#not conceptually but like … thematically

[greyedian]

MAN I'm seriously so sad about season 2. Bc I wish act 2 had the same emotional impact on me as it appears to have on so many others. But rn I'm just somewhere between unable to care and actively annoyed by some of those writing decisions. Seriously the more I think about it the less I like it.

[afterthelambs]

cw: misogyny, toxic fans

im not caught up with MHA so no explicit spoilers but apparently deku and uraraka didn't canonically end up together and now dudebros are being absolutely disgusting towards uraraka. And im not surprised, they've only ever seen her as an object after all. They switched on her the second she stopped being a prize, moving onto the next girl they find hot (even if it makes zero sense)

I dont recommend going into the replies of any of them, it's full of sexism. They literally cannot fathom that a crush storyline could be used for anything other than being the mc's prize. The fact is that uraraka's crush was used as a foundation for her to relate to and connect with Toga. Whether or not she ended up with Deku is irrelevant. Her growth depended on her relationship with another girl--not the protagonist-- and they can't stand that.

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

Curious if you think Johnny, peanut, and Lola have/had siblings or if they're just only children. Personally I always hc johnny and lola as only children but felt that peanut had a younger sister who passed away.

why hi anon!!! this such an interesting question, thank you!!

i remember reading that hc, yep!!

i hc all the three of them, however, to be only children (i think they're the only greasers that i do??). in fact, for all three of them, this fundamental isolation is their childhood is, in the way i read it, what shaped some of the way they socialize and influences a lot their interactions.

as for johnny, the thing is that his parents were both in the drug dealing circles of new coventry, hence why they were in prison for a while- his father was actually pretty important in the neighborhood, while his mom mostly helped and did other legal jobs (which is also why she got out earlier). and johnny learnt both how to be a man and how not to be a man from his father- he taught him strength and roughness and to never take a hit but punch harder. but he also taught that johnny didn't want to hit his woman, didn't want to leave the house for a smoke to cool his head when she was crying and threatening to hurt herself because of him, didn't want her to be his slave.

in this framework, i think that him having, say, a brother would sort of... scatter the relationship his father has with him, the attention and, almost, the pressure to be worthy of being treated as a peer. which is something i really like to read for johnny. and i also like the idea of him having had his mother as the only woman in his life, before lola. call him a mama's boy, but he learned to take care of his mother before he even questioned how to deal with an eventual girlfriend. so he has learned to take care of the people he has around himself, such as peanut, almost in a way that replaces a paternal figure as protector of the house. but also internalized some very specific notions about masculinity and virility that he totally projects onto the relationship with lola.

ultimately, i think, the whole point is that the way he lives the relationship with lola in particular is basically a result with having grown up with the only reference in his house of close human interaction as his parents, and having to sort of step up where they lacked in the sole spousal relationship.

with peanut, my hc is that his mom had him when she was very young, sixteen years old, and she was... basically on her own, really; the boy she had had him with had fled as soon as he had a chance, her dad was on the other side of the ocean and her mom was basically mia (i still have to figure out the logistics of this, since, when i first elaborated it, i forgot for a while that Laws Existed, LMAO, and i was already too far in the creating process to change that), so she had to raise him on her own. and peanut spent most of his childhood in his living room, waiting for his mom to come back home, watching the vhs she had rented for him and reading the motors magazines. it's there that he fell in love with greasers, crushing on marlon brando and james dean, the shiny motorcycles and the raw leather jackets.

he basically had to live with himself, you see. also bc his mom, so young and unprepared, was very overwhelmed most of the time, and- i did post a quick snippet of a scrapped chapter of my fic already, actually, so you can get a broad but more detailed idea of their relationship if you want!! either way, point is. larry had to learn to tend to himself at a very young age, dealing with the loneliness and his own sensitivity, running from eventual kids of the neighborhood, who liked to take advantage of him being much smaller than most of them, trying not to take up too much space and upset his mom.

so of course, when he met johnny, older, proud, powerful as a sun, promising to take care of him, it felt almost unreal, something he never thought he could have wished for nor something he thought he deserved. some kind of care and protection hed never learnt to receive, and that he hang onto for dear life because suddenly... he wasn't on his own anymore.

