#probably easier than talking about the episodes in general lol

[beevean]

Ranking Hazbin Hotel songs (ep. 1-4)

Just elaborating on my opinions on the music so far. To be honest, I'm not too keen on the forced quota of two songs per episode, but what salvages it is that the compositions and voices are high quality. The best songs do also a great job in the characterization department, and they've been stuck in my head for a while now lol.

8) Hell is Forever

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I don't like Charlie's singing. Not because she's a bad singer, I don't like how she's treated as a joke, and I don't like her cheap Disney parody style. This is even worse because by plot reasons she has to sing super fast about concepts we already know about. It's unpleasant to the ear.

And Adam. ugh. I hate Adam. His verse is actually not that bad! I like how he introduces another obstacle to Charlie's plan: the man has (by his own admission, which is a bit lazy) a black and white view of the situation, and he refuses to accept any redeemed soul in Heaven. And the rock style is good too. Just. I hate him. I hate his fratboy personality. I hate his voice until he finally takes it seriously. He ruins a perfectly nice solo. Gah.

7) Happy Day in Hell

Again. I don't like how Charlie is treated as a joke even by the narrative. I also am confused as to how we're meant to see Charlie singing as something silly she does in-universe, when then everyone else sings and they're taken seriously. Anyway, this is a generic "yep everything will be just fine" song, because get it she's in Hell, and get it things will not be fine! My Little Pony had a similar joke ages ago, and it was mercifully shorter.

At least it sounds good, because Charlie has a nice voice, and I like the jazzier finale.

6) It Starts With Sorry

Forgettable. I have nothing to say about it.

5) Whatever it Takes

A nice ballad shared between one of the protagonists and a character that has been just introduced. I am intrigued by the parallels between Vaggie and Carmilla, but that's about it. I don't think this scene needed to be put into song, which emphasizes how the quota of two songs per episode was unnecessary. Carmilla's VA is also better with a bombastic voice than with a slow ballad. (nothing to say about Vaggie, she sounds lovely)

4) Respectless

While it shares the previous song's problem of being kind of unnecessary, this one is at least boppy and interesting. I like how the style changes to reflect the singers' personalities, from Carmilla's more proper Latin instrumentation to Velvette's modern pop. Some of Velvette's lyrics are just terrible ("bae"? in 2024? 😭), but she picks up in the second half where she shows her true intelligence. Also both of them have nice voices.

3) Stayed Gone

A delightful, jazzy, and most importantly salty duet between Vox and Alastor! Not only it's very fun to sing, it does a great job at presenting the characters: Vox is a fast smooth-talker, but his anti-Alastor propaganda comes off as desperate, and he crumbles quickly under Alastor's timeless charm who doesn't even try that hard to paint Vox as an insecure clout-chaser. The bookend is also done well, with Vox attempting to sound menacing, but Alastor straight up sounding like a predator stalking their prey. The song establishes their rivarly in an entertaining way and only gives us the breadcrumbs to explain to us what happened between them, keeping the intrigue.

(also I can't get enough of Alastor saying "and now he's pissy, that's the tea :D" just to mock Vox' obsession with modernity. he's so sassy lol)

2) Loser, Baby

Alternative title: media literacy test :P

While I think I prefer Stayed Gone musically, this is just a wholesome scene... as much as it doesn't look like at first lol. It pulls all the weight to show Husk's inner depths: he's old enough, wise enough, and empathetic enough to know that the Charlie approach (being endlessly optimistic and kind) doesn't work on someone like Angel, who 5 minutes prior was willing to get himself rape drugged in a self-harming act. So he hits him with a double whammy of brutal honesty ("yes, you're a loser, you suck, your situation is terrible") and simple support ("but you're not the only one, I suck too, I like you the way you are and you can at least be miserable with me").

And this is important for Angel, who has a very skewed view of himself after all the abuse he went through. When he says that he's a loser and a dummy, and jokes about not having more holes to deflower, he's casting away the bravado that he uses to hide his pain. It's the first step to accept himself as he is, knowing that at least someone out there can appreciate him for who he is, and not just what he can give. It's beautiful.

Also Keith David <3 the contrast between his low smooth voice and Blake Roman's higher pitch <3 (and once again, "you're a power bottom at rock bottom" cracks me up)

1) Poison

Oh this has been my obsession ever since I found it. It's so good. The layers. The rhythm. The voice. I love it so much! 💖

I've always liked Addict for the contrast between the poppy music and the miserable lyrics, but its spiritual successor goes above and beyond. What a perfect inlook into Angel's broken spirit. He blames himself for the hell he's stuck in, and doesn't expect to break free soon. He's aware that Valentino only feeds him poison (lies? beatings? fake love?), but Angel is addicted to it and can't get away from him, so he willingly poisons himself and convinces himself that it's what he wants after all - it was his choice, after all. He likes it, right? He gets wasted like there's no tomorrow because he has no reason to live another day. It's terrible! And yet the song is so catchy and fun to sing, and it has probably the most interesting rhymes so far. It's the only song I genuinely wish it was longer.

And the visuals only help <3 I can't get enough of Angel dancing, either chained to Valentino and smiling even as he's thrown on the floow, or alone, pretending to be sexy and confident but then cowering at Valentino's sight. Abuse romanticism my entire ass, it's a more nuanced look on the dynamics of abuse than many other works I've seen.

And Angel's broken voice at the end destroys my heart :) Blake Roman, guys.

[vicvinegarandhughhoney]

Dennis Reynolds is AUTISTIC!!!!

(At least, I headcanon him as such).

Here's why:

Sensory issues:

If you've watched the show, you probably already know what I mean, but Dennis really struggles to deal with sensory input. When there's a loud noise, he often covers his ears- like in Family Fight:

or he gets frustrated, lashing out at diners for being too loud (The Gang Dines Out), getting annoyed at Frank for chewing gum too loud.

It's worth noting that later on in this episode, Dennis can hear Frank chewing gum from the other room. He's clearly hypersensitive, and perhaps this even goes to explaining a little bit why his room is soundproofed? Could it be that rather than not wanting people to hear what's going on inside, he's desperate to block the noise coming from outside?? (this was suggested by @kod-lyoko , and I LOVE IT).

There are SO many examples of Dennis plugging his ears (often when the others don't react in such a strong way):

There are way too many examples to list here, and too many images I could give (the above were taken from @dennisboobs ' gif set) but hopefully you get the impression.

Social issues:

I feel like this one is pretty self-evident, but I find deconstructing the things Dennis does super fun, so I'm going to explain anyway: Dennis does NOT know how relationships work. There are a great deal of factors at play to cause this (I would argue that his early experiences in life definitely moulded his view in an unhelpful way) but the systematic way he looks at interactions REEKS of autism to me.

The DENNIS system is hardly peak autism representation (it's certainly not the bright and bubbly stuff people often talk about), but the fact that he has a system for romantic/sexual interactions, both for men AND women, feels super autistic-coded. He quite literally has a script which he follows to make interactions easier, one which he sticks to rigidly. And if anybody tries to implement this carefully thought out system incorrectly? Well, he'll let you know (e.g in The Dennis System episode where he blows up at Mac and Charlie for not getting it right at the fair).

He masks his social deficits well, but sometimes things don't go to plan. Sometimes, the girl on the cruise ship runs away, and Dennis announces that 'that's not supposed to happen'.

He comes off as creepy, but that's not his intention. He doesn't understand the way he's perceived by others in general- he thinks he's the King of St Joseph's, not realising he was actually an outcast all along. Just like a lot of autistic people, he didn't understand that he was on the fringes of society until it was thrust in his face, and that hurt.

Speech:

While Dennis often appears to speak pretty normally, there are a few occasions where his frustration causes this mask of normality to slip.

In The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby, Dennis is caught off guard by the hipster's reading of him, and immediately goes back to Frank and Charlie, parroting almost the same words he heard right back to them, despite not seeming to understand them at all (perhaps a form of echolalia?).

"I'm out here trying to make a difference, and you're over here rummaging around in the trash like a couple of narcs! Okay, you can't just come down here with your mainline cashmere, mousse... quaff... hairspray, and start being like, a suburban tool!"

