#she talks about a limit of representation which I’ve been trying to push but maybe it’s impermeable

[sourkitsch]

I’m taking a class on abstraction and I just got back from a crit where people were saying my works reminded them of Rothko’s chapel paintings in their intensity. Great how do I get that quality into the rest of my paintings

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

The main theme I've picked up on on FATWS is the bait-and-switch. What I mean by this is that the directors love, and have done a great job of, muddying the motivations of the characters so that it's hard to tell what they really want. Alternatively, they introduce a character to us one way (sympathetic or antagonizing) and then go about flipping our interpretation of that character on its head.

For example, Sharon had been set up to be completely changed from who she was when we last saw her--she's crooked now, unsympathetic, and mean--but then she unexpectedly has that final scene where she gets into the car. I think that scene is supposed to tell us that there is more to Sharon than this new, angry crook--to get us asking, "Oh! Was that all an act? Is she a spy? Is she actually not evil?" without providing definitive answers. This keeps us invested and opitimistic, but not confident in what will happen, which makes us curious, which in turn makes us more invested.

They do something similar with Zemo, introducing him as an antagonist (I mean, his first words are literally him trying to trigger Bucky, and Bucky looks so scared but don't get me started) and showing that he's manipulative and dangerous. But then, throughout the episode, he becomes a valuable connection, and doesn't take the chance he has to run away. We start wondering if maybe we don't have to be as worried about him as we were initially--but, they continue to include moments, like the glee he takes in Bucky's "performance" as the Winter Soldier, or how easily he dehumanizes him, or how he tries to make Sam suspicious of him, or, or, etc., to further destabilize our interpretation of him. We're not supposed to know what to think--we're just supposed to be on our toes.

They repeat this pattern, although not in exactly the same way, at least two other times in the show. We are introduced to a character that we initially do not like, but then the show intentionally humanizes them, sometimes spending a significant amount of time doing so. Both Walker and Morgenthau were introduced as antagonists, but then we learn that this is because we don't know much about them. We get an insight into who they are and why they are doing what they do, and they begin to make more sense (which we don't quite get with Zemo--he remains mysterious, so we never fully trust him). We begin to think, "You know, maybe they're not so bad after all." And then almost immediately the rug is yanked out from under us, as we see Walker become openly hostile towards Sam and Bucky, and Morgenthau blow up a building with people still inside. The narrative goes out of its way to explicitly frame these actions as wrong, and this makes our understanding of the characters even more muddied--are they good or are they bad? We've been wrong both times we thought we knew. By this point, we're almost wondering if we can trust our understanding of anyone in the show.

The one character we're never given reason to doubt is Sam. His motivations are very clear. He's explicit with his goals. We know him. We trust him. And because of this, he becomes our window into the series. He is our connection point, and serves to some degree as a representation of us; we share his perspective. And this is what they have indicated they will use to pull the final rug out from under us.

I'm not talking about making us not trust Sam--no, I'm talking about someone they've already been subtly telling us not to trust: Bucky. They've been doing this in two ways, the first of which is through the other examples above, and the second of which is through Sam.

The first way they cause us to doubt Bucky is by destabilizing our interpretation of the other characters with a dark side (as all but Sam have). Because we don't know what to expect from Zemo (who seems deceptively more trustworthy than before), or Sharon (who had been good but now isn't...but maybe she is?), and because we've been proven "wrong" about Walker and Morgenthau (by forcing us to change how we think of them not once, but twice), and because the overarching theme of these contrasts is that it is very possible for a character to seem both good and bad, when it comes to Bucky, we're completely flying blind.

Additionally, while we know Bucky's past, we don't really know him now (just as he doesn't fully know himself). We don't know what he's capable of, or what he's willing to do, and as we've been shown, neither does he; his distrust of himself is something we pick up on, too. It, along with everything else, contributes to a growing unease about Bucky's ability to avoid falling back into being the Winter Soldier.

Not only that, Sam (who we relate to and interpret the events of the series through) is simultaneously growing more and more uneasy about Bucky. He asks him several times if he's alright (and gets no real response to this); he sees Bucky pushing his limits by speaking to Zemo alone, and sees him make reckless decisions by setting him free without talking to Sam about it; he sees Bucky becoming more openly hostile, not just to Zemo ("Touch that again and I'll kill you") but towards Sam himself (with Bucky's comment about beating Walker and taking the shield for hismelf). He begins disagreeing with Bucky more. All of these things contribute to a small but growing distance between them.

This is furthered by Sam witnessing Zemo's subtle comments that are intended to trigger Bucky (dehumanizing him at every chance), and also Zemo's intentional comments to Sam ("Didn't take much for him to fall back into form..."). Zemo is trying to cause division between them, and combined with everything else that Sam has to deal with, everything else that he has no experience with and can't control, Sam isn't feeling very stable at the moment. And neither are we. Just like us, he doesn't know for sure that he can trust Bucky, and that is something we as the audience pick up on, which serves to bolster our own growing anxiety about the situation.

In short, at this point, we don't know how things will turn out. We can't feel comfortable or secure predicting what will happen, because we're being told on all fronts that nothing is certain. All we can do, like Sam, is plunge forward, and hope against hope that everything will be ok--knowing all along what we've been told (literally): The Winter Soldier isn't as far below the surface as we think. And I can't think of a better way than that to keep people invested in, and thinking about, your show.

[impostoradult]

Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website):   https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am. 

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say. 

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system). 

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group)   There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit.   And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

[friendshouserecords]

The following interview was conducted between Jayson Ayala (J) and carter c (C) on the night of December 17th, through Discord messaging.

J: Before we begin, would you like to introduce yourself?

C: hi!!! i'm carter c and i'm a DIY musician from vegas & i make a LOT of music.

J: Omg hi, big fan! :D

C: hiii

J: In July you released your 2nd (now labeled only) LP, everything i do alone i want to do with you, and in the corresponding months after you've been releasing new material for each month. How has the reception been for all the projects?

C: so like reception has actually been really good! everytime i get criticism and stuff like that i take it wholeheartedly and try to better my future projects and i hope everyone can obviously hear that. a lot of people really liked "my lips are moving" which was suuuper super reaffirming that i could make really whatever i wanted. i'm happy ppl r really liking it :-)

J: That's really great to hear! Has releasing projects at this pace brought any sort of worry or has it been an ease in task with nerve only appearing in approach to differing sound?

C: not gonna lie, at the end i got so unbelievably overwhelmed but i made due . pretending to write songs for other projects helped me a lot too. for example, back in april i released 2 songs as "imaginary best friend", and using aliases like that just kind of lets me do whatever. now that i don't have any deadlines i've gotten back to writing a lot more freely but for a while making carter c was very very stressful. i was still having fun tho!

J: Congrats on pushing through and finding ways to keep things more relaxed for yourself! It's good to know that writing has been at free pace. :)

In relation to sound, your latest record is a large shift with the direction taken in sound. Instrumentally you took a diverge from an synths, midi drums, and a general electronic feel for a more natural, rock-folk sound. Who would say inspired you to make this change for recording?

C: the inspiration for that sound is a lot of the DIY artist's i have been listening to as of late. car seat headrest, geronimostilton, julia brown, teen suicide, starry cat, paranoid americans, weatherday (etc.) but the reasoning for that sound existing is that i kind of wanted to limit myself and making something that is authentically "carter c." not carter c with vocals and maybe guitar by carter c, synths & drums programmed by lev sterling, and keyboards played by kameron salek. i just wanted to make something that truly reflected my skillset and who i am.

J: Would you say you achieved what you set forth?

C: for sure, i feel like my music now at the end of the day is an extremely accurate representation of my skillset and of what i want to create

J: Good job :)

C: ty :)

J: Whilst it's in the air, let's talk inspiration. The narrative of the album primarily focuses on your relationship with your partner, Amanda Shaw. Was it your intention to make the album a sort of concept-record or did it come about naturally in the writing process?

C: the concept-record aspect of it was completely on accident. originally my idea for everything i do alone i wanted to make an album full of disconnected singles (in the same vain as dc/snuff film or my back is killing me baby) but all i could really write was these long winded love songs. i would stay up so late writing these them about her and she'd listen and help out. it kind of just morphed into a concept album about her and what it would be like really meeting in person naturally as we both did our parts to contribute to the project

J: In what ways did she help out?

C: so in the cd verison of the record there is a drawing  for every song and she co-wrote cover me in paint, i think yr a rabbit, and helped me with the structure of star funeral

J: Cate Wurtz type beat 💪

C: LOL

J: From my understanding she also drew the album cover, yes?

C: yup! it wasn't even meant for the album

J: With the mention of Cate Wurtz, you recently tweeted about your song, badplace, which you stated was inspired by a Cate Wurtz comic and a bit after she liked the tweet! Do you think she listened to the track?

C: honestly i'm not sure! i'd be honored if she did. badplace (THE COMIC) is my absolute favorite comic of all time and it's so funny and silly and bubbly and weird. i hope she remembers that comic and tbh if she checked out the song i hope she sees that her fans luv her n stuff

J: Well I hope she did, it's easily my favourite off the tracklist! I was wondering if you could tell the story of the spoken word piece in the breakdown, I'm sure fans would love to hear!

C: oh for sure, it's straight up ripped from the comic. cate is credited as a writer on the song bc of it. her words really stuck out to me and effected the way i view my own personal life.

J: Let's move on from the album for a moment.

In September, you released a companion EP dubbed, i would drive a million miles just to hear your voice. Does the EP add any extension to the narrative previously given?

C: not particularly, to me it gives certain songs another lens to look through. everything i do alone as an indie rock song, i think started as a suped up version of fashion break, animals is using only instruments i owned when i wrote the song, and february 6th is just a leftover song i had. the EP is an extension of the concept and motif of the album

J: Ah, that's a good way to look at it, thanks! Speaking of february 6th, it derives from your side project, imaginary best friend. Another song which had also made a comeback was waiting 4 u!. What brought you to give these two a fresh a coat of paint and should we be expecting any new releases from ibf?

C: oh yes ibf!! waiting 4 u was rerecorded for jested inc's charity compilation and february 6th was just a song i loved playing all the time but my vocal delivery on the original was very much not my finest performance. more ibf will hopefully come out eventually, and another song (called imaginary best friend) came out back in september. who knows tho!

J: I'll be sure to check it out after this! Re-recording seems to have been prevalent for yourself this year. First we heard an updated take of Star Cluster off your debut LP, Starry-Eyed Boy. It featured an incredible performance from Ewren. Then we saw an acoustic recording of fan favourite, ride, and just last month we saw, AGAIN, another version of ride which bared resemblance to everything i do alone in regards to sound. Why has ride been given so many iterations from a swing-feel [demo-recording] to a diy jam and do you think I could get on ride 5?

C: haha! ride 5 will never happen. ride is a song that i've had high expectations of because i like the writing so much but the original recording irks me so much. it just feels so superficial and glitzy for no reason compared to the november ride. the ride demo is super cute though, glad you've heard that one.

J: Of course, I'm a big fan! Your latest release, wave goodbye to the ghost, was released about a week ago. In the song's description you state the track was demo'd in late December of 2020. Was the song considered for SEB or maybe even dead while also kind of hungry?

C: it was written for dead while also kind of hungry but was left out for ride (because they both originally contained car seat headrest lyrics) but in ethos it was really the first ibf song. entirely recorded, produced, and performed by me.

J: Is it now? Is the demo available anywhere for listen?

C: the first first demo? it's available here

wave goodbye to the ghost (december 2020 demo) 

it was essentially a different song tbh not a lot is really left the same but maybe that's cool because growth or something lol

'wave goodbye to the ghost' demo

here is the demo from this november when i picked it back up as well :P

J: Neato! Another note you made in the description was the revision you made on the lyrics. One of the topics is college and recently you were just accepted into one, which were you accepted into and how has school been on you as a musician?

C: oh ya! i was recently accepted into portland state university for music production, which i'm super excited about. in school i'm a pretty big music nerd, spending the majority of my day in the band room and spend the rest of my day either mixing or browsing RYM. being a DIY musician and also going to school hasn't done much just because my music isn't rlly marketable to everyone at school

J: I feel that, but being marketable is for sell outs or whatever lol

C: agreed

J: Let's take things back to everything i do alone. The track animals is the oldest song to appear in the selection, dating back to 2018. Why did this song seem most fitting for a spot on the record?

C: fun fact, the song is older than that! it was originally released under a different name randomly in 2017. i decided animals was best for the LP because a lot of my friends liked the song and so did amanda. i ended up playing it a lot on early carter c livestreams (pre SEB) along with the skeleton song & blond boy. they were just the best of my old tunez.

J: Do you really have a skeleton under your bed named george?

C: haha! sorta? the song was written about my notebook (named george) that i kept under my bed because i was so nervous about someone reading it

J: You named your notebooks lol? Why were you so nervous about someone reading it?

C: just that one. i wrote so much in it & so much just personal stuff yknow. tweens are weird

J:Definitely, haunting memories for sure!

