#maybe its to do with the fact that this time of year is sad for me

[martyreasemymind]

this is ridiculous.

the fact that you are presenting the things he chose to do of his own volition with the things he did when possessed is disingenuous at best and victim-blaming at worst. billy was violent and treated max horribly, but acting as if the things the mindflayer/henry creel - an entity that murders people and singles out abused children - forced him to do are somehow definite reflections of his character and relationship with others is absurd. out of this entire post only ONCE do you acknowledge that billy was possessed during over half the incidents you describe.

you have completely removed the context from either of these incidents which calls their supposed parallels into serious question.

billy grabs max's arm to frighten and punish her for not obeying him (and before you accuse me of making excuses for him, this was one of the most patently abusive things he did in canon and anyone who says anything different is being an apologist), and he grabs el's arm... why?

when he lets her go she enters his memories. he has no reason to want to scare or punish her. if anything, he makes himself more vulnerable by allowing her to see into his mind.

i have ideas as to why he became violent with her prior letting her fall, but there is no absolute evidence in canon for any of them over another. however, there is even less evidence to suggest he somehow had a desire to harm her just for the sake harming her or to be punitive. billy's reasons for grabbing max are bad and don't justify him putting his hands on her, but they are still reasons. he doesn't lash out at random out of cruelty.

i fail to see how this is a parallel when billy is, again, possessed through both acts. the mindflayer hits max because she is in his way, and the mindflayer hits el to presumably keep her subdued and in place. neither says anything about how billy treats max prior to his possession.

this is conjecture.

billy (you mean the mindflayer) pointedly looks at max? how do we know that? the camera doesn't focus on her over lucas and immediately after the mindflayer tightens its grip the camera pans over to mike and will. there's no preference given to max over the other kids during this scene. could it be the case? maybe, but there's no hard evidence for it.

and i don't see how max is supposedly looking guilty when caring for el either. she looks sad, certainly, but again the focus isn't on her and her expression, which for the record reads to me as more somber than responsible. could she be feeling guilt? what would she feel guilt for? how would billy choking her when he's not possessed somehow translate el being choked being her fault? i know max has a tendency to blame herself over things she could not have stopped, but i simply don't see how that could be the case here judging by the actual situation or her reaction to it which, again, reads more as sadness than anything more intense like deep empathy from being treated the same way.

this confirms precisely nothing about the timeline. when jacey sink portrayed max in season 3 she was 9 years old. when belle henry portrayed her in season 4 she was 9 years old. there is no indication of whether the season 4 scene took place before or after max and billy met.

Runaway Max is not canon.

everything the scene itself (someone falling off their board right before we pan to her) and max herself (saying she knows first aid from skateboarding) says tells the audience she hurts herself skateboarding.

(also the fact that you think billy could get away with breaking an elementary school age max's arm when he was, what? 12? at the most 13? and they had known each for less than a year? back when he was just "a dick" instead of "angry...all the time"? and when he was physically assaulted just for not knowing where she was in season 2? okay.)

you're implying that billy is... abusing max with weights? blunt force objects that easily shatter bones with minimal force applied? really? seems you know how ridiculous this is given how you break your own pattern of presenting billy's possessed behavior as somehow analogous to his non possessed behavior with this "parallel", when "parallels" are supposed the entire point of this post

even what you have makes no sense. possessed billy throws weights at el which is a parallel to when he... got mad at max and put his weights down? if anything this goes against your argument

honestly i could ignore all of this as just you cherrypicking and constructing your own headcanons which you are perfectly within your right to do but this?

this is shameful

i will be the first to admit that billy's pattern of behavior prior to his possession was abusive, and that he gets a pass from many of his fans for instances where does not deserve one.

but you wanna know who else got dragged by the foot?

billy

you wanna know who else got spoken to in a calm, threatening voice when they were already subdued?

billy

you wanna know who else was physically brutalized and controlled in manner resembling sexual assault?

billy

there's a fucking parallel for you, since you're so fixated on them.

many people have made the connection between the mindflayer/henry creel's attacks on children and child sexual abuse. the intentional isolation of Will from his loved ones. The days long manipulation and emotional abuse of Patrick, Chrissy, Fred, and Max. the fact that he specifically targets children already struggling emotionally. billy and will's shared line of "he made me do it".

and yet you have somehow sidestepped all of that evidence from canon and meshed the mindflayer and billy into a singular entity. you have apparently completely omitted any part of canon that goes against this from your memory in order to support your ideas. for christ's sake henry makes billy drink bleach and you're out here acting like they're 100% on the same page.

