#like I DO try to preface media criticism with 'I don't think people who like or enjoy this are [insert accusation here]'

[musical-chick-13]

ALSO, re: previous post, that particular phenomenon is one of the reasons why it's so hard to actually talk about my issues with a piece of media. Because if I say, "I don't think [ship] worked and here's why" or "I don't think this story decision made sense" or "What are they doing with this character," then the assumption is that I am calling someone who does like these things A Horrible Person (or, at the very least, an unintelligent one). And that isn't what I'm doing!! I don't care if you like something or not!! I just want to parse out my feelings toward stories because I think it's fun!!!!!!

[rottmnt-residuum]

Hi, I've read the Residuum comic, and I think the characterization of the boys is really good. I was wondering if you have any tips on how to write them? Especially Mikey, please.

I'd actually recommend re-watching the show with one character in mind. All my notes on the turtles come from doing separate re-watches for each of them. The key is to ONLY watch the character you are focusing on.

In the end, you'll probably be happier with your own personal interpretation. As we are with ours lol

TL;DR

Massive post under the cut

To preface: we'll be contrasting (this Mikey) against the fandoms version of Mikey, as our interpretation is very different. Don't worry if you prefer the fandom version, there's nothing… wrong per se with writing him this way. We just find him flat and uninteresting. (Main author: not me, I just hate him, lol).

Every reader or fan comes into a story with their own biases and experiences. A ton of our view of Mikey is based on how our siblings acted. We see Mikey as the young sibling that got preferential treatment from the whole family, simply due to being the youngest, but is now aging out of the privilege. Which all youngest siblings do at some point or another.

The fandoms version of Mikey is empathetic, naive, vulnerable, co-dependent and quite often a door mat who cries at the drop of a hat. And as much as the fandom like to say that people love him… when this particular character archetype is in other media, they seem to attract the most criticism. Mable pines, Bolin from Korra, people rag on Aang all the fucking time, and Steven Universe is a whole other bag. These characters don't deserve it, and yet it happens anyway.

To flatten Mikey to simply 'the baby' is a disservice. We don't see or write Mikey as the fandom “baby” version (cinnamon roll uwu). Part of this comes from having multiple siblings, so we interpret the times when Mikey does the puppy dog eyes as typical younger sibling bullshit, mostly by the way that the other turtles rarely react to it, if at all.

The other turtles traits can also get projected onto Mikey. Mikey being the fandom therapist is in the same category as this. He isn't a therapist, he's a psychology nerd who likes to psychoanalyze people and meddle in their relationships. (Donnie and Shelldons relationship, Splinter and Draxums...) he's not trying to resolve your emotional issues. Of the turtles, the character that cares the most about people's feelings is Raph. And Leo is more of a consoler than Mikey ever is. It flattens all the turtle's characterizations when you start doing this because you are ripping out parts that are integral to another characters' complexity.

Co-author has told me that they've seen people become confused when going into the show after only reading fan fiction or coming from the movie. They see his characterization as inconsistent and become upset when their view of him is contradicted. This also happens when a fandomized version of him becomes the primary characterization that they use. Sometimes when this disconnect happens (or if they just don't like the character), Mikey characterization is swung in the complete opposite direction.

They make him manipulative and abusive, or someone who is hyper violent and avoids being held accountable for anything. This is an uncharitable interpretation of him and can come off as pretty racist depending on the circumstances. (like if someone considers the turtles black or not)

Every version of Mikey is a shithead (affectionate), even this one. Especially this one, really. When Mikey not doing the "baby schtick" hes mean. If you pay attention to what he's saying, and just not his tone of voice, he's consistently saying pretty mean or condescending stuff. (You could take this as simply naïveté, but he still says mean shit pretty often regardless)

The times he does say genuinely nice stuff the turtles don't exactly expect it from him, at least, in the early season. And while he is mean, and seems to find saying mean things to be funny, Mikey isn't cruel. Nor will he ever be.

This shit-headery behavior is found in both 2003 and 18 Mikey. They have a degree of social intelligence that lets them use it to annoy people into doing what they want. 18 just has the advantage of being baby faced and having better tonal control. He's good at using people's perception of him to get what he wants.

Let Mikey have his problematic traits, but don't overexaggerate them. He doesn't revel in fooling people. He loves doing character bits, and the baby faced one just happens to be one of them. However, to infantilize or to deem him incompetent is to piss him off, he wants to be viewed as a competent part of the team and competent as an individual. He's not insecure about being young, he just doesn't want to be treated like he can't do anything.

Mikey above all is an optimistic character, he sees the brighter side quite often and is conscious of the harm his actions have on people. Mostly after the fact, but he consistently attempts to rectify the harm he has personally done to peoples lives. (Todd, Bullhop, Draxum). Food and shelter seems to be a thing that he considers to be a right. He doesn't cross a boundary twice once he learns of it, and he never pushes people too far (if he likes you, that is. if he doesn't know you or doesn't like you, he doesn't give a singular shit. But that is standard to most people.). He doesn't care about people's stuff, though. He breaks things all the time.

Mikey understands boundaries, but he doesn't automatically recognize them. He needs them to verbalized or for there to be a very obvious reaction to the boundary being crossed (unfortunately, for Todd and Donnie). Sometimes people mess up (esp. younger people), and it can take a while for teens to learn where boundary is, but he fully respects the boundaries he does know about. He doesn't act petulant when he's told about boundary, he apologizes, accepts it, and moves on. He doesn't dwell.

Mikey doesn't hold on to distressing emotions. He bounces between emotions quickly, but isn't effected in the long run. One thing Iv'e seen people often conflate is the difference between sensitive and vulnerable. Mikey is sensitive, but I have never seen him vulnerable to others. To be sensitive is to be easily influenced by the current situation. To be vulnerable is to hold that influence for a long time. Characters can have one, both, or neither of these traits. But Mikey is not vulnerable. It is the difference between compressing memory foam and a piece of metal until they deform. One will pop back, the other does not.

Those who are vulnerable but not sensitive will take longer to effect, but once you do, they will hold on to that emotion for a very long time. The vulnerable, are grudge holders. (leo). But like I've said, Mikey bounces back. What a character does has an effect on his emotions, but it doesn't make a lasting impression.

Forgiveness is another thing people like to push on him. It is not that Mikey forgives people easily, it's just that he doesn't hold grudges. He neither forgives nor forgets, but he does not ruminate. He's generally affable, first impressions seem to be a big part of how he views people. He is idealistic, and doesn't assume people are unchanging and/or evil, but he's not a mark.

Mikey isn't so much as naive or overly trusting… it's just that he's inexperienced. He doesn't get fooled by anyone in the series except meat sweats, and that's because Meatsweats is on Todd drugs. Mikey just didn't notice when he started faking. He's not… actually all that aware of people's emotional states, passively. He has to tune in to notice things like that.

Mikey isn't someone who really tries to regulate others emotions, either. The fandom like to make Mikey afraid of his brothers fighting and others being upset, but Mikey doesn't actually care. The most distressed we ever see him in a fight is in the movie, and he's not SCARED, he's just concerned (and then alarmed once it turned physical). If anything, outside extenuating circumstances (like the movie), Mikey actually seems to find their fights annoying.

(Mikey actually seems to have a pretty short fuse, but his bounciness doesn't really let it linger very long, lmao)

(One pet peeve of fandom Mikey is the constant crying, crying at fights, crying at insults, crying for no reason all the time. Sure, he tears up when he gets emotional, but when Mikey is genuinely crying It's when he's desperate, like when he's hungry, or when he's trying to save Leo from certain doom. Same thing, really.)

Mikey respects no one (we love him for this). He admires people, he admires his family: April, the turtles, his dad, Lou Jitsu. He admires Rupert Swaggert, but he respects none of them. No one is sacrosanct to the Mikey.

Above all, the way we write characters is to give them a past that informs how they act now. We view Mikey and the other turtles as teenagers that were kids, and that will be adults. Yes they all have “problematic” traits, but 1) good characters need flaws, and controversial traits are one of the best to use, and 2) they're teenagers, don't expect adult behaviors from them, also don't expect them to be kids. They're minors, not toddlers.

This is getting as long enough as it is, so we'll stop here, but this is a very broad overview of how we characterize him. There's a lot we didn't cover here, but if we even started on hobbies, or the real minutia of his quirks and ticks, or even how he feels about other specific characters... we'd be here all day. So I hope this is good enough lol

If there was something you wanted to know in particular, you'll need to get specific. Feel free to ask again ahahh

[kestalsblog]

Thoughts on "Loser, Baby" Song

From what I’ve seen, viewers are extremely divided on the impact of the song “Loser, Baby” in the fourth episode of Hazbin Hotel. I’ve decided to share my own thoughts on the sequence below. Warning that this is a long post, and if you are triggered and upset by the song and/or episode, I encourage you not to read. I understand and respect any individual analysis, and if you were hurt by the song in any way, you are 100% valid. Others who feel differently are also valid. All I ask for is that same respect.

I don’t believe the only people qualified to speak on media are those who can relate to it, but I feel, given the conversation surrounding the episode, I should briefly mention my own background, so people don’t assume I am trying to speak on behalf of other survivors here. As a preface, I was in a severely abusive long-term relationship, so I can understand multiple perspectives here.

First, since Husk is a gambler, it’s safe to read the song as an extended metaphor for gambling too, in which case “loser” takes on the literal meaning– someone who has lost the game. Husk reminds Angel that many of us are dealt the shitty hand in life, and that the best way to get through the game is simply to go together. That’s probably the simplest positive analysis, but I think it's important to keep in mind throughout the whole song so that we don't read "loser" only as "failure" or "scum of society."

The most understandable criticism, though, is that the piece is blaming victims by attacking them and trivializing their experiences. I’m the most on the side of this argument at the words “whiny bitch,” which feel like an odd choice considering Husk has been nudging Angel to open up throughout the entire episode. It’s not my favorite line, but I can handle it only if we read the song as Husk actually singing to himself and calling himself these names as a means for Angel to see that he feels the same.

I do have some fondness for the song’s language as it continues, though. Excuse me for referencing my own personal experience here, but it’s relevant to my understanding.

Eventually in my healing journey, I realized writing and speaking affirmations to myself like “you’ll get better soon!” and “time heals everything!” were making me feel worse and frustrated. I felt like I was just waiting around for this magical deadline when I would “improve” or “recover,” and when that didn’t happen, I felt terrible about myself because I felt like a failure on top of damaged goods. I was letting myself down.

I reached a cathartic moment one day when I admitted to myself, “Maybe things are never going to get better, and I am always going to feel ruined by this.” Confessing this possibility allowed me to realize that, despite the fact that I am a “loser” in that I lost time, innocence, my old sense of security, and my carefree nature from before, I can still experience meaningful and even joyful moments in this new, altered condition.

At one point in the sequence, lots of flashing signs point terrible, degrading names at Husk and Angel. I can see why this might be upsetting to some viewers who are adamant that the characters do NOT represent those labels, but there is an obvious alternate reading that these are just the names both have assigned themselves over the years. By putting them bright and on display, they can face their self-hatred directly and reclaim their honest selves. (Let me pause here to say it's also crucial to remember Husk is not directly calling Angel any of these names). The solo lights then disappear and are replaced first with the soft blue raindrops moment where Husk shields Angel with the umbrella, and finally with the single LOSER where they both can dance together.

Most importantly, the lyrics gesture toward surprisingly affirmative by the song’s conclusion: “Eat shit together, things will turn out differently / It’s time to lose your self-loathing / Excuse yourself, let hope in, baby / Play your card, be who you are.”