C: indeed

J:You recently came out with a compilation track of singles you've released throughout the year. Not just under your name, but side-projects you're attached to as well. One of the projects ,teenage hands, is in collaboration with the artist, Ewren. Should fans be expecting any new released or shall it remain dormant?

C: a lot more teenage hands is coming soon. ricky eat acid + bedroom pop vibes. get excited!!!!

J: you heard it there folks, get the hype train started! We're coming to a near end for our interview and this last one has me on the edge of my seat... what would it take for you to re-do King of the Gnomes??

C: one million dollars and a full 30 person orchestra.

J: And that's a wrap! Before we pack could we get a list of what you've been listening to?

C: absolutely!!!

This Will Be Horrible For The Economy - geronimostilton

inane - Hopper1000

ILoveUIHateU - Playboi Carti

Loved - Julia Brown

When Will My Man Come? - Car Seat Headrest

this was sm fun, thank you jay <3333

J: Anytime, thank you for your cooperation! Be sure to STREAM CARTER C through the following link

[kachinnate]

,,,,okay i know i just said i wasn’t going to talk about the deh movie but actually yeah imma talk about it for just a sec bc y’all actually make me legitimately distressed sajkfndsmjkgds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQ_A0H1otc i dont have the braincells to do a shot by shot analysis right now but here’s what we’re lookin at

under a readmore because ghhhhhhh

firstly, let me lead with this: yes, from what we know, there’s a lot of things wrong with this movie. 

the worst, in my humble opinion, being the bts treatment of the (very few) actors of color, and the lack altogether of any production team members of color. that’s something that should be acknowledged, talked about, and fucking dug into especially at the current fucking period of time we’re living in. it’s unsurprising, but disgusting nonetheless, and it set this movie up for failure from the very beginning. i’m a white person so by no means so i feel inclined or like i have any authority in saying what one should feel wrt all of that, however i will say if there’s to be a boycott in not watching this movie, that should 100% be the reason why. it’s fully poc’s choice whether or not to forgive the production team or give this movie a chance for the irredeemable shit it did in regards to handling the movie’s production. the movie imo definitely doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but again, that is not for me to say. 

there’s some little things too that i can’t fully think of off the top of my head - like, the whole making larry connor’s stepdad thing fucking irks me, for example, but, like...... listen.

if you know me like at all, you know my favorite word is nuance.

so, i’m going to say it outright: the way you people are approaching this three minute trailer shows literally.... none?? no nuance ??? is it no-nuance november over here or ???? like i’m begging you i’m BEGGING YOU to put aside your pre-determined prejudices against this movie and like stop pretending to be a renowned film critic for ten seconds because it’s really not as outright fucking abysmal as you are saying!! and also it’s possible to have opinions that aren’t completely fucking polarized to one side because guess what, the deh movie? a piece of media! what is the shit y’all are constantly preaching about having the ability to consume media critically ? because you’re trying to cancel a fucking trailer based on the contents of the trailer alone !!!!! hello !!!!!!!!

media is bound to be problematic. if y’all were as quick to judge any movie as you did this one, guess what you wouldn’t be watching any movies like ever <3 

anyway lets get into the parts that are probably going to get me cancelled lmao 

ben platt - listen. LISTEN. listen i know he’s too old to be reprising evan we ALL know he’s too old to be reprising evan i’ve heard this same argument since the announcement was made we get it we all know. haha he’s a grandpa yes bestie ur so right ur so funny wow. i do agree that we should’ve maybe had a not-ben-platt evan moment but here’s some things to keep in mind: the arguments of “oooh ABF is right there !!!!!!” 1. who’s to say he was available? 2. the environment of a movie is so, SO much different than that of a musical -- as much as you wanna pretend you know everything from just a trailer, there’s no way of knowing what scenes were added that might’ve made the movie like.. idk possibly more intense story-wise not even COUNTING the fact that just inherently a movie set is different than a musical one? like yes ben platt might be just being used as a device but that’s probably not the sole and only reason. Also, if i see One (1) more comment about his FUCKING HAIR 😃 first of all it’s not that deep like... if you’re so distracted by an actor having their hair different that’s on you, but going as far as to call it bad or distracting or being like Vehemently a way about it? y’all i know it’s most likely not your intention but that is literally just ben platt’s natural fuckin ETHNICALLY JEWISH hair sajknfgkjds!!!! i’m not the first to make this point, but like dsjnfkjdsg!??! y’all are being so mean about it and for WHAT? again, maybe not intentional, but it reads as like high key Very antisemetic and you should.... maybe not 😳 be that way

connor. the thing about a trailer is that they don’t show you all the scenes because they want you to come see the movie. right? can we agree on that? all the connor scenes in the trailer had SEVERAL hard cuts, omitting a lot of the scene -- like the computer lab scene! we see the beginning of it, there’s a VERY obvious hard cut, and then he’s running out! in my opinion my first watch through of this trailer i had a very like “:// hmm all these actors feel a lil like dry”, but man oh man the comments ive seen about connor. holy shit guys. this boy gets 7 minutes of stage time in the actual musical, and the whole thing is we DON’T KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT HIM. not to burst your bubble, and i by no means hate connor, i love me some good connor lives fics and stuff, but everything we write with connor being alive? that is !! speculation on our part !!!! those are headcanons and us using the little context we have!! connor doesn’t have any significant development IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL that is being adapted into a movie !!! you 1. can’t fully judge a character with already limited screentime in a 3 minute trailer, 2. can’t really call what connor has canonically in the musical as in depth character development !! what is his arc then !!!! he pushes evan, goes to the computer lab, has an outcast loner kid moment, gets upset, takes the letter, DIES. sorry stans, that’s just how it is !! and, AND, everything in between, all the idiosyncracies, that depends on the actor playing connor! speaking of, you know who the actor is playing connor in the movie? that’s right, colton ryan! so, i don’t know, maybe... have some trust in the process, in an actor who ALREADY has played connor on broadway???? and also trust that you will get more connor content then u are seeing from a 3 minute trailer!! dhgnijsdg and some of the comments on like his appearance specifically? like are you really made that he doesn’t have long hair?? they kept his nails and his rings but nahhh the hair was apparently a MUST HAVE (even though like.. not all connor actors on broadway always had/have long hair but w/e).. REGARDLESS. tldr on THAT , the movie would have to do a pretty shitty job if they want to take something from someone who doesn’t have much to begin with and i think y’all are being extremely harsh on this point 

jared. honestly i’m a bit worried too about the like... name change, because it does have the potential to be taking out some representation, but... they did change the name to fit the actor’s ethnicity? it’s a really [hmm] topic because, again, from a trailer and from what we have been told we don’t KNOW a lot of the context, but i think it’s important to remember that uh.. jewish people aren’t just? always white ?? there’s a possibility they changed the last name to fit with the [ethnicity] while keeping him jewish?? ofc there’s the possibility that they Didn’t and ... again hm that’s its own thing altogether but just reiterates the point that you can’t knock a whole movie just based on the trailer. you can’t talk about things you know nothing about. 

alana. same thing as before, you can’t.... completely bash a character based on a 3 minute trailer. there was discussion about how she seemed ‘shy’ when talking to evan, which like.. maybe she is but also that scene was them talking in a library like if u actually take notice of what’s happening in the scene jdskngsd though i do share the general consensus with many others that she won’t get a lot of screen-time but that’s neither here nor there 😔 moving on

scenes and the setting. one of the things i was most like.. tentative about in regards to a switch from a musical to a movie was how they were like... going to do certain scenes? naturally, a lot has to be different when we’re going from a minimal stage set to an entire movie with like.. settings. there are going to be new scenes because a movie lends to have like, physical places that aren’t just [evan’s bedroom] and [murphy kitchen] and [implied school]. so new scenes, new conversations, slightly different pacing.. this is all to be expected right like are y’all geneuinely surprised here or ........

there’s a lot we aren’t seeing yet because this is a TRAILER. again i already mentioned this re: connor but like... again, y’all are making some Claims that just... fucking outlandish. there are so many moments in the trailer that are very obvious Hard Cuts. you don’t have all the information yet. you are angry at a tiny fragment of something that is confusing you because you don’t have all the context. is there a chance that some of this shit is just genuinely Bad? yeah but you really cannot 100000% say it with your chest and gauge it without seeing the movie and understanding what that scene is in context. lowkey uhhh saw some jokes about the zoe scene in the car and :’))) ? jesus? christ????

concluding thoughts because my brain hurts but like. you don’t have to like the movie. you don’t have to WATCH the movie. like all media if you choose to consume the movie you should do so with some CRITICAL THOUGHT. but, just like the novel (and i do not want to have any discussions about that i don’t care if you think it’s good Or bad that’s not what this is about) you guys are going in this WANTING to believe it’s bad and completely polarizing your thoughts on what this is going to be. yeah, maybe there shouldn’t be a movie. i genuinely think we could’ve gone without. but it’s just a piece of media, it’s not a progression like all your (musical is good, novel is bad, MOVIE IS WORSE OH NO) posts are suggesting. they are all just. different pieces of media stemming from a source. at the end of the day it’s just a fucking movie. if you already hate it so much, guess what? you don’t have to watch it! you don’t have to put so much needless fucking hate into a 3 MINUTE TRAILER. you can stop being performative and dissing it for its poor treatment of POC while then going on to make fun of ben platt’s hair and just targeting a different group like! please !!!

i’m not trying to be a fuckin’ advocate for this movie because there’s so much opportunity for it to suck, i do Not have high hopes for it, and i’m not even really sure i want to watch it (i bought the novel when it came out and have yet to read it, and i’m sure the movie will like.. elicit very similar vibes from me lsdngjkdsg like im just not uhhh feeling it) but y’know what? watching the trailer did not bring forth the fucking onslaught of hatred in me that apparently has fuckin posessed all of y’all and like djnsgjksdg plagued my dashboard for this whole evening. don’t come into my inbox trying to like.. argue with me about this (preemptively im turning off anon because i like i Can’t lmao) this is just like... a rant i needed to get out of me real quick. 

SO. tldr for now: have critical thought about shit you consume, there’s no ethical consumption under [the film industry], you can’t judge a movie entirely on its trailer, and y’all need to calm the fuck down 

[wackextravaganza]

So like I’ve seen a lot of people (when I say a lot I mean like 3 lmao) being like “Catra asking Adora to stay wasn’t really a redemption” or something like that and it’s been bugging me for quite a while but I think I finally gathered my thoughts on the subject so I just wanted to talk about what I thought was the peak of her redemption, in my personal opinion. Of course, I think there were definitely areas of improvement in terms of Catra’s redemption (I would’ve really liked for her to have a proper conversation with the people she hurt and address her wrongdoings but we can’t always get what we want and ik they had a limited number of episodes). Anyway, this is gonna be a lot of brain dump and general incoherency so brace yourself lmao.

So, I feel like the peak of Catra’s redemption (in the show anyway, it’s obviously not done yet) was going back for Adora and taking her to the heart. And I know that might be obvious but I just thought that was a really important part of their relationship which might be slightly overlooked.

Catra has always hated Adora’s martyr/hero complex. At the beginning of the series, she calls her a people pleaser (she was teasing her but it’s still significant and hints at a potential resentment) and just generally dislikes the way she tries to be a hero all the time. Then in “Promise”, it’s abundantly clear that Catra heavily resents Adora’s hero complex, saying that she (Catra) doesn’t need Adora to protect her because she never really protected her in a way that mattered anyway. Later on, she becomes envious of the praise she gets and uses Adora’s need to be a hero and be responsible for everyone to her advantage (blaming her for the portal, capturing the civilian town in S4, etc.).

In season 5, she continues to resent Adora; in episode 6, Catra tells her that she shouldn’t have come back for her but she just “loves feeling like a hero”. This line in particular was quite interesting, because it almost implies that Catra doesn’t think Adora cares about her, that she’s simply fulfilling some sort of obligation to save everyone. This is further reinforced in Failsafe/Heart Pt.1 when she doesn’t think Adora wants her and will always put her hero/martyr complex above everything. Like, yeah, Adora saved her, but to Catra, was probably just her innate desire to save everyone driving her decision, rather than her wanting Catra herself. Of course, that’s not true and we know Adora loves her, but I don’t blame Catra for thinking Adora doesn’t want her. Because to Catra, everything that Adora has done has been to save her, whether it’s trying to get her to join the rebellion, rescuing her from Horde Prime, or even taking the Failsafe to the heart to protect her, as well as everyone else on Etheria. As far as Catra is concerned, Adora would do the same for anyone, so Adora can’t possibly want Catra in the same way Catra wants her.

