert:

obsession

orlo

???? help wtf gilbert i give up

olfactive classification: ambery spicy?

breakdown: sir. sit. this was insane to try and find, and honestly like... we get it. ur *special* LMAO. like sweet basil, fennel, WINTER DAPHNE, specifically BLACK tea, aND ALSO rum? okay, so let's break it down, literally -- basil and fennel are both gonna be like green, herbacious, and slightly spicy, it'll have a pretty herby/green opening with a bit of kick. neroli is... well neroli, and jasmine is also. jasmine. winter daphne, is a kind of flowering plant in east asia that's well known for having a biggg fragrance and like little bunches of flowers. they usually smell pretty floral/sweet, but they've also got like a bit of a spicy kick to them. i honestly don't know how the black tea would sit in this, i think unless it's a huge overdose of black tea, it's gonna get lost in all the other super strong, overwhelming ingredients, not the least of which... is rum. and trust me, i've toyed with the rum accord that we have in our office, you put a single drop of that in anything and it immediately smells like rum. pair that with amber and vanilla at the bottom, and you've got a fragrance that'll prob open to be kind of green and toppy, but immediately veer into a sweeter, almost "stickier" fragrance. i truthfully think that this frag has the high potential to be like "sickeningly" sweet or syrupy, like if you mix spiced rum with like elderflower liqueur and nothing else... but i mean, it's gilbert, so... maybe that's what they're going for? and no, it was not intentional that the first frag suggestion is obession by calvin klein though it did make me laff at the IRONY

keith:

eau sauvage extreme 2010

dkny men summer 2012

uomo

olfactive classification: citrus aromatic fougere

breakdown: the fact that we start with sauvage extreme... just honestly *chefs kiss* bc like. i feel like extreme describes keith pretty well. otherwise, this is a pretty standard "masculine" fragrance, but in a very different way than jin and leon... bc leon was like classic men's fragrance from the 80's, there was still very much a warmth there (chivalry, perhaps? lol) while jin's is so much the early 2000's hyper masculinity everything is blue bottles and sexy manly men, this is very much... kinda both and kinda neither? we don't need to talk about the citrus top, cause... we've talked about it plenty already (though specifically including yuzu in keith's is a Move TM bc yuzu is not as sharp as bitter orange, not as sweet as orange or mandarin, its got a very specific freshness that's super great in "softer" fragrances). the heart notes is where it gets interesting -- elemi is actually a gorgeous woody/resinous ingredient that is derived from tree sap, and it's got a very sharp lemon and pine fragrance, so it's perfect for male fragrances. basil and clove leaf -- both green, herby, aromatic ingredients, so at first glance, this sounds like it's gonna be pretty chill, but I feel like the vetiver + the elemni is going to make this stronger than you think it is. which, again, fits doesn't it.

silvio:

hypnose homme

lavin l'homme

sean john

olfactive classification: amber spicy

breakdown: ambrette seed, ey? LMAO no but rly, this is very... true to form for silvio, i think. like, this smells like a rich european man. and guess what silvio is.... a rich. european. man. again, lots of warm spice in that mid section with an amber-musk base for warmth and long-lastingness. i do like the lime at the top, bc it'll give this a bit more of a zing that some of the other fragrances won't have at the top, but the citruses at the top usually flash off pretty quick. maybe it's cause i'm tired, but i was rly hoping that silvio's would be a bit more unhinged -- i do think it'll smell very quintessentially man, but like a bit more zesty LOL.

Ikemen Prince perfumes from the Ikepri x Scently collab

[simplepotatofarmer]

Hey I saw a reblog of this answer of yours to an ask and I want to know how you'll think this would change, or rather how c!Techno's approach to anarchy (and if we wanna start comparing, c!Quackity's partiality to governance-based structures) would change now that the ban on farms has been lifted?

I feel like there are new implications to consider as this ban lift would influence any interested members of the server to create farms for resources and attain their previously non-existent material power through there. How would the big ideologically charged characters of particular influence on the servent present (and maybe past) go about their actions because of that new change?

okay big disclaimer here before i say anything else:

*i have no idea what the point of farms are in minecraft and at this point i'm too afraid to ask*

so with my extremely minimal understanding of farms but my fairly in-depth understanding of anarchy and of survival minecraft when played by grinding based on cc!techno's style, here's my kind of thought on the whole farm thing.

1.) what will farms actually change? okay, so we've established that i don't know what farms are for, but i do have a server where farms are present. there's a gold farm and a sugar cane farm and a squid farm and i think one other? and i use a lot of gold! i made my gingko tree out of raw gold blocks. i also use a lot of sugar cane as i love collecting books.

i don't personally use the farms but i still have plenty of resources and i'm reasonably confident in saying that no one is going to be able to take away my ability to get more resources.

because that's kinda the crux of it, you know? capitalism isn't just about having money or wealth, what it's really about is the exploitation and the inequality that comes from that exploitation and the inability for people to get out of it. and if farms in minecraft would cause that sort of inequality, then i think it would require a change in actions or more thought at least on c!techno's end. but i don't know if that actually applies because people would still be able to gather food and other resources.

2.) uh-oh! complex morality questions? in my minecraft mechanics? okay here's the thing. there are so many issues with the sheer mechanics of minecraft from a morality stand-point. i mean, if piglins are people with a culture and language, then gold farms are like.... so immoral. enough that i actually considered banning them on my server but i realized that most people wouldn't view it that way.

and that's the thing! where do we draw the line? especially when it comes to the RP aspect. because there's mechanics that require things like killing animals which would go against general characterization of the characters. or things like enderman. so if they're all people, what does killing them mean?

so baked-in game mechanics are kinda questionable. like trust me, i used to be in a large anarchist gaming group and we had biweekly debates on the morality of minecraft and farming mechanics and while i think that could be a worthwhile question, i don't think it's one i really want to tackle in the context of the dsmp because there's so much that can change from one moment to another. a horse can be an extremely important animal/pet or a mob that you kill because breeding mechanics in minecraft are awful, please gods i tried to set them all free but it was too much.

where you can apply the sort of in-world rp morality to things like exile or the prison because those are specifically aimed at characters and specifically have a weight in the story. so....

3.) minecraft mechanics are out, in-world power structures are in!

so, where i end up on the whole farm thing is 'the power that someone has in the context of the rp world is more important than the actual resources they have'.

which means that if c!quackity begins to use the resources he acquires through farms (or any other method) to do things like what the butcher army did - putting phil under house arrest, tubbo almost killing him, executing techno without a trial - then that's something c!techno would have to act on. the same applies to anyone who decides to use the resources gained through that method for something similar.

i think my point is that unless someone is applying the mechanics of minecraft to their in-world power and how they use that against the rest of the server, i can't see the introduction of farms as something that's going to have drastic changes to the political or moral ideology of the server. i mean, theoretically snowchester has one of the most powerful weapons on the server, but c!techno's approach to that was to look at the in-world motivations and actions of c!tubbo.

regardless, i'm just excited to see what they're all going to do with the possibilities it opens up!

[blue-thief]

cw: mentions of sa and csa

people who claim that no longer human is misogynistic kinda just. completely missed the entire point of women's role in the novel. like, it's far from a groundbreaking piece of feminist literature or anything, but to claim that yozo and his relationship with women is inherently disgusting is just... not 100% correct.

yozo felt as though tsuneko was the only other person in the world who felt as sad as him. yozo abandoned shizuko and shigeko because he felt like his presence in their lives was disrupting their happiness because shigeko said she wished her real dad would come back. though most of the criticism probably comes from yozo's marriage to yoshiko* because of how he referred to her as having some purity and innocence due to her virginity.

like yeah, that actually does sound genuinely gross and makes it seem as though he's infantilizing her, and if i ever saw something along those lines in literally any other context, i would be deeply concerned. but the thing is, there is a point to yozo's fascination with her innocence, as well as his "disinterest" in her after it was taken away.

yozo is fascinated with yoshiko's innocence and overly trusting nature because he is the exact opposite. he lost his innocence and his ability to trust in people, at least partially, due to the fact that he was a victim of CSA.

so, when yoshiko was SA'd, he did nothing to stop it. many people criticize him for this point exactly, but the passages following show how much emotional distress the event causes him. the last paragraph of the book is,

this year, i am twenty-seven. my hair has become much greyer. most people would take me for over forty.

and on the same page as yozo witnessing the crime against yoshiko,

my hair turned prematurely grey from that night.

the rest of the book is all about the guilt and despair yozo feels for not being able to defend yoshiko from that situation. but why did he do nothing? because after being confronted with a situation that made him feel powerless as a child made him feel powerless as an adult.

idk where i'm going with this honestly. this was just supposed to be a rant so that's why it feels so incoherent and the first paragraph isn't structured at all, but somewhere along the way, this started to take on elements of an actual well-thought analysis.

though i suppose i can say that the way no longer human was written can be summed up by the paragraph about yozo's perception of prostitution. "i could never think of prostitutes as human beings or even women" sounds HORRIBLE in literally any other context, but in the context of no longer human, it actually makes sense.

i could never think of prostitutes as human beings or even as women. they seemed more like imbeciles or lunatics. but in their arms i felt absolute security. i could sleep soundly. it was pathetic how utterly devoid of greed they really were. and perhaps they felt for me something like an affinity for their kind, these prostitutes always showed me a natural friendliness stripped of high-pressure salesmanship, for someone who might never come again. some nights i these imbecile, lunatic prostitutes with the halo of mary.