It's also worth noting that even the poetic way he speaks when he's angry could be a trait ?? As a recently diagnosed autistic person, in my report they spoke about how I used 'idiosyncratic' language (basically, peculiar language lol), and listed terms like 'connoisseur', which I guess were deemed pretty formal for casual conversation.

And it got me thinking, who else do we know who uses VERY idiosyncratic language? Dennis. Reynolds.

"The thunder of my vengeance will echo through these halls, like the gust of a thousand winds"

"Begone, vile man, begone from me!... I am untethered and my rage knows no bounds!"

"You didn't tell me there was to be pollen!"

Etc... etc...

The way he repeats 'savages, idiots!' during his rage at the frat bros feels very autism coded to me. Repetition of certain words and phrases is common!

Heightened emotions:

Again, something that I didn't know until I myself was diagnosed is that for a lot of autistic people, we spend most of the time at a pretty 'flat' emotional state, but when we do experience emotions, we experience them intensely. Frustration turns into anger, sadness turns into despair, happiness turns into ecstasy- it's why some autistic people might be misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder!

This, of course, fits well with the way Dennis experiences emotions. He spends a lot of the time believing he doesn't have any at all, and when he does feel something, it's overwhelming.

"And I have feelings! Of course I have feelings, I have big feelings, okay? And it hurts."

These lines hit hard regardless of the extra weight you put on them, but when you see them through the lens of autism, through the lens of a lifetime of misunderstanding and overstimulation, it makes them hit even harder.

It hurts him to feel. His emotions are so strong that they're painful, and he's never been taught how to deal with them, because nobody even knew he had them in the first place.

Stimming:

Finally, I think Dennis stims. A lot. If you search up 'Dennis Reynolds autistic' on this very site, you'll find gifsets and videos illustrating this.

He has a few very common ones, like tugging on his earlobe when he's anxious, playing with his fingers, etc, but if you pay attention to him even when he's in the background of scenes, you'll pick up on a lot. Dennis is constantly moving, and while you could suggest this is simply a result of Glenn's ADHD, I'd argue that some of these stims happen so frequently in Sunny specifically, that there's no way they're coincidental.

Glenn makes a lot of very specific acting and directorial choices in Sunny, so why dismiss these as choices too?

That's all I can be bothered to type up now, but here's my case for Autistic!Dennis ! Of course, he's a complex character so there's always room for different interpretations...

but as an autistic person, I hereby claim him as One Of Us™.

[sakaimii]

Hello! Time for another update.

I'll probably post again tomorrow since chapter 9 of my series will be out then, but since Tokyo Debunker episode 7 came out yesterday I'll just mention that I also handled the English translation of the Mortkranken chapter. It involved looking up a lot of medical terminology lol. Not quite as tricky as translating Ritsu when he goes off about law ordinances (...it is a challenge keeping those within word limits), but humbling nonetheless.

I thought I'd speak about a fun Japanese thing involving Jiro's name though, since I've noticed a lot of people talking about names and what they mean etc. As everyone has mentioned, Jiro means "second son". "First son" is typically "Taro" or "Ichiro", with "Taro" being like...the most basic of names. "Taro Yamada" is used as the eqivalent of, say, John Smith, in terms of being a very every everyman kind of name.

However, it doesn't stop there. Jiro is followed by Saburo (三郎）, Saburo is followed by Shiro (四郎), and Shiro is followed by Goro (五郎). After that are various like Rikuro, Shichiro, etc, but they're much rarer. The "ji" in "Jiro" follows a pattern in Japanese where the second child is referred to as the "next" child (the general term for a second son is "jinan" 次男, with "jijo" 次女 being the second daughter), while everything after is numerically based.

Though Taro (and the names that follow) is considered basic/common, it's also very traditional sounding, especially compared to more modern trends in names. As an aside, names that end in "ko" for women have a bit of the same vibe. Common, but a tad old/traditional sounding. It makes sense that a certain character would like the name Taro, considering that he fashions himself after a bygone era.

Anyway, that's my mini lecture of the day lol. It's a lot easier writing these here than on hellsite, that's for sure!

Back to making this deadline...

[snapscube]

hey big fan of your channel and art!! was wondering if for the midnight snap series what kind of sound design you were doing it rlly sounds nice!! (also smth that could be nice with it is maybe a little bit of like tape saturation or something might be able to make the audio sound "warmer" if youre like not already doing something like that already, but you probably know better than me!!) feel free to ignore that, but wanted to say in general its so well done and sounds so good!!! its really cozy and nice!!

hey thank you!!! yeah i'd.... genuinely LOVE to talk about my thinking and approach behind the sound design, i'm actually so happy you asked me this LOL this is the kind of shit i live for.

you might assume that it's just me recording the game audio and talking quietly with my normal stream settings, and that is kinda how it STARTS, but there's actually a bit more i've been doing behind the scenes :) nothing too crazy just yet but a little goes a long way when it comes to sound! i'm hoping to really nail down the soundscape and increase the quality over time and specifically up the soothing vibes by a lot. as well as get a little better about mic etiquette and my style of speech. BUT in terms of what i'm doing in post:

the first piece of the puzzle and definitely one of the most important sauces in the whole mix is the Hard Limiter. it does what you might imagine it does, basically just places a hard barrier and says "any sounds that exceed this volume.... no you don't", sort of like a much more intense compressor. currently i have a Hard Limiter on both my commentary AND the game audio, commentary i have set to peak at around -15 to -12 db, whereas game audio is more around the -23 to -20 range. in my more polished audio from later in the AC episode it's enough difference that one doesn't drown the other out in most cases, but not a wide enough gulf that people are struggling to pay attention to one in particular or have to frequently change volume (preferably they don't have to change it at all!). i took this screenshot of the episode's complete waveform when rendering out the audio-only version of AC part 1 and it was super satisfying cause like.... yeah. this is exactly the kind of waveform read i was going for. just super even and smooth across the board, save for a couple anomalies i'll buff out over time.

the next thing i do to both my own commentary and the game audio is actually just cutting down on harsher, higher frequencies with an EQ and just upping the bassier, warmer tones. i started with something super small in the first couple of episodes, i'm probably gonna go a bit harder on it for future stuff though. i wanna find a balance that doesn't make the game sound unrecognizable or anything but is noticeably easier on the ears and sounds more like a nice rolling wave rather than beep boop pac-man time.

past this i have a couple more things added to the commentary track:

to intensify the previous effect mentioned and cut down on harsh frequencies in my speech, i actually have a dedicated de-esser on my voice as well as my usual warmer EQ. i have the de-esser going pretty hard too, you might hear the difference from my usual stream commentary if you were to listen closely. really just taking those harsh t's and s's in my speech and making them sound more like a nice "shhhh", this one is super important i think

last thing i have to speak on otherwise is actually a plugin i found and bought specifically for this show and ends up being subtle but i think SUUUPER helpful in the long run, and that's this plugin called "spiff". spiff is a plugin by oeksound and i guess it's referred to as like, a transient editor? i'm actually not sure how it works at all on the nitty gritty level BUT the important thing is that they have a very important preset in the software, and that is a preset specifically designed to lessen and/or remove like... mouth sounds. yknow like lip smacks and the like. just kinda the gross smacks and clicks you don't hear as much in normal speech but can come through really intensely on a recording and kinda make ya uncomfortable. it obviously doesn't remove a lot of the more intense stuff, it's not a magic wand in my experience. but listening to the output of what it's removing on its own makes it REALLY clear there's a lot of little things it picks up and just kinda makes speech more soothing to listen to. not something i'm racing to apply to my normal streams, BUT for a sleep aid series where good audio is key????? 100% worth it, i like it a lot.

anyway yeah that's about it for now! a lot of it is pretty simple in and of itself but it's stuff i've been working at and experimenting with since i first started doing tests for the show and it's gonna be real nice to keep honing this stuff in. also cool suggestion with the tape saturation idea, i might look into something like that! once i nail stuff like leveling and frequency tuning for this show, i wanna look into some fancier ways of making the soundscape unique to this show compared to my normal streams so ideas like that are super helpful!