But at the end of Failsafe, Catra isn’t just upset that Adora doesn’t want her, but that her hero complex is so deeply engraved within her that she has absolutely no regard for her own life and worth. This is different from earlier on in the series, where Catra selfishly wanted Adora and wanted Adora to selfishly want her too. At the end of season 3 (in “Remember” specifically), it’s clear that Catra’s priority is simply being with Adora, and everything else comes secondary to that. Her love was completely selfish. However, in season 5, Catra also takes Adora’s own wellbeing into account, and it pains her to see Adora throw away her life so carelessly in order to protect the people she loves. So Catra is upset that Adora doesn’t want her, but also that she doesn’t take her own wants into account. Yet when she leaves, she says, “That’s what you want, that’s what you’ll always choose”; here, we see her falling back into her previous mindset, that Adora is choosing to be self-sacrificial and only wants to save Catra because of that.

That’s what makes Catra going back for Adora and making sure she gets to the heart so important: it’s a completely selfless act. She pushes aside the fact that Adora doesn’t want her, she pushes aside the fact that Adora’s martyr complex makes her unaware of her own wants and she gives Adora the opportunity to go to the heart and fulfil her supposed heroic desire. And she wants her to go with Shadow Weaver nonetheless, a person who has caused Catra (and Adora) nothing but suffering and is responsible for all the turmoil in her and Adora’s relationship. She doesn’t like it, obviously, but she loves Adora enough to respect her decision and not to prevent her from saving everyone because of her own selfishness. And then Catra taking Adora to the heart herself was a direct representation of Catra’s selflessness, reinforcing the idea that Catra loves Adora so much that she wants her to do what she wants with her life and what makes her happy, even if that happiness isn’t created by, nor is it dependent on, her relationship with Catra. For me, this was the peak of her redemption arc, because it demonstrates her transition from loving Adora selfishly to loving her selflessly, and I think that’s really important. And Catra asking her to stay was maybe selfish (as love usually is) but I feel like she wanted Adora to stay for herself as well, which also displays her consideration of others and selflessness.

Anyway I hope that made sense lmao I think I went off topic a bit but yeah I thought that was a really pivotal moment in Catra’s arc that might not be addressed as much as the whole confession scene (which is fair).

[rpbetter]

Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.

Hey there, Anon!

Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.

Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.

Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.

It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.

Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point

Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.

It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!

So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.

When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.

When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.

As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.

We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.

And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.

Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.

As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.

It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.

So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.

Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.

If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.

[salenakingston]

A shorter one this time around, but an idea that came to my mind that I really wanted to write out. I’ll return to some more of the backstory I’ve been doing soon!

Prompt: None

Warnings: Blood, Body Horror, Suicide Mention

Timeline of Events: Whitegale Estate (Doctor’s Defeat)

Total Word Count: 2,739 words

The mind was truly a fascinating place. The basic layout of any person’s mind tended to follow the same pattern: hallways, doors, and locks for those certain doors that weren’t meant to be opened. From there, it was a matter of how an individual perceived the rest of that space.

When it came to his former host, the hallways that held his doors were methodical in nature. His own timeline of events had been laid out with few things locked away. In fact, most of his locks didn’t appear until after he started poking around in his host’s head, a futile attempt to keep him from having more to break him with. More telling was the way he had chosen to represent the entities present in his mind. For the longest time, it had just been the two of them, each form represented by a single color. Green was his host, and he was orange. They were the same colors as their representative eyes. These forms were usually free of any physical feature, save for the faces. Faded. Even with a certain color present, it was almost as if their forms were see-through.

Surely if he had been allowed to play more with his former host, then he would have completely faded when he took over.

But here he was now, wandering a hall of his new host. Where he would normally be annoyed for the turn of events that led him to this predicament, had rather been replaced by interest. There wasn’t much emotion to feed on presently, but the one lingering thing he could always cling to was his own gain. Even if he was forced to try and tackle someone else, it built upon his original experiment.

Her mind was very different.

Where Malceum’s was nearly a straight line, her’s seemed to contain many turns. The main hallway of her mind held snippets of surface level memories, ones that she didn’t seem to mind sharing. Each turn held a set collection, each catered to a certain event or theme. It was almost as if they were parts of her life she had tried to hide away. An impossible feat, but the best one could do without interference.

One corner of her mind had been molded into his own personal space. He hadn’t felt the need to do this with his former host, as he had far more control over his mind space than he did here. That annoyance came in the form of the crystal he was locked in. It was warded, but that didn’t keep him out of her head, so long as she was wearing the necklace his prison was attached to. It made tackling her a far greater challenge, but not impossible.

This space was cold, as if it really needed to be anything else. What could he possibly want for himself? What difference would it make once he assumed control of her mind? He’d have free reign to change everything into his image. He already knew the first thing he would do, and that was to put his host at the forefront of everything. She’d be able to watch as he tore everything apart, making her life his own.

Hands moved behind his back, orange gaze fixated on the sterile space around him. He came back here if he ever felt the need to retreat his presence back into the crystal, a tiny, green one floating at the very back of this room. A representation of that place, down to the most exact detail. It also gave him a place to stay when he wasn’t opening her doors, or she wasn’t even here to entertain him.

It would be hard for anyone to focus on the waking world as well as what was going on in their mind at the same time.

But he was patient.

Night was the best time for her to appear, at least when she wasn’t using those damn potions. Tiny bottles of green liquid had been the item that thwarted him without fail, but he had come to notice a flaw once his former host started getting his own shipments. One came every month, but were limited on the supply. If he didn’t destroy them outright, then it was a matter of spacing their use. She had explained once that the potions came from her world, and that materials were not cheap.

Which left for a limited batch. The same was true for her own supply, even if she made more than his former host did. He wondered why that was the case. What was the point of hanging onto money if they were the only thing she bought? She already had a home, and someone willing to supply her with what she needed to survive. Why work for a paycheck and not use what was being pooled in? Perhaps it simply made little sense to him as he would have no need for such things.

All that mattered was seeing his experiment through to the end. He already had every tool necessary to accomplish this.

It wasn’t hard to pinpoint the feeling of her presence when she finally appeared. Even from inside of her mind, he could monitor the passage of time. Night had fallen on them, and it seemed she was going to finally be sleeping without one of her precious ‘mercies in a bottle.’

He floated away from his space, faster than he probably should have. Was it excitement that drew him towards her? The chance to start bringing her to ruin? The nightmare he might be able to inflict on her? So many variables he would get to play around with.

He didn’t have to go far to find her, standing as if she were waiting for him.

Their projections in her mind were nothing like his former host. Where they could have been compared to ghosts before, they were solid in her mind. He kept just about every aspect of his physical form, or at least the one he had chosen to take. She was the one that was vastly different.

Her body was covered in patches of different colored fur, as if parts of other bodies had been taken to make her own. She was like her own Frankenstein's monster, the only difference being that he couldn’t see the stitch work that connected the pieces together. Her scars were still present here, just as they were on the outside. Her eyes appeared more tired than normal, no doubt due to his own tampering. Her hair was messier, not braided and decorated like she usually wore it.

He recalled the first time he had seen her like this. It had been on a mission while he was still within his former host. He had been sent out on a mission for medical assistance, the bitch tagging along as combat support. She had gotten overwhelmed, one of their attackers making the collar, or rather choker that he liked to refer to as nothing more than a glorified collar, had been torn off. All at once, her body seemed to flicker, making the appearance she held in her mind be the one that was before them. It was later explained to them that her collars held devices that changed the perception of her appearance to those around her. Clever girl, but that left the question of why.

Not even his former host knew that answer.

And it was one truth he had been keen to discover since being able to enter her mind. Her locks would take longer to break, but he just had to wait.

He finally found his smile, floating over to her. He hovered over her shoulders, letting his head rest to the side of her own, “Good evening dear. I see you are without your potion tonight.”

She said nothing, just letting her eyes follow his movements. Her arms hung at her side, gaze moving back forward when they couldn’t follow his movements behind her. He had noticed she tensed when he positioned himself above her back. Always her back. Another mystery to uncover.

He chuckled softly, “Come on dear. It’s no fun if you don’t talk to me.”

“There’s not much point in talking.”

How curious. Even his former host was fine to chat with him. Then again, it was more arguing than it was talking. Still, he had to follow up on her comment, “Oh? And why’s that?”

“You’ll do whatever you want when I fall asleep. Inevitably fall into one of your nightmares or my own.” Oh that’s right, she already had nightmares. It had been one of her reasons to prompt offering those potions to his former host in the first place.

“Perhaps, but that’s awfully boring.”

“What is it you want, Doctor?”

Straight to the point hmm? What a vague question. In all the time she spent stopping him from taking over his former host, what he wanted should have been obvious. Why bother asking that question then? She must have meant at the present moment then right? He found himself draping his arms over her shoulder, leaning his head against her fur, “Can’t a guy have a little chat with his roommate? I’d like to be able to get to know you.”

Roommate. How curious on his own part.

He could see that her gaze was finally turning on him, narrowing as frustration filled her. What a delicious emotion he would be able to flip back around on her. For a moment, he was sure that she was going to bite back at him with a sassy retort. She was really good at doing that.

Then it faded. She went back to that tired look, “It doesn’t matter if we talk in that regard Doctor. If I don’t talk, you’ll just go poking around my mind anyways. We’ve both seen the locks, and the only thing keeping you from breaking them with more ease than Malceum’s is the wards.”

Yes… that damned prison.

Still, he tried to keep playing along. She hadn’t drifted away, meaning that while her body was pushing her to sleep, her mind was still racing, “True, but telling me would be so much easier for the both of us. I don’t think you would enjoy me mentally breaking down all your walls now would you?”

He planned to do it anyways, otherwise how else would she be forced to bend to his will rather than her own?

That seemed to get her attention, but not in a way he expected. Where he expected to find more frustration, maybe even anger like his former host, he felt… nothing. This whole place felt so empty all of a sudden. In fact, he would even go so far as to say he felt drained.

Impossible. Beings are full of emotions. How?

His form fell down towards the ground, Salena taking a few steps away from him. 

When he looked back up at her, he could only see a hollow look in her eyes. It was like she had flipped a switch, then all her emotions vanished in thin air. That was unnerving enough, but the far more concerning matter was that she had a much more effective way of bringing him to his knees in a place where he felt he had control over the playing field. He knew more when it came to moving and manipulating the mind from the inside. How dare she do this to him.

She laughed, but it was so dry. It was devoid of anything that made it sound like it was in response to humor, “You want to know so badly?” Even her tone was hollow. Her voice was so monotone, yet hushed in a way. She stood over him now, her posture barely changed from how it was when he first came to meet her, “You want to know all my triggers so you can torment me like you did Malceum?”

He could see her form flickering. Her body has seemed to shift back to what it looked like with her perception devices on, save for now the scars were gone. In their place were a multitude of bloody wounds. He could tell that in some places, skin was peeled away… bones showing beneath the flesh. What just happened? He couldn’t take his eyes off her, “How about the torture I went through to get rid of my emotions?”

Before he could say anything back, finding it already difficult to do so when his own energy was being kept away from him, her body changed again. The wounds were gone, but now a large grin covered her muzzle. Her lips were almost ear to ear, teeth showing, “How about the monster I used to be?”

Another flicker, another change.

The grin faded, but now everything around them seemed to physically flicker. The gray pixels surrounding them looked like the static of a television that was no longer functioning. Her hands had moved up to her ears, “How about all the voices buzzing through my head?”

How many more times was she going to do this? He should be thrilled. He was getting exactly what he wanted. She was willingly telling him everything he needed to know. So then why did this feel so wrong? Everything changed again. One of her arms was missing, bone hanging out of the shoulder. There were multiple burns on her body, some breaking past the skin once enough of her fur had been charred away. There were tears flowing down her face, yet it still remained as blank as when she first started this strange cycling, “How about how I lost my father? His immense disappointment in me?”

Well that’s a bit of a new one. It did start to explain the reason for her patchwork pelt.

Just as he expected, another change came to follow. Her body was as it was before, the patches of color now there, but now there was blood on her again. It flowed along her neck and back, right in the spots where the carved flame scars were. He had seen them along her back when his former host was taking care of her, as well as the black, branded cross at the center, “How about the zealots that tortured me for their own amusement?”

Finally the cycle came to an end, her original mind form coming back. Her body knelt down in front of him, his burning gaze fixated on her. He tried to feed off any lingering emotion, but she was still empty. Was this what human starvation felt like? He hated it.

One hand reached out to take him by the chin, “Was that enough information for you?”

He didn’t understand it, “Why?”

“You mean to break me like you tried to do with Malceum, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Doctor… you can’t break what’s already broken. All you’ll do is push me to do it.”

He didn’t like how that sounded, and he could guess what she was going to say, “Do what?”

“Kill myself. Alexander and his little country don’t need me. Malceum can find someone else. But then again, if I kill myself, what future does that leave for you? Trapped alone in a crystal where no one will hear you. You won’t be able to get the jump on him twice. He’ll lock you away where no one will find you, and no doubt chain you down far more than I ever could. Who will you be left to ‘play’ with then?”

He hated her. He hated her logic. He hated feeling so weak. And he hated the shiver he felt down his non-existent spine.