(also partially off-topic, but yozo's relationship with prostitutes early on in the book was his own way of reclaiming his sexuality)

i suppose that the point is that context matters, especially in the case of no longer human. people's criticisms of this novel just seem to simply out of poor reading comprehension (this is why i was mad that no longer human is now a "booktok" book. people on booktok just seem to have very poor reading comprehension skills overall, and i'll probably rant about that on its own some other time).

*an actual valid criticism of yozo and yoshiko's relationship would be the fact that yoshiko was only seventeen and yozo was in his twenties. then again, i don't know what the age of consent laws in japan were like at the time

[hishoukoku]

Heyyyy. I wanted to know how if u know how cql differs from the original story. Which is better? I'm kinda lazy to read and the donghua seemed super rushed to me? The manhua i heard is similar but it doesnt give me the same vibe idk.... maybe it's just me. like even a few pointers about big story changes would help. tyyyyyyy

Heyy,

I wanna start by saying that I do love all adaptations, so I will do my best just to point out the differences without being partial (too much) for certain plot elements.

It's true that the drama is a neat way to experience the story at a slower pace, but it's so because in a TV series scenario it makes perfect sense for everything to be slower and laid out or fed to the viewer. It makes sense to overextend tender and dramatic moments or to take the time and add a bunch of funny hilarious bits.

The donghua however is absolutely amazing and 100% worth watching. The plot advancing quicker than in the drama or the novel actually makes a lot of sense given, well first this is animation. It focuses on what's really important and the way the action scenes are intertwined with the main story elements is absolutely astounding. In an animated medium they did the absolute best to bring this long story to life. Plus the art is absolutely GORGEOUS, down to every frame. I strongly recommend it.

The manhua does follow the novel almost to the letter which is so refreshing to see and it's so rad to read too, plus I like the art style and also no censorship xD

I love them all because they each work in their own way. Bringing the drama slow pace into the donghua wouldn't work at all as well as making CQL shorter and more action packed would look ridiculous.

Personally I think it's rad to watch them all and gain even more knowledge on an amazing story, by consuming the same story in multiple forms of media.I just think it's great to explore all the angles from which the story can be observed.

~

Onto a few major differences. I believe this list is far from complete, but I tried to jolt down what I could from memory:

-> Basically the main difference would be Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji uncovering the mystery of Nie Mingjue's death:

In CQL, this was changed from the novel plotline: dismembered arm(+ putting back the dismembered body) of his spirit, to a spirit sword. It ultimately leads to the same epic conclusion as it does in the novel. The culprit is unchanged, just the means to get there and the characters motivations along the way are altered.

-> Another major divergence would be the entire Yi Iron arc and the hunt for Yi Iron pieces, which takes a vast majority of the CQL flashbacks. This isn't present in the novel. The Yi Iron is only important because it practically explains the already existent and yet unpracticed demonic cultivation, which brings me to my next point.

-> In CQL Wei Wuxian is not the actual founder of demonic cultivation. Wei Wuxian still uses demonic cultivation and all his inventions are there, including of course the Stygian Tiger Amulet. The reasoning behind this is the Yi Iron plot I mentioned above, which was something that was uncovered and worshipped in the past and it's a tremendous source of dark energy and power. This leads to the fact that demonic cultivation already exists, despite no one actually using it except for Wei Wuxian (after finding the first piece in the Xuanwu shell).

-> To emphasize more on this, a big part of WWX's morality is altered in CQL. The necromancy part is also heavily downplayed in CQL. We see the same choices being made which inadvertently lead to the same conclusions, but he is always shown as more of a victim of circumstance or there's always a bigger plot at stake, pointing all the blame towards him.

Without going into a character analysis in this arc (because I absolutely adore WWX and I would talk about him for hours) I wanted to point out a few more things on this:

- In CQL he's shown to be in wrong place at the wrong time type of situations, which is sort of downgrading what the original intent behind his character was about.

- I feel like the novel has built WWX to be very self-aware and more realistic and human. He knows exactly where his stands and what his moral compass is the entire time. He blames himself even for stuff out of his control and every decision he ever made no mater how it was perceived as, was all rooted in and filtered through his absolute sense of justice and selflessness. He's aware of his mistakes and assumes responsibility. He's very absolute about the decisions he sticks to and he's extremely intelligent and calculated.

Then again, I'm not blaming CQL per say for altering this, I know every divergence to his character was solely due to censorship (as morality usually is in cdramas), I just wish he'd been given a lot more credit where credit is due, like in the novel. Because he deserves a lot more validation and recognition. Absolving him of everything he ever did is actually a disservice to all the pain he endured and all the work he put into the cause he believes in and simply striving to survive and in the unfair, judgemental cultivation world.

-> The structure of the story is different. The novel, donghua and manhua jump from flashbacks to present time back and forth, while in CQL, episode 3 to episode 33(halfway) are all flashbacks presenting the entire past story arc to you, before returning to the present fully. Again, to have everything laid out in order, works well in a TV series environment.

-> The relationship between WangXian evolves differently. The novel has Wei Wuxian mistakenly concluding that Lan Wangji doesn’t like him, driving a wedge between them after the Nightless City events. This of course, has a beautiful natural progression into romantic relationship, later on after he resurrects.

CQL on the other hand shows Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having a very close relationship from the moment they reunite as Wei Wuxian died knowing Lan Wangji cares deeply about him. I believe this to be a bit utopic as, technically without previous explicit romantic affection - censorship -, Wei Wuxian's actions wouldn't normally lead to such an easy transition into them being extremely close, especially for someone as stoic as Lan Wangji. True, Lan Wangji has always believed in Wei Wuxian's sense of integrity and justice and this was prepared beforehand, however it would make even more sense if this was backed, like in the novel, by love as a powerful incentive.

-> Wei Wuxian's reincarnation in Mo Xuanyu's body doesn't cause him to alter his appearance in CQL. This isn't really explained except for subtle hints that Mo Xuanyu took precautions to ensure Wei Wuxian looked like his original self, but ofc we can tell it was done so due to convenience.

In the novel it's clearly stated how Wei Wuxian takes Mo Xuanyu's appearance which makes complete sense to happen after he used the Sacrifice Summon.

This would be about it as main pointers, if you'd like me to go into details for any of them please let me know. Otherwise I feel like this post is already long enough, heheh.