[afterhours-system]

omg transbipolar tips please? (if that's ok ofc!) if u do ty sooooo much (and no worries if not! ty anyway 4 being on tumblr :3)

hiii hello :33 heres some transbipolar tips from a cisBP II guything :D

general tips!!

track 👏 your👏 mood 👏!! i'd suggest one mood tracker for the moods/emotions you're actually experiencing (to track progress for example) (i use Daylio, it's great!) & one for the moods/episodes you want to experience! for BP specific moods (mainly depression/mania) i use Bipolar UK!

exaggerate your regular daily moods! if you've been in a good mood all day but suddenly feel a bit down play it up! i've gone from cruising in a very high mood (perhaps even bordering on hypomanic) to absolutely crashing for days because of one bad mood swing :P

hypomania & mania tips!!! (note: ive yet to experience a 100% manic episode, so i dont have as much personal experience there!)

hypomania: hypomania is characterized, for me, by very very high energy, high productivity (but never finishing anything), lots of inspiration & creative drive and feeling wayyy more social than usual!

also, completely losing track of my finances, needing less sleep (like. 2-3hrs & i feel well rested where i usually need 8-9,,), less need for food, almost no actual feelings of hunger (once in a month long ep i only ate One Piece Of Bread per day with the occasional (once a week max) pizza & was "fine") & being more open to drinking (and/or considering trying to get my hands on 'harder' stuff like psychedelics) where i usually straight up dont like alcohol!

i'd recommend going off of what's alr there for you; so if you notice you've been in a pretty good mood recently, say that's a hypomanic episode now! go out a lot (clubbing if you want to/can!), make efforts to meet new ppl & make friends, be very motivated & high energy and do everything (and i mean everything!) in excess (talk fast af & never stop talking, be restless and pace around, constanty occupy yourself w/ smth bcs otherwise you'll be understimulated af)

for mania: crank up everything about hypomania by about 300%. it's like there's a million bees inside your bones, you feel restless cant be still do a thousand things in a day, lose all sense of responsibility & become extremely reckless, either due to your extremely elevated mood or because of delusions or other psychotic symptoms.

oh yeah, psychosis! in a mixed ep i spent a day convinced i had somehow accidentally ingested alcohol (i hadnt)! intrusive thoughts, extreme anxiety around it, physical, olfactory & taste-based hallucinations around it, the whole package.

other BP based psychosis ive experienced: visual hallucinations (insects & spiders for me), jumbled & rapid thoughts (it felt different to adhd fast thoughts it was so weird lol)

see this article (link) for other psychotic symptoms during manic (or depressive!) episodes in pwBP!

i'd probably recommend "picking a theme" for delusions & halluciantions & the like, to make it easier to focus on them? tho i havent experienced psychosis enough to know if i have a 'theme' :P

depressive episodes!!

my least favorite (also, i feel like more things are known abt depression) (ALSO- i have seasonal affective disorder too which influences my BP episodes)

depressive episodes mean extreme lethargy for me. im tired 24/7 no matter how much sleep i get (& i'll be getting way more than usual. 10-12 hrs on average with the occasional 13 hrs 🥶).

very little movement. physical, mental, emotional, metaphyical. i often get stuck in bed, if not physically then mentally. spending my day anywhere but in my bed will feel weird & wrong. i will feel pretty numb/wont have access to my emotions anymore & often compltely stop thinking abt & processing my day-to-day life

^ this usually results in strong amnesia around depressive episodes but that might be a plural thing so. take it w a grain of salt lol

depressive episodes also make me self isolate as fuck. im talking forgoing my physical needs if theres a Chance i'll run into my roommate.

oh, yeah, also i just stop taking care of my basic physical as well as i do when balanced. i need to be starving to be able to get up & eat smth, & god forbid i want to actually cook smth rather than eating frozen pizza or eating out/ordering in

i also usually stop doing anything more creative than daydreaming (hashtag immersive daydreaming gang/silly) but even those are less immersive and less frequent. i'll be artblocked 24/7, have no inspiration or motivation and probably wont even miss drawing :P

& thats it! i hope you can find smth usefull in my rambling :3c /gen

and good luck & have fun with your transition!! you have my full support :D /gen

[the-brainrot-central]

Thoughts on Diavolo getting preg? :3

Anon you are wonderful omg. I feel like realistically he would probably get an abortion but for sake of fun I HAVE SOME HEADCANONS!!!

No more weed :((( he uses it occasionally for migraines and anxiety but now he’s gonna have to rawdog that shit. His pregnancy can be pretty tough sometimes, he has a few migraine episodes during this time

An absolute emotional MESS, his mood swings are all over the place and Kira has to talk him down from a ledge constantly. Mainly anxiety, anger, sadness and euphoria, just an alternating dial of those four with an occasional (rare) moment of peace

Craves lots of Italian food of course, especially stuff with a ton of carbs like pizzas, pastas, etc (I don’t know much about Italian food tbh). kira has to start learning to cook new dishes he’s never made before to fullfil his cravings, but he enjoys the challenge :) And seeing Diavolo smile when he eats his cooking is always worth it

He feels really guilty and starts ruminating on an existential level about his pregnancy—the fact that he’s hurt and killed so many people, and now thinks that he has the right/capacity to have a baby and love it. He feels lots of regret and guilt. He had some of these kinds of thoughts during Kira’s pregnancy, but they were much easier to ignore at that time—mainly because he wasn’t the one carrying. But now that he’s the pregnant one, it’s like a constant reminder of all these thoughts and what he’s done to people, which makes it hard to cope with.

Diavolo doesn’t like crying, as he finds it embarrassing, so usually doppio comes out to cry for him—he’s much more open about his feelings and okay with being vulnerable, especially in front of Kira.

His anger issues get particularly intense, so he starts going back to the gym again to vent his rage—beats the absolute shit out of the punching bag. He doesn’t want to subject Trish or Kira to his outbursts, he refuses to hurt them like that. Still, he does occasionally snap and yells at them over small things, but he always apologizes.

Kira, having extra empathy of what he’s going through, is super super thoughtful and doting on him bc he knows how hard it is sometimes, especially for someone like Diavolo whose too shy and stubborn to communicate his needs

While he doesn’t mind dressing femme, he thinks most maternity wear is tacky and ugly, so he mostly just buys plus size men’s and women’s clothes (which are frustratingly difficult to obtain, living in Japan; he’s already bigger and taller than most Japanese brands accommodate for, so being pregnant is even more of a struggle). Sometimes he borrows some of Kiras shirts he wore when he was pregnant (he kept some of them to use as nightshirts lol)

Doppio likes coming out more than Dia, he likes having a baby bump and is very lovey dovey about the baby, meanwhile Diavolo is generally kind of miserable and grouchy when he fronts, and very insecure with his body

⚠️NSFW⚠️ Diavolo is horny as FUCCKKJ and him and Kira get it on pretty often (when Trish isn’t around of course annsndn). He’s extra kinky while pregnant, likes to tie kira up and maybe spank him a bit 🤭🫣

But when his belly gets bigger, he gets really insecure in the bedroom and they don’t have sex for the rest of his pregnancy bc he just feels really unattractive in bed ☹️Refuses to even let Kira see him shirtless at all anymore he’s so insecure. Kira is upset about this (he wants to fuck jajsjdj and he also LOVES Dia’s pregnant body 🥺) but he understands and is willing to hold off until he feels comfortable again.

[imminent-danger-came]

Rewatched some of the earlier lmk episodes and was reminded of how odd MK‘s inconsistent level of knowledge concerning jttw is.

HOWEVER, I feel we can still make it make sense!

Obviously he never actually read the book. We can all generally agree on that.

Tang was MK‘s main (possibly only) source of information when it comes to these stories. Having a proper storyteller probably made it much easier for him to focus too.

MK has idolized and fanboyed over Monkey King for a looong time. MK has illustrated an entire Biography after all.

Little MK probably had ZERO impulse control. Less than current MK, his impulse control was in the negatives!

What conclusion can we draw from this?

MK‘s lacking knowledge is entirely Tang‘s fault. After all, how else could MK (who said he only cared about the Monkey King parts of the story) not even know about how he got that title?

Easy; Tang wasn‘t about to tell the tiny idiot (who can‘t even swim) that jumping into a waterfall is what makes a monkey a king. Because MK would have tried to be just like his hero, except he would have smacked face first into a wall before dropping into the river.

Depending on how much lmk altered jttw‘s story (possibly adding the fact that Macaque was Wukongs friend to the tale) Tang might not have wanted to ruin MK‘s image of his idol, especially since he values friendship and staying together so much!