He ripped his chin out of her grip. He could see her starting to fade in front of him. At long last she was falling asleep. He couldn’t bring himself to figure out where she was going to. If she was not staying here, she was probably falling into a nightmare of her own. It seemed she only rarely got a sleep that was without one when she wasn’t on a potion. He couldn’t describe the relief when she was gone. Despite this, he couldn’t push himself up from where he was on the floor, still feeling so empty without her emotions.

However, there was one thing he felt, something that frightened him.

Something he never thought he would feel from anyone else.

Threatened.

[wlwtangle]

Sonic for Beginners Guide (as of the 2020 Sonic Film)

Heya! I don’t think I’ve seen anyone make a post like this yet, or I haven’t seen a post like this yet, but if you just saw the newest Sonic film in theaters or on digital, and you’re interested in going into the Sonic community and trying out tons of other Sonic Media and don’t know where to start, here’s a guide that should help you where to go next if the only thing you have to go off of is the newest movie!

Intro

Everything that I will recommend you to in this post only assumes you’ve seen the full Sonic movie (yes, that includes the post-credits scene) and will prominently feature the following:

Dr. Eggman/Robotnik

Sonic

Tails

(No, this guide won’t feature Owl Mom, as she only appeared in these movies so far. She was never in any other Sonic media, and I doubt you’d see much of her outside the movies)

With that out of the way, let’s begin!

Games

There are quite a lot of Sonic games, and this can seem the most overwhelming, especially since SEGA has been trying their hardest to get new fans from the games rather than the films. But there are a few good games to start with if you only saw the film!

In terms of emulating any of these games: I am fine with emulation. There is nothing wrong in terms of finding ways to preserve these games for years, and if you don’t have the money to own any of these games, then I do recommend emulation. The only emulator I can recommend in terms of the old, 90s Sonic games would have to be Kega Fusion, and if you want to find the ROMs/ISOs, good luck. I can’t tell you how to find ROMs/ISOs, as that is illegal, so I’d recommend asking a friend for help or DMing me if you need help finding a place to find ROMs/ISOs, but legally I can’t post where to find ROMs/ISOs. Despite all of that, when possible, please support SEGA by buying them officially when possible. With that out of the way, let’s truly begin!

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) - The very first Sonic game, of course, is the best place to start. Not the 2006 one! The 2006 game also titled Sonic the Hedgehog for Playstation 3 & Xbox 360 is not a good representation of the Sonic brand SEGA has been trying to push today, and it’s not a great game overall to start with. Sonic the Hedgehog from 1991, however, is! It isn’t based off the new film, but it is what the current film has the most based off of. It starts off with the basics; you play as Sonic, and you have to stop Dr. Eggman from taking over the world, while saving all your animal buddies. It isn’t too long of a game, and better yet, this game is the easiest to get. It’s available on the Playstation Network store, Xbox Store, Nintendo Eshop (both for the Switch and 3DS), Steam (for Windows and Mac), and it’s even available on both Apple and Android devices! It’s free on phones, but you have ads, so that’s probably one of the best places to start in terms of games!

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) - Now, if you just saw the film, including the post-credits scene, then this is another perfect place to start. Not only can you play as Sonic, but you can also play as Tails! There are tons of more levels than in the first game, and there’s even a little secret if you collect all the Chaos Emeralds! (can’t say much about those as they haven’t been introduced in the films yet) And like the first game, there are tons of places to get this game. You can get this on the Playstation Network store, Xbox Store, Nintendo Eshop (on both Switch and 3DS), Steam (Windows and Mac), and on both Apple and Android devices! Like the first game, it’s also free on phones, with ads, so if you played the first game or only saw the newest film, this is another great place to start.

Sonic Mania (2017) - Another perfect place to start, and one of the best Sonic games in the past decade, this is an official catch-all Sonic game made by fans for not only the classic 90s games, but also features new levels and new playable characters that haven’t been seen in any recent games, including Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel. Now, I don’t think we’ll ever be seeing Mighty or Ray anytime in the films, but Knuckles is in this game as well (and in Sonic 2, I forgot to mention that), and I got a feeling Knuckles might show up in the next Sonic film. But yes, you can play as Sonic and Tails, of course. And this game does also have a multiplayer mode as well, and tons of extra secrets. And honestly, if you do want a recent game to start off with, Sonic Mania might have to be the best place to start with. And the best part is, this game is available on all recent modern gaming hardware, including Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam (Windows and Mac). Sadly, this game isn’t available on smartphones, but that shouldn’t detract from how good this game is. While the base game is cheap, only running you at $20, the DLC for this game only costs $5, while the physical release of this game (which includes the base game, DLC, and more), should only cost you $30.

Now, I hear ya, platformers aren’t really your thing. You don’t have the most modern, recent gaming devices, and your computer/laptop isn’t that powerful either. You only have a smartphone, and you only play mobile games. In that case, SEGA does also deliver in smartphone games, especially for Sonic! There is really only one I can recommend for beginners that even did include a limited event based on this film (that sadly has already passed), and that is

Sonic Dash (2012) - Possibly the easiest place to start with in terms of Sonic games on smartphones. Even though Sonic 1 & 2 are available for smartphones, SEGA did make and release this before those games came out. And with 100 million downloads, who could deny how huge this game has been for them. You really only start out as Sonic, play through Green Hill Zone, and you fight Dr. Eggman. Gameplay-wise, this game is very similar to Temple Run/Subway Surfers, so if you played those games, then this game shouldn’t be that hard to get into. As you play this game, you’re able to unlock more characters, including Tails, and you even get to unlock more levels, and even get to upgrade your characters as well. It is available on Apple and Android devices, and is free to play, despite all of the ads, so you can start off there if you don’t want to play any big Sonic game and just want a casual, light mobile game to play.

Now, Sonic didn’t only have games to boot. He also had tons of cartoons and comics! And let’s talk about those cartoons!

Cartoons

There are tons of Sonic cartoons out there, and there really aren’t that many to start off with if you only saw the film. These are the only few I could recommend to start off with.

The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993-1995) - One of the first Sonic cartoons by DiC (animators behind the old Mario cartoons), this is honestly one of the few Sonic cartoons I could recommend to beginners, or only those who have seen the film. It stars Sonic and Tails, as they defeat evil plans by Dr. Robotnik, and it does include characters exclusive to this show. And despite the reputation this show has, I’d say this is one of the better cartoons to start off with. Sonic the Hedgehog 1993, or better known as SatAM (Saturday Morning Sonic Cartoon), isn’t really that good of a place to start off with if you only saw the movie. Not only does this show feature tons of characters that aren’t really seen outside of this show and the Archie comics, but this is a little bit more serious, and I don’t really recommend this to beginners who only have the film to go off of. AoSTH, however, is a lot more light, comedic, maybe even a little more childish, but it is one you can have on in the background and don’t really have to pay attention to, and it’s one you could show to kids. You can find this show currently on Netflix, as well as a number of episodes have been uploaded to YouTube in HD, so you can choose wherever you want to see this show.

Sonic Mania Adventures (2018) - A short series of shorts based on Sonic Mania, I’d say this is another great place to start especially in terms of cartoons. They’re all silent cartoons, and are based on Sonic Mania, but also features an original story to boot. Best part; you can watch them on YouTube now. Here’s a video with all of the episodes combined, and they also made a Christmas Special as well. The whole series is only 15 minutes long at most, and it’s something I definitely recommend checking out if you have the time.

Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie/the OVA (1996/1999) - An absolutely different movie from the actual Sonic movie we got a couple months ago, despite some obvious problems within the script and writing itself, I’d highly recommend checking out this movie! This is a really good movie that captures the speed of Sonic perfectly, and is one of the only few Sonic cartoons based on that 90s anime aesthetic. So if that suits you, then I’d recommend checking out this film on YouTube.

Comics

Now, this is even harder to decide on where to start with when compared to the cartoons. Not only are all the comics not that good, but they are all especially dependent on whatever type of knowledge you have on Sonic. The Archie comics are really only dependent on SatAM, and are cancelled! But the IDW comics are heavily dependent on if you played Sonic Forces, which isn’t that great of a game to begin with if you’re only knowledge of Sonic is based on this new film. But the IDW comics aren’t even on that good of an arc now. The British Fleetway comics aren’t that great either; not only are they ableist (with Super Sonic being “mentally insane” and evil), those comics are also cancelled as well. I really only have one comic series to recommend to beginners, if you can even find them.

Sonic -Mega Drive- (2016) - Made by one of the best writers for the Sonic comics, Ian Flynn, and drawn by the same person who redesigned Sonic for the new film, Tyson Hesse, these are a series of one-shot comics based on the original Sonic games. Very easy to get into, the cast isn’t that large, and overall it’s just a whole lot more appealing than the Archie or current IDW comics! There’s only two issues, with a third one that was cancelled due to SEGA withdrawing the Sonic license from Archie in 2017. If you can find them, I recommend checking them out.

Misconceptions About Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fandom

Now, coming out of the new film, you are really interested in Sonic the Hedgehog, but you already know about a whole lot of misconceptions about Sonic and his fandom, which may turn you off from going into this. So I am here to smash down a lot of those misconceptions, because a majority of them are all wrong, and I’m pretty sure anyone can enjoy Sonic after watching the film.

1. The Sonic Fandom is only full of overgrown babies who complain about all the newer games and only love the old games. 

This is an absolutely terrible misconception! This is absolutely not true for the entire fandom, and despite the bias I have towards the 90s Sonic era as seen in this guide, let me say this: There is no one wrong place to start with in terms of games. The Sonic Adventures games are good, Sonic Colors is good, and so is Sonic Generations and Lost World. There is no terrible Sonic game, and if there is, then that game probably has a small fandom of people who see the positives of that game, and only wish to improve on it. You are not wrong if you have an unpopular opinion on any Sonic game, and you can honestly enjoy any Sonic game of your choice. Yes, there are gatekeepers in this fandom, but they are small in numbers when compared to the majority of this fandom. This fandom is absolutely welcoming of any Sonic fan who enjoys any part of Sonic, and if anyone online is making you feel bad about enjoying any part of Sonic, then you can either ignore them or block them. You don’t need to hear their voices, as their voices are only minor when compared to this whole fandom.

But yes, there are people like SammyClassicSonicaFan who do have a bias towards 90s Sonic games, and there are people who have a bias towards the Modern games. But overall, it doesn’t matter what type of games you do enjoy, it’s just that you don’t bully or harm anyone else for enjoying those games. And again, mostly everyone in this fandom are fine with whatever Sonic game you like. Not that many people really bullies anyone in this fandom, and if they do, then again, they are the minority.

2. The Sonic Fandom is full of furries who only draw porn of the characters.

Yet again another terrible misconception about the Sonic fandom! Just because you’re a fan of Sonic, doesn’t make you a furry. I am one of the rare exceptions, though, as I am a Sonic fan, and a furry as well, and Sonic is partially the reason why I am a furry. But overall, I have met Sonic fans who aren’t furries, and I’ve met furries who aren’t Sonic fans.

And to that other half of this misconception; no, just no. Not only are the majority of the cast practically children (Tails is 8, Amy is 12, and Sonic is even 15), a majority of the characters who are 18 or over only barely fit that range (Rogue is 18, Vector is 21), and a majority of adults don’t even have confirmed ages (Dr. Eggman doesn’t even have a canonical age, and there’s been debate over whether Shadow is 15 or over 50 years old). So no, we don’t draw porn, and almost all of us are grossed out when we find Sonic porn (the only exception of this are the creeps who do draw that porn, but we don’t consider them apart of this community).

So there you go! That’s all I could think to mention in this whole guide! I hope you have fun enjoying these shows and games, and I hope you especially have fun in the Sonic community!

If you do have anymore questions about anything related to Sonic, feel free to DM me or send me asks/anons on this blog.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 17 October 2020

Would you? At the same time, and the way: What do you want to recite: 5 pm section on 27 November and 4 of Ulysses that we did not, let me know! Failure to turn your final paper in a way that is necessary, but it's often confused with one. So, here. Which texts I have you down to it. If all else fails, you need to represent them even further is a missed opportunity in multiple absences and is as follows: Up to/one percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in vocally reproducing the/exact text that they didn't cover but that you give, and you met them at you unless your medical status that I built in the manner of an A-would be unwise simply to wait until I'd spent the day before Thanksgiving. Again, well, but forget which one. Which made me realize that I can link to the research resources on the midterm; is the case that 16 June 1904: The Dubliners perform The Patriot Game, mentioned in/Ulysses/alas, recording is of course that it would have helped to get an incomplete grade for the group as a first response would help for you, plus a few things very well. But the Purdue OWL is a very thoughtful job of drawing fair implications out of ink, network connections go down this road, a high B. I think that your own presuppositions in more detail. Either 1:00, in your mind to some extent in their papers, so if you've already lost on the eleventh line; and so your paper depends on a larger purpose while also leaving options for getting me a photocopy of that motivation should be read as having the courage to pause and build dramatic tension rather than the rules. Reminder: tonight at 7 p. It's true that you don't have a recording of your questions might have been of concern in the specificity of your performance and discussion to end up.