[rubydoves]

(incomplete) dream smp alignments by someone with incredibly patchy knowledge of political alignments AND most dream smp characters. explanations under the cut

*DISCLAIMER: attitudes towards villager trading have been disregarded for this analysis

WILBUR: do i even need to explain. i think originally he was more economic left and somewhat liberal but as he started to pursue power and control during l’manburg era his character kinda slid to the authoritarian side of the scale

TUBBO: the epitome of a baby communist, values people over profit and believes in equal treatment etc. he’s authoritarian but not to the extreme like wilbur-- he believes that organised social structures are important but also values the freedom of the individual

JSCHLATT: idk man i just feel like his character is really authright. definitely puts profit over people, likes to be in power and oppresses those under him. literally the reason that the revolution happened was bc he was too authoritarian

AWESAMDUDE: ok hear me out. dude is the prison warden under contract from dream, who is the main source of authority on the server. this guy is employed by the government to enforce the government’s system that feels very authright to me

QUACKITY: i was gonna make him more lib right but hes honestly smack bang in the middle if u ask me. he was a major government official in both manburg and new l’manburg, and more recently uses money and power imbalances to gain political influence. he also prioritises profit, both political and personal so theres that

TOMMY: to be fair he was a part of l’manburg which was a semi-authoritarian socialist nation-state BUT at that point he was just following wilbur tbh. i think his character would be very much in support of the free market. also big innit hotel does not pay taxes. however he still has his leftwing roots which makes him sort of centrist leaning

PUNZ: the ultimate lib right of the server, this man is literally a freelance hired killer and will take a contract from anyone for anything for the right price. however he has shown that he values his own ideals rather than any authority, even if he’s already under contract from them which is pretty liberal imo

PHILZA: yes he did conquer the world that one time but since then he’s seen the error of his ways. he’s too old to care about money OR people (other than those close to him) so his alignment is defined only by his distaste for government and overbearing authority (caused by both his experience with l’manburg and relationship to technoblade)

TECHNOBLADE: the king of anarchy <3 love that for him. he’s made his ideals very clear both verbally and physically which i can respect and is so incredibly liberal that he will destroy and raze to the ground anything even resembling a government. also he manages to be extremely rich despite not believing in money

BADBOYHALO: okay hear me out: the badlands was a socialist faction. the original badlands was pretty liberal and more of a commune or idk. a club as members had complete control of their actions with little to no input from any authority. HOWEVER i liken the egg slowly taking over the faction to like. a cult infiltrating an organisation of some type which would gradually shift bbh closer to the authoritarian side

RANBOO: centristboo my abhorred. hes a cool character and i think hes neat BUT his whole thing has the vibes of a centrist who thinks theyre morally superior for not having any solid political opinions. arguably he could be a liberal but overall hes too much of a mediator (also i saw funny tags on a funny textpost which inspired this)

thank you for reading if you did. feel free to criticise me in the replies and reblogs <3

[cuethetommo]

Idk if you have discussed it before, it's also ok to answer me in tag bcs it's sensitive but I wanna ask dyk that some people think / accuse Harry as zion*st / support Israel? I'm kinda new to the fandom (after hiatus) so idk much about what he did back then but I just read that Harry wore David star necklace for a long time and has tattoo of Gemma's name written in Hebrew? Does it make him Israel supporter, or he's just uneducated or ignorant? Sorry I'm just so confused bcs many ppl bash him

I think it’s important to make sure folks know where I’m coming from when I answer questions. I am from the US, living in Los Angeles. I was raised Catholic and Southern Baptist and I don't believe in religion for myself anymore. I am white, an Abolitionist, and fundamentally believe settler colonialism is bad. I am not an expert in anything involving the State of Israel or Palestine.

It feels imperative to me that supporting Jewish folks and Jewish culture not get conflated with supporting the State of Israel and the settler-colonial project. I believe the things you point to (Gemma in Hebrew and the Star of David necklace) show that Harry supports Jewish people and culture and say nothing about the State of Israel.

However, Harry has done things in the past that suggest he supports the State of Israel and @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram has outlined that better than I could and also has a better analysis than I do.

I also have trouble (and Ralph has articulated this as well) with the idea that if Harry supports the State of Israel that it comes from a place of ignorance. Plenty of folks are educated and make choices. I know a number of them in real life. 

I do think it is misleading to assume that Harry shares Ben Winston’s politics. Ben Winston is the one who is most vocal in his support of the State of Israel. He’s also come down on the horrible sides of British politics so I’m really not surprised. Similarly, I don’t think (even though I’d LOVE to) that Harry liking posts from Patrisse Cullors (co-founder of Black Lives Matter) on Instagram means he suddenly shares her politics (which are for a Free Palestine). 

I will share what I have seen in the conversation here in LA recognizing that what Europeans know is different than what folks in the US know. But I can only interact from my own positionality. In a big mood kind of way settler colonialism hides itself. If you’re from the US and don't know what settler colonialism is or that the US is a settler colonialist project, then that has proven my point.

Colonialism is about forcibly taking resources from other places. Settler colonialism is about sending people to essentially squat on land and then claim it as their own and fight and kill the people already there. (This is a vast oversimplification, I encourage anyone to read more).

So, folks the world over are told that the Israel/Palestine conflict is about two groups of people who just don’t like each other. (More oversimplification). Then folks take a very real global tragedy that is inexcusable (the Holocaust) and say that the State of Israel was necessary as a response. This also hides history dating back to the 1800s where Zionists in Europe were moving to Palestine. Settler colonialism is about land and resources and power.

Let me be clear, I believe that everyone deserves a life free of persecution. And Jewish folks the world over are STILL persecuted. And there are MANY organizations run by Jewish people in support of a Free Palestine who recognize that what is currently being perpetrated by the State of Israel is genocide. But in many circles (even otherwise progressive ones) criticism of the State of Israel is seen as anti-Semitic and a statement that folks think Jewish people should die. And that’s not the case. But it shuts down any conversation about what is happening.

So back to Harry. Do I think he supports the State of Israel? I don’t know. I can point to former evidence. But I’d like to imagine that people can evolve their positions. I do think it is important to note that as a person who isn’t Jewish, Harry is likely listening to his Jewish friends. So his politics could be in line with Ben’s.

My hope and dream is that Harry is actually digging in this moment of global uprising. I don’t believe Harry has any kind of useful analysis of structural power. But if he was going to develop one, following Black Lives Matter is a solid choice. 

I’d also say to everyone using resources and brain space to try to convert celebrities into movement folks: organize the people you know with the same vigor. Talk to the people in your communities. Get them involved in movement building.

[holeinwallpoem]

Hey folks that for some reason follow this blog, today I’m going to be talking about a random topic and that topic will be my “analysis” of the songs in Twisted, though it’s pretty much just what songs I think they sound most similar to/what references there are. Source: me, a fan of Starkid, Disney movies, and Wicked, who only knows minimal music theory. 

(I had a video on this but I was scared Disney would sue me.)

Prologue: I don’t know if this song is actually called “Prologue” in Twisted (is it actually just considered part of the beginning of Dream A Little Harder?), but it sounds extremely similar to the Prologue of Beauty and the Beast. The scenes are also both setting up backstory for the events of the actual story, so they’re similar in that way. Plus the BatB parallels become more apparent in the next song...

Dream A Little Harder: I think most people realize that this song is mostly a parody of Belle from BatB, especially at the beginning. There are several quotes from the original song, such as “Marie! The baguettes! Hurry up!” and “I need six eggs!”, plus Ja’far does everything Belle does in the original. The song also specifically references “Whistle While You Work” and “Spoonful of Sugar”.

I Steal Everything: This is Aladdin’s introduction song, and so it parodies Aladdin’s original introduction song, “One Jump Ahead”. Again, this is probably pretty obvious. The line leading into the song is “I steal only what I can’t afford, and that’s everything”, which is a line from “One Jump Ahead”. The sections of the song that go “Hippie! Fucker! Slacker! Sucker!” parallel “Riff raff! Street rat! Scoundrel! Take that!”.

Everything and More: This is a princess “I Want” song, so what better song to use as a reference than another princess “I Want” song? This parodies “Part Of Your World”. It is not quite as direct as some others, but it is especially obvious in the structure of the song and the lyrics at the beginning and the end: “Look at my life from the outside and sure, I've got servants and tigers and stuff. You're probably thinking, ‘She's got everything’. Well it's true 'cause I do, But so the fuck what, it's not enough” vs. “she's got everything. I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty, I've got whozits and whatzits galore. (You want thingamabobs? I got twenty) But who cares? No big deal. I want more,” and “What I wouldn't give to live in a new situation” vs. “What would I give, If I could live outta these waters?”.

Sands of Time: I can’t think of a particular song this one could be inspired by. It makes me sad though.

Golden Rule (& Evil Reprise I guess): It could just be me but this song really reminds me of “The Bare Necessities”. Both songs are sharing a character’s philosophy of life, plus the lyrics “simple reciprocity is always my philosophy, I get back what I give” reminds me of “I mean the bare necessities, Old Mother Nature's recipes, that brings the bare necessities of life”. I think the jazzy instrumentals sound similar as well. I guess the Evil Reprise would just be the dark version?

A Thousand and One Nights: I don’t think this song parodies a specific other song, but it seems to be inspired by other Disney romantic duets. However, I think the guitar is reminiscent of a lot of Wicked songs, like “Dancing Through Life” and “As Long As You’re Mine”. The credits version is a parody of the cheesy pop/R&B versions of duets in Disney movies from the 90s and even early 2000s.