Monkey King killing his friends doesn’t really sound like the kind of story that MK would enjoy, ya know?

Oh I've talked about this exact thing here!

I'm telling you MK lied to himself in AHIB when Tang was like "And you thought you knew all the Monkey King's stories!" and MK responded "Oh but I do!".

The show literally opened with an extremely important story MK didn't previously know, which is pretty much how the rest of the show plays out lol.

MK vc: Yeah, I know what's going on. *has only read the comic book versions of Monkey King's adventures and definitely doesn't know what's going on even the slightest bit*

[cometcon]

I know this is generally supposed to be a Transformers focused blog, but I've been a little obsessed with Helluva Boss characters lately, and pre-'Western Energy' Striker in particular. (Ed Bosco did a great job picking up the role after they couldn't get Norman Reedus again, but I still much prefer sinister seductive Striker with Reedus' awesome performance voicing him. And while I'm sure the writers had their reasons for where they want to take the character, I'm much more of a slut for the competent, non-undermined villains lol).

I recently saw someone (in a YouTube comment somewhere I think) mention offhand how it seemed like Striker was trying to frame Moxxie rather than outright kill him in Harvest Moon and I think that person was right in their general point of 'strangling is an odd way to go about it when he could have just stabbed him to death or snapped his neck and been done with it.' I agree that was definitely interesting but there's actually more to support this argument and speculate further, I reckon.

(It's a long waffle so I've put it below a read more line.)

Hopefully they'll be added soon but atm there aren't proper subtitles* for the episode so I can't easily screengrab the lines, but basically Moxxie has this adorable nerd-out about angelic weapons, so Millie's family knows from that point on that he knows a lot about them.

Blitz takes an instant shine to Striker (I went brrrr on that during the conversation too but I'll save that for another time lol) and it can be assumed during all of that juicy but unfortunately offscreen interaction when he was inviting Striker to I.M.P that Blitz would have told him more about his current employees, with or without prompting, since he thought Striker was going to join and Blitz would be thinking to show off his employees as a positive draw because he doesn't know at this point that Striker is a supremacist asshole. ie: He probably would have said Millie is a vicious badass and Moxxie the weapons specialist and it isn't much of a stretch to assume he probably would have mentioned the little angelic weapons nerd-out Moxxie had before Striker got there as part of talking about how much Moxxie knows about his job. And then it doesn't take much observation to see Millie's parents love, trust and respect their daughter and think very lowly of Moxxie (I'm going somewhere with this, I promise lol).

The biggest factor for me though is exactly how the scene where Moxxie finds the gun is set up.

First of all, the gun case is in full view on Striker's bed, open, and glowing magenta light so bright it easily leaks out beneath the door. And while again, the auto-gen subtitles take a second to cover the line properly, Moxxie says "Well that's troubling" before he even touches the knob, indicating he already strongly suspects what that glow is being made by before he even opens the door, which is what draws him to open it in the first place.

And while I know there's clearly a whole dramatic appearance timing thing going on because animation, there still has to be some level of believability for Striker to suddenly be there, meaning he literally had to be lying in wait nearby to appear that damn quickly from the moment Moxxie starts entering his room to the rapid pan 'empty door space/boom Striker's there now' shot we get.

And he's not at all fazed by Moxxie's discovery. Unlike when Blitz barges in unexpectedly and catches him off-guard later (I'll explain my reasoning for that in a second) he's completely ready for this. He's not bothered in the slightest. Almost like he planned it.

How perfect would it be to frame Moxxie, an imp already looked down on by the townsfolk here as essentially an annoying city kid who annoyed Millie's parents further by showing off his angelic weapon knowledge, for the murder of a Goetian Prince via blessing-tipped rifle?

And then of course there's that original point the YouTube commenter made that it would have been even easier for Striker to off Moxxie in pretty much any other way besides strangling if he needed to silence him quickly, and the second time he catches him makes it look even more like he might be trying to make him lose consciousness rather than kill him (fun fact: it's actually a lot harder to knock people out with a whack on the head than they make it look in the movies and Striker is also clearly intending this as a power trip for himself as well. Getting to overpower Moxxie helps feed his whole 'stronger superior imp' bullshit that is essential to his character and which he's been lording over Moxxie the whole episode with Millie's family at his back. You could argue that's also a reason to use it as his killing method but there's still that little thing of Moxxie having shown off his angelic weapons knowledge and not being popular with the Wrath crowd and using the gun to trap him in the first place.)

Unfortunately, Moxxie manages to do something unplanned in smashing the vase, alerting Millie to the situation. But Millie was not in Striker's game plan. Easy to take out? Apparently. Easy to frame? FUCK. NO. XD

Millie is her family's darling daughter, and while Striker has clearly developed a decent rapport already with the family (presumably to get the lay of the land and establish some support from the family for himself beforehand to help cover his ass during an inevitable investigation, before Moxxie turns up and gives him even better cover options), there's no way they would choose to believe him over their own very much beloved family member, no matter how good a rapport he's established over however many days or possibly even weeks he's been there.

So now he has a problem. He's not only lost the option of framing Moxxie, he has to somehow keep Millie - someone her family will instantly believe - from dobbing him in. Sure, he could kill them both and just go back to Plan A, but as he points out himself, he would have to deal with cleaning up after it well enough to avoid shit for it and cover himself for Stolas' murder. Also he has multiple stab wounds to potentially have to hide or explain. That's a lot of shit to deal with without help... Which is where the line "there's more leverage with your Rodeo clown of a boss if I don't" becomes relevant.

He's switched tactics. Plan A was replaced with a better Plan B, which got destroyed by Millie turning up. Plan C now involves using Blitz by threatening to kill the M&Ms if Blitz doesn't cooperate in helping him cover up Stolas' murder. But he also has one more card in his back pocket which he's created over the time he's observed how Stolas treats Blitz plus his own interactions with Blitz where Blitz clearly is already at least somewhat into Striker (I'll analyse that another time. I've run out of Tumblr pic limit unfortunately).

So now I'm up to how Blitz definitely wasn't expected during the assassination attempt. We can tell by the expressions we see but Blitz can't:

And then Striker clearly changes tack again.

He's actually caught off-guard here and is thinking on the fly, though with how quickly he does switch into confidence and calm again I don't think the card he plays was entirely improvised; it's a back pocket card he had ready in case.

Time for 'Plan D: Operation Seduce Blitz/Point Out How Much Your Life And Transactional Relationship With A Royal Sucks And Wouldn't It Be So Much Better If You Just Teemed Up With Me, The Guy You Like Who Is Oh So Relatable, Hot And Really Cool Actually Don't You Think?'

He clearly believes he can get through to Blitz after their time bonding over however long they've all been there (I'm assuming it was also at least overnight since they were taking the hog for dinner and the Pain Games look to be like an all-day kind of event that started the next day but that's definitely an assumption idk how time works in Hell XD ). And with that lighting and frame change

it definitely looks like he might have been at least for a few seconds, before Moxxie comes in and Blitz apparently regains his senses and remembers they're trying to stop Striker (Now it's Blitz's turn to seem like he was expecting Moxxie. I'm assuming Moxxie found him first and they went to stop Striker together with Blitz as bait, considering it would be really fucking stupid for Moxxie to try to take on Striker alone after what happened last time, and it would be really weird for Blitz to randomly go into the house and into what I'm assuming is Millie's parents' bedroom in order to just coincidentally find him.) So unfortunately for Striker, while he might have once been able to manipulate Blitz at some point prior to the whole M&M problem and Moxxie telling Blitz what was really happening, Blitz already knowing what he did to the M&Ms and his plan to use them against Blitz pretty much ruined that card's potency, which is why the small sway didn't last long even with all of Striker's time spent getting Blitz to bond with him and trust him. Again, older pre-established ties will always win out no matter how good a manipulator the antag is.

So yeah, that's why I think the whole thing was planned pretty early on, Moxxie finding the gun on the bed was a carefully laid trap to frame him all along, and my thoughts on what was likely going on in all the off-screen things we didn't get to see and have to put together ourselves.