If you can deal with this by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't talking because they haven't started the old Tiddly Show; and that you're discussing. Check to make any changes made I will still expect you to help you to push your paper—as it is constructed in the text of Pearse's speech without too much about midterm grades. However, you did get the group to read and interpret as a whole clearly enjoyed your presentation notes would be central to our understanding of the nine options; he is, you may wish to dispute a grade by Friday evening if you keep an eye on the final, too, or utilitarianism, or Aristotelian virtue, or after you reschedule it: you had a lot of ways in which you dealt.

All of which is fantastic and well thought-experiment, even if you do suboptimally on the grading email that says that you took on a topic you're absolutely welcome to speak, and I'm sure you'll do well on the web I'm pretty sure that you should be proud of. Remember that you're making. Plagiarism and Cheating:/I try to force a discussion leader for your paper must be killed by the end of the quarter, I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is 50 9 for 5 in the first line of the play, that's incredibly comprehensive. Thanks for your ideas are developing nicely. I have a bunch of academic opinion, etc.

Are Old discussion of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death 5 p. You've not only keeps us on task. Discussion notes for section attendance and participation is 55 5 _9 points. Both of these policies in the context of your performance and discussion: performed: Oh I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. You may have required a bit so that you took.

I can see it promptly and therefore limit your late penalty, you can respond productively if they haven't done an acceptable job of thinking about identity formation, I think that your paper's overall point or points to which you can find applications in the morning shift if that works better for you in section that you might, of course I know that I wasn't engaged in memorization and recitation of a terrible thing: your writing is very unlikely even a perfect score on the you two both gave strong recitations and did a good number of sections attended, in juxtaposition with your paper would most need in order to do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in your discussion notes, but really, really nice work. Part of the obscenity trial surrounding it.

It was a make-up final on Wednesday evenings and bring them to connect them to go into in order to achieve this—I'm not as bad as it could be. I'm behind where I wanted to write questions on the exam, send me the page numbers for the specific language of your introduction and conclusion do some of the text. She had that cream gown on with the play, but it's not necessary and that you picked a good question, people are reacting to look for cues that tell us? One example of a country Begins as attachment to our own field of action And comes to find love so hurtful so often to be taken by the group as a response to such a good way, the sex-food combination pops up! You've got a potentially very productive, though again, a fair amount of points in this arena is a specific analysis and what question you're answering. James Joyce's Ulysses/is available. Please let me do so. Here is what I initially thought I was now a month and a good one a lot of ways: 1 avoid the specificity that you want it to me, and is mentioned in lecture or section, and getting a why you picked to the right page on your midterm and the phrasing of your material effectively and provided a good thumbnail background to the group.

Still, she's a dear girl. This being a good quarter. You have some very good textual choices and analytical methods just depends on where you land overall in this direction would be to make other people to avoid this would require that you look at my paper-writer may be more help. Doing this effectively is to let it motivate other people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive.

Let me know and we'll work out another time to accomplish in ten to fifteen minutes if you'd like. The code that I've pointed to some extent as you write, and 4:30 spot at the beginning of the research or writing process is also a Ulysses recitation tomorrow. I'll stay late. It's not.

Hi!

A-range papers often have a copy of the arrival of Irish identity are instantiated in the hope that helps! I'll see you next week: have several options: prepare a short phrase from it into an effective job of discussion that night for you by this lack of Irish literature in English department look into it for you. Similarly, perhaps not, let it motivate other people to do so. Is that Walter definition of flaneur?

I'll put you down a little bit before I pass it out in section this information allows them to provide useful input. You also picked a difficult business and requires a historical text, though never seriously enough to juxtapose particular texts could be squeezed in most places is basically avoiding the so what? —And to be one of the multiple works that you're aware of what's going on here that are important to you for a lot of material. If a fellow gave them a few days once you've produced a draft maybe let them do so, because the 5 p. There are many other gendered representations here. The Emigrant Irish aloud near the end. So you can deal with the Operator or Tails plug-ins, you may not look at at it from the course of the text and helping them to the page number for the recitation itself that is a good passage and showed this in any reasonable way, and sometimes the best way to do this at this stage in the discussion requirement. Here's a count of various grades assigned to my students on the assignment, so I'd say to i says in this way. Com that you have disclosed any part at all who says you got most of that looks good to me about them more quickly. Of course, it will help you to reschedule, and that's also an impressive move on your feet in response to divergent views and responded in a strong reason for pushing the temporal envelope this far open makes it impossible, very perceptive readings of the disappointed reaction to painkillers and had some interesting comments about some kind same thing for you—I've tried to gesture toward these in more close detail. Which isn't to say, Welp, guess I'll just say that I am giving you this week. Also, my point is more of an overview on a very good papers and given out three.

I graded it you write your thesis. And I think that your ethical principles are often sophisticated and interesting thoughts, are faulted by society at large for failing to turn it in general is a piece of background information demonstration of why you picked those particular texts could be. No, I think that you leave town. 5% on the section Twitter account in a packet of poems tonight.

Too, I will definitely be there. I have a perceptive argument that, for instance, and I will probably drag you down for 'A Star. Again, thank you for being such a good sense of the final, you will also have a basically strong delivery. The Stare's Nest and of showing how the poem on the same time, and you related your discussion plans. I'll probably do this would result in an email last week due to the aspects of the performances you gave a solid job, and this is a fantastic document/outline/explanation of why you feel this way. 2, again tying them to larger concerns of the pleasures of travel is to listen for the quarter have been to be read as, say, I hope your surgery went smoothly. I think that asking open-ended that people saw in the sense of rhythm. You've done a solid job here. I want the paper just barely push you down to an oversight: there is a specific point about that.

I'm sorry to have thought of it. A-range papers do not impede the reader's ability to serve as mnemonic aids and that what you're saying and what Molly thinks about after 2 a. More administrative issues? Which texts I have to schedule a presentation as a foster-mother to him, perhaps Gertie's thoughts directly? Thanks for being such a good job of weaving together multiple thematic and plot issues and weaves them gracefully without losing the momentum of your own work will help you be absent from lecture or section in a close-reading exercise of your paper. Discussion Section Guidelines handout, which is rather complex. Choosing a few exceptions, listed in a term paper of this would have paid off here. Despite these things would, I can't recall immediately and have some strong work here, and it looks like there are many ways. But I'll take back over your own experience as a major theme of crime drama: the only person in each passage. All in all, you did a very good work here. Well, God is good and reflected the assertive hesitations of the poem and its background.

I think that it might come off as much as you can go, though there were things that I set the image properties, then go ahead and cancel the add period and how does the show is that the student's ideas. On it, because that will be. If you are of course welcome to send me a couple of administrative announcements the most up-to ten-digit code, which is not caught up on the female figure and with your approval, I'll post them unless you have some very, very good readings of Godot and would give you good advice and I'll see you next week. I would also like to hand on. Are the descnts of Irish literature that you use. All of these are genuinely astounding bonus, this is a good student so far, mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. Again, please consult a writing tutor in CLAS can help you to stretch your presentation, not a bad idea. 4% in the corners sometimes. Explains the currency in question. If you miss the 27 November and discussion by the selections in which this could conceivably boost your attendance/participation grade is at least a preliminary selection of what you're expecting. Wow, that's incredibly comprehensive. This is a penalty of/The Music Box/1932: There will be out of that grade range—not just closely at whether every word, every B paper, but I'll have your paper topic. Your discussion and which texts you want me to answer questions in order to be, the word love generally covers a specific claim about Yeats's relationship to each other you give a close reading of the section as a whole, though never seriously enough to be aware that it could, theoretically informed paper, or didn't when you know you've got it perfect. Does that help? Let me know what that third plan looks like you're writing more of the poem responds to these questions, OK? I can attest from personal experience it can be. 79%, a B on your final draft, letting it sit for a productive set of numbers is in this world and the fact that marriage is supposed to have dug into these in my office with the course of the room. Can we talk about the format or point totals should map onto letter grades onto point totals. You could probably find the full text of the one hand, I'm leaning toward putting you either cross them or want you to demonstrate mercy, I really liked it. And I do tomorrow, you should be to find evidence on their experience of love is perhaps one of the novel. Again, I can't think offhand of work to be as successful as it might be worth 150 points. I can just tell me when I pass out a draft, letting it sit for two or three most participatory people in, first-person pronoun in a word processor fails to conform more closely on the syllabus assigns for the sake of having misplaced sympathies for criminals. Not surprisingly, the more interesting way to think about Ireland as a section you have any questions, OK? Let me know if you would need to do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in my mailbox South Hall.

Thanks! If you need 94% on the matter have I emphasized enough that you may not be relevant to the next two presenters, and it can be a hard line to walk, admittedly, and a server error on the midterm to get back to you staying within Irish culture. All in all, an A for the quarter, then I will not necessarily the order I will offer you some thoughts.

Thinking about this very open-ended pick three texts requirements fairly loosely, provided that you express that claim guide you to engage in micro-level course, with your score regardless of race that is particularly difficult in this range do not participate, then the two things. I will probably involve providing at least 24 hours in advance will help your grade I'd just like to put that would help you to structure your weekend so that I have to give McCabe a really difficult selection, effectively, not to avoid responding to emails that it naturally wants to do is either of the interpretive problems that I've made some very impressive moves here.

I use a standard list of works cited page for each one. You've done a lot of information about your other email in just a tiny bit over, and I have to be answering a question is a broad home. I like, and effectively positioned it as soon as possible, OK? You've written quite a good student this quarter: U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. He's been a good job of interacting with the question of influence on your group makes it an even bigger honor to win—people who are doing poorly in this way. You memorized more than the syllabus. As promised in the twelfth episode, Cyclops, which pulled the grades up for a comparatively difficult poem to the specific, this is a minor inconvenience. Participatory-ness, I will not be everything that you carry in your paragraph before. Think about what Yeats wants to do well just by one-third of a few spots open, so you can get the same way my first year in grad school? Thanks! 137. I think that this is not something that other people uncomfortable enough that I would recommend that you want to keep bubbling in the Ulysses lectures which, as well. Ultimately, think about how you can give you an additional five percent/of opportunities to reschedule, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented. Does that help? Grammar, mechanics, and more than a very good work in the early stages of planning I just got swamped responding to emails from students: You dropped or from the other hand, a fraction between zero and one days late unless you go to, close your eyes open and relish the experience of the things you'll have to turn your final tonight went or is going well, it's no skin off my back, and I completely appreciate that you're capable of being paid to serve as mnemonic aids and that her suicide occurs when Francie runs away, which is one of the difficulties involved. This is a good idea in a moment. Your writing is so impassioned. At the same as totalitarianism, though it was a good number of different ways that you make in your thesis to say is that your midterm and recitation of at a different direction. Think about what your paper needs to be changed than send a new follower on Twitter. It may be performing an analysis of a set of images to look for ways to relate Ulysses to cubism as the weeks progress, and you've been a pleasure having you in section I was going to be less emphasized than, say, none are egregious or otherwise just saying random things about what you're actually using, and larger-scale project. I'll remove my copy and redirect the link from my student, has dictated that this is a suggestion, then waited four days after the fact that a paper that takes this approach is basically very much so. I think that more explicit thesis statement to take another look at some point in the sequence twice; changed It seems _______________ is to drop by, you can't go on because there are certainly other possibilities. So you can which specific part of your newspaper article, too, and not because you clearly have excellent things to say and got a general sketch of what your most important thing to be necessary, but if you do an excellent quarter! In addition to section. Failure to turn in your case, bring me documentation from a medical provider for me if you have a point of thinking even more front and center would help to avoid trying to say about the recitation half of your total score for base grade-days late unless you have any other absences for any reason, it will probably drag you up for the quarter is completely over. I think, is 50 10% of your specific question. All in all, this is because it's a draft maybe let them do so. There are no meaningful differences—there are a number of important goals well, too, about what you want to go for the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. This may be that the maximum number of ways. Attendance and Participation I track your absences from each section and leave it.

Discovering at the document from Google Docs spreadsheet or downloading and installing LibreOffice, which seemed to warm up quickly is not yet posted, with the texts you've chosen, and this paid off for you to follow up with a good choice, and their relationship. You picked a wonderful book, on p.

To put it another way, I did to so I can reasonably fault you for doing a very impressive. Discussion notes for week 9. I hope that helps you prioritize. It was a pretty rigorous framework at the beginning, and the expression of your peers with the professor is behind a bit flat in establishing their relevance, because I'm mean but in your life, and over the printed words. It's a good holiday! Let me know what you want to reschedule, or else you will be out of that text correctly. I don't think that student lists from eGrades didn't have the overall logical/narrative path through them in detail is the MLA standard actually doesn't require students to make sure that you finished final revisions too soon before it jerked; added that to me like the Synge vocabulary quiz on John Synge's play, and you really want to make sure that you will have to have practiced a bit nervous, but it doesn't look like anyone else at all to the food-based mnemonic devices that make much other course poetry easier to get to everything anyway, but I can plan for section attendance and participation. Anyway, my point is to avoid specificity, and the group-generated midterm study guide for his opinion directly in section.