(sometimes parents are just Contextual Objects. other time they are fully fleshed ocs with a backstory and a whole personality. turns out despite everything immacolata romano is really my child and i am so so fond of her and id have soo much more to say abt her relationship w peanut. but i digress)

and lola- i'll admit, shes the one i bounced back and forth about the most, in trying to imagine her family's situation. (in fact, if you see any reference to her family in my older fics/post, no you dont) at some point i even considered the idea of her having a much older brother who would sort of fill in for some absent father figure, but then i scrapped it. i think that, in her case as well, having grown up alone with her parents' relationship as a reference makes potentially much more sense than any other possibility i considered.

lola has a quote, in which she says "i'm so old, my life is almost over!" when... she's just?? sixteen??? seventeen??? i think it's because, see, her parents got married and had her when they were young, maybe nineteen or twenty- yknow, as soon as it was legal for the both of them without too many loopholes. however, the relationship was very unbalanced and fundamentally deteriorated, perhaps not from the beginning but very soon. her father being dominant, violent, arrogant and such. and her mother has always been bitter, subdued but angry and resentful at her husband, at the golden expectations she had, at her womanhood and, of course, at her daughter. she's always seen her as living proof of her own wasted beauty and youth; but, especially as soon lola started growing up to the age at which girls start being looked at by the boys, which we unfortunately know how soon it is, saw in her what she felt she'd lost. so she'd often remind her how lola was the reason why she is now a ruin of a woman, why she went from a beautiful and promising girl to an old and unattractive hag.

again- her being the only child helps focus on her the kingpin of this dynamic, especially on her mother's part. so lola grew up knowing what can happen to women, what remains when the fairytales of the princess marrying the prince crumble with the remnants of childhood. she realized at eleven, twelve years old how men were starting to look at her in the street and she knew what the next step would have been. she was reminded every day of her life. so, when she walked into bullworth, into the relationship with johnny, all she knew is that she wouldn't have ended up like her mother. knew that she wouldn't have fallen in love, wouldn't be tricked by the sweet words and the dreamy gazes. and she knew that she had no weapons to defend herself but the very thing that could've otherwise been the death of her, that being the male attention. and finding a way to use johnny's attention specifically, with his blind devotion mixed to the obliviousness, to her own advantage... well, that's what her whole arc is about, isn't it.

as i write this, i'm starting to realize that her having, perhaps specifically a brother, might function as a tool to highlight the difference in treatment between her, a daughter, and an eventual son. however, i stand my case that i really like the idea of this whole dynamic of her parents and her mother in particular resting on her and her only, creating this sort of... tunnel vision in which her very isolation in front of her view create her idea of how the world works.

thank you so much for the question!! it was a lot of fun to answer + it helped me make some order among some concepts i had in my mind <33

[nyxi-pixie]

my toxic trait is i cant read analysis on bsd from anyone else bc im so up my own ass abt canon

[softgrungeprophet]

my kaine playlist is 2 and a half hours long...

okay well actually it's more like—

there's my primary Kaine playlist which is 2 and a half hours long and kind of doubles as a partial Janine playlist (still mostly Kaine but there's bound to be some overlap, all things considered):

and maybe it has some questionable song choices

—

There's my Spider-Man (well, really it's just Peter) playlist which is also 2 and a half hours long and has perhaps what some might call "too much" Blink-182 and pop punk on it:

—

There's a mixtape from Annabelle to Kaine which probably isn't done yet but is 40 minutes long:

—

There's a response from Kaine that he makes after leaving which is 44 minutes long and also probably technically not done yet:

—

There's also a playlist for the "worst year of peter's life" fic-in-progress which is 55 minutes long, probably complete, and which is sort of about Kaine but is also about Peter and in general about the entire situation that they've all been subjected to (including like, Flash's interactions with not-Peter (Ben)) and also a little bit about the past:

—

I don't have a playlist for Ben lol

[philtstone]

potentially controversial take but part of what makes the flavour of psych different and more special 2 me than other workplace comedies is how embedded familial dynamics are. it just automatically imbues everything w this very rich history of both chaos and tenderness . the constant flashbacks to shawn and gus being children together. henry spending time with both boys as children. henry spending time with both boys as adults and its different but its also so much of the same. shawn and henrys complicated mess that is still so full of that imperfect love. gus’s frustrations w his own parents which are so different but which shawn understands automatically from sheer exposure. shawn at guster family christmas. the presence of familial dynamics just invokes a very specific type of tenderness that never fails to sneak into my heart and make me feel many big and nuanced things