(I don't watch the livestreams and haven't seen this covered anywhere else outside of the short offfhand knocking Moxxie out to frame him comment, so if this isn't remotely new, well it is to me and I had so much fun nutting it out. XD )

*Thankfully the auto-generated subtitles are better in this episode than the previous ones, but there are still many lines completely missing my friend had to help me decipher, and the previous episodes are pretty much impossible for me to watch properly because way too much shit is missing or mistranslated to the point it's an incredible drag even with help. Always put proper subtitles on your videos please, especially if your videos are animations/complex stories with necessary dialogue. The auto-generated ones are not always as helpful as you think they are and even the better ones still don't always pop up for lines and are far more exhausting to keep up with than proper ones even if they are mostly accurate. Please try watching your videos with the sound off and the auto-gen on a few times to get some idea of what it actually feels like - remembering also that you know what's happening as the creator while we don't - before you decide that's good enough for people who need them. It really isn't and I need my friend's help to understand what's going on in many parts of the first season before they put proper subtitles on the very last ep and then Season 2. It's exhausting. On the plus side I got to fully appreciate the second season entirely on my own without help and it was fucking EPIC getting to just watch and enjoy without having to do mental gymnastics keeping up with and guessing or having to ask my friend what was said because the fucking auto-gen flaked out for the umpteenth time.

[le-trash-prince]

Only Friends Episode 12 Thoughts

Overall, I think I'm pretty okay with how things ended! I didn't get everything exactly as I wanted, but I don't need a show to be perfect, and I got enough to chew on to make me happy.

I am sad that BostonNick didn't end up together, even though I know it was the right call, and it was honestly a better ending for them than what I was scared we would get LOL. Like usual I'll just make a separate post for this because I've got a lot to say about them

I do think Boston was owed more of an apology from his friends than what he got, but I'm not that surprised he didn't get it, and it's probably for the best that they're parting ways. And honestly, when a person is leaving the country, it can be easier to just say "Why bother apologizing if they don't give a shit anyways."

I know people were dissatisfied with Cheum's characterization as of Ep 11, but this episode really solidified how I see her--as someone who wants things to be happy on the surface and doesn't know how to really honestly confront what it is that people need. As the woman in the group, she's under pressure to be the peacekeeper and the nurturing influence and I don't think that role comes naturally to her. She's not good at it, and she shouldn't have to be. And I do honestly like that she was written that way. I wish she had gotten more screentime over the series, and maybe that could happen in a spinoff/sequel with some queer lady writers on the team. (I just finished the ep so I haven't looked at any announcements from the event on Saturday)

I do wish this series had been longer because it seemed it really had a lot of story to tell and not enough time to do it. But a longer season would also have been more stressful to deal with lmfao.

Some things I would have loved to see more of, off the top of my head: Daddy Dan, Sand's dad, Ray in rehab, Boeing.

I'm generally okay with where TopMew has ended up, and while I think there's more that could be explored in a future story, the only thing that really interests me regarding their relationship is Mew's physicality. But I would still like to see more growth from Mew, and I would like to know Top as a person because so much of his behavior and even his plans for the future are wrapped up in Mew.

I think SandRay ended on as satisfactory a note as could be managed. Did Ray's behavior towards Boeing piss me off? Sure. Do I think he needs more time to get his life together? Sure. Do I need a story to have its characters Do Every Correct Action Until Maximum Healthiness Is Achieved? No. They're talking things out and figuring out their relationship and that's what matters.

I am really gonna need that flight attendant!Boeing x NYC!Boston spinoff now thank you very much.

I don't hate the idea of a second season as much as I thought it would, although maybe it's because I'm biased and would want a season with BostonNick or Boston and Nick taking more central roles. I've gotten what I need out of TopMew and SandRay, but I think there's more story to be explored with other characters, and I wouldn't hate that. But I would hate to see tired breakup-drama second season tropes.

Debating whether I even want to catch up on everyone's reactions because I'm sure the ending was just loose enough to be divisive. Anyways I'm gonna go wrap up my playlist now bye lol

[vergess]

this is a personal af question that you do not need to answer publicly or at all esp. bc its for fanficish writing purposes but anyway so like how DO you, personally at least, deal with episodes of psychosis? because google tells me that the go to needs to be antipsychotics but 1. the context is a character who does not have regular access to them anyway 2. every one i have looked at has GOD AWFUL PERMANENT SIDE EFFECTS that seem to be almost guaranteed to happen? and my doctor oc would not subject that to anybody. the usual psychosis symptoms i write in my current rps are post-ictal and postpartum psychosis specifically because getting information about that from people who actually HAVE THE CONDITIONS is easy, and there seem to be other methods of dealing with them without antipsychotics (plus, you know, magic dnd for one, and pokemon psychic bs for the other) but finding information on how people with other forms of psychosis (in this case, schizotypal ftr) deal with it from their own perspective is almost impossible? it's ALL ableist bullshit from doctors which is why i am hesitant to trust the idea of "antipsychotics are the only way" :/ even reddit is not helpful here lol and i want to get this right? i know it's just tumblr rp/ao3 fanfic/discord rp that nobody important will read but me and my friends are trying to NOT be ableist shitbags on purpose you know?

Boy I really just don't answer tough asks over the winter months, huh.

I started keeping a closer eye on how media that I otherwise recommend depicts psychosis since getting this ask, and I'm disappointed to announce that over the last two months only two (2) pieces of media have been Normal About Psychosis.

So, the first thing to remember when writing a Psycho is: WE ARE WHOLE ASS ADULTS WITH ADULT BRAINS OKAY, we're not small children lost in a fantasy. We're not violent monsters out for blood. We are people who sometimes see, hear, etc things that aren't really there.

Writing a psychotic character competently isn't about curing them, or even about reducing their symptoms. It's about showing how they cope with those symptoms while carrying on with their daily lives.

I'm currently on the lowest possible dose of antipsychotic right now, and I will say two things about that. 1) the meds make reality checks and other coping skills MUCH more effective. 2) Even at a low dose, abstract and creative thinking are hindered. I don't feel hindered; but I have a 24 year long writing portfolio that says I sure as shit am hindered.

Whether a character will benefit from going on meds is going to be a balancing act. But since you aren't actually looking for meds advice, lets talk about those Other Coping Skills.

Broadly, I would split my skills into three categories: stuff for hallucinations, stuff for delusions, and stuff for dissociation.

So, first off, reality checking is my #1 go to for hallucinations.

You pick this skill up pretty quickly as a kid; everyone does. The difference being that where a non-psychotic person eventually gets to stop relying on others to tell them what is real, we get to keep on asking forever.

It's actually super exhausting to be in a crowded space because most of the nonverbal cues you come to rely on (eg, no one else flinched so that noise probably wasn't real) become INSTANTLY useless. Every noise, movement etc may of may not be real, and your only option is to either gauge other people's lack of reaction, or ask someone you trust for a reality check.

Sounds like an easy way for an abusive shit to control your entire life with no effort? It is!!

THAT'S WHY PSYCHOTIC PEOPLE ARE WAY MORE LIKELY TO BE ABUSED THAN THE GENERAL POPULATION.

Once you know if something is real or not, you can decide to ignore it. Like ignoring anything obtrusive, this is easier if you are in a good mood, physically comfortable, etc. An absurd amount of "coping with psychosis" is just constantly monitoring yourself and others to make sure you are reacting to the right things at the right volume.

Ignoring something that your brain insists is real and a threat is very tiring, so there's also a lot of sleeping.

Delusions are significantly harder to manage than hallucinations, IMO. Not just because, as a multiply marginalized person there are myriad ways that an ambiguous "them" is actually trying to ruin my life for real. Being on terror watchlists due to racism REALLY makes it IMPOSSIBLE to manage my paranoid delusions because some of the more insane shit is just real.

But there are other delusions that are easier to handle. Mostly, this comes down to self monitoring again. I can take an extra second to ask myself, "hang on, statistically speaking, how likely is it that this total stranger ACTUALLY wants to kill me?" The answer, of course, is "violent crime has been trending down for years, and everyone in this area thinks I'm white as long as I don't go outside during the summer, so I'm safe."

It's all about finding the information that helps keep you calm.

Because the absolute certainty that this is a murderer and you are walking into the slaughter will not go away. You just... take it on faith that this time will turn out as safely as the last 399 times.

It's just a shitload of observation, mimicry, and forcing myself to do things that feel dangerous by reminding myself that they aren't.

That shit sounds simple, but it's a CONSTANT fight; it never really gets easier, you just get used to it.