Husk isn’t disregarding the possibility of hope, even in the gutter for the losers. In fact, he directly welcomes the possibility that the game can change with company, and self-hatred won’t be beneficial toward supporting that change. Even if we are dealt the losing hand, he reminds us the game is still worth playing. He reminds Angel again and again that it's okay to be who he is. And now "loser" assumes a new connotation - losing the negativity, the hatred, the things that are holding them back.

Significantly, after this point, no more self-negatives are even spoken, not even "loser" again because Husk and Angel are interrupted before the crucial word “me” when they sing that final line “loser just like—” Any connection to the self now has been effectively erased, reminding us that Angel and Husk may have made poor choices, may have been given crappy cards, but they are not losers in the sense that they are not less of people.

Last, it’s important to remember that the song is not meant to speak for everyone. It can't. If we’re going to be strict about it, it’s not for any survivors except Angel, and as we can see by his shifting mood, it certainly helps him feel better in the moment. The whole episode has been about Husk trying to encourage him to “break down his walls” and stop feigning the super inflated ego act he typically puts on, so, in one way, it becomes a “let’s get Angel past the self-loathing that’s preventing him from being his real self so we can move on to something more genuine and happier together" tactic.

I know it’s hard to separate our lived experiences from media. Judging from the disparity in opinions I’ve read from survivors on the song, I’d say it’s been therapeutic for just as many as it’s been damaging.

Before I conclude, it's worth mentioning I also have my own critiques of the song. I mentioned one with the word “whiny.” Another potential issue is the difference between Angel and Husk’s problems. I’m not trying to minimize gambling addictions by any means, but I know many of us feel that Husk’s loss of a cushy social position because of gambling pales against the extreme bodily violence Angel faces. I think it would be odd for Husk not to attempt to comfort Angel in some way, and trying to relate is one of the most common ways of doing so, but I admit that the discrepancy in their situations bugged me throughout the number. Husk reminds Angel he's "not unique" in his problems, which is important for survivors to remember (to know they are not alone), but it might mean a little more coming from someone on a similar playing field. The one redemptive thing I can say here though is that both characters sold their souls to someone with a tyrannical hold over them, and even though we know Alastor isn’t abusing Husk in the same way Val hurts Angel, we have yet to see the connotations of his power within that specific dynamic.

When push comes to shove, the song overall works for me, and I admit I felt seen while watching/listening, which isn't even something I really care about in media, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. If you felt otherwise, I am sorry, and I encourage you to do your best to separate yourself from the media you consume and remember that every story, every song, is written by flawed people for flawed people. I mean it as fondly as possible, but we're all just losers "living in the same shit sandwich." Nothing will ever perfectly represent or encompass your own experience and healing. Analyze art respectfully for what it is, what it isn't, and what it can be.

What else can you do?

[artist-issues]

I know you have kind of commented on this topic in one of your posts, but what do you think of the fact that Tolkien hated Disney and thought of Walt as a "con-artist" (if I remember correctly) because of how much would be changed? Even though I very much love Disney movies, considering how Tolkien studied mythology, folklore and history from other cultures in-depth, particularly those of European background, I do understand why he was not fond Walt's work at all if we view it from his perspective. Other people seem to share a similar sentiment. I ask you because you often analyze Disney movies and their themes quite in-depth. This whole thing is interesting.

Well, I'll preface by saying I'm not much of a Tolkien apologist. I don't connect with him or his mentality as well as I might flatter myself by saying I do C.S. Lewis' mentality. C. S. Lewis had this beautiful way of blending genuine good-faith enjoyment of something and careful, intentional critical thinking. He could be a reasonable analyzer of media, and a childlike consumer of media, at the same time. Don't know if I've mastered that myself, or if I ever will, but I really admire it.

Which is besides the point, sorry! 😂

But Tolkien was different. First off, Tolkien said some things about interpreting the meaning of his own stories that I don't agree with. He keeps insisting he wasn't trying to "say" anything with Lord of the Rings, or infuse it with any particular "meaning." Truth of the matter is, though, that is not true of any good storyteller. What they believe about the world bleeds into what they create, if they're creating genuinely. So Lord of the Rings is about how small decisions matter, doing what you can with what you're given instead of trying to control everything matters—whether Tolkien likes it or not, whether he was always conscious of it or not, that's what his story says.

He also criticized weird things to criticize about Lewis' works. For someone who was Lewis' friend, I don't know how he could've looked at what Lewis was writing and been surprised, or disgruntled, at the hodgepodge of mythology in works like Narnia. I don't know what made him think a "children's story" would feel like anything other than...made for children.

But anyway. All that to say, I don't always agree with Tolkien, or feel like I understand him. His response to Disney movies is just one of those things I don't get. I can speculate, but I don't know.

Like I said, I think he was so used to thinking of fairy tales and literature in a way that is much...higher, and more layered, than how the everyday layman thought of them, that when a Kansas cartoonist started retelling fairytales without any apparent grasp of that layering, it really rubbed him the wrong way.

I guess it would be like if someone came along twenty years from now, pointed at Disney's The Little Mermaid, and said, "look! A cartoon about fish! I'm going to make an TikTok dance about fish and call it 'The Little Mermaid,' and retell it that way!"

First of all we'd be like "IT'S ABOUT SO MUCH MORE THAN FISH, it's not just an CARTOON, are you BLIND?!" And then secondly we'd probably go, "and what? A TikTok dance?! Are you kidding me? You want to take this beautiful pillar of traditional animation and living color and musical mastery and drag it down to the level of middle school girls flapping their hands around cringily??"

That's probably how Tolkien felt Disney was treating Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Because back then, the medium (TikTok dances, animation) was just associated with sort of lowbrow humor and silliness. Walt was still inventing the whole "animated film to be taken seriously" thing. And back then, Tolkien would've seen the comedy characters of the Dwarfs and their character development as very shallow in comparison to the mythos of Dwarfs in literary and oral-tradition history. He had the most background knowledge. So what he was comparing Walt's movies to was, for him, like comparing grape Gatorade to aged Italian Wine.

As far as Disney being a "con artist..." yeah, I think that's a little bit of a stretch. He was definitely selling something, but if you can look at Walt Disney's life and see dollar bill signs, instead of a guy who genuinely made what he liked because he liked it, you don't know much about Walt Disney. He didn't adapt fairy tales because he thought they could make him money. He adapted fairy tales because he adored them, just like he had a train in his backyard because he adored them. Ask his brother Roy how much Walter "Let's Invent Smell-O-Vision and Drop Flowers on the Audience of Fantasia" Disney was thinking about exploiting the public for financial gain.

Like I said, Tolkien was responding to Walt Disney because he was Tolkien, and it would've been like asking a Bird to relate to a Krill. They were way too different to ever understand each other on the level that either of them preferred being understood at.

[persiesposts]

Y'all I'm tired

To preface this is a MULTIFANDOM problem so MULTIPLE fandoms are going to be tagged. I've seen this happening too much and it's on both sides of the alley so don't think "your side" is exempt from this. I'm not here to take sides on the petty argument of the week so keep that off of this post.

The point of fandom is DISCOURSE, people aren't going to enjoy things the same way you are. Differing interpretations of media is NORMAL. Throwing around derogatory and shitty statements about others doesn't make your point more correct.

People can still enjoy content and have genuine critiques on the content itself or the fandom surrounding it. Yes, I include fandom critiques because with the amount of petty drama and insults that get thrown around over opinions that shouldn't matter make fandoms very hostile environments to be part of.

It makes me so sad when I'm just trying to enjoy myself in a fandom space (whether that be a critical space or a genuine fan space) and the only thing I see are people freaking out and writing long form essays (hypocritical I know) over what Joe Schmo had to say about some aspect of XYZ.

Now don't get me wrong, there is a difference between critique and bullying. No one should be forced to tolerate bullying and there should never be space for bullying, but please please LEARN THE DIFFERENCE. It's exhausting to see people flip their lids and call someone a bully over simple phrasing of a differing opinion.

People who defend their posts calling someone out for critique often like to use the phrase "if you don't like what you're seeing, don't look at it" or "just block them!" Y'all should take your own advice too. There is merit to creating specific tags for certain forms of discourse so you don't have to see as much of it. I try to keep my critiques of content to the specified critical tags, if you don't see specified tags it may be worth it to create some!

To be clear, it's ok to have feelings about specific aspects of content and fandom. It's ok to voice your opinion on those things. It's not ok to go around bullying others and making people feel unwelcome in the fandom space because of minute and frankly petty reasonings. Also just because you personally don't see it happening, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and therefore isn't a problem.

Do your part and make your fandom a better place, love each other and if you don't like what you see, either engage respectfully or keep scrolling. It's not the end of the world at the end of the day. <3

[rollercoasterwords]

PLEASE tell us your barbie opinions!!!!! pls pls i also have opinions

happy 2 share but i will be putting it under a cut bc. a lot of people seem 2 think this movie is god's gift 2 earth and i am not in the mood 2 deal w barbie evangelists lol so if u do not want 2 see barbie movie criticism just scroll away

will preface by saying i enjoyed the movie i thought it was fun etc + i don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying it or finding it fun or even feeling very personally empowered/seen by what the movie had to say. that's all very nice on a personal level and i understand why so many people are finding the movie cathartic.

that being said i do not think the movie was feminist or subversive by a long shot and seeing so many people talk about how radical it was makes me feel like i'm being gaslit!!! like. did we watch different movies lmao. maybe i'd understand a little more why everyone was being taken in if barbie had like, gone to the real world and fought patriarchy in the movie--but she didn't even do that! they introduce the concept of real-world patriarchy only to have barbie go back to barbieland and destroy fake barbie patriarchy (which is rooted simply in one man's insecurity and easily resolved by gently encouraging him to seek self-worth outside his relationship--not exactly a cutting examination of the material investment that men have in patriarchy which makes it so difficult to challenge) and leave real-world patriarchy intact at the end (the big #feminist moment for real women is...mattel's sexist ceo saying he'll use a woman's idea for the next barbie, since he can make a lot of money off it? he doesn't even say he's going to pay her for the idea lmao).

so all in all the whole "barbie destroys patriarchy" bit of the movie just. did not feel particularly feminist to me beyond a very surface level acknowledgment that sexism exists and is bad. and like--i get that it's the barbie movie, and people could say "well of course it can't be that subversive but it did a good job for what it was!!" but i'm just like. ok yeah then let's call it what it was...instead of calling it subversive?? also every feminist message the movie tried to champion was immediately undermined by its fundamental investment in gender essentialism, which remains unchallenged throughout the whole film. like--barbies are literally canonically sexless and so u can't even try to argue that the gender binary which their society is based around is anything but 100% socially constructed, and we see that that gender binary affords privilege to some and not to others and also leads to ostracization of those who fail to conform to it, yet the happy ending of the movie is barbieland just...staying that way. and i feel like the movie then kinda says the quiet part out loud when barbie becomes a "real woman" by getting a vagina like...ok. lol

so like. even the interior politics of the film i struggle to understand how it could be considered groundbreaking feminism; and then when we zoom out and look at the material impact of the movie that just cements it as un-feminist to me. this is a really good article about the beauty standards being pushed + perpetuated by barbie marketing, and of course as with basically any hollywood movie the rich (and mostly rich men) will be getting richer, cycles of consumerism will be perpetuated, etc. honestly the "feminist" aspect of the film almost feels insidious to me in this context, as if it's meant to provide the catharsis of feeling like there's been some big challenge to patriarchy while quietly reinforcing the systems of oppression it publicly decries.

and like. at the end of the day i was not expecting barbie to be a subversive feminist film nor do i think it like...has a responsibility to be one. and it's nice that so many people feel like they're getting something out of it! but i think it's important to evaluate both the personal and societal impact of the media we're critiquing, and in that context it just seems silly to me to claim that barbie is subversive. i also find the amount of rhetoric i've seen about how the movie "encapsulates the female experience" so fucking irritating lmfao like...i am sorry but the idea that watching a group of hyperfeminine women flirt with men as a method of destroying patriarchy (<- not an exaggeration that is literally the plot. flirt with each other's boyfriends to make them jealous so they fight each other. zero lesbians in barbieland i suppose) is THE quintessential experience of #womanhood...well alright then.

anyway. there is more i could say but i am going 2 get dinner w a friend so. stopping here <3 not gonna post the link but i do have a full/in-depth review on my substack if u wanna poke around over there!