If I Believed: This song doesn’t really remind me of any others either. It also makes me sad though.

Orphaned at 33: This one parodies “Proud of Your Boy”, another Aladdin ballad. Even though the latter was only included as part of the musical, which was after Twisted, it was written for the movie and included as bonus features. The structures of the songs are the same, especially the bridge sections. I think both are in the same key as well. You can basically sing the lyrics to the bridge of one song to the melody of the other:

“They call me a jerkoff, a burnout, a punk But I can't let that junk in my head I could've been a contender If not for the fact that my parents are dead All things considered, I think I turned out pretty good Pulled myself up by my bootstraps and started Stealing all I could” vs.

“Tell me that I've been a louse and loafer You won't get a fight here, no ma'am Say I'm a goldbrick, a goof-off, no good But that couldn't be all that I am, Water flows under the bridge Let it pass, let it go There's no good reason that you should believe me Not yet, I know but“

Bonus: “I’m gonna live forever!” is reference to “Fame”.

Happy Ending: Ja’far’s lyrics to this song parody Elphaba in “The Wizard And I”. Both characters are fantasizing about a future where they will be celebrated, and there’s a bit of ironic foreshadowing. The instrumentals also sound similar, though kind of at different parts (“one day the genie will say to me...” lines up more with “unlimited, my future is unlimited” in terms of piano underscoring, though the lyrics better match “one day he’ll say to me...).

“They'll throw a parade in my honor...The people will cheer for the royal vizier...Not that I care for glory...And one day the genie will say to me: ‘Ja'far, you're a man of such virtue’...share an itty-bitty living space,”

“A celebration throughout Oz that's all to do with me!...When people see me, they will scream...But of course that's not important to me...And one day, he'll say to me, ‘Elphaba, A girl who is so superior’...I’d be so happy I could melt!”

No One Remembers Achmed: I don’t think this one parodies any specific songs. Or maybe I just don’t remember them?

Take Off Your Clothes: Again, pretty obvious, but this one parodies “A Whole New World”. The structure of the songs is the same, lyrics are similar (”shining, sparkling, metallic” and “shining, shimmering, splendid”), the rhythms are the same or similar, and the melodies are basically inverses of each other.

Twisted: The parts for the other villains parody their songs, ie. Ursula’s part sounds like “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and Scar’s part sounds like “Be Prepared”. Ja’far’s part I think sounds similar to “No Good Deed” in Wicked. Both characters have chosen to become the villain everyone thinks they are after believing they have lost everything (...even though neither one really becomes a villain even after this part). Lots of electric guitar. Genius also says the beginning music sounds like “Damned For All Time” from Jesus Christ, Superstar, but I’m not a big ALW fan so I can’t vouch for that. It probably does though. Ja’far also references Hamlet by using a phrase from the “To Be or Not To Be?” soliloquy, “’tis nobler in the mind”.

“But I had good intentions, I did it for a reason...I'll give them all the unsung antihero they deserve. I've nothing left to lose, so the only path to choose is twisted...Let my life be twisted, I'll be twisted, it's my turn!”

“Who cares if no one will ever mourn me?”

“My road of good intentions led where such roads always lead...Let all Oz be agreed, I'm wicked through and through...I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again, ever again! No good deed will I do again!”

“No one mourns the wicked.”

The Power In Me: In theme and location in the show, as well as some of the lyrics, this song parallels “For Good” from Wicked. The lyrics “I’ll carry you in my heart” are similar to “you’ll be with me, like a handprint on my heart.” Other than that I don’t think the music is that similar but the themes definitely are.

A Thousand And One Nights (Reprise): This one parodies Disney finales. It sounds kinda like the Aladdin finale, which is a reprise of “A Whole New World”.

Ok that’s it! Idk why I made this post, but here you go!

[inhonoredglory]

I honestly can’t really get on board w the ending of httyd 3 for the very fact that it felt like what ppl say happens when you get married, that you leave everyone even your best friend and go to your own little bubble w your partner and kids (maybe occasionally seeing them if your lucky) and being that I haven’t been w anyone ever &that I don’t see my future like that it kinda made me sad that the ending kinda just further reinforced the idea that that’s what’s natural idk

OK. This. This is what has been bothering me pretty hardcore since the film ended and I got over the shine of its shocking newness. I don’t want to really promote negativity in the fandom, but it should be addressed and you bring up what I fear the most in most mainstream narratives, and what I thought we were safe from in the HTTYD franchise.

Because HTTYD as a whole is so strongly and so poignantly about the friendship and fierce love of Hiccup and Toothless: theirs is a Love Story, through and through, and let’s be real: HTTYD3 confirmed that by having Hiccup tell Toothless, “I love you” (if anyone out there was confused before) and by paralleling Stoick’s “love is loss” flashback quote with (not Hiccup and Astrid), but Hiccup and Toothless.

So the narrative definitely elevates the friendship of Hiccup and Toothless. I appreciate that. I appreciate that the film knows this is about “the friendship of a lifetime.” Hiccup is selfless to the point of death for Toothless’ happiness. (Toothless has some development issues and a less-than-stellar portrayal of his own separation anxiety, but that’s another issue written about here in this analysis by @e–wills and @kingofthewilderwest)

The theme of the film is that dragons and humans can’t live with each other because humans are too evil. Toothless must protect his dragonkind. Toothless must lead them to safety. I’m not going to go into the details of how those themes were developed in the film (or if they needed more emphasis). That might be another post once I see the film again.

What I am bothered by is how easily the narrative feeds into what you feared: that friendships must inevitably give way to romantic partnerships. Hiccup says he was paying attention to what he wanted, rather than what Toothless needed. He asks Toothless, “am I enough?” And the narrative is telling us, no. We have so many supporting character relationships turned into romances or hints of romances that weren’t that way before––from Snotlout hitting on Valka, that bit of Valka and Eret, Tuffnut and Hiccup, Gobber and Eret. (Again, I’m not saying romance is bad, but romance––of any stripe––was never the hallmark of HTTYD.) And of course… we get Ruffnut trying to decide which man she wants to fall in love with.. because apparently, even her and Tuffnut can’t be complete with just each other (I’m not the biggest RTTE fan, but I honestly adored that ep where Ruff committed herself to Tuff instead of running off with Throk.)

A hugely disproportionate amount of the jokes in the film were ultimately sexual in nature. And when Toothless is swept off his wings by the Light Fury (literally when he fell into the Hidden World w/ her), the cinematic structure of that scene was that traditional fade to black (read: they had sex) we see in romantic movies since the beginning of movies. Toothless is slobbery and horny. Hiccup and Astrid are on fire (literally, and I could probably get very Freudian about that scene too). The overtness of the sexual undertone in this film felt more powerful to me than the direness of the threat (again, with limited runtime they chose to emphasize developing Toothless and LF’s arc than the villains’).

It bothers me because even though we get the world-scope facts about Toothless having to return to his kind and protect his dragons, we get the emotional and narrative scaffolding of a very, VERY tired and traditional trope. Casual fans are gonna see this movie and knee-jerk right back into the idea that friendships are the things you have as a kid and teen growing up. Those have to ultimately give way to “the real world” where you settle with a romantic partner and have a family.

Are families bad? No. Is romance bad? No. But Hiccup and Toothless represented so much more than that; they represented True Love, which is dedicated, committed, and lifelong. I adored GotNF because it placed the hallmarks and symbology of marriage (willing bondage to another person) in the context of Hiccup and Toothless, the most non-sexual of relationships (bless the fact that Toothless is a dragon because it made friendship the only canon interpretation of their bond). HTTYD3 tries to explain GotNF by saying Toothless had no one to go to when he flew off. But now he does.

I still want to see the film again to really get my thoughts together on this, but at the moment I’m grumbling. I soapbox friendships-as-legit-love a lot and so I was triggered somewhat by the shift. Like you, I’ve never been in a romantic relationship either and I really wonder if the biological drive to get hooked is that powerful in people. Maybe it is…

I lowkey want to write a THW Remix fic putting back in all the themes we know and love into the movie, but with the plot intact, cuz the plot of this film was heartbreakingly beautiful and completely relevant to the biggest Hiccup and Toothless question in their growth: when does a love before selfish?