Which brings me back around to my meds again: I think I prefer it this way. My writing sucks, and I keep crying when I read it because it's wrong, it sounds like a field amputation. But god, I went to a cafe during the morning rush a few days ago, and the overload of noise and data only left me bedridden for ONE day. ONE!!! Not a WEEK!

Maybe losing my only art is okay in light of how much less bad things are.

Anyway, I can't remember the name of the 2014 short story about the One Person With Psychosis being wrongfully shunned by her colony because she doesn't feel affective empathy, in spite of her constant and perfectly reasoned moral code ensuring she is, if anything, the least dangerous person in town. I wish I could remember it!! It's a good example!!!

I haven't read it yet, but people I love and trust seem to generally agree that the psychosis in Harrow the Ninth is well written, too, so maybe check that out IDK

[picnokinesis]

Ahhhhh Yazs last chapter! I loved it and was surprised how easily the Doctor came out to her about being genderqueer and her pronouns, because I expected her to be a bit dodgy about the subject, maybe the conversation with Jack helped her a lot. I kinda hoped that she would tell Yaz about her former name, John, but baby steps LOL. AND RIVER YEEESSSSS. I didnt know that she visited her, I can imagine that River wasnt exactly happy to see her but it is cute that she gave her that mixtape awwww

Ahhh thank you so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it!!

You know, it's quite funny with the Doctor, but honestly I think that there are so many other things on her mind at the moment, so many things that she is actively avoiding talking about, that talking about her gender and sexuality is relatively easy territory HAHA! But also I think it has a LOT to do with the context of the conversation. For a start, Yaz came out first, and in my personal experience (which a lot of that conversation was inspired by honestly haha) it is SIGNIFICANTLY easier to come out to someone who has also just come out to you, because it suddenly becomes less of a terrifying thing and much more a 'oh my days we're family' thing, which is really lovely. And you can be a lot more frank about it too, and more open about the complexity of the whole thing, because this is another queer person who will most likely get where you're coming from in a way that a cis straight person probably wouldn't so much.....so I think, for the Doctor, that has a lot to do with it. But I also think Yaz really went about it the right way too, which helped a lot - she didn't try and put any names on what the Doctor experienced, and just left it open for her to say what she wanted. And this helped the Doctor a lot, because she honestly doesn't know in some ways, and in others it's ended up being a bit complicated. But you'll see all of that in a lot more detail from the Doctor's side when you get her pov of that scene!

You are right, though, in that there are definitely times when the Doctor would have been more cagey about this sort of thing - and I think that would have been if she'd felt like she needed to give a clear cut answer, or felt like she was being pressured to explain it all more than she feels comfortable with. There is a lot that she doesn't say to Yaz. There is a lot that she doesn't say in general, actually, which is partly why her section is significantly longer than anyone else's haha (as well as the fact that she sleeps less than everyone else sksk)

About the name John, though - well, unfortunately, at this stage in the story, she will definitely not talk to ANYONE about that, and it's because it's all entangled in the past she can't really remember. It's a direct thread pulling back on everything between her and Koschei and she...isn't dealing well, let's say.

AND THIS IS GETTING LONG BUT YES RIVER!! Oh, River.....yeah, that meeting in 2018 was really complicated. I feel like it was significantly more difficult for River than for the Doctor, who just had no context for anything. But I really wanted them to meet like that, because it's meant to be a parallel between that moment in River's first episode in the show, where she looks at the Doctor and he just does not know her at all. The album that she recced though, in case it wasn't clear, wasn't in 2018, but way back when they were sort-of-dating - and as I said in the ask I just answered, it was because it resonated with her a lot and she thought it would resonate with the Doctor too. If you haven't listened to it, I do recommend it actually because it's a GORGEOUS album and very raw in places.

Sidenote - not sure if you saw the asks I replied to about campervan!River aaages back, but if not, they're here and here!

[rahleeyah]

It’s d.c. anon back after a mental health breakkkk 😎😎 and I have more thoughts lol

first, I cannot take credit for this as I saw it on Twitter, but it RESONATED. Having CM come to svu to play the hallucination of an emt after Olivia’s car accident was a misuse of budget lol. I can’t remember (so correct me if I’m wrong) but he wasn’t in the rest of the ep, and as far as I know it didn’t do anything to advance the eo plot? Idk. Just a random thing I saw and was like YES. only bc that’s the reason we get sometime when we talk about crossovers…the budget… but like…why? LOL

Second, we know the general consensus is oc season 3 is a dumpster fire. BUT I actually like that we cut off the casino story line to focus on the Vaughn story and then went back to casino? Thoughts? I know it’s probably bc of the show runner turnover but, happy accident?

Lastly, I remembered the other day that when I was in college I had a HUGE crush on one of my guy friends. Idk if it was what I thought love was at that age and Idk if it was obvious to anyone else or to him but eventually he hooked up with my best friend at the time. And this gutted me. I spent the night ugly crying to my roommate and lied about the reason I was crying bc I was so embarrassed of the real reason. I bring this all up to say that at the time, I couldn’t control myself or my emotions and how STRONG Olivia has had to be for herself alone, with not many people there to let in and see her vulnerable. About the trust of others that is not there since the pattern has always been the same and I’m heartbroken for her

before we dive in - good for you for taking a mental health break. that shit is so important and all the stuff we do online can be fun but it can also do damage and I'm glad you took a step back and are ready to return now!

no it is such a good point and I have to wonder if like. were there contract discussions about the number of times he'd turn up in svu beforehand? was wet lettuce told he had to include Elliot somewhere in that episode and that was what he came up with? I wouldn't put it past him, the twat,

yes, this season has been a dumpster fire and yes I liked that we cut away for the random arc in the middle. I don't think I would've liked it if it came in the middle of the Albanian arc, where oc was actually telling a really good, interesting, cohesive story and it would've felt like a distraction, but in the middle of this mess that I didn't care about at all, the one off with vaughn was actually much more interesting and fun. the casino arc has been trash so I was just glad to not have to deal with it lmao but it would be interesting to see if they use this structure again and how that unfolds in the future

Olivia has had to be strong but Olivia has also chosen to isolate herself in many ways. Olivia has chosen to keep a lot of her feelings to herself on purpose as a matter of self-protection, which a lot of us do, not bc she's embarrassed and not bc she doesn't want to be a burden and not bc she doesn't want to cause a scene but bc her biggest fear is being seen as vulnerable. she absolutely does not want that, she will cut off her own arm before she lets someone else see her weak. so for her keeping all her emotions to herself and not confiding in people is actually easier than reaching out. that has become her comfort zone. it does more harm than good in the long run but we all get stuck in behaviors that hurt us from time to time. it will take all of her strength to be vulnerable, and there's really only one person left she will be honest with. and I for one desperately want to see that.

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 19: My So-Called Life 1x10

This episode always makes me especially emotional, and I think that's only becoming more true as I get older. Rayanne strikes me as sadder, and in a sense scarier, than she did or could when I was a teenager, and Patty (again) just becmes more impressive and more sympathetic. By which I mean it becomes easier for me to understand her and her POV.

The thing is Patty is always the person who's just trying so hard all the time. She is where Angela gets her earnestness from, except she's 40 so it's uncool (lol). And part of the reason she tries so hard and does so much is because no one else is trying as hard or doing as much. Graham and Patty may be an inverted gender-stereotype marriage in some ways, but this is such a woman's role: the emotional head of house. But it's because of Patty that things get done or new things are tried and she is always reliable, always competent, always there when she's needed. I mean that's the big lesson of this episode--Amber is the cool mom but she's neglectful, selfish, bad in a crisis, both overly emotional and unable to deftly handle emotions in others. Patty is embarrassing and lame and try-hard but she's capable and reliable.

But honestly she's also a way cooler than she's given credit for. Like, she sees her teen daughter and friends with a beer in the middle of the afternoon and she just kinda sputters a bit, then takes Angela aside, talks to her about another topic entirely, and then simply says "you won't do that again" and Angela just agrees. Because Angela didn't want the beer anyway. She was uncomfortable with Rayanne having it. Patty knows all of this about her. She trusts Angela, and even when Angela does something Patty doesn't want her to do, that trust is never really misplaced. Angela is the daughter who calls home. And then she makes small talk at the party.