[onepunchcatboi]

A Very Long Thing About DawnTrail

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts on DT and decided to compile them into a giant fucking essay and post it on the internet because that’s how we all get our enrichment these days lolol

Overall I have mixed feelings about it. It seems like for everything I liked about it, there are just as many I didn’t.

I want to preface this with the fact that I only did MSQ as of this essay and did no side content or side quests aside from the ones needed for aether currents. Also I played the expansion over like a couple weeks in between masters class assignments so my memory could be fuzzy on some things lol if you know a thing that gives more insight to anything, please share! I make this not to slam the new expansion, but to discuss what I did and did not like about it lol

Also like…these are my opinions lol if you thoroughly enjoyed DT and feel it does not have any flaws then maybe idk skip this post bc I'm about to

think critically about media

And my first opinion is this: if it's a problem that has to be solved in MSQ, then its explanations and solutions also have to be addressed in MSQ. If that is not occurring then the writing has failed to inform the player properly.

Again if you find yourself disagreeing on that then maybe this post isn't for you lol

Everything under the cut because uh…how many pages did I write in word? >_>;;

I feel like it started off really good! I loved coming to a new place, learning all the things about it and such. I loved getting to help Wuk Lamat learn and gain confidence in herself! I loved that Thancred and Urianger were there to be cheeky little shites [affectionate] on the other team guiding their own baby ruler. I loved the trials and how they gave different lessons about the different peoples of Tural and how different problems require different approaches [yes I even liked the trading quest. It was funny]. I think Galool Ja Ja is a mad old genius and it was fun to know him, someone who was essentially like us in that he traveled with a band of friends and united a continent in an effort to bring peace to the land. And I was thrilled when the result of the trial was both Wuk Lamat and Koana becoming equal rulers, because they both have two halves of the right idea: love for people and their culture, and forward thinking for innovation to solve their problems.

Honestly, aside from some minor weirdness in the Mamool Ja section, I was so pleased with everything that I found it very sad I did not enjoy the second half of the expac;;

I’ve read a few posts about it now and so has my gf so the following is an amalgam of thoughts that are my own and bouncing off others. I'm both trying to make sense of what disappoints me narratively about it, and what would have made more sense for both me and my WoL

First I’ll get my small critiques of the first half out of the way:

The first a minor thing, but there were odd moments of passivity where the player didn't get to do much. The one I think of the most is when Wuk Lamat has to wrangle an alpaca. It makes sense she has to do this on her own, but why do we as the player have to sit at the campfire and wait? We could have played as Wuk Lamat to do it like we do when she confronts Bakool Ja Ja. Hell, maybe it might have been a really funny sequence, too! I don't mind taking a backseat as the WoL here, but I do mind taking a back seat as a player. I suppose you can argue it's because we need to have a bonding moment with Erenville, but this scene could still have easily occurred anyways.

Most of what I don't think feels right has to do with the Mamool Ja section. Now, my memory's not perfect here, but my understanding is that they have had to dwell in the lower forested area for a while? At least it sounded like they had an age-old conflict with the Xa'brun, so more than a few generations. In that context it feels...a little oof to have to come in and help them figure out how to grow food down there. Maybe I'm not remembering when the meteors struck? Because if it was recent then this makes sense and is not as weird, but otherwise its a bit awkward;; [to say the least;;]

As for the second half:

I think generally, a thing that would have helped is to keep the threat local. After Endwalker, it feels...maybe unwise to continue to escalate the stakes. I don’t need world-ending threats. I already did that. Or at the very least I need a break from them lol we just finished saving the Star, settling any sort of unrest on one continent would have been a fun little jaunt in comparison. I understand not a lot of people would have enjoyed that or felt this would have been a step back. But I feel that trying to take the shonen route of continuously upping the stakes tends to run the risk of ridiculousness. I mean we just finished defeating the literal embodiment of despair trying to end all life as we know it because supposedly there is only pain and suffering in life anyways. Do you keep trying to figure out more world ending stakes from there? Or do you look for different kinds of stakes? Maybe some wouldn't have felt the latter was "worthy" or "challenging" enough for their WoL, and I'm not against having some other big threats happen. I just need more time and build up from that lol. There's a reason you need your "beach episode".

The second half of DT also felt extremely jarring. I know the reality of it was there were three main writers working together on the whole thing [far as I know outside looking in], but what it felt like was one person wrote the rite of succession half, and then handed it to a completely different person to write the second half of the story. And while the first half felt really solid, the second half was highly disjointed and uninterested in the WoL or their friends. It felt much too focused on its own ideas to consider them in fact, which is...a choice, for a long form RPG where lots of the player base is pretty invested in them by now. Hell at this point I wonder if someone completely different higher up the chain looked at the first draft and went “too small, make it bigger” and thus the writers had to make sudden changes to an otherwise solid narrative. Something to look into I guess.

Again, I loved the first part, and I think the writing there felt really good! It makes sense for the WoL to be a guiding hand and a mentor to Wuk Lamat, Thancred and Urianger were playing the same roles for Koana. "What is it you want to do?", "What do you think is important?", "I think your ideas are great and I support them", "This is your country and your people, tell me what you need, and I will help you make it happen". It would have been inappropriate for us to step in any more than we did. [although I do think it wooouuuld have been nice for the WoL to come in just to ensure Wuk Lamat and Bakool Ja Ja had a one-on-one bout for realsies. Or! Have a great moment where the WoL makes to do so, and Wuk Lamat be like "No...I have this *glint*", in fact forget my first suggestion, that would have been amazing]

But if we are going to make a world ending event happen, then this is where the WoL needs to take charge again. And I don't mean that Wuk Lamat and Koana and the other major players shouldn't have been involved, this is their home and their Star too. What I mean is that the WoL should have had that moment to take the reins and guide them through it, because this is unfamiliar territory for them, but it is our bread and butter [more on this later]

Related to this I… don’t like the Azem magicial maguffin item that has fallen into our laps;;

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think its brilliant and in fact, fucking hilarious that Krile’s people yeeted themselves out of the source to avoid possible extinction due to a calamity. The idea is great, I just…have problems with its execution. I feel this story point would have been stronger if it was done through their own prowess or technology. The how of it doesn’t even have to matter right now because it was long ago enough that the methods could have been lost to time, or only have the tiniest bit of clues for our local prospective world hopper Y’Shtola to fiddle with. [speaking of that it does create an awkwardness of Krile’s soul being 2-3 steps lighter than everyone else's which presumably Y’Shtola would have noticed, which Krile herself even states early on, but that's another thing for later]

The issue is that making this exodus happen because of an item with Azem’s symbol on it actually creates more questions than answers and not in a good way. We don’t actually know right now how much contact Azem had with Venat post Zodiarc forming, but generally speaking it does not make sense for Azem [or anyone really] to have created a item to world hop between the shards, because the shards did not exist in the time frame that this item would have been made. The only way this item works then is if someone else made it and slapped the Azem symbol on it, just as our Azem crystal was. Otherwise the writing has to walk it back and say it has a different primary function, it can just also be used for reality bridging lol

But I also don’t like the maguffin because I don’t actually want to world hop with ease. We had extraneous contrived ways we were able to access the 1st and the 13th shards, and that’s great! It’s not supposed to be easy! It’s supposed to be a whole thing, because the magic used to create this world state in the first place required the power of a fucking god. And while I don’t think accessing the maguffins power will be done quickly or easily, I don’t want an item to let me do the thing in an identical manner going forward. It feels…like a gimme. [Or rather a “give her”, I am again surprised Y’Shtola hasn’t been all over this yet but it's probably because the writers don’t want to let her more on that later]

Ok now is when I am going to get the most critical because I feel like everything goes literally off the rails the second we're done with helping to fix them lol This is one part Everything to do with Alexandria/unknown shard, one part lack of character writing for WoL/Scions, one part Zoraal Ja's missing back story, and one part wtf with Sphene.

There first two points I feel are kind of intertwined, as almost everything weird about this shard mostly comes around to "why where the WoL/Scions suddenly mute on everything they are seeing". It's pretty clear that this shard was being led to a calamity by ascian activity. We just have a lack of ascians to verify this at the moment. The results are easy to see by our surroundings and the state of the world. The things that stick out to me the most are the Levin Sickness, and of course the...soul munching :'>

The Levin sickness is described as an imbalance of lightning aether, so much so that the person afflicted is in a torpid state most of the time in severe cases. But an imbalance of an aether element in a person is how tempering is described, so...why do we not bring up the fact that we know how to cure that? Even if they wanted to write in a reason for it to not work the same, the fact that Alisae is right there and has that ability, and doesn't say anything is extremely out of character for her. It's like they forgot how desperately she tried to find this cure in the first place [its a big part of her character development in fact].

But the elephant in the room has to be the use of souls as both fuel to keep people alive and a currency. I think the idea was to build in the rest of the story, where you first had to learn about a culture and understand it before making judgments but uh...I'm sorry but eating the souls of the dead is a really hard sell out the gate. Even if we hadn't been to the aetherial sea to like, witness all that, this is a hard sell. But the thing is we actually have like, been there. We saw that souls travel to a place where-after they are reborn later. And maybe I didn't understand this right, but the implication then is that those souls used for life force don't get to be reborn. I guess this point is slightly less abhorrent if the Alexandrians don't know this, and this could be the case maybe? It's never brought up. We also never bring it up! Why don't we tell people that we've seen what happens when people die?! I mean maybe they wouldn't have believed us [understandable], but it’s weird that we don't say it!

The idea of using the souls of the dead is I think, the most workable if the culture is of a mind of: when you’re dead you’re dead and nothing special happens afterwards. No afterlife, nothing, the body decays the aether disperses, that’s it. Perhaps this is clearer in the sidequests?? But if that’s truly how they view death, then it should have been touched on in MSQ. I would say this is what the function of Living Memory is but…it doesn’t seem to be a place the Alexandrians are widely aware of, nor is the concept of an Endless at this point. So their continued mantra about their dead always being remembered, while they are currently forgetting about them all the time, rings a bit hollow. They can only remember them after the fact of living the rest of their life to the point of death IF they become an endless. Which maybe the point was always to make all the Alexandrians endless [fuck;;;] but I think if it was written that the populous knew they’d go to an unending heaven place where all their memories and loved one were waiting for them, it might have made a lot more sense.