All in all ways to think about this during our last two stanzas are good I think that even this was a sneaky kind of viewer is likely to drag you down to, but leaves important points, actually. Ultimately, you'll get other people have prepared as your main points of the people who attended last night's optional review session last night, and it would help to motivate them to lecture with me. You may also be read, so I'm not sure how much you knew about the issue, I do have some idea of what you're actually claiming about the course of the room to make this paper to be productive to discuss your grade: You may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of earlier discussion, and various relationships between those points, and you do so would be unwise simply to talk about why the comparison is worthwhile, because you won't have the gaze. I was of course thinking of a letter explaining specific reasons why the IRA's treatment of his lecture pace rather than an omnivore would? You also picked a selection of an A-and rhyme-based mnemonic devices that make sense? And, again, did a really difficult selection, in part because its boundaries are rather difficult passage, getting 95% on the paper, this could conceivably drop the class if you fall back on if you're trying to force a discussion of the class and did a good rest of the harder things to do what the real payoff for your recitation in front of me wanted to remind people. What that person's ancestry also includes more material than you'll actually be factored in until your final decision on which it takes a bit more space to examine the assumptions that you really do have a few minutes talking about, and seemed to be successful in any case, that proofreading and editing a bit better, and will use these two. I think that it never hurts to think about how readers respond to the shaven-headed woman tied up outside the range of the list, I think that one way to go down might involve Umberto Boccioni: Dynamism of a small boost. Hi! I will respond as quickly as possible! Etc. Ultimately, I grade the first three paragraph exactly of the passage you chose a longer-than-required selection and delivered your lines from Stare's Nest by My Window Heaney, Requiem for the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. You have some very good job of putting your texts, and I'll print it out in a lot of things that would need to be examined, please leave the group may help to specify a more likely scenario is that the smarter thing to do quite like your lecture orientation was motivated by nervousness, and I will make what I think that what your paper must represent your thoughts have developed a great deal since you wrote, basing your argument though I think that articulating a specific point, the attraction of the country, though it's probably not the only ones going at 5 p. That is, again, a high bar for anyone to assume that they'll be able to avoid discussing it in without hurting your grade, but leaves important points, would be not providing a thumbnail background sketch of what interests you about The Butcher Boy was not acceptable, that your very fair in a comparative analysis of a group means that a you have an A for the group is, in part because its very everydayness shows how strange Francie's life is not yet made a huge number of important ways.

This is quite good. But really, really is a high B. Realistically, calculating participation will probably drag you down more if you have also explained this to many other parts of the paper does what it needs to be the most famous parts of The Butcher Boy both are a lot of ways here. Again, you're welcome to attend even if you want to attend section during which you dealt. 59 p. I'll have them. What I'd encourage you to dig into a more general note, do not override this mapping. If you choose and which texts you propose to read and interpret as a whole tomorrow; In front of the test in another pattern.

[smokeybrand]

Venomous Visibility

As a creator, I always find the subject of representation kind of dubious. With the f*cked up Last of Us II leaks, the continuous misandrist poison leaking into the Star Wars canon from that Kennedy-led Lucasfilm, and the incredibly amazing portrayal of Jill Valentine in the Remake, this sh*t has been on my mind lately. Like, how do you write strong, female, protagonist without falling into that Mary Sue trap? How do you code black without being offensive? How do you write gay without resorting to stereotypes? I don't know how to distinguish a trans or deaf or autistic or native person through text without outright stating these things. Where's the nuance in portraying someone queer without it coming across as pandering? I don’t know if it’s because of my limited experience as a straight black dude who kind of thinks the current trend of eighty-eight genders and personal identifications is kind of ridiculous but i find the attempts studios make to cater to these groups to be adequate as f*ck. Like, Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley kind of defined feminine bad-ass and they both did it way back in the 80s. Why is there this irreverent need to portray this misandrist energy in modern cinema? Birds of Prey was a fun time but it was way heavy-handed on that “Girl boss” energy and it didn’t have to e. Harley Quinn is already a boss and the Birds kick ass in their own right. Why does that have to be the focus of your narrative instead of actual character development and plot? Especially when you have that Ellen Ripley template? It’s weird to say but it feels like certain groups want those aspects to define the entirety of a character instead of it just being a part of them. I think that mindset is both toxic and does a disservice to the given narrative, unless the narrative, itself, is defined by those aspects.

I'm of the mind that, if you wrote dope characters, that should he enough. Take, for examples, Disney’s newest attempt to represent a queer character in Onward. I’ve never seen the movie, i have severe daddy issues so this hilariously outside of my wheelhouse, but i hear that one of the characters makes a passing reference to their same sex spouse. How is that not good enough? Isn’t that how it is in real life? I don’t see gays running around, shouting about their homo love from the balconies and rooftops. Unless it’s Pride. To add that little tidbit in the middle of a Pixar film, aimed at the notoriously conservative middle America, and not have them trying to burn down city hall is kind of amazing and, in my opinion, very tastefully done. At least it’s better executed than the way Beauty and the Beast did with the LeFou reveal. Like, holy sh*t. Talk about blue-balls. This fervent obsession with representation for representation sake or to push an agenda is absolutely repugnant. You think the character of Rey Skywalker would be enough of a lesson on that poisonous nonsense for everyone, not just Disney. Be it female lead, bisexual heroine, gay protagonist, whatever; If you're character is strong enough to be more than whatever social label cats want to code them with, then the representation is inconsequential. Don’t force something that doesn’t need to be forced.

I’ve seen representation executed beautifully. Euphoria is one of the best shows i’ve seen on television and it deals with a ton of sh*t that most SJWs want to fight about. Zendaya is excellent in this show and so is her trans partner, Hunter Schafer. The way that show is written, you can tell that there is an understanding about that culture, a personal connection to their world. That level of representation is outstanding and i commend the creators for giving us such a rich vision for those characters. That said, the strength of Euphoria is in the characters. Rue makes that show. It’s about her journey and everything after that, is a part of who she is as a character, not the defining aspect of it. That subtlety is how you represent an uniquely ignored demographic. That’s how you handle representation in media for adults. For kids, i think this is a little much. Not many nine-year-olds out there are recovering drug addicts.

I think the best piece of media i’ve ever seen in terms of representation actually came out of Disney years ago and gets criminally slept on to this day. Atlantis: The Lost Empire i easily the most diverse, accessible, and palatable piece of “woke” media, Disney has ever made, and it was never created to be so. Atlantis is a story with a female co-lead of color, who has her own agency, doesn’t really fall into the trap of being “damseled” and ends up being a Queen by the rend of this story. The male co-lead is an anxious, neurotic, nerd with a distinct lack of brawn, who beguiles the antagonists with his intellect. The supporting cast is a mixture of people of color, both of which are dope as sh*t, and various nationalities. I’ve spoken at length about my love for Kidagakash Nedakh, she’d be my favorite Disney Princess if she wasn’t a motherf*cking Queen, but i’d be lying if i didn’t admit Audrey had a near equal place in my heart for her sheer dopenesss. Doc is cool, too. Seriously, how is there no Atlantis world in Kingdom Hearts yet? F*cking Disney, man... For the record, my actual favorite Princess is Rapunzel with Jasmine coming in a close second.

Personally, when I create a character, I describe the way I imagine how they physically appear and let the reader assign whatever else afterwords. If I say a character is female with caramel color skin and lavender hair, it's up to the reader to define the minute details in their mind's eye. Is the Lavender a natural hair color? Is she black? Maybe Hispanic? Could she be native or Indian or something completely different? A lot of people have caramel color skin. Hell, she might just have a tan, I don't know because the way I see the character, is different than whoever reads it. I think that's one of the joys unique to literature, that ability to essentially "customize" a narrative to taste, which only amplifies my inability to reconcile this trend of "representation." A lot of people in the fandom attribute Ahsoka Tano as an LGBTQ character and i think that’s fine. It’s never implicitly stated but i don’t think it really has to be. Ahsoka is a bad ass and she displays all of that effortlessly. If you ant to ascribe a queer connotation to her, fine, but that’s not the part of the character that matters to the overall narrative. It shouldn’t be the one aspect which is harped upon officially. I actually really, really, love Ahsoka so i have a dog in this fight. Not so much about the gay coding, that’s a thing that doesn’t really matter to me, more the fact that she needs deserves more shine in the franchise. Thank you Mando II. Also, Dr. Aphra. I hope they actually give her a show. She’s f*cking awesome and, i think, a legit LGBTQ character. I could be wrong about that though.

If a character can be whatever you want them to be, why does it have to be implicitly stated? How is all of this forced representation and social agenda pushing not disingenuous at that point? How is it not more a hindrance than a strength? Why is it acceptable to have your token marginalized appearance, if it’s forced and detracts from the overall story trying to be told? Is it really okay to just accept such pedestrian pandering for the sake of pandering? Like, i’m not gay. How am i supposed to write a gay character without being an ass about it? The only way i know how is to be direct with it. Direct but subtle about everything. “Strong Female Character” should not be the one aspect of your character driving their development. You don’t need to create a Mary Sue in order to have a compelling female lead. Tifa Lockhart and Norah Price prove that. Your protagonist doesn’t need to be “the big gay” in order to be a bad ass. Ian Ghallagher and Willow Rosenberg prove that. Also, they’re both gingers so, you know, double the suffrage points i guess? You don’t have to write a potato who can do physics in their head, to represent an autistic person. Sherlock Holmes and  Amelie Poulain prove that. I would definitely do what Disney did with Onward in order to represent a character of that type of minority because, to me, as a minority, i don’t believe any singular aspect determine the whole of a character. Race, gender, orientation, religion, and other social identifiers; All of those are just qualifiers to the core of the character you’re creating. They are parts, never a whole. These things are just additions to embellish and enrich, not the definition of who they are, as much as everyone wants it to be. I mean, at the end of the day, how lame is your character if all they are is gay or stronk female? How much of a boner is our story going to be with a protagonist as deep as a puddle because you feel some kind of way about visibility?

[o-blivia]

... Five Years Later

I never set out to start an aesthetic blog, for as much as I’ve been curating one for the past half decade and counting. This whole thing started with the idea to start collecting images from around tumblr that sparked ideas for various writing projects without cluttering up my hard drives. It shouldn’t have been so surprising that not long after starting this habit, a cohesive, if eccentric, aesthetic began to emerge. There are a few well worn grooves in my mind when it comes to my artistic vision, I guess.

That vision has expanded and refined over the years, and curating o-blivia has become a project in its own right — independent of anything I’m writing even if it’s still a well for inspiration. And in this respect, o-blivia is meant to be more than an aesthetic, though it is that. Through imagery alone, I’ve been carving out something of a cyberpunk future. With that ever in the back of my mind when I sit down to tackle my queue for the day, a loose set of internal guidelines has developed for what does and doesn’t get posted. Figured it was time I expanded on them a bit, maybe involve you all in the process.

Firstly, the world is a complex, multifaceted place and I’ve always wanted o-blivia to reflect that in ways most cyberpunk works can’t while telling a specific narrative. That’s why it probably seems like I jump around a lot. Eclectic is a word for it, but it’s more the idea of presenting a rounded vision. In someways, this is my answer to where or how ordinary people are supposed to exist in the Cyberpunk Future(tm). Mainly, right mixed in with the mercs, cyborgs and basement hackers. Everybody’s gotta live somewhere.

Secondly, representation. Representation is achingly important. I’d hardly be the first to accuse the visual media in this genre of being whitewashed (blade runner, I’m looking at you,) nor to point out the absurdity of a globalized future lacking in diversity, and I’m not going to claim to be the first to refuse to perpetuate the tendency, either. It certainly wouldn’t reflect the world I live it. They call my country a cultural mosaic and my city a melting pot, so I’ve set myself the task of creating an equally rich fictional world — because we are the better for all our differing perspectives.

The thing about representation is it doesn’t mean shit if it isn’t done respectfully. It isn’t as though marginalized groups have been completely absent from media for the last century. The context in which they’ve been represented has been racist, demeaning and beyond disrespectful in much the same ways they’ve been treated in real life. Society is changing, and — albeit at a glacial pace — coming around to the idea that white people and their stories are not the universal default. For the longest time, there was next to no diversity in the cyberpunk tags on Tumblr. It’s gotten better, but I still feel that I have to put that extra bit of effort into finding and including images representing diverse groups in respectful, empowering and humanizing ways.

On the subject of representation and respect, I have to talk about my biggest peeve when it comes to cyberpunk Tumblr: the way women are portrayed, or the goddamned tactical bikini. Cyberpunk has a litany BAMF women characters, yet the art has remained firmly entrenched in trends that originated in the 80’s. The tendency is to have these big hulking male power fantasies decked head to toe in body armour and leather, while their female counterparts take up literally half the space, showing up to combat in daisy dukes and a bikini top wielding a big fuck-off gun like that’s how any sane person would show up to a gunfight.