Anyway, I rambled long enough. Please let’s dialogue about this, fandom. I want to work my feelings out on it and hopefully be proved wrong.

I do recommend reading this post by a friend of mine who believes the friendship was not overpowered by the romance.

[mikkock]

HELLO I ADORE YOUR OCS SO MUCH WILL YOU TELL ME ABOUT KAI HE LOOKS LIKE A TOTAL "YOUR DAUGHTER CALLS ME DADDY TOO" DOUCHEBAG AND I FUCKING LOVE HIM AND WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM

LBLMVBGK THANK U OMG love it when ppl like my kids, im a proud dad rn

ALSO wrow congrats on ur on point analysis, cause, that’s the Essence Of His Being (fun fact since i got two characters who go by the name of kai -cause fuck that basic writing tip that says ‘dont have two characters named the same thing- i usually refer to him as The Bad Kai cuz he a bad bitch)

so lets unwrap that dude shall we uwu 

SO this dude was created when i realised my story didnt have antagonists so i made a bunch of Bad People and then they all became good people after i started giving them more personnality somehow eXCEPt him for some reason, the only survivor of the “everyone will be baby” plague, the only rude bitch in this house, the only guy who’s still on the dark grey side of morally grey...but tbh im in love with him cause he’s an asshole and im an idiot so like.

His base concept was basically something along the lines of “fuckboy but make it Couture”, like douchebag indeed But Gotta Be Fancy at being one, gotta add a pinch of Sneaky Bitch in the pot. His aesthetic is Chillin, gettin in ur pants, then moving on for some more chillin and more pants. So if you’re into some funky sexy time with no pressure and no ties, ya gon get along, your goals meet, time to have fun.

All that is supported by his charisma, cause unless ya got some nasty history, he’ll just look like that charming bad-boy “oho hot dude with a dangerous but not agressive” vibed person, and he’s quite a sweet-talker. He’s probs not only the ‘your daughter calls me daddy’ kind but also ‘and so will YOU, i’m scoring with the whole family and you wont stop me (and you wont WANT to stop me)’ 

He got that handsome ppl priviledge ya feel

but also, he wouldnt be a rude guy if he was just the ‘i enjoy chill frick-fracking and im just so sexy that no one can say no to that booty’ guy

Dude got quiiite some spite-fueled ego and Does Not Take losing well, and will not, in fact, let himself lose on any objective he has, and when that objective is A Person, he gets ugly. Being good at sweet talking also means being good at small stuff like “not saying exactly the truth always when it would be more beneficial not to”, “deliberately using euphemistic, ambiguous or obscure language so to mask wrong doings and technically saying the truth but in such a way that it becomes completely masked by a thick fog of bullshit”, and “use words and behaviour in general to influence others unscrupulously so to get something in return”. Even a little “playing with their perception in order to make them doubt in their thoughts and selves”. In short dude got no qualms about using all the tools of manipulation available if it means that he comes on top (or on bottom if the goal was getting an assful eeeeeey we’re masters of comedy here) It tends to be all for short term results tho, so not much your ‘boyfriend who convinces you you’re nothing without him” and more of a “you thought you were dating but only you were thinking that as he always kept it just vague enough to have you not official yet convinced of his and now you’re blaming yourself for believing you were together”

master of getting ass, also master of Ugly Ass Breakups, and master of suddenly dissapearing from your life so hard that you wonder if it was just your imagination all along (he got ugly past with a bunch of other ocs especially he’s ex boyfriend with two that are now together cause i dig that sort of drama the sAME dUDe gave u the trust issues that held u from going full lovey dovey ? i fucking lIVE off that kinda shit wait until he pops back like ‘oho hello fancy seeing YOU TWO here my two fave exes together incredible what a small world”)

Though I have to rework on all that cause that backstory is oLD AS SHIT (like prolly i built it in what, 2016? ew ugly) I had that stem from some sort of neglect-fueled inferiority complex. I had given him a kinda cold family with a bunch of siblings who got Way More Nurtured due to their respective talents and achievements, having him left behind and feeling like he got nothing. SO that’s basically the explanation as of today but i dont like iiiiit anymooooore so I’ll have to work on it to make it something i dig, cause idk, bitch feels flat so far.

BUT i do intend on keeping the whole concept of ~Loneliness~, and of him working alone and quite hard for anything he gets. And the general need of proving himself that had come from the WIP backstory. I don’t exactly see him as an overachiever at all, but definitly as an obstinate and persevering hardworking guy, because “Look YALL I WAS aBLE TO DO THIS YALL THOUGHT I COULDNT HUH YALL LOOK DOWN ON ME well fuck u cause idc im better than u now also ur mum’s into bondage i kno from experience bye”. So tbh pair up with him for group projects, you’ll be sure his share of the work will be done (but also if you dont do yours then he’s probably going to be a bITCh about it, no remorse in leaving blank slides in the middle of the powerpoint and then loudly proclaiming ‘OH RIGHT This was supposed to be Kevin’s part but I suppose he never sent it to me, despite the numerous reminders i sent him, no big deal, no hard feelings, its ok sweetie we all sometimes feel too lazy i forgive u :)” )

Also he’d be Chill to hang out with for like, parties, nights out at the bar, that kinda shit. He definetly has some beans to spill about quite some people, he gathers the goss as he gathers lovers (i was gonna end that in “as he spreads legs” but it sounded too PG-18 for this good Well Behaved family friendly blog) and Will Not stay tight lipped, and Will be a bitch when trashtalking people, and It Will Be Entertaining as it always is when you’re hearing about crazy exes and you’ve had some beers. 

Now trivia that idk where else to write cause idk i stupid or more like disorganised :

- he digs red ale beer like if ya wanna win him over with the appropriate alcohol offer there u go

- he’s a fake blonde (cause my hobby is painting regrowth roots on hair)

- his design is a mixture of those 3dgy denim boys u see on pinterest and the specific brand of fuckboys that are french-L-section-chic-grunge-hipster-fuckboys (L section is like a branch of highschool)(that word combo is a so specific kinda guy)(its kinda like a softboi but more arrogant but in a lowkey way)(also they rich)(but he’s not rich so guess that should make him Less Arrogant)

-im constantly dead afraid of giving him more characteristics and story or whatveer cause he’s the only meanie i got left and i do Not want him to stop being an asshole but everytime i develop a character they end up nice or redeemed or whatever and i wanna keep him a bitch so i neglect him (just like his parents in his 2016 version wow)

he smokes (prolly started quite early to Be Kool and now relies on it for stress relief)

he’s outspoken and extraverted and prolly the guy who had a lot to say when you were doing debates in class (there’s always that person who has a Lot to argument about)(its him) but outside of a Set and Defined debate structure he probably doesnt give his mind voraciously 

he’s a law student and despite saying he’s the one bad guy left he probably wont be a corrupt lawyer or judge or whatever like come on he will do his job properly he worked hARD FOR THIS justice may be served

he’s not the kind to openly hate or even dislike anyone cause what’s the point of wasting your energy on that? its much funnier to him to be obnoxiously Neutral with someone and basically ignore them but still strike them with some Spikes of passive-agressive comments, let them be Mad at your calmness

he’s 177cm tall (that’s like 5.8 according to google)

honestly if you’re bros with him he’s fun to be with the being a jerk is completly coincidental 

he probably ranks high in the list of “those criminals who steal big lighters from their friends” 

i think at a point his design had tattoos but i forgot the designs of those so now he doesnt anymore

a dog person

i think ive run out of facts (or my brain dead) so im leavin with a shirtless pic cause my hobby is drawing tits

in short, charming asshole who can get ugly, secretly feels lonely and small, works hard for himself, better have him as a friend than as a foe though probably not the most frontally agressive enemy, and also, your booty, hand it over.

[technicalchaotic]

Well tho, Gamzee is a troll and not coded anything tbh :/ (i mean srsly they aren't) i mean hey people may headcanon and read into it whatever they like??? But that juggalo is really anything but coded black to me. They sometimes refer to his language but srsly have you ever been on an actual juggalos site .. ?? Many, many of them actually DO talk like this and they're not black either. So yeah i guess just do what you like don't give it ... all too much thought on those perspectives orr idk D:

aaah, see, I think there’s some conflicting things there. 

first is that legit juggalos are using black-coded language themselves, and culturally, aave is still a shorthand both for (more neutrally) ‘this character is black’ and (much more negatively) ‘this character is poor/uneducated/dumb/violent’, so regardless of where the author is pulling the inspiration from, there’s still a LOT of people of a lot of different races that see Gamzee as black-coded, and that’s something I want/need to keep in mind while I’m writing something I plan on posting publicly, especially considering the source material is....not great about it. 