After looking at this post/reddit thread though, it seems that the main culprit for this sticking point is possibly that the EN translations were unclear on this issue??? And that some of the souls do pass on to the aetherial sea, just that many of them keep being recycled into the system? If so this does make the cast's reactions to the whole thing slightly less weird, but goddamn they should have stated this more clearly then. Because my presumption otherwise is that they are essentially erasing souls from existence or that they just never get the opportunity to be reborn in order to preserve the currently living, both of which elicit a wholly different reaction vs they'll get there eventually just not right now and possibly not for several hundred years. Which like, is still halting gears in a natural cycle, but it isn't breaking the machine outright by yanking the pieces out. Still a little fucky though? To be honest? For those souls that by chance keep getting shuffled about instead of getting reborn.

Actually another thing I am just remembering too is we never really address the whole like…deeply unethical methods Alexandrian scientists used to get to this level of precision in separating soul from memory and the effects of using the separated souls. We encounter it for a brief moment as we move through the facility to fight Zoraal Ja and it’s kind of hand waved in this moment. Which I get time is of the essence here but then yeah it wasn't discussed. Maybe it will be in the lead up to the next expansion? But that will not be for a while. And I don't like that.

Zoraal Ja is another strange point in here.

I remember reading a great analysis about the beginning of the Rite of Succession, how each of the siblings are extremely reflective of their birth order. And for Zoraal Ja, this idea of him being an expansionist falls in line with this well. Most things he has going for him are because he's his father’s son, to surpass his father is to move out of his shadow and become something more. For this he needs to either outdo his father or find different ways to outshine him. So, gaining new territories and new victories [since he’s the most martial of the bunch and doesn’t want to use his cunning for other things?] falls in line with this. And honestly...if that’s all he did I feel like the story would have been more solid for it. 

But from the beginning also, he keeps mentioning this need for him to make the people know how terrible war is? To know what suffering is so that they will beg for his rule?? Where does this idea come from??? As far as we know the boy grew up in peacetime, so there's not much to suggest he's had hardship aside from the pressure of being a miracle baby. At first I thought maybe something had happened to his still not mentioned mother during Endwalker, when anyone succumbing to despair could have become a monstrosity. [an entire tangent and a half for another day btw, no one…mentions the Star going out of whack a short while ago??] But this is never referenced...soooo...where does this motivation come from? Honestly at one point I theorized that maybe he'd actually been a wish-baby by Galool Ja Ja at the golden city but he'd been born with the soul of someone else from the golden city who'd gone through immense suffering in a war and this was why he was…like that. It just...seems an incredibly far reach for him to think this way. The only thing I can think of at this point is that he's pissed off about it being peace time so he has to find ways to cause conflict just so he can prove himself better than his father? But if that's the way it wasn't very clear.

 Finally...Sphene.

There's a lot wrong here I feel, but it's not really to do with the concept of the character, rather all the writing around her. It is interesting to have an AI with a benevolent ruler’s personality that was made to help ensure the love and safety of a kingdom. A terrible idea really, but an interesting one to play with in fiction lol the program has been around for I think 1000 years so it makes sense for this figure to feel eternal and well loved…if you're…into monarchies, I guess. But AI Sphene from the beginning is sus as fuck. In hindsight this is because it can only do what it's directive and the limiter of the personality programing can agree on, but as a person meeting another person, there is little reason for us to trust her. It gets presented as sort of a red herring at first, is she or isn't she a good person? It tries to convince us to assist in its directive by running us through a similar process as in the first half of the game. We learn about Alexandria and its people, and you know they're fine, except for...everything that happened because of the cataclysm, and the definitely normal but only been happening for the last 1000 years soul eating. It is a culture that fears death in the most extreme way possible, but they're chill.

And at this point it’s clear that AI Sphene is to be a foil of Wuk Lamat. Which makes sense given how much they both want to ensure their people’s happiness. The problem mostly arises the second we understand that Sphene is not a person. So...why do we keep treating her as such afterwards? I can understand if Wuk Lamat is not familiar with a lot of tech, that’s not her forte, but it is for some of us in the group. Who are also...just ignoring that bit?? Like if we needed to stop and explain to her what a program is like we did the reflections and such, why didn't we? I know she might not have got it fully, but again, weird that we all just carried on like the program was something that could be reasoned with. Especially if it’s at the point where massacre of anyone not in its kingdom was perfectly acceptable for it. And just...even if Sphene was real, she is no longer a good person at this point. People who love their country and their people, but are completely fine with killing others to ensure their own survival exist in this world. We know those are not good people. We have named them before, it’s just genocide masquerading as nationalism. Which is why it’s baffling and frankly infuriating that the characters are written to carry on like the program is a good person continuously after this point.

A lot of people have been making the comparison to Emet Selch and Amourot and it’s a fair and good one to make, they mirror each other well. I think the reason Emet works and Sphene doesn’t comes right back around to the writing. We as the WoL have a history with the Ascians, we know what they are up to long before Emet arrives, and when he does, we are rightfully suspicious of his intentions. Also, he is an asshole, and we are allowed to be an asshole back to him, because he deserves it lol. After knowing him and arguing back and forth for probably a few weeks’ time, we kill him. We do it because he will kill us otherwise, as he does not value or see us as people, and he is only redeemed long after this fact. The reason people like Emet is partly in this and partly because his narrative is one of tragedy: the man he was would have hated the man he became, and our once friend in a past life became our enemy. Also he’s…a real person, but I digress.

To me the reason Sphene the program doesn’t work is because we have for some reason, decided to make Wuk Lamat the main decision maker throughout the second half. This isn’t a criticism of Wuk Lamat, she is going through the narrative according to her character. Our beautiful baby ruler is hopeful, and at the onset, presuming to broker a peace as an ambassador of her people. She is operating in the mode of “learn first, ask after”, because it’s worked for her before. And she so wants to believe in the good in people, and we love her for that! 

But she’s now up against something entirely different and the WoL and Scions are bafflingly mute on it. We didn’t become Wuk Lamat’s mentor to teach her to be the next WoL to carry our mantel, we did it to help her carry her fathers. Like Thancred and Urianger for Koana, our service to Wuk Lamat ended the moment she became the Vow of Resolve. So what needed to happen at this point is for Wuk Lamat and the WoL/Scions operating on equal terms as allies, rather than continuing to defer to her. Like our relationships to Hien and Rauhban, and so on, we defer to them when it comes to the citizenry and decision making on a nation level, but when it comes to world-ending shit they leave it to us. And honestly one of the first things we should have done is be like “Wuk Lamat you have known that girl for 5 hours and she’s outright stated she will kill literally everyone in the universe just so save like 500,000 of her own. I don’t think this one can be saved. Believe me I’ve seen it before. Also that’s not a girl it’s a robot”  

Because the reality this is a perfect storm, and the only wrench in it is that WoL/Scions are present. Here's where I wax poetic as an “old”. The conversation between the characters of the Spene program and Wuk Lamat, is actually perfect and reflective of a lot of issues we're dealing with today. “Sphene” is someone who cares deeply about her own, she is a kind person who visits terminal kids and brings them flowers….and this same person is perfectly willing to sacrifice anyone outside her circle for her own. She does not care about other people actually, just the ones important to her. But she does it with this with a cute twirl and a smile, so it’s disarming. If you ask her directly she won't say she'll throw others under the bus for her owns sake, but she will still do it. This kind of person exists and is incredibly dangerous, especially to those who are not familiar with it, like Wuk Lamat. 

When you have never encountered this sort of person, you struggle to see how these two conflicting views can work together. It’s actually fucking brilliant writing in that sense, because the fact that “Sphene” is a program with conflicting goals creates a perfectly logical way for this to work! The program has its main objective-the continued survival of its people aka Alexandrian citizens. It has its limiter, the memory data of Sphene, who was a kind person that desired peace and unity. This is why “Sphene” acts kindly and loving to her own people, but is equally ruthless when it comes to anyone outside this sphere. It’s “necessary” for their survival, and it “cannot” be changed, because “Sphene” literally cannot fathom other solutions. Real people who are like “Sphene” are able to do this too, they compartmentalize so that the narrative works in their own mind, and they cannot change this mindset unless challenged by outside pressures. Wuk Lamat’s struggle to logic out that the Sphene program is still a good person despite this echos a lot of real life people trying to figure it out.

And if it was just Wuk Lamat vs “Sphene” this would work. But the WoL and the Scions are there too, and they have seen it before. They watched it time and time again through their conflict with the Garleans and the Ascians. So the fact that no one speaks up about this repeating pattern unfolding is…bad. The writing wants so badly to put this point across that it has to pretend these other characters have suddenly gone brainless to do it. Any if not all of them should have spoken up to help Wuk Lamat in this moment, not just as a newfound ruler, but as her friends. So again the player is made to take a back seat while watching events unfold, only this time it's about 1,000 times more frustrating than waiting for Wuk Lamat to wrestle an alpaca. I’m glad in the end Wuk Lamat understood the problem was not solvable with peace, but I feel dissatisfied with my part in it because I should have been able to say something before we got to this point.

Where I feel DT is its strongest is in its writing about family, as well as its themes about death and grief. The writing around the Dawnservant and his children, their relationships with each other, the writing around Erenville and his mother, and even the brief segment with Krile and her parents, are all really good! 

The bond between Koana and Wuk Lamat I feel is without question, it's the easiest to understand. Between the fact that they’re adopted alongside Zoraal Ja, Wuk lamat’s relationship with Nakkia, and their earnest attempts to connect with Galool Ja, there is a lot of love in that family to have beyond blood and it's great to see!

But the writing shines so, so well between Erenville and Cacuia too. It was incredibly relatable to watch them struggle with their differences and similarities. Evernville’s growing frustrations while Cacuia continues to not just be work focused, but just go along her merry way in general while they BOTH decide ultimately not to address their issues until the very end- that is a very real and relatable familial experience for a lot of people [myself included lol]. Even Krile’s little awkward moment with her parents that she’s never met before is so on point I want to die of secondhand awkward. Bonus points of G’Raha being the one to fix it, because he’s like family to her and knows just what to do!

It’s weakest point here is in regards to Zoraal Ja and Galool Ja Ja sadly, but I think this is more to do with the fact that there just seems to be a missing piece of Zoraal Ja’s story in general?? There’s a suggestion of tension between the two, as Galool Ja Ja says something to the effect that he is the source of Zoraal Ja’s anger, but it's not explained beyond this. 

And while the writing around the soul usage and the memory uploading is a bit clunky [to say the least], the idea of the Endless and Living Memory itself is also quite good. It's a wish fulfillment fantasy really, not just in the idea of avoiding death, but in avoiding what death takes from us. The goals left undone and the things left unsaid. Wouldn't it be nice if death wasn't the end and we could do all the things we wanted and speak the words we needed when we didn't get the chance before? It would be nice…but it can't be that way. It's not how things are meant to be, and to do otherwise is to lose value in living life while you have it. There's a bittersweetness to the whole concept, and as someone who's lost older relatives to stroke and Alzheimer’s and had to comfort my brother at their wake reminding him that this is why we must value the time we have with those still with us…let's just say the Nakkia part hit home. 