billy's face at the beginning of this video not the face of someone in full control of their faculties trying to sexually assault someone. it isn't even the face of someone wincing in pain.

he turns and grimaces. his eyes roll back.

he's disoriented. he's struggling.

and what does el flashback to? the moment he grabbed her.

y'know? the moment you said was a parallel to him grabbing max? that is what el immediately thinks of when she looks at his face. not his childhood memories, that.

it is incredibly, incredibly irresponsible to wink-wink-nudge-nudge accuse any character of sexually abusing anyone but especially a child based on non-existent "evidence" that you insist lies in canon. there are already people in the notes who believe you because they can't be bothered to analyse the events of the show themselves. billy fans have already dealt with enough harassment from people upset with things he actually did in canon, we don't need you pissing people off more with blatant half-truths.

point out the terrible things billy did in the show. make a statement about how his abuse didn't give him the right to treat max or anyone else the way he did, by all means. but you do not get to casually misconstrue canon to paint him as a sexual predator.

El-Max parallels implying Billy's physical abuse of Max

quick mostly-gif analysis. we're told that Billy "takes his anger out on Max" and that he "made her life living hell." was he physically abusive to Max all along? nobody ever says that.

we see Billy physically abuse Lucas and Steve. but if we're talking strictly about Max, those phrasings leave room for people to argue that Billy might've been emotionally abusive, but didn't actually hit her or anything. that that arm-grab in the car is just sibling behavior and not necessarily indicative of abuse.

and, hey man, look, you're right that they never say. but there's lots of things this show never explicitly says.

note that we only see Billy hurt Max twice, and both of those are parallels to ways we also see him hurt El.

the Billy-Max arm grab is suspiciously similar to the Billy-El arm grab. surprise grab, struggle/yanking, and then a rough release. he makes the same face.

(I've seen the argument that Max's daring snark before, and surprise at, the grab suggests he's never hurt her before. but I think both could just as well be explained by the fact that they're in public, where she thought she was safer from this than at home.)

we also see El and Max take facial injuries from flayed Billy at Starcourt. these close ups of their injuries are in consecutive scenes:

and we see him hurt El lots more times than we do Max.

so if the only two we know about are parallels, it makes me wonder about all the other times:

Billy strangling El

the way Billy pauses to look pointedly at Max as he starts strangling El, like he's getting something out of her, in particular, watching this. and then the way Max later looks guilty about the bruise it leaves on El's throat. (I will be discussing this at length soon)

Billy throwing the weights at El

that scene where he's lifting weights and yelling at Max (who's duct taping the skateboard he's heavily implied to have broken as punishment about Lucas)... hmmmm.

hey it's almost like the skateboard is a symbol of / scapegoat for Billy's abuse, because remember:

baby Max with the broken arm

maybe she broke it skateboarding. she did tell Nancy and Jonathan that skateboarding is why she knows first aid, but they don't look like they're buying it.

however, we just so happen to have seen another flashback of baby Max before, which makes it clear that she already knew Billy around this age. (Runaway Max says Billy broke her friend's arm btw.)

Billy repeatedly leaning over El at Starcourt

the "stay still" shit and the way he's repeatedly, unnecessarily, on top of El in that scene, using his body to trap her in. (like. if he wants her to quit struggling, it'd be easier to kick her when he's already standing than to get back on all fours and headbutt her. why does he actively get in the way of the MF to keep Doing That.) we've seen Billy block Max in before with the silent threat of his physicality. a subtle taste of a commonly overlooked form of abuse.

those all leave me wondering about the ones I can't think of Max screenshots to pair with.

Billy slamming El by the face... throwing her into the wall to knock her out... dragging El by the foot as she tries to crawl away from him (only to get back on top of her once again)...

but hey. no worries. they never said any of that.

[kolomo]

@animangacreators challenge 3: alphabet challenge ↳ a ⋆ anohana: the flower we saw that day (2011)

"Along with the passing seasons, the flowers that bloom near the street change. I wonder what the name of the flower was that bloomed that one season? It was small, and fluttered slowly. It hurt when I touched it. When I put my nose up to it, it had the slight scent of somewhere sunny. But that scent is slowly fading away. We're all growing up. But that flower is probably still blooming somewhere. Yup. And as for us... that flower has so many wishes."