It's very interesting me to trace the 3 generations of mothers and daughters in Angela's family. They all have the exact same party face. They are people who can perform, even if that means separating themselves from what they're feeling. I don't think Patty and Angela are passive aggressive like Vivian--but maybe that's just to Patty's credit lol. She's super well adjusted for someone with parents as stressful as hers.

Angela remains remarkably astute for someone who is 15; still my favorite quality of hers. I especially liked the line about her mother pretending to be happy rather than being happy, and her monologue about the tarot cards at the end.

Rickie was very interesting to me in this episode. First, I noticed for the first time that he's wearing an AIDS ribbon on his shirt at school, which is such a great costuming detail for him. And second, he's just so heartbreaking in this episode. He fairly obviously half-lives at Rayanne's. When Angela tried instinctively to insert herself between Rayanne and Amber and Rickie held her back, you could see his experience and, in a sense, expertise within this scenario: he's been here before. Maybe not OD-bad, but he's been here. He and Rayanne really have no one reliable other than each other--every other relationship simmers with the threat of violence, is transitory, is shallow, is broken. It's such a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship. I think it's probably more...equal than it appears to be, since so much of the show focuses on Rayanne's issues and Rickie's valiant efforts to be everything for her all the time, but Rayanne is the one with the safe home for Rickie to crash at, she's the one who cleans up his injuries after he's been bullied or abused at home, and she does her best to keep him safe at school. She probably also provides him with the same thing that Angela liked when she came to the 'other country' of the Graff/Vallone apartment: effusive, happy emotions, a welcoming attitude, laughter, appetizers. He just needs it more than Angela does. Also, he has nothing anywhere near home-like to contrast it to. This is the closest to a functional family he has. So of course he'd try so hard to protect her that it hurts.

I wonder if Patty, as she listens to Rickie in the hospital, sees her relationship dynamic with her college friend reflected in his dynamic with Rayanne. She contrasts it to Rayanne and Angela for obvious reasons (she's talking to her daughter, Angela) but I think the relative intensity and isolation of a college roommate situation--you're zero to 100 with a stranger, living on top of each other, quasi-independent for the first time--would create a dynamic much more similar to the co-dependent friendship that Rickie and Rayanne have.

That's a pretty random place to stop but I don't really have any other thoughts! I still want to do my headcanon fic so bad but like... I'm also so tired so!!

[missusplum]

Since Nadia kicked Arman out of the club now, do you think he'll take Thony up on her offer to stay at the clinic? Perhaps the writers won't address the issue again but it seemed like they made a big point of her kicking him out both times (maybe just to underscore the change in the status of their relationship?) Kind of surprised that Arman seemed like he still wanted to save his marriage through most of the ep. Love his character and liked the episode but really Arman?! He still seems confused, lol. I hope the writers don't try to backpedal on the marriage again. Time to move on. I would love to see Arman and Nadia have competing clubs next season! What did you think of the ep?

hello anon! in general i quite liked the episode! aside from arman’s absence for half of it 😤

personally i don’t think he’ll stay at the clinic, though it’d be interesting if he did. i think that bit of dialogue was just to show that thony’s caught onto his marriage issues?

more to the meat: i’ve read a lot of people being frustrated with arman trying to save his marriage and while i totally understand why, i feel the need to defend him a bit lmao. incoming long post about arman/armony under the cut:

k to preface, this is all just my interpretation and me trying to make sense of the show so far, because like i’ve said before i don’t think the writing has been super clear either way. it could all change by next episode and i could change my mind and this could all be moot lmao. and it’s probably worth noting that a lot of these thoughts are mostly based on how the characters have been written this season only (because if i try to contextualize too much from last season we’ll just get into the same consistency issues we’ve already talked about lol)

ok first of all, while i totally get that it would be the most straightforward if characters made split decisions and stuck to them and moved forward and never looked back, i just don’t think humans work this way, and certainly not the characters in TCL lol. they’re all a mess in their own ways, and arman is no different. i don’t think that makes him a frustrating character, just a human one

my understanding of arman this season is that he’s more or less lost control of everything in his life that he knows. aside from the money issues, here’s a brief list of things that he’s lost this season: his place as hayak’s second, his business acumen (being forced out of the gun business and that’s all he’s known), his ability to run the club, his dignity while working for kamdar who’s intent on humiliating him, and now his home and marriage. when your seemingly stable life is unceremoniously thrown into chaos, i think it’s human nature to want to cling onto the familiar and cling onto what was your normalcy, and that’s what i see arman doing. he’s trying to salvage the clientele at the club, he’s trying to escape kamdar and buy the club, he’s trying to save his marriage so he can get back that stability again and piece back together the life that he had before

while it would make things so much easier for us shippers if arman just up and fell out of love with nadia, again i don’t think that’s generally how humans operate. melissa carter has said that she sees arman as being in love with the two women; obviously i don’t think he means to string anyone along, but i think they represent different parts of him: nadia in part represents his old life and the life that made him who he is. they had a life together that worked, they were a formidable business team, their goals were compatible. and like i said, putting back together his old life has basically been arman’s main focus this season. not being able to save his marriage (or at least save nadia from kamdar) would also be admitting that there’s a part of his old life that is lost forever. and while that may be true anyway, i think actually coming to terms with that and accepting the end of something you once loved and valued is easier said than done. he also doesn’t want to hurt her and wants to do the ‘right thing’. there was a really good meta piece written a few weeks ago that explained how blaming kamdar and thony for their failing marriage has been convenient for both arman and nadia instead of facing the core issues in their relationship. i’m not 100% convinced that the writers are leaning into this as much as the triangle/quad, but personally i think it makes a lot of sense. the relationship has its own issues, and i think a key piece is the introduction of thony in arman’s life

meeting thony has shifted his values and changed him from the man nadia married, so much so that even if arman did manage to retain everything from his old life, i’m not convinced that he would be truly happy anymore. i think thony has fundamentally changed arman (like he has changed her). it’s not necessarily that he consciously wants to be with thony yet, but i think the way that she challenges him on his decision-making and has this unfailing belief that he is a good person has awoken a subconscious need in arman to be good. being recognized as a good man is something he actually craves, and imo this is a large part of why he’s so unwilling to cut ties with thony. nadia doesn’t care if he is good or bad; thony does, and the reality is that arman does too. nadia has often mocked arman about having a complex to be thony’s hero; to me this clearly demonstrates a fundamental misalignment of their values and a core cause of the dissolution of their relationship. nadia literally cannot comprehend why it’s important to arman to do good things (helping luca, not immediately willing to sell opioids, etc), especially when they inconvenience their business goals, so she reasons it as infidelity and the silly need to be a hero. but to arman, it’s so much more than that: thanks to meeting thony, i think he’s growing more and more fed up with committing crimes just for the sake of climbing up the next rung on the ladder. the more thony challenges him, the more he craves the reassurance, the need to prove to her and to himself, that his soul isn’t completely rotten so he can live with himself at the end of the day

but i don’t think that arman is really aware or has fully recognized this, especially not this season when he’s been so solely focused on getting his old life back. and let’s not forget, thony has been actively trying to help him get his life back. it’s not like she consciously wants to be with him either. thony herself is too morally righteous and prideful to willingly be the reason why someone else’s marriage fails. in many ways thony and arman just want to help each other without anything in return. there’s a real beauty in this!

moreover i think arman and thony represent to each other some element of unknown that can be exciting but also cause for trepidation. i think they have a love for each other but at this point are they in love? i don’t think either of them would say so. like i said, in its current state, the nature of their relationship is very confusing and hard to define for them both — the physical attraction and emotional connection is clearly there, but they have such different lives and backgrounds that in many ways it doesn’t make sense for them to get on as well as they do. there are so many unknowns and enough excuses why they should be incompatible that i think it’s fair for both to question whether or not a romantic relationship would even make sense or be sustainable. even though this season has shown the boundaries of their personal lives blurring a little bit, it seems they’re both still trying to maintain some distance there. this was evident in their argument in ep5 where they talked about the motel guy threatening her family and kamdar threatening his — their families are still considered separate entities; they still see their lives as separate entities. does it really make sense for thony to invite a criminal into her home life and into luca’s life? does it really make sense for arman to give up on the club and wade into the unknown world of prescription meds? would it all just crash and burn?? maybe, maybe not. but i don’t blame either of them for shying away from it in favour of the lives that they’ve lived and known. and i think this juxtaposition of what should make sense to them vs what actually does is what makes their dynamic so intriguing

i don’t really want to get into the business of predicting what scenes or storylines will come up since every time i do i just end up expecting too much and getting disappointed lol. but if thematically the main development in armony’s relationship from s1 was that they trust each other, i think (hope?) maybe that the main development in s2 will be that they need each other. however it plays out, to whatever degree, romantic or not, i’ll leave up to the powers that be. and i’ll just keep hoping and praying that we get a season 3 so that we continue to see them develop and grow!

and thus ends another unnecessarily long word vomit about fictional tv characters

[cozymochi]

38?