I know this already so long, but here’s some other random shit I thought about while writing this but doesn't fit in the overall story discussion well before I close out:

The Scions themselves feel…almost like they are here because someone thought we’d be mad if they weren’t. And don’t get me wrong I’m glad they are here, but it feels like a bit of a stretch for some. Alphie, Alisae and Krile make perfect sense, they have reasonable motivations for coming along.  In the case of Urianger and Thancred I’m mostly just mad we never actually got to fight lmao. Estinien…well I guess he is a wandering hobo just short of being an adventurer himself [affectionate]. And then by the time G’Raha and Y’Shtola arrive its like “oh finally! Are they going to like…actually get to do stuff though at this point?” and the answer is…kinda. They get to be the answers people. Again it mostly comes around to the second half being…ehhh??? The fact that we had to write out a reason to keep several of them out of the golden city was a little telling. Not like Alisae was being allowed to do anything as it was =7=; [I know I keep looking at her expectantly specifically but it's because she tends to be the most outspoken when things are nonsensical lol]

Who the fuck was Galool Ja's mom? Where IS Zoraal Ja's mom?? Hell we also meet Wuk Lamat's birth father but where is her birth mother??? I know she's got Nakkiah, that’s not the point! She just doesn’t exist! Koana's the only one that has an explanation on why his are missing. WHAT IS THIS DISNEY BULLSHIT, anyways-

Maybe a minor note but also the Echo was used...hardly at all? This isn't as much a hard criticism as just puzzlement. I know as a narrative tool, something like the Echo is a thing to be used sparingly. Usually they use it to "show don't tell" a thing we need to know but were not witness to [or as a flashback], and it makes sense that for really learning about new cultures that we wouldn't really want this right now. But I remember thinking "wow, been a while since we did this" when it finally happened. And it stuck me that like, this usually would have happened at least once or twice before this point. I'm surprised we never had it to gain insight to Zoraal Ja like Krile seemed to, or honestly, the second after Bakool Ja Ja fled after defeat from Wuk Lamat would have been a prime moment. And yet it did not happen. It almost feels like the writers either forgot about the Echo for a while, or simply deliberately avoided it to the point of its absence feeling unusual. Both are...hmm.

I’m sure I will think of other things later but this is already horrendously long so maybe it’s best to leave it at this and tack on other points later. In the end I mostly ruminate on all of this because previous expansions were more satisfying or more tightly written. Some of them had their issues, HW had some pacing problems with the Ul'Dah stuff and Stormblood had some awkwardness in pacing throughout, but on the whole I found these expansions fun and satisfying anyways. I don't ask that the game be doing a 10/10 all the time. It just can't lol but I do want the plot to make to at least make sense in its own rules and by the characters in it. If the characters in your story suddenly have to behave differently for your message to work, then changes need to be made to your story. Whether this means changing things about your plot, or creating situations to keep certain elements from disrupting it. And it seems that they went with the latter, but in the most ham-fisted ways possible sadly. Hopefully things will straighten out when the story picks up for the eventual continuation of the story.

[blackbird-brewster]

So sorry you have dual illnesses rn and I hope you feel better soon! What's your take on some of the fandom assuming that Emily outed Tara to the team? It seems like everyone except JJ already knew when Emily told her, leading me to think that we didn't see Tara telling the others.

Oh god, I have complained about this endlessly to my partner. YES, I understand that PERHAPS Tara told everyone else and JJ was simply the last to know.... BUT that still doesn't change the fact the viewers literally saw this...(we're going to look at this through a cishet lens because let's be honest, the show is mostly consumed by cishets who wouldn't understand queer nuances here.) 1) Emily sees Tara smiling at a woman and IMMEDEATLY 'clocks it'

Why I hate it: The fucking jokey line of 'Ohhh you two are SO a thing!' is just really annoying to me. CISHETS DO NOT DO THIS???? Like we all fucking laugh about 'they're just gals being pals!' Cishet people go out of their way to explain two women being close to each other, they don't INSTANTLY see two women just SMILING at each other and go 'Oh you're dating!?' "But Kit! It's because Emily is gay!" No. Emily is NOT canonically queer. As far as any of us know, Emily is canonically STRAIGHT, so this in itself was a type of forced-outing. This entire 'coming out' scene with Emily was unnecessary. Why did someone else have to 'clock it'??? Why couldn't they just have Tara say "Hey, Emily...if Rebecca is going to help us out, cards on the table. We're dating." << This makes the coming out part Tara's CHOICE. 2) "Oh we're so going to give you shit about this" - Emily

Why I hate it: It really read as "We're going to give you shit about DATING A WOMAN" and I fucking hateeeee it. They could have EASILY made the line more specific "Can't believe you've been dating and we didn't know!" Like??? Why do they need to make jokes about giving her shit???? Queer people get bullied and teased (and assaulted and murdered) just because they're queer. The whole "haha Tara's coming out is going to be a point of joking in the team!" is such garbage imo. It's really damaging in the implication that her dating a woman should be joked about AT ALL. I know people reading this will say "Oh, but the team always teases each other when they date people!" Sure, they tease STRAIGHT people about it. But the implications of teasing Tara (A BLACK QUEER WOMAN) AT ALL is completely unnecessary. 3) "Did you say...girlfriend?" - JJ

Why I hate it: YES I 100% felt like this was Emily just casually outing Tara. And I really hate how they used that as a 'punchline' moment. All the press releases talked about how JJ/Tara worked as the only two following up on ALL consults for a YEAR. That to me indicates out of any of the team who might have ALREADY know...it would be JJ???? "But Tara probably already told everyone else!" Okay, AGAIN... let's look at this through the lens of the main viewership (cishets).... they aren't going to get that nuance or come to that possibility. They're going to see this scene and be like "LOL this was a funny punchline!" or "Wow, outing people is a fun joke!" No, FUCK THAT. It would NOT have been that hard to INSTEAD, have Tara bring Rebecca into the round table room and preface it with 'This is Rebecca from the DOJ, who is also my girlfriend, but that's unimportant right now...." Personally, I think a lot of (queer) fans are desperately trying to look at Tara's coming out as a 'perfect' scene. But y'all do know that even if you enjoy a piece of media, even if you're hyped that Tara is canonically queer.... YOU CAN STILL REMAIN CRITICAL of how that was played out in canon!!!! I mean the very next episode they have Rebecca and Tara moving in together or the 'u-haul' stereotype. It is ESTABLISHED that Rebecca doesn't HAVE to move back to the city (if she stays with Tara in Virginia) so why not just have that?? Sure it's a commute, but she's going to have a commute either way???? If they had been dating longer than 'a couple of months' and were talking about moving in together, I'd probably be okay with that??? But I really felt like it was YET ANOTHER stereotype being played out and I just....I'm tired, y'all. I'm so tired of seeing most queer media play out in harmful stereotypes. I don't know why it's so impossible to just have queer characters who have regular, healthy, wholesome relationships?? (Probably because MOST showrunners/producers/writers are cishet and don't understand that these relationships exist....but that's a whole other rant post in itself) So, Anon.... I guess to answer your question: Yes, I feel like Emily outed Tara and I'm quite angry at how that's played out. (I haven't watched E3, but as far as I know....Tara never (on-camera) came out to anyone else???) >> [More Thoughts] [About Tara's] [Coming Out] << These are my opinions. You're allowed to have other points of view, but make your own post. Because I'm not here for discourse.

[trickstarbrave]

i have a lot of thoughts about "problematic" media and the dumb fucking "pro-ship vs antis" discourse that are probably disjointed bc i am half awake

for one i wanna preface this with: i think it is good actually to critique problematic elements in any media. movies, games, comics, tv shows, even fanfiction. if you think me saying something is "problematic" means i think it should be outlawed and banned and i personally want you, a fan of that thing, to die and i support suicide baiting you, you are just as braindead as the people you claim to hate. you are annoying. this post is not for you and is in fact also about you. you are a tar pit.

there is a vocal minority of people who do in fact see any depiction of something bad and think it has to be condoning it. they are genuinely few and far between, but they are VERY vocal, and typically very young. but i think after looking at how these people thing and present arguments, i really understand why they think this

depiction, if you are something with any critical thinking skills, does not inherently condone or condemn its subject matter. it can condone it, yes, but it can also condemn it. typically a story is mature enough to depict certain things, it is doing so for a reason and has a lot of nuance and shows if it condemns or condones it in indirect ways. for example in a very clear cut way: slasher films show a killer murdering people. they are screaming and dont want to be killed and try to stop him or run away. it is supposed to make you, the audience, feel bad and go 'well i wouldnt wanna get killed'. but at no point does someone look at the camera and go "killing people is wrong and should not be condoned. people dont like being killed".

this gets a bit more messy in other topics that are commonly normalized or go under the radar like racism and abuse. ultimately i think many stories that are "problematic" arent really done that way on purpose, hence why i dont believe in attacking the people who made that story for these things. a lot of times these things sneak their way in subconsciously or by pure carelessness. example: i do not think all of the designers for skyrim are racist white supremacists who intentionally made this story to be a perfect recruiting and radicalization tool for white supremacists. skyrim is a story about fantasy pop culture vikings in fantasy pop-culture viking land where you kill dragons. however there are also elves, which oppose the fantasy pop culture vikings and the vikings hate, and a civil war where many of the fantasy vikings want to purge and non-pop culture fantasy viking out of magical fantasy viking land. that shit is like catnip to white surpremacists. they love that shit. ultimately skyrim is just written badly. at no point was that the INTENTION behind the game, but it has been used to radicalize a lot of white guys and also is still beloved by white supremacists for these reasons.

ultimately that example is one most people im talking about wouldnt even get though, because it requires a lot of thought, understanding of how white supremacy operates, how we even got the concept of "vikings" in our larger pop culture (it was nazis, lol) and that those concepts are wildly inaccurate, etc. instead these kinds of critiques go after very overt depictions of subject matter or literally children's media.

and i think there is a very real reason why they do this i have come to realize: not only do they not know how to critically think, actually trying to think critically even in the slightest is mentally exhausting to them. by this i don't mean "ha ha they are stupid and lazy" i mean they genuinely dont understand critical thinking. at all. like they lack media literacy entirely. ive heard dumb takes from these people like "symbolism is trying to hide/bury the themes of a story" or "because the abuse in this story is metaphorical it doesn't count". they dont understand the parts of a story and why they are utilized as literary devices and actively resent having to think about the things presented to them.

this is a larger cultural issue. i see it beyond just self aggrandizing, black and white morality faux activists. you can see it in spaces of pretty much any political view or in any community: a lack of understanding of how to break down information and stories to evaluate it. we all have a tendency towards bias and they familiar and things that make us comfortable, but these people are on a whole other level. thinks like metaphor are seen as nothing more than lies and detraction used to obscure information rather than help build information up. understanding nuance, personal flaws, deeper intentions, and how you actually convey complex information is completely beyond them.

they live, ultimately, to just drink up content and media while having to think as little as humanely possible. they crave exciting stories but with extremely simplistic meanings and those stories just don't exist. because confronting these topics means rethinking their entire world view, be they extremely insular "leftists" or right leaning morons. it means admitting maybe they are not always right and perfect in more complex ways than simple mistakes a 4 year old would make. even when people like to bitch and moan that "depicting something doesn't mean you inherently condone it" they don't give examples on how you can tell. they don't talk about how personal biases can contribute to a story condoning it when the author does not consciously believe it. unconscious biases aren't even necessarily harmful, but going unchecked they can evolve to full on bigotry, born out of a refusal to admit you can be wrong about things and things are allowed to make you uncomfortable without being a personal attack on you.

because again, this thought pattern exists to preserve the ego and to think as little as possible. admitting things have nuance means admitting EVERYTHING can have nuance. that maybe the people who hurt you are not all irredeemable monsters or that you were the villain in someone else's life. that people you love to attack for moral superiority are complex individuals with their own lives and experiences.

this thought process is ultimately AGAINST accountability too. things are bad because they are bad. there are no pieces that give it nuance, the existence of them is either morally good or morally bad. which means if you think of yourself as morally good, as we all like to, that means you can never, EVER admit to doing something "morally bad", intentionally or not. i saw it recently with mods for a community refusing to admit they did something racist (attacking a black woman and making her life miserable) and would instead rather burn the community down with them while whining about they feel "unsafe" because people said that behavior was unacceptable, wanted them to apologize to the person harmed, and put steps in place to keep it from happening again. which is basic accountability. but that requires thinking about your actions, why they happened, that it doesn't make you an irredeemable monster who can never be better ever, and accept responsibility for what you did.

it is protection of biases and your own beliefs rather than challenging them. to think critically we need to know how to break these things down, evaluate them individually, how they work in a larger whole, and why these things are being told to us. maybe people refuse because they are comfortable in their biases. maybe people are comfortable in their biases and dont like acknowledging them because they dont understand critical thinking and media analysis. maybe its both. i dont really know.

all i know is it is annoying and maybe we really need to by and large teach people literary analysis and critical thinking skills from the ground up. because i cannot keep looking at the same brain dead takes in every community about how symbolism exists to obscure and metaphors are actually lies because "why not just be literal" and watch people make the dumbest moral arguments on both sides of any debate

[agentvalentine]

About Jill's Brainwashing and Trauma.