[bereft-of-frogs]

I just learned there's an American remake of Speak No Evil (2022) coming out this summer which like, setting aside the usual useless US remake arguments, I just don't get how they're going to make that work because my strongest reaction watching it was 'my American ass would not be caught DEAD in this situation.' Hell no.

this was my original review on letterboxd:

I'm sorry, I simply could not relate

[vonkarma2]

bullshitting oc lore wrt what the afterlives are like the first one you wake up as a furry with no memories in an ancient rome slash wild west type society but also everyone is subject to mind control from a giant tree on occasion. but like its a recognizeable world in which you can live. when you die in that you are reincarnated into a 2 dimensional white void of shape and color and turn into waves and circles that disperse across an endless plane and eventually fade into nothing and also linear time does not exist because everyones souls are turned into art on a canvas observed by some inexplicable third (?) dimensional entity. but tbh I havent put much thought into what the fourth world is like maybe I should make everyone reincarnate into like 2003 canada where you have to live as a minimum wage gas station employee who gets shot in a robbery after a year and thats how they move on to the next life. anything can happen

[catsandcatci]

reading star wars post and seeing it refer to clone troopers only in passing: well that’s ok yk it really isn’t a clone trooper focused post ik there’s some people who don’t focus on them so much in tcw

reading star wars post that refers to clone troopers in passing, and never by name: ok a little more concerning but yk again this specific instance wasn’t referring to one of the big-name troopers in the show

reading star wars post that REFERS TO A CLONE TROOPER, SPECIFICALLY THE ONE WHO WAS MURDERED AND THEN KISSED BY VENTRESS, AKA COMMANDER GODDAMN COLT, AS “IT”: oh i am in the bad place

[heartgold]

rare ever17 post from me it's technically about spoilers but very vague

the way Uchikoshi was Really cooking with Tsugumi's whole character but then dropped the ball around the end is so....... The worst part is that the way he dropped the ball is integrated to the way the plot itself works so you can't even pretend it didn't happen... it's not That bad I guess just a really disappointing/annoying conclusion to her character that felt like it had 0 build up to and strongly bothered me but whatever she's still one of the best characters Uchi has written imo even if e17 feels very dated in terms of writing. I love her a lot ok

[rideordie-mp3]

need people to stop comparing seulgi to taemin, it’s a setup

[jackalmeat]

There are a lot of musical/visual choices that I do like in Arcane. The one that I actually find distinctly lackluster though -- (to the effect that the choice serves its purpose well enough, but could have been vastly more inspired in the broad scheme of things) -- is the Conceptualize Mythical Reptiles band cameo in episode 5.

In the same episode, the example of Piltovan musical culture that we're shown is a theatrical concerto performance, drawing clearly upon associations that we as the audience have toward "opera" and "classical music" to communicate that this is what's considered 'high-brow' art among the Piltovan elite. (Which is extra tongue-in-cheek considering that the only character we actually see genuinely enjoying the performance, rather than simply making an appearance in this space and using it as an opportunity to schmooze with other members of high society, is Heimerdinger.) The consumption of this performance is treated as more of an upper class circlejerk than a reflection of any love or appreciation for the craft.

So then, shortly after, we get a Zaunite musical performance.

Which, in theory, is cool. If the goal was to contrast the Zaunite and Piltovan musical cultures against each other -- (and that was the effect by virtue of showcasing the two performances in the same episode, whether intended or not) -- I'd have expected to be shown an undercity performance that was much harsher, less polished, more aggressive in its sound style and lyrical commentary, etc. than its Piltovan counterpart. I'd have expected something punky, grungy, and/or singer-songwriter-y, very 'voice of the people' in spirit -- maybe with some sick jazz or swing influences to go along with the overall nouveau styling + 'New Orleans-y' feel of the undercity.

Instead though, the example we get -- (the thing that stands as a supposed counter/answer to the musical culture of Piltover) -- comes in the form of Conceptualize Mythical Reptiles, and a song that quite frankly is about as easily-digestible, radio-friendly, and non-challenging as possible; regardless of whether you like the piece itself or not.