[puhpandas]

getting into ben 10 is so sad bc I binge the entire OS and am like wow cant wait for more and then every other series doesnt have the things I liked about OS and even casual fans online say that 10yo Ben's character in OS is more compelling than all the others but theres barely any of him after OS

[the-casbah-way]

sometimes being so overly sensitive makes it hard to function like how do people do it. today we drove past three dead pheasants and i'm expected to be fine about the fact that they died alone and in pain and everyone keeps driving as if they never mattered. as if they didn't live and breathe and think. ok

[luvsavos]

random vent(?) in the tags, feel free to ignore i just have a lot of pent up emotions to get out today apparently

[gregoftom]

awful, just awful

[qqqqqqqqqqq0]

i've been having some trouble falling asleep lately

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[nomairuins]

i want to watch the things on my watchkist but i also never do its rly tragic

[spagheddiesquash]

me in 2019: yeah no i wouldn’t call myself an “old soul” i think my interests are fairly relevant. i don’t think i’d ever be one. me in 2024: .do yuo guys remember flappy bird and rainbow loom and minecraft letsplays and the dab and those shirts with the sequins and the cold shoulders on them and nightcore and animation memes and fidget spinners and vine and the area 51 raid and the day everyone posted chimneys and those memes where it was a character surrounded by heart emojis with some kind of motion blur around it and the magic card memes and funny reaction images and that thing everybody did where they put their arms in their sweaters and it made them look like little chickens or that one person with the hoodie who pulled the string things in all the way so it only showed their lips and then put sunglasses on over it so it looked like a funny face and. and. do you wanna see my cd collection or my books. can i have a physical copy of that book. i prefer my headphones to have wires thank u very much. yeah man i really want a flip phone or like. a refurbished older cell.

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt the random card au again. Why must it go so crazy hard I miss it sm

[iamnotlookingidonotseeit]

when you feel like you're fine in isolation but as soon as you interact with nice people who seem to like you you're like oh maybe I'm not perfectly well adjusted actually

[suguae]

Haunted

Toji cannot move on, until he realized too late.

Warnings: Angst, slightest fluff (reader and baby 'gumi moment)

You were just a girl, standing in front of a man, asking him to love you.

How hard was that for him? Yes, he wasn’t good with his words but he wasn’t good at anything else either. He was just there.

Maybe because the woman he truly loved—he was still mourning over her. His sad eyes every time he watched an old couple dance together, wishing he had been doing that but with her. The cute babies babble with their mothers as Megumi babbles with his father, how he wished his wife was still here instead of you. He never said it, but that’s what it felt like. 

And perhaps that's what it was. 

Sometimes he curses himself out when he accidentally calls you his wife's name. During intimate times only. You tried—trying to keep the emotions in as if it wasn’t breaking every part of you, was the hardest part. “Look he’s walking...” You smiled at the dark haired baby who was walking towards you. Toji smiled, making sure he’d record every second of it; deep down he wished his wife was the one the baby was walking towards instead of you.

And it was wrong—so wrong. 

“This relationship, I’m with you but Toji—Toji this is the loneliest I’ve ever felt.” You whispered while he ate his leftovers, his brows still furrowed from the argument occurring earlier. Having Toji work from 9–5 wasn’t the best but good thing he had you, helping him out with so much. Picking up groceries, picking up his lovely son—until you mentioned that one of his teachers mistaken you as his biological mother. That right there was enough to make Toji angry for weeks at least.

But not this time.

He stopped chewing on his food after you spoke, waiting for more of an explanation. Which you figured he needed, “I don’t think you’re in love with me–” 

“I like you [name], a lot.” He cleared his throat. He leaned back on his chair as his arms crossed waiting for you to continue the sentence he interrupted. 

Right, he liked you a lot. These three rough years you’ve been dating Toji—that particular l word was never uttered once, not even if he was drunk, or having a special moment with you. You huffed trying to find the right words for Toji to understand. That was until little Megumi started crying from his room. “I’ll try to put him back to sleep, finish eating.” He watched as your fragile little body sulked its way to Megumi’s room.

He knew this was gonna happen, he knew you were bound to leave him sooner or later. 

You smiled as you opened the door to see the little Megumi standing on top of his little bed. His hands wiping his tears as he ran towards you, his arms now wrapping around your legs. “Sleep with mama and papa.” He cried out as you leaned down to pick up the little boy. “[name] and papa, not mama okay?” You corrected him, if Toji were to find out that he had been calling you that, then that argument would’ve climaxed.