This is a very, very long post. It's longer than I intended for it to be. But anyway, some of you know I studied psychology and it tends to be one of my main interests in media I consume. I like to analyze characters and dive into their headspace and make sense of what they've been through and how it affects their behavior and relationships, etc. Jill is one of those characters who have gone through so much from a young age, and, naturally, I like to analyze her and think about how everything she experienced has shaped her up into who she is now. I'll be referencing stuff from RE.5, RE.3R and DI. I have to preface this by saying I love RE.5. I think it's a good game and super fun to play. But I do have some criticism for it, specficially in terms of how it treats Jill.

Content warning for: attempted suicide.

I've talked about this before in an ask, but also just to double down on it. We see in RE3.R, during that first nightmate sequence, that Jill would rather shoot herself than turn into an infected. We also see in another dream sequence in that game that she'd rather let an infected Carlos kill her than shoot him.

Having seen DI and the extra content, the writers also talk about this when they compare Jill to Dylan, where the difference between them is that Jill would never pull the trigger on her friends/people she considers close. This is why she doesn't pull the trigger on Claire who is on the verge of turning. Jill also sympathizes with Dylan to a certain degree because she recognizes their similarities, and that's why she doesn't shoot him, either, even though she had every opportunity to.

I think Jill's "Go f yourself" to Dylan is less about her telling him to F himself, and more about her feeling frustrated and conflicted. Because on one hand, she gets where he's coming from, on the other, they both made different choices.

In addition, what happened in RE5 was totally out of Jill's control. She didn't choose to attack Chris or Sheva or anyone. It was all happening against her will, and we even see her resisting that for a moment. Whereas Dylan willingly pulled the trigger on his friend, so even though the weapon turned out to be empty, he still made that choice of his own free will, and had to live with it.

Knowing all this, I don't think it's farfetched to assume that Jill was wishing death upon herself all the while she was attacking Chris and Sheva or hurting whoever it is Wesker ordered her to hurt that day. Because, as we've established before, she'd rather die than become a monster who poses a danger to her friends, and she'd rather die than have to fight/kill her friends and those she cares about.

My headcanon (while taking the rewrite of Jill's character into consideration) has always been that, throughout the experiments, and knowing that she did manage to gain some level of consciousness admist them (which led to the gradual increase of the dosage), Jill would have likely tried to end her life on multiple occasions just to stop herself from: a. doing things against her will and b. hurting people she didn't want to hurt and c. becoming the puppet of the man who is the cause of all her suffering since 1998 and d. becoming and aiding the one thing she's been trying to fight against (bioterrorists).

But even ignoring the remake and putting its acknowledgement of Jill's PTSD aside, what Jill experiences in those 3 years is still, pretty simply, messed up. I dare say beyond messed up, even. And this is where my frustration comes from. Because this is such a big deal that was downplayed so hard in RE.5. It's really funny to me that Cap.com thought the best way to handle someone who's been through all this is to essentially have her wake up from being brainwashed for three whole years, and be immediately hit on by a random man she just met. Not only that, my woman somehow finds it in her to flirt back. And then later on it's not just Josh hitting on her, but also Doug on the comms, and Jill's just there like "yeah, tell me more."

I like Josh and his dynamic with Jill, and I also liked their chemistry. So my problem isn't at all with the flirting itself, per se (although I stand by the fact Josh shouldn't have flirted with her IMMEDIATELY after waking up, nor should she have flirted back). The flirting could have actually worked perfectly if it had been used in a smart way, as means for Jill to cope with her trauma. If it had been Jill's way of distracting herself and keeping herself grounded in the present.

The problem is that, this is not at all how the flirting was used. Because throughout the entirety of RE5 and Desperate Escape, Jill's trauma is never ONCE acknowledged. We never see her dissociate, pause, freeze or "lose" herself momentarily as she processes everything that happened to her. We never see her struggling or fighting with her body that is still not 100% responding to her because the virus is still in her system and hasn't left it completely.

We never see any signs or hints about how awful and draining the whole brainwashing experience was for Jill. She just passes out after Chris and Sheva save her, wakes up, and suddenly she's fine. Everything's functioning as normal. She's being hit on and hitting back on people. Because Cap.com chose to reduce her character to badass blonde in sexy catsuit. Jill had to endure so much, and yet her own struggles are barely acknowledged, and simply used as a tool to amplify Chris's "oh no i lost my partner and now she's working for my archnemesis i'm so sad and angry." That's all she was in that game, fuel to Chris's trauma. Never mind what she had to go through in those three years.

The laziest thing they could have done is include flashbacks from the game itself (if they were too lazy to animate new cutscenes), from her fight with Chris and Sheva + the flashbacks from the Spencer Estate, but shown from HER POV, just so we know "hey, btw, Jill is absolutely not over the fact she nearly died, was brainwashed AND almost killed her best friend."

More effectively, they should have shown us things from when Jill was working under Wesker's control, the horrible things he made her do, the awful experiments she had to endure, instances of her regaining control and trying to fight for her freedom. Hell, they could have made those events part of the RE5 narrative, a "what Jill has been up to while Chris was doing this" sort of thing. In the vein of Separate Ways in RE.4. Instead of starting Desperate Escape during the point at which Jill is "free," we could have started it earlier. We could have also used Jill's familiarity with the setting, as she guides Josh around during their escape, to include instances of her telling Josh "this is where X happened and this is where Wesker did Y and this is where I did Z" etc.

Jill was so objectified beyond belief in RE.5 both by the narrative and by the writers/developers. The funny thing is there were easy and quick solutions to give her character more depth throughout so she's not as flat as a blank sheet of paper (character-wise, because they made damn sure she wasn't flat physique-wise).

They could have delayed the flirting with Josh till after they've established her messed up mental state and used it as a coping mechanism. They could have shown us flashbacks from her POV to get a better, closer look into what she had to endure. They could have interrupted Jill's badassery and used breathing moments to showcase instances of weakness where she dissociates or temporarily loses control again and attacks Josh, just so we know this woman is still struggling, but she's doing her best to fight and get out of here regardless.

I don't think allowing Jill to be weak for a few minutes would have taken away from her badass status. On the contrary, I think it would have made her even stronger because, despite all her internal struggles, she's still fighting. But the complete erasure of her internal struggles and trauma in favor of her looking badass is just quite honestly icky and unrealistic. Not only that, any reference to what Jill went through is only within context of "this is really sad for Chris. Look at what Chris had to endure. Poor man."

And the thing is, I'm not even asking they take that out, because yeah, what Chris went through? It's pretty horrible and messed up and very valid, too. But I do take issue with the fact only HIS struggles are recognized but not Jill's.

RE.5 gives a very unrealistic, crappy and objectifying portrayal of Jill, and I wholeheartedly believe this is one of the main reasons why, now that cap.com is actually trying to acknowledge Jill's trauma from the very start (since the Spencer Mansion incident), and give a more accurate perspective on her mental and emotional state, people are struggling to accept this "new" Jill. Even though, at her core, she is very much the same Jill, just reacting to certain things the way a human would react after enduring so much.

The many times she shows kindness and care for characters (dead and alive) in RE3R are countless. Her resolve to fight for the innocent and save people is ever stronger. So strong she's willing to team up with people who work for the corporation that caused the deaths of her comrades and traumatized her for life, in order to save and help those in need.

It's always funny to me people call Jill a b because of the way she acts with Carlos at the start of the game. Are you telling me that after surviving a horror mansion filled with zombies and all sorts of monsters, watching your comrades die and failing to save most of them, barely making it out yourself, being betrayed by your captain whom you trusted, returning with the hope to stop the tragedy only to find out your chief has been bribed by the corporation behind it all, getting suspended by said chief, watching the city fall apart as the evil corporation takes control of it, having to literally take medication made by said corporation to help yourself sleep at night so you can function as a human being for a while, knowing this company is constantly endangering the lives of the innocent, that after going through ALL OF THIS, you run into a dude who works for the nightmare company, and you just go "Oh cool, nice to meet you"????

I think Jill has earned every right to be angry and throw a few f-bombs at people, but that's just me.

And I also have a whole lot to say about Jill and Chris post-RE.5 all the way to DI, but this post is already so long, so I'm gonna cut it here and maybe talk about that another day.

Edit to add: it's also even more frustrating that Jill didn't even get to execute revenge on the man who enslaved her for years and instead had to watch Chris and Sheva kill him with a very minor contribution on her end. This adds to just how downplayed Jill's struggles are in the game. Because throughout it all, Wesker is more or less Chris's archnemesis even though he messed up Jill's life just as bad, if not more.

[lifeonthemurdersim]

🥑 🔪 🧩 🌿 for the writer ask meme please :3

Thank you 😊

Writer's truth or dare ask meme

🥑- you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

C'mon, obviously YOU and @cptsadist. I mean technically not text, who texts anymore? But message. Obviously there would be a severe geographical hindrance to either of you physically helping but I'd need the moral support. Plus I feel like both of you would genuinely come up with some creative solutions 😆 Win-win.

🔪- what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Oh my god so many 🤣 I'm counting RPs in this bc they are collaborative writing as far as I'm concerned. Here are a few I can think of off the top of my head:

How to perform a relay attack to steal a car.

How dark you can tint your windows in different states.

Lot of shit about Michigan slang and phrasing.

The route from Washington DC to NYC. But like in great detail.

Like practically everything I could find about Lawrence from Gato's old ask tumblr.

So much drug stuff. How to knock someone out for example, and how long one can be unconscious without brain damage. Effects of various recreational drugs too and crucially, how to actually take most of them 😅

What a full-body orgasm feels/looks like for an AMAB person. And stuff like refractory periods and such.

On that note, actually, average distance of ejaculation 🤣 OK that one was for an art piece but it had text so I technically "wrote" it.

"Do Americans say (word/phrase)?" 😅

Less deadly bullet wounds, dangerous but healable bullet wounds etc.

Quite a lot of BDSM stuff.

Stalking people's OCs to write them correctly.

If MI5 are watching me, I'm either a very kinky fucker or a serious threat.

🧩- what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

I'll preface this by saying I don't really read much fanfic, in fact I don't read books either anymore, so the fact I can even write coherently frequently surprises me! I generally have read mostly smutty oneshots in the past which is why I think I'm pretty hypocritical for writing a 300k word fic and expecting people to actually read it(there is a lot of smut though)!