I simply think that it leaves a bit to be desired.

TLDR; am I surprised or inherently disappointed that a band who collaborated musically with Riot in the past and composed the theme song subsequently received an in-series cameo--? No; of course not. But do those facts alone actually make Conceptualize Mythical Reptiles the most thematically suited for serving as the literal face(s) of the undercity's musical scene--? Also no. Of course not.

[acespaceacepilot]

what if all i did was post playlists i made for characters i liked

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

me any time i see a character who plays the violin: okay but like. that could plausibly be a viola, right? they could be a violist, right? can that be canon?

[redpiperfox]

Yena's done it again! Pulled a January concept off and pulled it off for more than just the title!

[linipikk]

I really hope your optimism about the finale rubs on me at some point.

If I could inject just a little positivity to the news...

Season 2 has a lot of filler and stretches out a pretty simple mystery to six episodes. That's the appeal to some, I get it. But tightness and focus was not its strong suit. I remember feeling like it wasted a ton of time on side characters and it's possible shaving the story down to 90 minutes will skim things down to its most essential beats and be stronger for it. Basically, S2 got a lot of time given to it, and this is obviously my personal opinion but I don't think it used all of it well. I think S2 itself could have been half the length simply by employing more efficient storytelling and we'd not mourn too much.

A lot of S2's weaker plotlines feel built around people that Neil wanted to work with again, with so many recurring actors (I'm thinking of the zombies specifically, when that minisode could have easily been tighter without them). A lot of s2 to me feels like Neil just making work for the people he likes and wants to work with and a movie has to be more accountable to things like that.

Lots of entire fandoms exist around single movies. 90 minutes is not nothing. It's enough for many, many films to tell a complete story with cute character interactions and satisfying emotional arcs, especially when A&C are the only real significant connecting threads between both seasons thus far.

I don't think there are as many loose threads that absolutely need resolving as people may be thinking. Would I like to know why Aziraphale did the '40s apology dance? Would I like to see his bookshop gun? Sure. Are either of those necessarily essential to closing out the story? I don't think so. Really, what needs resolving is the second coming and, directly connected to that, Aziraphale and Crowley's rift. To me, not knowing the story obviously, that seems super reasonable to do in 90 minutes?

I don't think anyone involved in the final season can possibly be blind to the appeal of the show being Aziraphale and Crowley over anything else. That's certainly the reason why their roles were expanded to begin with from the book and why the second season was, nominally, all about them. They also now have to pay MS and DT for appearing in a movie rather than an ensemble show, there's no way they won't be front and center. Amazon wants a show that will make money and market itself; there's a reason why all the promo material for S2 was of Crowley and Aziraphale, because people engage with that stuff, reblog it, make art that promotes the show, etc. It makes no artistic or financial sense to make a movie that sidelines them.

GO is at its best when it has Terry's voice most strongly in it. That's why to me, S2 was a weaker, more meandering season overall (that, and I think the minisodes, while fun, just make the season feel comprised of different voices not always working in tandem towards a common goal). If I was a writer hired to condense a season into a film, and one of the authors had been rightfully disgraced, I would go out of my way to ensure the clearly Terry stuff is most significantly emphasized. It's telling to me that the Pratchett estate is producing and it's possible that the end result will result in more Terry, less Neil.

Think of it this way: everything we've gotten after S1 has always been extra. Imagine telling a fan of the book in the 90s that not only will you get a six episode adaptation, you also get a totally new second season, AND a movie?

Basically: I know this is disappointing but I think a lot of the pleasure of the Good Omens fandom was ALWAYS people picking up on and expanding on details, and y'all managed to do that just fine when A&C were only ensemble members in S1. You can and will do that with a movie too. And this solution both a) ensures first and foremost that Neil won't be involved or the allegations swept under the rug, and b) gives an opportunity for the heart of the story to be emphasized with greater focus, clarity and less filler.

Will we lose good stuff? Probably. But it's also possible we will get a tighter, more condensed, focused version of the best bits, the Terry Pratchett-est bits. I can easily see a 90 minute movie that, knowing they HAVE to focus on the important stuff now, is more Crowley and Aziraphale centric than ever.