The little boy nodded, his tears now gone as you swayed him around. “Sleep with you.” He mumbled, leaning his head on your shoulder as he played with a strand of your hair. “Just for tonight.” You whispered, watching Megumi pick up his head and smile. Content with your answer. 

Toji’s heart could just swell at the sight. You treated his son as if he was your own and nothing looked so much better right now, except for the fact that he wished it was his wife.

Megumi was now soundly sleeping between you and Toji, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” His eyes shut tightly hearing those piercing words leave your mouth. It hurt when his wife left him, but this hurt was different—different because he knew it was coming yet he didn’t want to do anything about it. 

“I’m sorry—”

“You don’t need to be the one apologizing.” He watched your soft gaze stare at completely nothing. He was confused, this was his fault. He never treated you how you needed deserved to be treated. “It was my fault for throwing myself at a man who simply was not ready.”

The next morning was silent—baby ‘gumi was confused at the saddened look on your face. Constantly walking up to you asking if you were okay. He was still just a baby, yet he read the room so well. “I’m sure we can work this out—” Toji now sitting next to you on the couch, some cartoon playing in the back as Megumi’s little head sat on your lap. “You’re not ready, Toji.” You nodded, eyes still glued on the tv as if it was meant for you and not the little Megumi. 

“And how are you so sure—”

“Tell me you love me then.” Your eyes are now fixed on Toji’s. It was hard, he felt as if his mouth had been glued shut. You sigh, bringing your gaze back to the tv, “I love you—but it’s hard when it’s one sided Toji.” 

It hurt much more, seeing you drive away as the clueless Megumi waved you out. Poor thing thinks you’re simply going to the store. The house that once felt like home was so dull now. Toji sat little ‘gumi down on the couch. 

His constant, “mama?” or “[name]?” while he kept his gaze on the door every so often. Nothing prepared Toji for this. Megumi cried that he wanted to sleep with his mama and papa, his heart swelled knowing that he had been talking about you.

You were gone, just like his wife. But it hurt—it hurt so much more knowing that you’re alive trying your best to…move on. He stayed up late that same night, stumbling upon a video from two years ago. When Megumi first learned how to walk. You and Toji had just started dating but the look of happiness plastered your face as you watched the little baby walking. 

That was one thing Toji never forgot about, how much you loved kids. Telling him how once you had kids of your own you would finally be able to live in peace. How he heard of it less and less as the years went on, he wonders if you still think that.

next part ->

[rockingbytheseaside]

✦ How they dream of you at night

Pierro, Capitano, Dottore, Scaramouche, Pantalone, Tartaglia

(tw: just slightly sad)

✧ “In the hidden corners where the gods' gaze does not fall, there are those who dream of dreaming” - and one said person, Pierro, can be found within the grand Palace of Snezhnaya. He solemnly sits by the window, his icy blue eyes gazing off into the dark winter night of this snowy land.

He often does that, when the night becomes silent and the world is still. Pierro wishes he could dream, yet 500 years of cursed immortality can corrode one’s mind into feeble numbness. Thus, the Fatui Director substitutes his dreamless nights with daydreams of you. Silent fantasies of your voice, images of cupping your jawline, a tender caress to your form. The jester’s daydreams are the only thing keeping him sane, preserving the memory of your skin and love alive in his mind. 

And even if his nights are bleak and dreamless, he would rather settle for maladaptive daydreams. When the Jester gazes at the fake stars of Teyvat, hanging by the firmament as a lifeline, so does he yearn to daydream of you - living in the day just for the memory of your embrace. Alas, only the harsh nights of Snezhnaya are witness to his wistful gazes. 

✧ For Il Capitano, the world is full of battles and wars; conflicts initiated by the ignorant ones, those who care naught for the innocent. Therefore, the only moment of solace that the Captain can afford is in his dreams. Dreams in which his vision is not haunted by the bloodshed of battlefields, but instead by simple dreams of you. 

In those dreams, the world is plain and quiet. He often sees you in it, occupying his thoughts. Sometimes you’d talk and ramble nonchalantly, occasionally he’d see you collecting small chamomile flowers by the grass. Those dreams are uneventful, yet for the Captain, such peacefulness is a luxury he cannot afford. An image of you and him by a quiet valley, a gentle breeze idling by, and having all the time to relish each other’s endless conversations. No thoughts of warfare, only the unwinding sound of your voice.

The Captain is not ashamed to admit he dreamt of you. In fact, he’d candidly say it during the most random of times - “I saw you in my dreams again.”