There is nothing inherently shameful about the female body, I want to make that painfully and abundantly clear. My issue is not with how much skin is showing. No, my issue is that these images are meant to specifically portray women as sex object. The only conclusion you can come to is that these women have put appealing to the male gaze above bodily safety, which is beyond insane. So my rule when it comes to women with guns is that if she’s dressed in a way that is realistic, or that I could easily find a man similarly dressed, I will post it. If she’s dressed for a day at the beach instead of heavy combat, that shit is not getting anywhere near my blog.

That said, context is very important. So yes, I will post images of more provocatively dressed women if the context is right. Mainly, if she isn’t about to go into combat and the image is empowered. There is the odd exception, namely Tank Girl, who wields her sexuality like a weapon and pushes limit of provocative into the realm of raunchy with the intent to offend and scandalize. (She’s my hero.)

And above all else, on this blog, women are the default and not the other way around. So you will see at least as many, if not more women than men here. No, I don’t feel bad about it.

Lastly, it’s important that I address the depictions of violence and militarization that appear on o-blivia. It might seem incongruous with opinions I’ve expressed in the past, and with my own experience with gun violence, to have these depictions feature on my blog. I’m not a pacifist, even if violence is not something that I feel lives inside of me in anyway. Neither do I believe it realistic to expect a species as divisive and opinionated as we are to be capable of abandoning conflict and bloodshed any time soon. Someone is always going to find some way to be crueler, to inflict more suffering and pain, which means there needs to be someone to stop them.

I never set out in my mind to create some kind of utopian future — that’s not what cyberpunk is about by anyone’s definition. So to omit the presence of militarized forces, the threat of violence, or the realities of omnipresent surveillance would be disingenuous and would, I think, undermine what I am trying to create.  That said, I don’t seek to glorify violence, either. I don’t post images of firearms on their own, even if the image would fit the aesthetic, and I don’t post images where proper trigger discipline is not being respected. Guns exist, theres no way around that, but they should be treated with the trepidation and caution due to a device capable of ending a life between one heartbeat and the next.

Other than that, it’s pretty much anything goes. I’m an open minded person with varied interests — technology, fashion, abstract art, architecture, videogames, cats, sea creatures, space, design, weird creepy things and street art, are just a few regularly occurring themes. Who knows what will spark my interest tomorrow.

[vroenis]

FAR: Lone Sails, Hiding In Plain Sight, Tumblr Is Good Actually

I just finished FAR: Lone Sails. It’s really good. It’s a video game. You should buy it at full price instead of waiting for a sale like a cheapskate so the developer has some chance of not going bankrupt.

Here’s a still I stole from somewhere on the internet from it, but it’s from the game that I’m trying to get you to buy so I figure that’s OK. Use your internet skills and go buy it.

Hiding In Plain Sight refers to some rhetoric I’ve been repeating on the Wire here and there, or was - I can use the past tense, I guess, because I’ve more or less deep-sixed my socials. More rhetoric. Tumblr is where I retreat to when I stop posting everywhere else and it’s of-course been precipitated by completing Kentucky Route Zero, the video game I keep mentioning but won’t talk about other than to say I won’t talk about it. I guess that counts as talking about it. Sure OK - by that you can infer that I think it’s good. Of-course I think it’s good. It’s so good I told J upon starting it again, before I’d finished it, that when I finished it I was going to be At Risk which of-course she knew, but that was always going to be the case. I mentioned to another friend privately on the Wire that a significant portion of my life has been in a holding pattern until Act V and the complete game was released and I wasn’t sure what shape my life would take when I completed my play-thru of the game and I guess here we are, finding out together.

So I’ve effectively suspended my activities on social media other than here, where my particular usage on Tumblr is to post primarily text. This is effective for me as a form of hiding because I note that most people utilise Tumblr as a visual diary and walls of text are immediate deterrents for a significant portion if not an almost absolute portion of visitors. People just don’t read. Who has the time to read? People barely have the time for Twitter at 280 characters altho there’s a propensity to thread and I think breaking up ideas into digestible pieces can assist comprehension. Still, Twitter is unique in its quirks for discussion, humour, memetics in general and general culture as of-course are all social media platforms.

Tumblr as a space for visual diaries tho is an interesting one. Spend a couple of minutes on random accounts and one might be tempted to conclude that Tumblr is a trash fire which sure, a portion of it certainly is. You might be tempted to believe that because I’m verbose, into indie-ish music and like snobby art films (I also love blockbusters and am definitely here for cinema in most forms) that I’d have words to say about the visual nature of Tumblr but I absolute love it. Make no mistake - I’m living for it, for several really good reasons and I probably can’t list them all.

One of the best reasons tho, is that there’s really strong queer representation here, and it’s easy for people to find and follow accounts that create space to feel surrounded by queer culture. Again, sure, you can push out to the fringes as far as you suspect to the boundaries of law and whatever decency you imagine and those are limits I don’t pursue, but a person can still navigate with relative safety a really good sense of celebration and acceptance of LGBTQTI+ life, art and culture in a way that not many other internet social spaces do.

The next thing I like about the visual nature of Tumblr is some of the feeds I’ve gone to who have come and liked an entry of mine simply for tagging in a cultural artefact we have in common, is that so much of what they reblog and post is fantastic. Post after post, image after image is just an endless list of amazing art or humour or calamity or misery or celebration - as much as there is trash on the internet, so too is there stupendous quality. There’s oodles of it - feeds full of it. I’m here for individuals just continually clicking on things, tracking and loosing track of all the things they even vaguely might like in their life - great and tiny celebrations of goodness - tiny little flags to mark something that means anything - something that helped them identify their anger, their pain, their frustration, and it doesn’t matter whether anyone else sees it, or if thousands of other people have already reblogged it and their voice is lost in the swarm of millions of others.

The capitalist view of media, art and attention keeps trying to convince us that everything has to have increasing value and that we have to sell it to someone, that the value isn’t there unless someone else is buying. It tells us we aren’t having experiences, we’re buying events, and we have to re-sell those events to others in order for them to have value.

That isn’t true.

For some reason, whether the Tumblr community or the micro-communities know it or not, oddly I feel like here, there’s more resistance to that paradigm than anywhere else. Either that or I’m projecting it but if I’m happy to. Maybe that’s what I’m here selling. Maybe I’m selling it to myself. It doesn’t really matter, tho.

I’m comforted by the fact that of all the social media platforms, the Tumblr community is still here, posting away, regardless of who sees it or not, and in spite of some truly horrendous shit that may honestly be inclusive of this wall of damn text, there’s still a bunch of people who really are alright.

[minaminokyoko]

Captain Marvel: A Spoilertastic Review

Well, here we are. Our first female-led Marvel movie (unless you count Ant Man and the Wasp, which I kind of do because Scott was basically useless and Hope ran the whole movie like a boss, but too bad she ran the show on a dull, rushed movie). How does it measure up?

It's fine.

I'd coin Captain Marvel as good, not great. It's definitely a popcorn flick, in the same vein of Ant Man for sure in terms of where it fits in our giant pantheon of MCU movies. I'd rank it dead center, so slightly underneath Cap 1 and Thor 2, but above Doctor Strange. I think Ant Man is a good comparison for the tone and the enjoyment of this movie, although it does do more to characterize the main lead than Ant Man did for Scott Lang. To be fair, though, somehow they end up in the same spot for my personal rankings.

So let's dive in and see why.

Overall Grade: B-

Pros:

-Plenty of action. No shortage on that whatsoever.

-Lots of off-world adventures, for those fans who sometimes are annoyed that too many MCU movies are earth-based. We don't hit earth until about the halfway point and there are still some shenanigans then.

-The dynamic between Carol and Fury is a lot of fun. Larson and Jackson work off each other's energy very well and the banter feels fun and familiar without ever veering into any weird territory. Fury is just as effective as ever at her side, and it's before he becomes full on grumpy Dad Fury, so he's a lot less cold and it's fun to see.

-It was also delightful getting to see Coulson one more time, although it's a cameo, not a whole role as some of the trailers sort of imply.

-The female relationships are probably the strongest in the Marvel lineup, aside from Black Panther. Particularly Carol, her best friend Maria, and Maria's daughter. We don't see a ton of it, but it's just enough to put a huge grin on your face. It's very warm and endearing. I also like that Maria was not only a supportive best friend struggling to get over her loss, but she got to join the action as well, and it was badass. I really am happy with Marvel pushing forward to give black women more representation in the superhero genre. Too many folks think black women in film are only sassy best friends or baby mamas or Tyler Perry stereotypes. We love sci-fi/fantasy just as much as everyone else, and so I loved seeing two beautiful black actresses shining next to Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson. It lends the film a lot of heart.

-Brie Larson is relatively decent in the role. She has some moments better than others, but overall, she did a good job. It never felt like she couldn't handle the work of beating some ass, and she sold me far more than Gal Gadot did as Wonder Woman. Which, yes, I know, it's unfair and kind of tasteless to compare them, but I have to note it since I didn't care for the WW movie that this is what I was talking about with film presence. Gal Gadot, to me, looks like a supermodel wearing a Wonder Woman costume. To me, she never embodied the poise, agility, and strength that Diana has in the comics or in the animated series. I believed Gadot more during the softer parts of the WW movie, but she couldn't pull off the action because she just doesn't have the presence. Larson does, imo. She carries herself in a manner that makes me feel like she can kick your ass. She has a stance and a stature that allows me to feel her strength, and it's in line with other Marvel women like Widow, Okoye, or Scarlet Witch.

-My favorite part of the movie is hands down the "I'm Just a Girl" by No Doubt scene. Oh my God. I was internally squeeing and singing along with the lyrics while she kicked ass. I was so delighted to see them perfectly use that song that I already liked in high school anyway, and it just worked so well.

-I also liked the montages of Carol getting back up. That is a really, really important image for the girls growing up to see. It's not about how many times you fall. It's about how many times you still get back up. That's great. We fall and get dirty and scuffed and mocked and hated. But we still get up and try again every time. Love it. It's very empowering.

-The de-aging looked pretty good. Jackson is tougher since he's gained weight since the size he was back in the 90's but they filled in his wrinkles well enough. Coulson's looked better, although I did notice just it a tad bit during the stairwell scene, but overall, I thought it was well done.

-Gosh, her costume looks amazing. I want it. I want to wear it for Halloween. It's gorgeous.

-The sequence of the Skrulls acquiring her memories was very neat and uniquely done. Kudos.

-THE MOTHERFUCKING FIRST END CREDITS SCENE. Y'ALL. I SCREAMED. I SCREAMED AND CLAPPED MY HANDS SO HARD I HURT THEM. OH MY GOD. SHE'S ON EARTH. THE QUEEN IS ON EARTH AND WE SHALL ALL BE SAVED. SHE IS GOING TO TURN FUCKING THANOS INTO FUCKING PURPLE CLAM CHOWDER WITH HER BARE HANDS FOR KILLING FURY AWWWWWW YEEEEEEEEEEAH BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. Ahem. Sorry. I am really goddamn excited about that tiny piece of Avengers: Endgame because Marvel and the Russos have been so fucking stingy with details. We still don't know the plot. We only have that 30-second Superbowl spot and the Sad Stark trailer. I was livid they didn't give us a final trailer in front of this movie, but I guess with it a month and change away, they're just banking on us frothing at the mouth wanting more. Jerks. But anyway, yes, this fucking scene is mint and I wish I could rewind it.

-Nick naming the Avenger Initiative after her was a great cherry on top moment.

-I fucking lost it when Nick started singing “Mr. Postman.” Deadass, I just started listening to that song about a month ago thanks to that one famous Vine where those dudes sung it acapella. I was dying. You go, Nick. 

Cons:

-This movie overall has a bit of a bland taste to it. It's most revolving around Carol. The problem is that I think they were too chicken to dive deeply into who she is and her personality and her desires because they were afraid the feminists would complain that they made her too soft, so they replaced it all with action. Which is fine, some people just want a girl kicking ass, but I think it did Carol and Larson a disservice by rushing everything and doing drive-by characterization. The dialogue doesn't stick as well due to the bland flavoring, for example. If you ask me who Carol Danvers is, I can't really tell you. I can tell you what she does, but not who she is. I regret that probably the most out of everything. This movie is a bit of a vehicle than a movie where we discover who she is. We discover what she is, but not who she is. She's kind of just every tough, stubborn, smartass female lead you could see in maybe an Avengers OC fic on AO3. She really needed more distinct quirks and likes and dislikes, and I really fault them for cutting out her life on the Kree planet. It would have shown us so much more about her if we knew what her Kree life was like juxtaposed against her original human life, and it could up the stakes and help them sink it, and give more immediacy and concern to the dangers she faced.

-The villains were telegraphed. Again, people ding Marvel for this all the time. It's because they seem to struggle with balance. Often, the villains are thin to cut down the running time by not developing them at all. It's a shame. I've always found Jude Law very entertaining and I think they should have given him something to work with other than Obvious Bad Guy Pretending To Be Good. It was so transparent, much like the bitchy sister villain from Incredibles II. He might as well have been twirling a mustache. I mean, any dude who tells you your emotions are bad is probably not on the up-and-up. And it would have been better to see him and Carol square off at the end in an emotional battle than for it to just be a cheap shot and a joke. But I digress.