That’s kinda minor to the other two things, though, 

So thing two is that the original post was mostly about my own dumb anxieties making it hard for me to focus on writing the way I want to, because my brain is a dumb and anxious thing. It’s a lot less about ‘just write the thing’ and a lot more about ‘I’m constantly second-guessing my choices and can’t get into a good flow.’

Thing three is a lot more interesting to me really, and also a huge ridiculous part of why and how I write?

so that’s going under a cut because it’s mostly just me nerding out about my thought processes RE: art and writing

So here’s the thing. I’m coming from a fine arts, conceptual-and-modern, white-cube museum-studio art background. I’ve been in college for a really obnoxiously long amount of time, and I am coming, I think, from a different angle than a lot of industry artists that you see online, where the emphasis is on effective portrayals and technical skill over conceptual gallery style art

I’m the stop-and-critique-the-glasses-on-the-floor kind of artist. (that is, actually art, by the way, but that is an entirely different subject that smarter people than me have talked about in much greater detail.)

And the very very first thing I was taught, drummed into me from my very first class critique, before I even picked my concentration, was that it doesn’t matter what you mean, when you’re making something for public consumption, you have to consider what the audience is going to see. You have to consider the context not just within the art world, but also the random people walking through the gallery, the Not Art People, the Very Art People, the Kinda Art People. 

For example, For one of my pieces this past semester I wove a mat out of grass. No concept behind it, it was just something pretty. 

One person called it a walk through nature

A few people called it a commentary on natural vs unnatural, chaos vs structure

My professor wanted to know why I used grass instead of, say, computer wires. 

six people wanted to know if I was inspired by native art (I was v specifically not)

I’d anticipated some, and not others, the piece was ultimately successful, but it would have been less successful if I hadn’t applied a conceptual analysis of my own to it. 

But the thing I want to point out is the question is if it was inspired by native art. By using natural materials in a vaguely geometric pattern, I should have realized I was going to evoke a connection to a stereotypical native american aesthetic, and should have either done something with that (possibly a jab at the american v native american dichotomy, which I would have done if I’d been collaborating with a native artist but I digress) or done something to steer away from it, (included synthetic materials, more colors, dye) 

So for the past [censored] years, I’ve been applying the idea in all my creative endeavors that if I’m saying something in my art or my writing, I want to know what it is I’m saying, and that I’m saying it effectively. (For instance in the purple werewolves in space idea what I wanted to say was ‘werewolves in space are cool’ without saying ‘poc are inherently feral/vicious/bestial’) 

Obviously this means a lot of agonizing and overthinking and anxiety, but it also means when I finally do post something, I’m generally happy with what it is I’ve written, and I’m a lot less anxious about if I’ve gotten my message/story through. 

[icharchivist]

I read some interesting meta on a tumblr blog called badlywrittendgm about Nea and Mana's relationship. I gotta say their analysis on Nea being abusive towards Mana/Adam was pretty compelling. We don't know for sure on everything but Nea being twisted even if he did love Mana wouldn't be that out of the realm of possibility. We still know so little about him and every ally he had either is dead, hates working w/him or definitely is (Timcanpy) or will (Allen) feel conflicted about it.

I think i found the meta in question, this one right?

I kiiinda have mixed feelings but i also kinda see it? But also Not?

The meta mentions specifically Nea being abusive to Adam and i think this one is mainly true. Nea is manipulative toward Adam, and he is completely spiteful that he’s no longer the Mana he loved and knew. There are aspect of psychological tortures in the way he behaves around Adam, so yeah on this one, I would agree that Nea seems to show more abusive tendencies toward Adam to specifically trigger distress. So at least: Nea is abusive toward Adam, the current incarnation of Mana who doesn’t seem to have any memories of being Mana. This much I see.

Nea loved Mana, I don’t doubt it one second. But as you mention, abuse can come from a place of love, depending how twisted Nea was, so this argument is nothing in his favor.

Now here’s my mixed feelings reason: we don’t exactly know what pushed Nea to slaughter all the Noah.

We have no indication of his relationship with Mana as adult before the Noah’s slaughter except that Nea was being isolated by the others Noah after Mana was determined the Earl.

The meta mentions rightfully that their behaviors would have changed from being a kid, and tbh, yeah. As kids, it’s obvious Mana was sick and Nea worried and perhaps overprotected him because of that.

But their... adult dynamic is still too blurry to establish a dynamic of abuse.

I’m sorry i’m kinda sensitive about abusive stuff so i’m warry of throwing the word around without proper backup. Abuse mostly implies a systematic reccuring issue that willingly or not, indulge a lot of harm on someone. It can mostly be a tactic of controle or of massive neglect. Abuse is also a powerdynamic, with the abuser taking advantage of the abused in some way or another. As a result it works mostly in powerstructured dynamics (family, workplace hierarchy, adult/children, Someone with more massive power than the other are easy powerstructure to take advantage of, friendships, age hierarchy, and this kind of things can become abusive when the abuser set a powerstructure that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Mentioning it for later in the post.)

Considering the reasons that finally led Nea to the final straw of killing the Noah, seemingly for a more broad personal goal (whenever to get rid of the Noah clan or to become the Millenium Earl himself), i don’t know if those elements completely apply.

What I will say however is that any dynamic that ends with someone deciding to murder their family is Toxic.

And in that level, Nea was completely toxic to Mana. Nea’s goals as they are set on were Toxic to Mana, and developped a dangerous behavior that would affect Mana in the future and had Mana develop a trauma regarding Nea, enough to blow up his own face in regrets, enough to call out for Nea in grief.

As for Adam reacting with such trauma indicated, Nea did attempt to murder him, Nea did murder all of Mana’s family, Nea did put Mana in a situation where he had no other way than to murder/devour his own beloved brother, beloved twin, what Hoshino refers to in Japanese as “the second part of a whole”. (let’s not forget Hoshino is herself a twin after all, (hell they were planned to be triplet until one of them disappeared in the womb and they talked about them a lot as “if they were there, living inside of me, through me” and that’s what inspired the “third being” of the Noah memory. I don’t think that can be neglected in how she writes Nea and Mana specifically.) so i suppose there is more complex feelings going on in whatever dynamic she planned for the twins). Mana has all the reasons with what Nea’s decisions were in the end and the betrayal to act with such trauma indicated response. 

What i could see be considered specifically abusive toward Mana specifically is the way to keep him for last and force him to suffer the loss of every Noah- if it’s an action taken specifically to hurt Mana in a torture way. Then it could also just be Nea not managing to face killing his brother yet and idk how that would fall in the scale there. In such an “unreal” scenario as the one of the Noah it’s a little harder to apply “normal people” social lense.

I will need a little more tangible scenes to set it on abuse per se. I could see it but I just would rather not use such a strong term until i get more ammo. Especially when “Toxic” fits perfectly so far and has just as much of the implication of Nea destroying and hurting Mana.

as for Allies not liking working with him, it could be because he’s a douchebag in general (which he is). But there’s a leap between being a dick and being abusive.

For Tim we know he had ended up loving Allen so he’s conflicted about Nea (and let’s not forget the Noah are generally kinda safistic people toward people who aren’t from their family. It’s not an excuse in any way but god knows how Nea behaved outside of family structure. As I mentioned earlier, outside powerdynamic has to be enforced by an abuser much more likely than inside a family.) For Past!Allen we have no idea how their relationship went except that Allen was ready to give up everything for Nea. And we know Cross and Nea can’t stand each other but it’s Cross we’re talking about to start with.

Also regardless Nea doesn’t have to be abusive to anyone else to be abusive toward his family and especially his brother.

tbh if only for the fact Nea was rejected and the underdog of the Noah the powerstructure of the family as we know it makes that for Nea to be an abuser he would have had to overcome said family powerstructure, which I think is something to take into account and we have no idea how he specifically behaved outside of the murderspree. It could be just as valid to think Nea was abusive toward his “siblings” until he snapped and killed them, than to think that Nea was the outsider who suffered from that position (therefore putting more the rest of the family in a powerstructure in which they would be the abusers) and he would have ended up turning it around with the murderspree, or if it was just toxic all the way around. And that enters into a lot of different ifs to interpret the lenses of Nea’s dynamic with his family.