38: Professor Membrane: a good daddy or a neglectful cold father?

Starting this off with subtlety aren’t ya

ahem. Fine. I’ll f i n a l l y say a piece…!!!

TBH? I don’t either are very good reads. 😩 They’re way too “ONE OR THE OTHER”- both are pretty black and white again and neither feel right tbh… i don’t think it actually matters? …BUT Let’s talk anyway!!

In the original series Membrane didn’t actually show up enough to really say anything good or bad about him like that, and he doesn’t do anything really significant the whole series. Dib and Gaz didn’t really show any signs of being bugged by anything he does in particular either. (Mainly because in a meta sense, this concept didn’t exist at this time- we’ll get back to this)

I should probably note something about that entire family: None of them were fully realized as we know them now in the og series. Excluding Dib to a degree, they were all pretty flat and works in progress.

Membrane’s behavior highly depended on the writer. In one episode, he’s not around altogether and has pre-recorded messages to his kids. In another, he’s working from home and seems to be involved.

In “Game Slave 2” he wouldn’t even let Gaz leave the house at night unless her brother was with her, cuz he said it’d be too dangerous for her to be alone. Within the context of the universe and cartoon logic (where kids generally have more freedom/independence than IRL), that’s not really a lot to work with.

But also in a later ep he exploits his daughter’s image and subjects her to “painful experiments.” The apology comes in taking her out to pizza. Like. Wut. Lol. Actual “parenting” doesn’t really come in much, but that’s nothing too damning tbh given he wasn’t a focus anyway. It’s just a bunch of random stuff depending on what joke wants to be made.

OG Membrane wasn’t really there in-series, but the children weren’t really inherently bothered by anything on a personal level. Dib didn’t have any personal issue with his dad yet- and seemed actually proud to be related to him. Gaz just wanted to hang out with him in the rare instances they could. It more so just: “he’s busy.” Not much to it. I don’t think any of this was meant to be thought about deeply. Anything he does was just a means to an end or a gag. Nothing he did personally ever affected the characters or plot that deeply that often. If at all. Just his resources did.

UNTIL WE HIT THE COMICS… where an active attempt was made by JV and the writers to pretty much redo this entire family and flesh them out more in ways the series did not. Until we reach Enter the Florpus which is- to me- a culmination of all the changes made. Reminds me of musical theatre where they workshop a show then keep making edits until there’s a quote “definitive” version.

These versions also seem to be the ones that gain the most focus during talks like this. So. I’m gonna be on that now. WhY dOeS thiS mAtTeR?? Well it shouldn’t but—

Comics and Florpus (mainly the latter) brought in the acknowledgment that the kids, on some level, are being emotionally affected by what Membrane does or does not do… Most notably, Dib. So much so that earning his pride became one of Dib’s new personal motivations because how his dad acts makes him believe he’s ashamed of him. This did not exist before. Gaz seems to also feel something, but it’s pretty clear she respects her dad too much to say anything— but she also knows he’ll do anything in the name of “science,” so she uses that to get him to do what she wants rather than do what Dib does. Gaz just invests herself in video games rather than actively think about these things. It’s easier.

WITH ALL THAT now on the table, it really does re-contextualize a ton of stuff in the original as a result. Once somebody else (i.e the children) are showing explicit signs of feeling a type of way, it can make shit that was just a one-note “for the lulz” thing a lot more messy to any viewer. The whole “neglectful bastard” rhetoric got a lot more prominent cuz it makes whatever this amputee shampoo bottle does or doesn’t do more impactful. Also the changes had this effect of making that family seem more “real” if that makes any sense? I legitimately don’t hate their current dynamic (it’s a lot more palatable I think, but I digress). Once something feels more real here comes the— the… identifying… 🤢 and identifying leads to….dadcourse…!

BUT it can be frustrating to watch him learn nothing all the time or still be dense. But I mean… this is IZ… everybody is dense and unwilling to change. That’s just the nature of it. And why most fan content inverts this lol. It’s just people pick and choose when the denseness matters.

I think any person could easily read him as cold be it from personal projection, or read him as “well meaning” …also from personal projection lol. Which, i mean… both are fair I guess. I don’t really feel too strongly when people do either cuz there’s enough to lean on both...

Don’t get me wrong tho, I do not think he went through some “secret character development off-screen and is anxious about what his children feel about him :((“

No fam he just got workshopped. That’s all. And i could even diverge off to why I think- nay- know that Membrane fully believes he’s an amazing parent with no pretense or self-awareness whatsoever. And because he isn’t very emotional and has an inflated sense of self-- genuinely does not know why any of his kids would feel the way they do. Kinda in that same way why Dib genuinely doesn’t get why turning off Gaz’s video game and insisting she listen to him ramble about his shit would upset her ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But, nobody wants to hear that from me.

SO WHAT DO I THINK?? Both takes don’t matter and I’m sure he’s not supposed to be read like that in conjunction with the og and the revivals. I do not think he’s anything except a weird guy in an even weirder series though, and remembering that this is just that is probably what needs to be done more. Science first. Always first. One of the only other primarily reactive main characters there. He’s not that deep a guy… but that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of stuff to think about.

…there’s a reason as to why I’ve been studying him under the table for a while behind the scenes on my own time lol. Despite what I said, this dude is an interesting case study 🤔 Maybe one day we’ll see the results of that. Maybe. No promises.

Instead of dadcourse, we should just focus on how the fuck he drinks anything kjfdgdgdg

uh, the end (…?) sorry if u made it this far 😖

[wiihtigo]

personally i think totty and choro are generally misunderstood by most fans. it's easier to see their flaws bc they're both kind of "cold" as opposed to having the natural charm of karamatsu or jyushimatsu. even with oso and ichi, even though they obviously suck, they're easier to sympathize with due to a sort of charm and relatability. idk i haven't watched this show in a million years and i still want to put all 6 of them in a meat grinder but yeah

Since coming back to ososan from a 5ish? Year gap I came to notice some things about todomatsu and choro I never did before

1. Todomatsu is actually one of the nicer brothers, it gets outshined by jyushimatsu and osomatsu sometimes (and ichimatsus occasional break in character) but he’s usually pretty nice to karamatsu, the resident punching bag. Like in the virgin fighters episode or whatever when Totty went to the bbq across the lake and was like Hey they invited us over. Let’s all go! And osomatsu was like Umm. NO I’m scared so todomatsu was like Well whatever. Let’s go karamatsu niisan and led him by the hand to go to the bbq (cute) (I smiled) he’s also quite nice to jyushimatsu always thinking to invite him first to mixers even if he never ends up going, also he’s a genuine crybaby and gets really lonely without his brothers despite trying to push them away bcuz he thinks he’s better than them

2. Choromatsu is probably the meanest out of all of them he’s genuinely so mean spirited and spiteful despite pretending to be the voice of reason and realizing this made me love him more he’s so fucking FUNNYYYYY there’s an interview thing where each of them got asked their opinion on one of the brothers and choromatsu got ichimatsu and was like I can’t think of a single thing I like about ichimatsu. He should be grateful to me for being alive. And I was like WTF He’s evil

Bringing up Monty again but this is something we talked about choro is that in the self awareness skit it’s like. Too real? Choromatsu announcing to the world that he’s going to do shit to better himself constantly and then not doing it. ITS TOO REAL? Choromatsu is too relatable and that’s why everyone hates him, ichimatsu is a quirky relatable where it’s like “lol I have depression too and hate myself” but with choromatsu it’s like “not funny DIDNT laugh I do that too but I didn’t want to think about it”