You’d glance at him and muse - “Oooh, really? Maybe you just miss my company!”

The Harbinger's mask remains pitch black, devout of any expression that might tell whether he reciprocates your little teasing. But besides the occasional clank of chains from his helmet, a low chuckle will escape him. Therefore, The Captain would lean to sit closer to you, his body less tense whenever he is in your presence. Even your silence is a remedy to his soul.

“Perhaps I do. Perhaps I really do.” 

✧ Il Dottore hates dreaming. Sleep, in its entirety, is a redundant form of rest that the human body requires. An utter waste of time. Thus, as a scientist who modified his own body to perfection, it’s unsurprising that he can go on for days without sleep. The Doctor can be efficient with his time, although that’s not why he semi-biologically modified his body. It’s because he hates dreaming of you. 

You are always there in his dreams, along with his younger self. The nostalgic warm sunlight of Sumeru basks onto you, and in those dreams, he sees you in the familiar hallways of the Akademiya. Dottore does not consider those dreams pleasant, since they make him uneasy of the grave past. He doesn’t like seeing himself so simple and young, in his Akademiya uniform. He doesn’t enjoy seeing your tender smile as you clutch your books closer to your chest and lock your gaze with him. He doesn’t like how his dream self always yearns to come closer and embrace you tight. As if young Zandik could’ve held you one more time, and all his troubles would dissipate by the warm sun.

Yet no matter the place or outcome of the peaceful dream, every time that young Zandik tries to reach for your face or seek your lips, you’re always an arm-length away. The hallways of the Akademiya loom threateningly, pulling you further away from him, your warmth becoming unreachable. How naive. He should be better than this. Now he sits up in bed, awake and hands clenched around his hair with trepidation. He hates how his body wants to cry for the memory of you in his dreams. He really hates dreaming.

✧ The fact that Scaramouche even possesses the faculties to dream is what made him the individual he is today. Whether he curses his ability to do so or not, it doesn’t matter. He is no longer the naive Kabukimono he once was, in fact, he doesn’t even require to mimic sleep as humans do. But only you know the truth. During still nights, when the two of you doze off under the warm futons, the Balladeer’s hand would unconsciously grip yours, then followed by silent sobs.   

In his dreams, he sees many events unfold. Sometimes, he sees himself left to live in the squalor like a common critter, discarded and abandoned. Sometimes, he sees the familiar Tataratsuna huts. But more often, he sees you there in his dreams. Back in the warm plains of Yashiori Island, you let him rest his head on your lap. You are dressed in a snug kimono that the fabric's comfort etches onto Scaramouche’s memories eternally. In his dreams, he rests idly in your embrace, by your lap, while you caress his hair. 

Those dreams are delightful at first as if his memories as Kabukimono reinvoke themselves and immortalize the softness of your body and the soothing motion of your hands in his subconscious. But quickly, those dreams shift into agonies. Sometimes, in those dreams, you turn and desert him, while he is left on his dirtied knees to plead for your return. Sometimes, those nightmares show him that it is your heart that can ebb the Tatarigami within Mikage Furnace. And just before he's forced to rip your beating core and relive another memory, he awakes.

“Scara?! Scara…?” - you whispered in the dimness of the night, shaking him awake. “You were crying in your sleep. Another nightmare?”

The Puppeteer said nothing. He lay awake, startled as tears involuntarily streamed down his cheeks. With twitching eyes, he quickly clings around your waist, burying his face against you to conceal his tears. No words needed to be exchanged as his body shook, while you hushed and hugged him. This was the reason why Scaramouche avoided dozing off into sleep ever again.

Regardless of the content of his nightmares, he’d never admit you caressed his hair and soothed him the same way you did in his dreams. 

✧ Pantalone is in bed, restless. Turning from side to side, or readjusting his pillows becomes a futile endeavor to find solace when his bed is lacking you. You are out there, on an expedition, busy exploring Teyvat. Your trip might take another few days, yet Pantalone is alone in a bed that often nestled you close together. Where do your feet take you, the Harbinger ponders to himself. Hence, while you are away, the Regrator is forced to make amends with the bedroom that feels considerably empty, considerably cold, considerably foreign - all because it's missing you. 

In the late, voiceless hours of the night, his dreams blend with his yearning for you. He misses pressing your entire form against his lean body, as it often allows him to fall asleep easily. With you in his arms, chest pressed to another, he knows - you are safe. You are with him. Unfortunately, you are away, and the night feels unwelcoming. For now, Pantalone has to clutch a pillow in his sleep to substitute his feeling of holding you. Even as he sleeps with worry, he hopes somewhere out there, in a foreign land, you are dreaming of him the same way he’s dreaming of you. 