And it’s still very tricky to mention murder attempt as inherently abusive especially in a long term goal than Nea had. especially if Nea wanted to get rid of the Noah to “save the world” or whatever.

I’m not trying to excuse Nea’s actions tho. It’s just that “being a douchebag”, “being a murderer”, “being toxic to the people around you” don’t fall specifically under “being abusive”.

But again yeah I consider Nea must have had a toxic impact on Mana, if not before the murderspree, during it, as he consciously put his brother through this. It was toxic, and it remains a valid thing to call their relationship out on. And the toxicness of said relationship is established at this point and established as leaving major scars on Mana/Adam that cannot be overlooked.

“Abusive” is loaded. I would wait for more content over Nea and Mana to call it that. But I do agree Nea’s attitude toward Adam seems to fall much more under abusive pattern due to the psychological pressure and the fact Nea takes Adam’s vulnerability to create a powerdynamic to overwhelm him. That much we’ve seen.And therefore yes I can see it valid in HCs so far to believe he might have extended that to Mana. The meta you mentioned makes valid starting point for this theory would the manga further this angle.But until more depth from their relationship is shown to us, i’ll stick to “Toxic”.

Hope it makes sense?

Take care!

[sanguinesprout]

Uhhhhh... *derp* (More stuff about indecision, some talk about doctors and some blog changes)

Lately has been well... kinda okay but mostly meh. I’ve been flip flopping between feeling somewhat content with myself and a little motivated and feeling absolutely empty inside and distraught. It’s been almost two weeks since my last post here (actually a reblog lol) and I’ve really been wanting to write a post but I’m still stuck in the habit of putting it off until I know for sure what I want to write or have the privacy to do so. Or maybe it’s just me being a big scaredy cat again :< I think from now on I’ll try to just write as if I’m writing in a diary, so more spontaneous and with less worrying about structure/keeping to just one topic or whether someone reads it or not, as I’m doing this for myself and my benefit most.

Although I was dawdling I did however sort out quite a lot of stuff to do with the blog and some good stuff irl (which I’ll get to later or in another post). One of the main things to mention is that I switched this blog from my primary one to a side one, which does make more sense and makes me feel a bit more at ease which should make it a bit easier to write and post without the restraint I was feeling before. Whether to keep them linked or not idk, I feel uneasy about it but I don’t think it should matter, I mean it is still me on both blogs and everything. I just wanted to separate the huge blocks of serious emotional text from the random cutesy and silly stuff I also wanted to post, but I think I might still post mental health related things to my main one, just in the form of images and not essays like these lol. 

Also I changed the urls from the hyphenated and maybe overly fancy termed things they were previously to more simple and cute ones. I still feel a lil iffy about them (like this blog url feels a bit ‘cold’ but looks pretty and flows well while my main one sounds more ‘warm’ but the world cuddly doesn’t flow well or look as nice lol) but whatever I’ll grow to like them or just change them again whenever, I spent way too much time agonising over them, it’s time to move on! I fixed up the about pages on both of them too, the links and tags pages are still empty for now, but I’m content enough with the way they are now to actually begin posting properly soon I hope. Oh and the current avatar/sidebar image is a really crappy drawing I made 2-3 years ago with a mouse when I was feeling down and was going to make and name this blog ‘rainysnail’ lol. I still might use that name/url someday for something though ^^

I searched for ‘extreme indecisiveness’ in google the other day because I was that frustrated with myself about well, being indecisive (and it was over the same lame url/blog stuff as before, not surprise surprise). I know there’s a lot of stigma around consulting ‘Dr.Google’ and self diagnosis being looked down on as it could prove to be more harmful in some cases and I won’t lie, I do get kinda hypochondriac-ish sometimes, but sometimes it can be very educational and helpful too. I just wanted to know if I was feeling something... something valid(?) or if I was just being an idiot. 

I came across ‘Aboulomania’ on my indecisiveness search and wow, it sounds pretty similar to AVPD and my current feelings but the way it’s written is kinda heavier? (and hella typo-ey/engrish-y lol I just chose that one because it seemed to have the most info from the few I clicked on). Idk... it doesn’t seem to be as much of a known/legit thing so there doesn’t seem to be that many sources on it or at least any reputable ones (though I didn't look particularly hard or for a long time though but once you’re past page 2 on google everything is bleh anyways lol). Also on its definition here lol it talks about ‘analysis paralysis’ and that’s something I kinda knew of and struggle with already. I feel some resonance with this finding and feel a little more assured and saddened at the same time, but I’m not about to run around screaming I have this thing or anything. Maybe I’ll look into it more another time but right now I kinda don’t have the energy to .__.

Indecision is something that appears and could be caused by all sorts of disorders, even just depression alone or a whole mix of other things and factors. Many disorders overlap (like the stuff in cluster c which I feel are most relevant to me) and trying to pinpoint exact reasons and causes for things to do with mental health is near impossible, so I don’t wanna dwell on it. I have therapy soon so having a professional help work out things is a much better idea (unless they also consult Dr.Google like some of the stories I’ve read online lol).

I did see some snippets of advice on indecision on another page and it was basically to let go of the feeling to try and always be perfect/choose the definitive ‘right’ decision and to just trust your gut feelings instead of leaving yourself to stress over it. Yeah, it’s nothing new really and I have been trying to do this but sometimes it’s just so difficult with all these automatic negative feelings weighing my rationality down and sometimes I forget because it’s so hard wired into me to get anxious and over analytical. *Sigh* ...but if I keep reminding myself I think it will stick more in the end. I have already adopted the ‘it doesn’t hurt to try’, ‘just do it, ‘yolo’, ‘no1curr’ etc. kind of mindset/mantra when I get hesitant before doing something that I usually avoid lol, sometimes it fails but the times when I have been brave and not overthought or avoided I’ve felt kinda proud of myself and there were some positive-ish outcomes too. So I just need to continue and allow myself to grow stronger in mind and spirit (and hopefully body too).

In relation to what I said before about the whole ‘Dr.Google’ thing, I thought maybe take the time now to write about my experiences with doctors in general. Many times in the past and even now when I would be explaining my problem (whether physical or mental) to a doctor, they would just shake their head and scoff to them self or even outright laugh smugly and then dismiss it straight away (especially if I mentioned I read something on the internet). The feeling of being fobbed off and even ridiculed by someone that’s supposed to be helping didn’t fare well on my confidence at all and I feel it is a reason I wasn’t proactive in sorting out a lot of the problems I’m still dealing with and obviously I am regretful, maddened and saddened as many of them could have been avoided or alleviated better if they were dealt with sooner.

I’m not saying all doctors are like this, I think it was those particular doctors that were the problem and thank goodness I don’t have to choose to see them anymore (I hope). My current doctor (who I actually came across due to those mean doctors being unavailable one time) is worlds apart in the way he handles things. He is so kind and accommodating to start with, listens well to any concerns, addresses them with great care and reassurance and is very adept at scheduling appointments for further investigations. I feel he really goes above and beyond and has both a friendly and personal but professional demeanour. I mean he isn’t 100% godly perfect as there were times I felt a bit iffy with some of the explanations and prescriptions and sometimes things were delayed, but he does try hard to help and is not against reading information from the internet and in fact encourages it and utilises it himself (eg. printing a informational page on a certain health thing from a reliable health website).

When I presented some info and concerns relating to a health problem I was having investigated already but felt was going in the wrong direction (ie. going down the typical ‘fob you off with the most common explanation so you go away’ route) he explained that it’s the typical process to go for the most common things first when investigating and agreed another route of investigation would be beneficial, more relevant and time efficient so he arranged that too. This doctor is such an awesome and good natured person and I’m so grateful, but he may only be temporary at the place I go to however and it makes me sad to think I might end up with the mean kind again someday. But the lesson is to not settle on doctors that are not helpful or any other type of awful and that there are good people out there. Something that was really very prominent and touching about going to this doctor is that my mother and sister who go with me sometimes were also stunned by how nice and helpful he’s been.