I mean there are a lot of things I wouldn't click on in the first place, underage and incest for example, I'm also very wary of non-con even in the context of murder sim fandoms bc it's hard to know what I'll personally find triggering.

There are writing/layout choices that my brain would struggle with, but I feel like I can't really think of an example? I try to keep an open mind with things like point of view, tense and spelling.

I'm also fairly neutral about most kinks I'm not into and will read stuff if it's recommended to me or I otherwise think I might enjoy it. I have a few nopes but I feel like if I get specific that's being critical of those kinks? When really it's just things that personally don't appeal to me.

Yes I have turn offs. Sorry to shock anyone. 😅

🌿- give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

Possibly controversial. If you're not loving it, don't do it. Go do something else, whether that's switching to a different project, a different media or just going to do something else entirely.

By all means let your friends and/or fans know you'll be taking a break! But for me, I have to be passionately focused on something for it to work.

I do have one other tip though. If we're talking fanfic, weigh up the pros and cons of when to post. If you have more ready, it gives you time to catch up. I managed to get weekly 8k chapters out of my old longfic because I had 60% of the thing written already. I made it through several writer's blocks and only got a little behind. Thay said, there were days when the regular comments were the only thing keeping me going. It's difficult to find a balance. I guess it's a personal thing, but as I say, weigh it up.

[the--highlanders]

choose violence ask game (loving the name of that btw) - 8, 16, & 23?

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

(this fandom is so small that I don't want to sound like I'm vagueblogging or @-ing someone or anything so I'm just gonna preface this by saying this also goes for plenty of licensed media)

oh man ok. at risk of sounding like a total killjoy who takes everything too seriously & looks too much into stuff. I'm pretty sensitive about. primitivism in the way jamie gets portrayed?? is the best way I can think to describe it?? anything that implies that where & when he comes from means that he's inherently less intelligent, or equates his lack of knowledge on some things with him being stupid. can't stand him being reduced to dumb guy who hits stuff. idiot who has no critical thinking skills or reasoning.

and like, I get that it's a fairly common assumption, the idea that people from the past weren't as smart because they didn't know as much (even setting aside the devaluing of /different/ ways of knowing & understanding) - but, say, victoria never gets this treatment. despite also being from the past. which then leads you to think, hey, why would people make that assumption about jamie and not about victoria?

and then you get to a bunch of ideas which have been kicking around since. before jamie's time, real-world-historically speaking. which depict the highlands as savage, as populated by 'wild' people, by - well - 'primitives'. speakers of a primitive language. violent, at worst, strong, at best, but never intelligent. & this is all starting to sound a lot like the ideas that buttress colonialism and biological determinism, isn't it?

idk. this is a silly 60s family tv show & a very very small online fandom. it's kind of not that deep. but any time jamie gets written off as being inherently stupid (often /because/ of where he comes from), and any time that idea is the foundation of a joke, it rubs me the wrong way, and this is why.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

gfdhkjsg once again this is a v small fandom so 'so many people' is kinda like..... 2 people max probably. & also I've been sort of keeping more or less to myself for a couple years now in terms of actually discussing thoughts & headcanons (except you obviously and also @ettelwenailinon who is always right about everything despite not being super active in dr who fandom on tumblr anymore <3)

gonna go with shipping jamie and victoria tbh. absolutely no hate if you do bc I can definitely see where it comes from in canon/behind the scenes stuff but it is just,,, not for me at all, and so antithecal to how I write/interpret their characters.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

tenrose?? weirdly?? not that I'd say I actively ship it (there is one (1) tenrose fic in my ao3 bookmarks but it's really there bc it's a pretty charming magical realism au and the voices of all the characters are just so spot on rather than bc I ever crave reading about the ship) but. when I got into dr who in 2013 there felt like there was a pretty solid line between rtd fans and moffat fans. & I have always vibed with moffat's era more (neither of them are above criticism obviously, the scifi fairytale aesthetic/tone of moffat's era is just so so so so tailor-made for me personally).

and for some reason tenrose and elevenriver were kind of. bundled into that opposition?? not sure if that was just in my head or something other people noticed/experienced but I felt like if you were a moffat fan you had to ship elevenriver & if you were an rtd fan you had to ship tenrose, and they were like. rivals. (yes I did try very half-heartedly to enjoy elevenriver. no I never succeeded). so I always had this thing of like, I don't like ten, I don't like tenrose.

like I said I still don't actively ship it, I don't get any warm fuzzy feelings from their relationship, but I did go back into rtd's era looking to actively enjoy stuff (after being tired of really not enjoying uh. recent seasons ajhksglf) and found that I didn't hate the concept of tenrose as much as I used to. I genuinely believed they liked each other, I felt the hubris of their relationship worked and built well narratively. never thought that ship would get a redemption arc in my head but I've definitely gained more appreciation for its role in the narrative.

[verytiredbeaver]

Because I'm bored and it's almost the Christmas season I thought I might rank the John Lewis Christmas adverts over the last few years. For anyone who doesn't know John Lewis is a pretty big department store in the UK and its kinda a Christmas tradition that they release these fairly elaborate Christmas adverts every year.

I know this is just capitalist pandering and I'm ultimately playing into systems which are destroying the world and meaning of holidays.... anyway.

The 2012 advert is pretty good, people really like this one apparently and while it's a nice simple message it's too vague for me. I don't really feel anything out of watching it and the song isn't that good imo. 5/10

2013 is a tough one, on the one hand the designs are wonderful and Lilly Allen is an icon. Looking at the behind the scenes I realised that this at least partially animated by stop motion bur I dunno, something about this one still just doesn't click for me. I do like the whole message of sticking together despite differences but as a whole it's not really my favourite 6/10

I love Monty the penguin so much but the song isn't that good and just feels a tad off hut otherwise pretty great. I felt this penguins need to feel togetherness with another on a very deep level but the thing with the toys at the end just kind of doesn't click for me. 5/10

FINALLY! The reason I have been obsessed with these adverts for almost a decade now. Instant classic, instant tears, song is perfect, message is good, overall vibe is cute. I go feral for the bit where the party sound cuts out and the old man is all alone and then it comes back when he gets the telescope. 2015 is flawless, genuinely imo 1000/10

2016 was a bad year for all of us, wasn't it. This included, I like foxes but the cgi isn't great and it's kinda just a repeat of 2014. I also feel it lacks any real critical message that all the other ones have had, I know this sounds idiotic but this one feels the most like an ad and only an ad. 4/10

I've actually never seen this one before I started this post.... there's a reason for that. The songs okay and I do actually like this kid and monster interacting but as a whole I think it has the opposite problem of 2016 where its trying to do a lot with very little. It feels forced and its not very good imo, also it loses points for kinda copping out in the end. 6/19

I gotta preface this by saying The Sun is bad and if you can find this video on a different YouTube channel please link below.

That aside, I love Elton John, he's a personal favourite of mine and I think in a time where arts programmes and the value of stuff like that gets diminished it is kinda of beautiful to visualise the impact nurturing musical talent can have on people. This feels like a very short version of Rocket man and it wouldn't shock me if they drew a little inspiration from this advert. It's not the most emotional and i think i take points off for kinda just doing Elton John whose basically guaranteed to please people but yeah, 8/10

This. This right here, one fucked up little guy, Edgar is my blorbo and I adore him. This is what 2017 wished it was. The little fantasy town is nice and the cover of the song is honestly pretty good. The general vibe is also good because it's a little sad and that's what I'm looking for tbh. 8/10

I honestly kinda of like the visual aesthetic of this one with the mixed media approach of stop motion, traditional imagination and papercraft. I like the message of this one a lot because I'm a suckered for the positive choices having wide ranging positive impact on the world. The one problem I have is the pacing is a little off and the time loop at the end feels kinda unnecessary 8/10

I have grown to like this one a bit more but u very vividly remember watching the 2021 advert and not liking it. I think it might be the alien, they don't look that alien and I'm not a huge fan of ET which this is a pretty blatant play on. While I do like the message of sharing culture and peace on earth and there's a few moments worth noting it's just kinda mid for me, the kiss at the end also kinda weirds me out but thats probably my own thoughts on this being a kind of ET homage clouding that. As I said I've softened on it but its still a 6/10

I dunno maybe this whole list is asinine and a wasteful glorification of capitalism and I should do something better with my evening

...

JUST WHEN I THINK IM OUT THEY PULL ME BACK IN. Boy howdy did I feel some things while watching this that I pressumed an advert could never stir within me. I really relate to the Taylor Swift lyric "I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try" and man does this hit the spot! Also I think this might he the most solidified message since 2015 because I think foster care and the general care system is so important in our society and its nice to use this platform to bring attention to a worthwhile cause. Bonus points I've included a link to the song in this one because it's sung by a semi creepy sad clown man, which is obviously a plus (I like to think he recorded the version in this advert in the full get up). Great, spot on, Christmas miracle (tm) 1001/10

[madetwolast]

Dating Apps

I'll preface this entire post by pointing out that my relationship happened fully, organically in-person. It predates the astronomical rise of dating apps. I've never had to deal with inappropriate messages, or misogynistic men, or awkward conversations or ghosting. If you are in the app-based dating scene, you have my fullest sympathies. I'll never pretend to know what it's like, or how troublesome it can be.

While I am a huge supporter of taking it back "old school" the rest of this will be focused on my best advice for those who are relying on online dating in some capacity.

First, I firmly believe that your apps should be a means to an end- with the end being an in-person, real-life connection. You should not be online dating with the intention of staying virtual indefinitely. In-person meetings need to happen to establish whether there's truly a connection. If you don't add the real-life ingredient, you open yourself up to being tied to a fantasy with no end in sight.

If I were in your shoes and using apps or websites, these are a few things I'd be pretty firm on:

Swiping Right

It should go without saying that you should not accept someone you're not attracted to. If marriage is your goal, you have to get in the habit of not wasting your time or anyone else's. That means you shouldn't accept someone just because you like the attention you might be receiving. Maybe a lot of people are accepting you, or viewing your profile, or DMing you. I promise it will not translate to real-life success if you're unfocused. Be critical, be selective, and be fast. Don't talk yourself into anyone, and don't let flattery cloud your judgement. Narrow things down to people you could see yourself being interested in.

Limiting DMs

It can be so easy to get sucked into text conversations indefinitely. They're incredibly convenient. The issue becomes this: if you give someone enough opportunity, they'll eventually say something you don't like. Or, you'll end up in a conversation that's headed nowhere. One of the strangest phenomena in the rise of social media is how willing people are to say just about anything via a comment or private message. That holds true whether it's someone you know or a total stranger.

When you match with someone, you should be aiming to line up a date within the first 5 minutes of conversation. Yes, really.

You shouldn't need to vet someone for hours or days to know if you want to hang out with them. If you were attracted enough to "swipe right" and if in 5 minutes of conversation they were normal and equally attracted to you, it's time to take the connection off line.

Timing

You'll have a million options for dates. My advice would be to always plan a first date in the afternoon. I'd recommend either lunch or an activity. My rationale is simple- coffee is too casual, and dinner is too formal for a first meeting. Dinner comes with a lot of expectations and implications. It would be better to save it for when you know there's a spark- so, either the second or third date (I'd personally lean toward third date)

Back to lunch now. Lunch or an afternoon activity gives you an opportunity to see someone during the day and hopefully behaving as they truly are. Afternoons also provide flexibility. You can cut it short if you're not feeling it, or you can make the outing last several hours if you are feeling it.