✧ When Tartaglia drifts off into dreamland, his mind is still half-busy with thoughts of you. So much so that his plans blend into his dreams. Thoughts about what he should buy you while he’s away on a mission. Ideas on where to purchase your favorite local specialties. Or perhaps how he should surprise you when he comes back home.

His brain is so enthusiastically occupied with plans to bring you souvenirs, that his dreams come up with countless scenarios of how you’d greet him upon arrival. He’d envision your joyous surprise, endearing pouts, or teasing smiles. And sometimes, if his dreams are more daring, Childe might accidentally dream of some sweet rewards that will leave him waking up in a cold sweat, panting, and body craving. 

Either way, he is rushing back to you the moment his mission is over. His dreams of you might leave him hot and bothered, but your love in real life is much more tantalizing than anything his desperate dreams could conjure up. 

[maxwellatoms]

In one of your last answers, you said “series reboots are usually pretty gross and sad”, and I was wondering if you could expand on that? Assuming “reboot” covers any kind of continuation of a currently cancelled or finished show (and maybe that’s the wrong assumption!), from the outside looking in it feels like a pretty mixed bag. On one hand, if I love XYZ Show, it’s cool that I get more stories with these characters and another chance to support XYZ Show and its creators. On the other, it definitely feels like a lot of ideas can only get funding if they’re tied to something already, meaning creatives are having to now tie whatever cool idea they have to some reboot/relaunch/retread, which can feel pretty disheartening if you don’t want to do a reboot/relaunch/retread. Is that a similar feeling from your side of the industry?

Thank you so much for all your answers and insight!

Usually reboots and spin-offs are just cash grabs. It happens a lot in animation. In fact, I would argue that the entire industry is just one big cash grab now. In the 80s, everyone complained that cartoons were just half-hour commercials for toys. And they were right. And we're right back there, but now that you can't legally push toys all day, it's just general "IP". Mugs, posters, more spinoffs, whatever.

I was offered three show running gigs over the pandemic. All reboots that I would consider unwise to pursue because they were "of a different time" and didn't (in my opinion) have anything more to say. Two of them were properties created by notorious sex pests, so there's also that. The animation industry loves to prop up its sex pests.

I turned all of them down, partially because I didn't respect the original creators but also because none of them had anything going for them except just being "more of the same".

I don't think any of those projects survived the intervening years, so in retrospect I maybe should've taken the job. I'd probably feel a bit gross, but at least I'd have floors in my house.

The entertainment industry is in a bad spot. The whole thing. I've had I don't know how many pitch meetings in the last few years, and they all start the same way:

"Hey! Before we start, we just want to let you know that we're not actively producing anything right now. We think maybe soon, but we won't be picking anything up today..."

And then later:

"The little we are doing is IP, so if you have a new take on our IP or a new IP you're connected to that you can bring in, that'd be great."

I always wanted to make original stuff. There came a time when I'd had my fill of Billy & Mandy and wanted to do something else new and original. That never manifested, and I was constantly being offered IP to produce. I turned too many of those down, maybe, before deciding that it was probably better that I run the IPs that mean something to me rather than having some hack do it.

But now those jobs have all gone to celebrities and fallen live-action writers, who are also slowly being eaten by the system. WB was hot for Scooby stuff a few years back, so I pitched some ideas. A few of them were turned down for being "off-brand" in a variety of ways. WB has now made (I think) all of those off-brand shows (or something close) with celebrity show runners.

I was going through a whole Midlife Impostor Syndrome thing recently where I was wondering if maybe I don't just suck. Like, it's weird that for a couple of decades I'd have people calling me trying to get me to run shows, and now nobody will call me back about the possibility of a design job.

Talking to some friends and realizing that they were in a similar situation helped me feel like I wasn't alone. That was nice. Talking to some of the most talented colleagues in my industry made me made me realize that those people weren't getting jobs either. That was unnerving. Talking to complete strangers in other parts of the entertainment industry now has me thinking that the whole house of cards is coming down. That's real concerning, yo.

It's hard not to think it's purposeful, when deranged billionaires own the entirety of our media and want to shape a society where they can't be criticized. We're letting wealthy tech bros firebomb the very heart of our culture, and it's weird that no one is talking about it. Because (for now) we still have that capability.

[4byun]

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