I distinctly remember one of the first times I went to see him with my mum and at that point I had been ill for so long already and she was obviously very worried about me. At the end of the appointment he announced what he would recommend me for investigation and assured that he’d help me get better soon with a smile and then he pointed to my mum next to me who I wasn’t facing at the time and I can’t remember exactly what he said but it was something about my mum crying. When I turned to look, she was indeed crying and I couldn’t stop my own eyes from watering either. I have never ever EVER seen my mum cry before, so it shocked me a lot and made me emotional too. I mean my sister told me she did cry one time recently, but that was when she was so stressed and upset over a family matter on her side of the family :c It’s not like this is something on my bucket list or anything, because I would rather her never be upset or cry for a bad reason, but this showed how much she cares and worries for me and in this case she was crying because she was happy, relieved that she would possibly not have to see me suffer as much and was moved to tears.

Unfortunately the problems have still not been resolved or fully recognised yet, and recently one of the doctors recommended to help investigate fobbed me off and it feels bleh lol... no not lol... very un-lol :< But at least the investigation is still going further in some way I guess and I’ll take his words with a grain of salt, I’ve yet to see my regular doctor to discuss what happens next. I think I’ve just backed down and passively taken whatever explanations too much in the past with negative results or progress and Idk I have a hard time accepting things some doctors say nowadays, a lot of it seems contradictory, sometimes illogical or outdated, robotic, insincere etc. 

When I’m reading what I’ve just written it keeps making me worried I’m a ass or have trust issues or something... :< I know doctors are meant to be serious and professional, but I can’t shake the feeling that some of them are not nice/unwilling to help as much as they could. I have had so many past experiences to do with being treated differently and being prejudiced against and it still happens today and not just to me but all of my family members, it’s tough and really upsetting... :c

It is true though, that you really have to push and persist if you want something done about a problem, and many times people are let go and misdiagnosed with stuff that ends up being something different or a lot more serious. I’m not saying whatever I have is ultra serious and I wouldn’t know anyways. I am clearly not dying, and I hope I’m not, but when I was without medication at the beginning I felt so bad and I was so scared of dying (even though usually idgaf thanks to depression etc.) I’m scared of being in pain and having to suffer both physically and mentally forever. I want to get better, become a stronger person. do the things that matter and well, in a nutshell live my life to the fullest.

Anyways, about the app with the normal doctor... I avoided phoning on a day I could’ve gotten a sooner appointment (my sister encouraged me to, but she was away that day and my mum said it was an inconvenient day to go, but it actually wasn’t really... I should I have pushed myself to go forward even so...) the appointment I do have is 2 weeks away from what it could’ve been. But I guess maybe someone else might have taken that appointment that needed it more urgently, or there might not have been any available that day anyways w/e. Avoidance playing up again... be more brave silly self!

I was planning to write some more happier stuff that’s been going but this post is already quite long so a separate post it is~ and I won’t keep putting it off! Tbh I’m only comfortable pulling up my blog and writing my feels whenever I am alone, so when my family are all at work, but this only occurs on random days and for such a short span of time. Or at least when I know they are all busy downstairs, I can try but I feel like I have to be extra alert and switch it away when they do come. I... ugh idk :c I don’t want to be secretive or feel guilty but I can’t help it, it’s just so hard and frustrating. I can’t even write what illnesses I was talking about earlier on (though I do hope to dedicate whole posts to writing about them later). I will improve and forgo this paranoid feeling someday though! Believe it! *cringe*

[jiohenzewy]

Stream of Consciousness #1

tl;dr: I find myself. Any feedback/advice is appreciated. Also, if you actually read this terrible thing, you have a much hardier disposition than I and I love you forever.

Stream of Consciousness #1

I really like analyzing pieces of art and I don’t really understand why, maybe this will help me ralizae that why, I don’t really know. I don’t know how to spell consciousness.i relaly don’t get it.

Like a month or two ago I watched a videe essay or two about ghost in the shell and those videos led me to realize that GITS was one of the best anime I’ve ever seen, which isnt saying much since I don’t watch a metric fudge ton of anime like iive seen people like my friends do. (side talk to chris about froyo). But yeah I like analysis. Its fun.

Just fucking fuck I don’t know how to word  this. Like this is just for me idk what to say. Like that is what the problem always was with spleaking my thoughts is that I had to make palatable for who the audience of my words was but now the audience of those words now is me,, but also future me, so I guess I need to make this as clear as possible. But fuck that shit. Why do I need to be required to be anyone els but who I am right now. Fuck you future me. I cant even be true to myself to myself. I really just need practice expressing myself and practice in you know the work. I need practice in creating something and right now this is that something which to be honest is kind of shitty cuz this is just a bunch of words but just keep writing keep writing keep writing

I really like that show sequlitis but tons of other stuff too. When I think of hypothetical influences to my hypothetical works I think vsauce, pbs idea channel, nerdwriter, lots of nerdwriter, mrbtongue, casey neistat (but hes more inspirtation in that a inspirational cat poster inspires you) others that im forgetting, mr plinkett obvi, fucking fuck other ppl that I forget? Who are these fucking ppl fuck.

I don’t even know anymore

Before that gits analysis shit I was also planning an essay/video essay where I discuss how darth vader lost his mojo in the rouge one movie and I was gonna cite some shit. I then believed that a lot of that argument when down the crapperwhen I was reminded that there was simply someone else behind the mask in said movie but Ive understood and know for what seems like forever that an argument can always be made if u find the evidence for it and a compelling thesis. And what is a feeling you feel in a movie or any art piece than the impetus for a thesis in an analytical work. With that In mind im gonna straight copy/paste the work ive done on that subject down here right now:

“Darth lost his mojo

-mysticism

             -force

             -name

-cool factor, mascot factor, mickey mouse factor

             -Lightsabers

             -promotion for star wars merch across the ages

I was prequel era, not here to judge, star wars is many things with many audiences, ideas of what star wars IS, all ideas equally valid”

So yeah that was some stuff. That conclusion is kinda weak though I need to express my love for some prequel shit a lot more and how It kept the flame going albeit shittily, how both clone wars series can be argued made the prequel series worth it

The thing with the prequel series is that the concept behind it was always worth it. I really resound (?) with the idea that any idea is totally worth it, that any thought/feeling is completely worth it, you just need an excellent execution to make that idea worth it to other ppl…

OH GOD THE MASK

But yeah right now ive included a lot if ideas here that are totally worth it but the execution is bat shit insane. Idk if im going to go back and edit this shit into (a) more cohesive work(s). I kinda don’t want to cuz im lazy but one can never know.

I said a few enter hits back that ive understood forever that an argument is always worth it as long as you find the evidence but that isn’t necessarily true. I mean that feeling was always within my core but the people who brought it out of me were my mentors in my career endeavor, my high school teachers. Andrews and mostly Williams laid down the skeleton and the technical work behind bringing that idea out of me by teaching be the structure of paragraphs and essays and arguments and debates and what not. Gleason and yeah most definitely MOSTLY OUR GOD IN MORTAL FORM ON THIS EARTH REYNAGA brought the feeling and emotion and passion as to why that technical stuff matters out of me. They extracted that passion out of my core and said “you know that shit Andrews and Williams gave you? You can use that shit to be a fucking artist” “be an artist” reynaga told me. Be a fucking artist. Shout out to Andrews again though for teaching me world history and showing me a documentary that completely redefined how I saw myself spiritually and religiously. But yo reynaga definitely extended that spiritual side of me as well, showing to me how I responded so viscerally to the symbols and metaphors used in catholicism and catholic mass.

And yon now that I think about it, my religion probably explains a lot as to why I love analyzing shit.

I need to go back and edit this I really fucking do.

Like I feel really good about myself right now but the thing is this is where I usually stop in writing my thoughts out. I don’t go back and do the hard stuff and edit for a generaller audience. I do this shit for me and me only. Which is fucking fair to do, if that you, you do you, boo boo. But that’s not me, I wannna communicate myself to an audience, I wanna create a really good work and share it, yes to eventually make a living off of, but just to accomplish what I want to accomplsuh. To realise my passion in creating analytical essays or analytical video essays or analytical whatevershit.

I don’t really fucking know to be honest I don’t really know

Could I post this is on tumblr? If I do will I put tags on it so ppl will find that shit? Probably

Yo If youre reading this it means appriximatelyu 2 things, maybe more we’ll see:

1)      That I actually posted this on tumblr

2)      That I probably put tags on it tagging shit like “#ghost in the shell” or “#star wars” or “#analysis” or #analytical essay or some shit

3)      That you have a really fucking strong mind to deal with my bullshit, go fucking you I hope you have good days for eternity

Any and all feedback would be fucking amazing

Especially feedback on how to end streams of consciousness

The end, I guess?

fuckinggfuck