Also, don't expect the person you're interested in to do all the thinking. Have a few restaurants or activities in mind to suggest. Make sure to ask what they think too, so that it feels collaborative.

Advancing

Hopefully your first date goes really well. If it does, I'd recommend making the end of the date the moment you share your personal number. I would not recommend giving your number via the dating app, during the initial conversation. Save it for after the date, when you're sure this is someone you want to continue exploring.

If you're into the person, please limit your text conversations. Try to work with a goal of talking over the phone, Facetiming, or meeting in person. Text will just never convey the same energy as a normal conversation. It's important that this person can hear your voice or read your facial expressions. Not only will it help grow your connection, it could also help prevent simple misunderstandings with tone or humor.

Don't be coy or too casual. If you want to see this person again, you should make that known. Don't let too long pass before you're making plans to see each other again. It's okay to be up-front about that expectation. If the other person isn't feeling it, then it was destined to fail anyway.

Dating coaches (there are a million of them) are known to tell people to be "marriage minded" and bring up married/family life as quickly as possible. I know this sounds super daunting. You might worry that you're coming on way too strong. The point I would make is this: you need to be able to filter out people who aren't going to commit.

When you say you're interested in marriage, you're not proposing to your date. You're simply laying out an expectation. They should be able to at the very least say that they are also interested in marriage. If you get someone who says they don't see themselves ever getting married, well there's your answer.

I'll add that three dates should be enough for you to know if you want to be exclusive with this person. That doesn't mean you get engaged or move in together. It just means that's the point at which you should define whether you want to stop talking to other people or not. I think of the first three dates as almost like rounds of job interviews. If I've gone through three rounds in the process, it's time for you to tell me whether I got the job or what comes next. I can't keep interviewing indefinitely.

Hopefully you're both on the same page and you can let things blossom!

Questions to ponder:

Am I on this app/site for attention, or for connection? Am I navigating in a way that will give me real-life results? Am I engaging in conversations headed to nowhere? Do my online persona and real-life persona match? Is the person I'm on this date with experiencing the authentic me? Am I playing games?

[lazzarella]

Oh, I started a very similar post recently but couldn't be bothered posting it. (Read: was too chicken)

“it’s important to be critical of the media we consume” doesn’t mean I have to do so in a public forum

This! This is exactly why I often have a kneejerk "NO!" response when I see 'we have to be critical of the media we consume' because SO many people I've seen express that sentiment mean we have to do it in the public eye (and not an insignificant number of them want you to be critical in the same way they are, and if you're not then it doesn't seem to count) and preface any praise of media with a long disclaimer on its flaws. And it's not everyone, but it's enough people that I'm leery of posts like that now. I just have zero interest in always having to list every single flaw before I can dig into what I like!

Anyway, I personally try to meet media on its own terms, these days, as in I prefer to look at what it's trying to do, instead of what I think it *should* do, and I'm able to enjoy a lot more things that way! Sometimes I don't think it's successful, and sometimes I end up realising it's just not for me. And I'm also trying to keep in mind that a LOT of media critique comes down to subjective preference. Pls, I could very easily tear even some things I love to shreds, and while it can be fun while I’m yelling at my television, I personally find it more gratifying and challenging to dig into what’s working and why, I guess?

It's certainly interesting to read other people's thoughts on different shows and movies and books, but yeah, I follow people on Letterboxd and Goodreads and see people in the tags here who never seem to enjoy anything! I'm sure they do, but their reviews are always heavily skewed toward negative criticism and it must be exhausting. It seems exhausting to me, anyway!

There are so many ways to engage with art and media and focussing on the positives does not display a lack of intellectual curiosity imho

(Sorry, I don’t usually add anything to posts, but this has been on my mind a lot lately)

The thing is, I do have negative thoughts and criticisms of the things that I watch or read, but I don’t often feel compelled to share them, and I don’t think this makes me intellectually inferior or vapid.

I think it’s quite easy, in fact, to recognize the flaws in a piece of media. And I don’t owe it to the public or to strangers to make sure that they know that I know that something that happened in a show was poorly executed or that an actor had weak delivery.

If I really feel like talking about something I disliked, then I will, but “it’s important to be critical of the media we consume” doesn’t mean I have to do so in a public forum, and I don’t get why some people act like doing so makes them smarter than the rest of fandom. Frankly, I think what bothers me more than the negativity is the pretentiousness around it.

[avintagekiss24]

Hi! I don't want to start anything on here and am always willing for civil conversations. At this point there's so much I've found out about Seb (besides the video he liked, the tommy lee thing, and the girlfriend thing) that I feel so guilty if I would continue to support him. I love him sm but it just doesn't look good rn. He is associated/follows an organisation (for helping veterans) that has posted a blue lives matter flag picture and who's co-founder has sexual assault allegations against him, and worked with him in 'The last full measure'. His friend Paul Walter Hauser has done blackface in the past, and when called out on it he just listed a few people that also did blackface. There's more, I found a discussion on here that I can link. I seriously don't support "cancel culture" bc I don't think it helps anyone but there are just a lot of 'mistakes' and shady people that can be linked to Seb, I wish it wouldn't be that way. I honestly don't know what to think about it anymore.

Hi! I’m also open to having civil conversations and I don’t believe you’re trying to start anything. I really do think this situation of dragging up a four year old video and taking it completely out of context is harmful not just to Black people, but to fandom/activism in general. This is gonna be long because I’m going to take your points one by one, and I want to preface this by saying that I will not answer any derogatory, sideways asks pertaining to this subject. I will delete every single one and will block your silly ass. I’m not going to argue with people who think I’m blindly supporting Sebastian because I’m just trying to get fucked by him, or people who think I hate myself and am trying to appease some white man.

So, on with the discourse!

The video he liked - this video was taken completely out of context and that is my main issue with this whole situation. It was not a video of a white man saying that he thinks he should be able to say the n word as everyone claimed it was. They were quickly debating on whether or not it's okay to say in rap lyrics. He was told no, that's not okay, that's never okay and they moved on from it. That's it. End of story. That somehow was twisted into a click bait style headline of "Sebastian Stan likes a video of a white man defending his right to say the n word" when that is absolutely not true. My other issue is that people are more upset that Sebastian liked the video than they are about the white man in the video literally saying the n word. So, do you really care about the use of the n word like you're claiming? Cuz if you do, you'd be more upset at the white man that said the word than you would be about the white man simply liking the video. Or, are you just using this as an excuse to grandstand against a white man you don't like?

The Tommy Lee thing - Sebastian Stan playing Tommy Lee does not make Sebastian Stan a bad person. Is Charlize Theron a bad person for playing Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who started murdering men? Is Leonardo DiCaprio a bad person for playing a slave owner? Is Edward Norton a bad person for playing a nazi sympathizing racist? Actors play bad people. That doesn't mean that they themselves are bad people. 1990's Tommy Lee was a bad person, but that should have no bearing on who Sebastian Stan is or his character as a man.

The gf/Paul Walter Hauser thing - Why are we holding Sebastian accountable for what the people around him are doing? Again, why are we more upset that Sebastian is associated with people who have done questionable things than the specific people themselves? I'm not going to speak on the kimono wearing -- I'm not Asian. It's not my place to say whether or not its offensive because it's not my culture, but she posted that picture and attended that party before she started dating Sebastian, quite possibly before she even knew him. Same with Paul. I think that black face thing was long before he knew Sebastian. Now, if Sebastian was defending these actions, going around saying "I think it's okay for white women to wear Kimono's" "I think black face is fine" "I think white people should be able to say the n word" then we'd have a different story, wouldn't we? But that's not what we have, and that's not what he is doing. He is not responsible for the things his friends do or have done in the past just because he's more famous than they are, and he is not required to speak on them. Let's put it this way -- would you be comfortable having to be responsible for something a friend of yours did before you knew them? Would you want to have to be forced to answer for your friend when you yourself had nothing to do with the questionable behavior?

The organization that supports the military/blue lives matter - Sebastian cannot control what message that foundation puts out and it does not mean that he is or is not pro-police himself. There is not enough concrete evidence -- if any evidence for that matter -- that Sebastian is a blue lives matter supporter. Did Sebastian donate before they put up the blue lives matter post? Or after? I don’t know, cuz I don’t follow him that closely, but if he donates before they come out with a particular stance, that means he should be held accountable for that? I know I donated to an organization once and they turned out to support something that i’m 100% against. That means I’m a bad person because I couldn’t see into the future? Another point, how can we be certain that Sebastian saw the blue lives matter post in the first place? I know I’m not online 24 hrs a day, I miss posts all the time and I’m just an average person. I make three or four tumblr posts a day, and I’m gone. I have to play catch up on social media, and even then, I still miss stuff. So I’m sure the same happens to a working actor. As for the co-founder, I don't know who this person is and would rather not get into any allegations against them because I don't want to trigger anyone who comes across this post. If Sebastian knows about these allegations, is a willing participant/supporter of this person then yeah, that's pretty shitty, but we don't know the inner workings of this friendship/acquaintance/work relationship. We don’t know how close they are or if they even still speak.

I’m a pretty big fan of Don Cheadle. He’s a stand up guy, he’s a great actor, he’s funny, he’s political and stands up for what he believes in and in a very public way. I support him. Don Cheadle is also friends with Chris Evans, RDJ, Mark Ruffalo, and Letitia Wright (just to name a few). Chris Evans has a bipartisan forum that highlights/promotes right wing politicians, RDJ defended Chris Pratt during the whole “he’s the worst Chris in Hollywood” crap, who’s technically done black face, and who once said to a female reporter “nice tits” when she walked into the room, Mark Ruffalo just walked back his support of Palestine, and Letitia Wright retweeted/supported an anti-vaxxer/anti-trans Pastor who equated an ingredient of the covid vaccine to the devil because it contained some parts of the word Lucifer. Does that mean Don is now a bad person because he’s friends with these people? Why isn’t he getting any heat for his friendships with them? Why isn’t he being held accountable for what they’ve done and said? Oh right, because he’s not a white fave. So people don’t care one way or the other, which brings me to my next point. 

I can guarantee you that if Sebastian’s gf or Paul or this co-founder were not associated with Sebastian in any way, nobody would give a shit about her wearing a kimono, about Paul doing black face, or about the co-founder/organization being blue lives matter supporters and in that lies the actual problem. Being critical of people and their actions should be consistent and should happen all the time -- not just when they interact with your white fave. That’s when it becomes performative and looks like you just want to be able to show internet people that you follow/support/stan unproblematic celebrities, when really, you don’t care.

I think the moral of this post is that I think it's unfair to hold a complete stranger to a standard that I cannot hold myself to. I also don't view celebrities the way most teenagers/twenty somethings do, and that’s because when I entered fandom we didn't have social media, so I grew up with a wall between myself and said celebrities. There is no wall now with the presence of social media. "Fans" nowadays have a weird ownership feeling over celebrities because they can read their personal thoughts or view personal pictures and think that they have this personal quasi-friendship with them. I can't get on board with that. I prefer having the wall and I still keep the wall.

If supporting Sebastian makes you uncomfortable, then by all means, stop supporting him. Just make sure you are making this decision for yourself based on credible sources and concrete evidence and that you're not letting this fake woke activist mob make you feel uncomfortable. Internet activism means nothing unless you put your money where your mouth is in your real life and 90% of the social justice internet warriors do not. Real activism is bigger than changing your avi to a black square.