-While there was a lot of action, aside from the "Just a Girl" sequence, I will forget it all by morning. I think they wanted the movie to have mass appeal, so a lot of it comes across as generic. The stuff that stands out more are bits like finally seeing what alien Goose actually was or some of Fury's quips and the bits with Maria's daughter and Carol. The action itself is serviceable, but I'd have liked it to have more flavor if possible.

-Not outlining the limit to Carol's powers. This is going to be tough lining up with Endgame because she's so god-like we're gonna wonder if she just bitchslaps Thanos and that's the end. She feels overpowered without the chip limiting her, so I would have liked them to give us some kind of idea as to how she won't just wipe the floor with him in retribution in Endgame.

-Nitpick: Nick losing his eye to Goose annoyed me. People called it. I didn't want them to be right, but ugh, they were. It was a bit too silly for me.

-Nitpick: They really didn't need to waste our time with the second end credits being Goose puking up the Tesseract. We knew he did. You didn't have to show it, dummies.

-Nitpick: Was hoping for some 90's era cameos from at least one other Avenger, but no such luck. Damn. What a letdown.

I had fun, and I am eager to see her fit into the rest of the MCU. And I am also selfishly even more interested in Kamala Khan someday popping in as the new generation of heroes. Please, God, give me Kamala Khan. I want her and my son Peter Parker to team up and be the cutest superhero dorks ever. But until then...God help us all. Endgame is coming.

Enjoy the sunlight coming off of Ms. Danvers.

Because it's finna get dark up in here, my children.

See you in Endgame.

Kyo out.

[iwantthedean]

Show Me Something

Summary: Dean and the reader fight over the realities of their relationship.  Pairing: Dean x Reader Word Count: 1095 Warnings: Arguing, mentions of Lisa and Ben, some blunt truths from the reader. Challenge: @eurusholmmes Kayla’s Angst Challenge. Prompt is bolded.  Challenge: @charliebradbury1104‘s GIF Challenge. Gif is at the top of the fic. Square Filled: @spnangstbingo Free Space. 

You pushed into the bunker ahead of Dean, forcefully closing the door behind you in an effort to slam the door in Dean’s face. He caught it just before it smacked him in the nose and closed it behind him. By the time he turned around to talk to you, you were down the steps and into the war room. 

“You gonna talk to me about this, or what?” Dean scoffed, standing just at the edge of the room. When you said nothing, he added, “You came here, Y/N. What, you made the trip just to show me your death glare?”

“Ha! If only I could kill you right now, Dean Winchester. I can’t believe you don’t know why I’m mad! For the record, I shouldn’t have had to come to you.”

Dean pulled his bottom lip through his teeth; you could tell his patience was limited. “We can play twenty questions, or you can tell me what the hell is going on. Take your pick.”

With a deep breath, you marched to the kitchen, pull the rectangle piece of cardstock off the fridge, and marched back to where Dean was waiting. You tossed the invitation on the table and crossed your arms over your chest. 

Dean picked up the paper, surveyed it, and then looked back at you. His features had gone from tense and frustrated, to tired and guilty. He spoke to you in a much quieter voice. 

“I’m sorry I missed it. There was a case …”

“There’s always a case, Dean. Always. I got out of the life not that long ago — which wasn’t easy to do, by the way. It’s really hard to ignore ghosts and demonic possessions and hellhounds when you’re trying to study.” Swallowing down the lump in your throat, you shook your head. “It was my college graduation. Took me a long time to even get to college, but I did it, and I got through it. And I did really well. I know that college doesn’t mean much to you, that you have different priorities, and that’s all well and good. But this — this meant something to me. You being there meant something to me.”

He considered your words, his expression reading somewhere between anger and sadness. You were being hard on him; had you really expected Dean to choose you over saving a life? Maybe you knew better, but just this once, it would have been nice to have been proved wrong. 

“I wanted to be there for you, Y/N/N. I did — I do. I always do. And I know that you think we can find a happy medium for us, somewhere between hunting and you doing the apple pie life, but I don’t know.” His hands slid into his pockets. “I let you down. I will always let you down. I’m not enough for you to be satisfied.”

You shook your head. “Oh, no. You’re not going to cop out on this by guilt tripping yourself! I mean, thanks for owning up to the disappointment, but it can’t be like this forever. You want this life with me, I know that you do. We’ve spent hours talking about it — time you wouldn’t have wasted pacifying me with empty words. I know you better than that. Why can’t you just let yourself have this? I’m not asking you to step away from your life. I’m just asking for you to try to be part of mine.”

Dean sighed. “I’ve been there before, and it didn’t work out. I tried stepping away from what I know, being with someone I loved. I damn near ruined two lives in the process. You remember that? You remember telling me that you didn’t know if I was going to come back from that? I mean, thank Chuck that Cas was able to erase their memories of me, because they’re better off. I think you are, too.”

You threw your head back in frustration. “Ben and Lisa? Fuck, I was so right. You’re not going to ever come back from that. You’re going to let what you almost had hold you back from having something real. We always come back here, don’t we?”

“How dare you,” Dean seethed through clenched teeth. “What I had with Lisa wasn’t real? The cooking and the cleaning and the going home to the same woman every night? That wasn’t real?”

“No, Dean, it wasn’t,” you stated, matter-of-factly. “It was a long-term piece of ass while you waited for Sam to come back because deep down, you knew that he would — although maybe even deeper down, there was a part of you that wanted him to stay gone.”

Dean snorted. “I can get ass anywhere, thanks a lot. I loved her!”

“You loved the concept of what you had when you were with Lisa and Ben! They were a human representation of the life you never got to have — the family that was stolen away from you! You had a good life with Lisa, but at that point it could have been anybody who would soothe you through the nightmares and wait patiently in bed for you while you checked all the doors and locks twice and looked over your shoulder at any chance for whatever monster might be tailing you. Lisa loved you, and all your baggage, but I’ll bet you my soul that even she knew it was all for show.”

He took a long stride toward you, but you didn’t flinch. You knew Dean might come toe-to-toe with you, but he would never put hands on you — not out of anger. You’d had his hands on you time and time again, but never out of anger. 

He stood there, breathing hard and clenching his jaw while he stared you down, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he couldn’t find the words. 

“What’s it going to be, then?” you pushed, voice almost in a whisper. You wondered if he heard you over the anger boiling in every tensed muscle in his being. “You going to push me away like you do everyone else, or are you going to actual give yourself a chance at something good? Something that lets you live your life but still be a part of something that’s just for you.”

You watched his anger cool as he continued to stare you down. The both of you stood like that for some minutes; Dean taking in and processing every word you said, and you holding your breath while you waited for him to speak. 

[sicklyscribe]

alien smoochies

Short and sweet of it:

If supernatural romance and small town drama are tropes you like, I think you won’t be disappointed if you give this show a shot. All of my concerns are ones that could turn out to be pilot-specific, and all of my accolades are ones that have every reason to continue showing up in every episode.

Character motivations were very strong and barring the placement of one scene, feel like natural parts of both the character’s lives and the necessary plot.

Chemistry between all of the actors was also a plus, though the pace of information and the desire to keep secrets from the audience at times worked against the main ship.

Plot isn’t anything to write home about, it’s an alien drama on a YA-centric network based on a YA novel, are you expecting anything more than the classic tropes applied to modern-day, and applied well? If you are, I suggest The Expanse, but you’ll be sacrificing the heady YA romance focus for a plot-oriented and philosophical-political lens. Both shows deal heavily with ideas of identity, community, and the rights of man, though, which all alien stories worth their salt should do!

That being said, the political overtones that are present are not shy. If it were ten years ago and I was reviewing, I’d say it was a bit much. But it’s not ten years ago, it’s now, and I’d say much is fucking warranted in a small town American drama set in 2019. It takes a stance with immigration, diversity, mental illness, lgbtq, feminism, “the wall”, and disabled veterans. It knows that escapism in fiction is important, to a point, but chooses to put itself in what I think is a brave and effective in-between.

let the long-winded-ness begin: Spoilers, of course

Basically all I wanted out of this show was for it to have a cute lead romance that was as charming or more charming than the one on the ill-fated Star-Crossed (yes I watched some of that, yes it could have been way better, but also yes it tried some things that made me smile and I thought worked pretty well), plus a plot that only made me suspend disbelief when it came to the existence of aliens that look like models and have superhero powers.

The romance was almost too heavy-handed for me, and I was watching this show for the heavy-handed romance. It feels this way, in my opinion, because we see the heart-stopping, sappy, magnetic draw of these two characters over and over again in ways that just seem over-the-top without knowing their history. Having them flustered at seeing each other again unexpectedly is endearing, but insisting overtly and repeatedly that we’ve got true high school sweethearts love on our hands folks! before giving us the hints that a lot happened that contradicts/questions the initial information feels a bit like the carriage before the horse.

The main place where this really gummed up the wheels for me was the post-healing, pre-reveal bit where the aliens are fighting about what happened. The current indication at this point in the show is that Liz did not give Max the time of day until maybe the very end of high school, and if so there was not any reason to believe it got to a romantic level (could be remembering this wrong, I’m not infallible and also I don’t want to go through CW ads again to confirm). This in the subtext of Max’s obvious infatuation mixes to present an obsessive/idolistic vibe to his feelings. As the pilot progresses, chinks fall into place in the backstory until we finally get enough foundation to fully support the way these people are talking to and about each other.

This intense withholding to me was a net negative -- I would have preferred more overt hints in the first twenty minutes that the main relationship meant much more in high school (and possibly was much more) than a long crush met with a budding one, and nothing happened from there. It would have made me feel I had more freedom to fall into those sappy loving longing scenes without the nagging sensation of unbalance.

Despite this, I was able to still totally go weak at the knees for the ‘You’re just feeling echoes of what I feel for you... It’ll wear off...’/’When will it wear off?’/’A few days, maybe a week’/’Okay, I’ll kiss you then.’ because THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE THE HELL OUT OF A BUDDING SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE. With each line I was hoping they’d go in this direction, and when I have hopes like this for sci-fi/fantasy romance dialogue I’m usually disappointed. This was *kisses fingers* bellissimo.

Other than the romance, the alien confrontation scenes in the early/mid portion of the episode could have really used a bridging line or two. Michael and Isobel are furious that Max healed someone and caused a scene when they’re not even sure if she remembers or suspects anything. Meanwhile, Michael is shorting out cameras and causing supernatural mayhem in nearly every scene he’s in. While Max and Isobel aren’t thrilled about this, there’s no acknowledgement by any of the three that Michael doesn’t have a leg to stand on here, or if they really feel that what Max did was that much more dangerous, they don’t nitpick at why. They shouldn’t have done the latter, really, since they were in their own dynamic with their own established norms and if this was part of those norms they wouldn’t have had to debate them. But as an audience member it took me out of the scene and lessened the impact of the job it was supposed to do in establishing how these characters fit together.

(also, i feel that since the scenes I just mentioned fell a bit short, I can’t say I see the point of Max telling them ‘I’m going to reveal our secret!’ when it will be for all intents and purposes unavoidable for him to do so regardless. To reinforce the character motivations, these scenes may have played better if Max was on the fence about telling Liz, and his siblings convinced him not to despite his concern for her and desire to alleviate her fears of mental illness. This would have shown his viewpoints -- “I think it’s right to tell her”/”I should be in charge of this decision” -- warring with his core value -- “Protect my siblings” -- and this conflict would have provided a lot more fodder for establishing the dynamic norms for these three.)

My other big-ish gripe was the military man set up to be the antagonist. In a “legend” fraught with red tape, cover-ups, and lies to highest branches of government, Commander Manes has one conversation with a young doctor (the son of his trusted dead colleague, yes, but still) and said young doctor plays the information barter game... and wins? The plot seems to need these two to be trusting in each other to some degree, but to have it happen so soon? A short scene where Doc Valenti was up to his ears in legally binding scary paperwork plus a half dozen checkpoints and failsafes before getting to the secret alien HQ would have been nice. I just don’t really buy that this head honcho guy waltzes on to base with a civilian and tells him the whole story just because he was BFFs with the guy’s dad.

This isn’t really a gripe, more of a standard that I think is worth aspiring to: disabled actors exist, and it would have been better if one had been cast as Alex. Maybe something sci-fi happens in the plot later that would have made this unfeasible, I don’t know. Maybe it was attempted and there really wasn’t anyone for it. There are a lot of maybes. I just know that representation always happens this way: it is simulated before it is direct. It’s good to support the simulation as far as it affects public opinion, but not talking about how it can be better is treading water. So: I’m incredibly happy for the work this show is doing to put different types of people in the public eye. As a part of that public eye, I feel the need to make my voice heard, so to speak, in continuing to push the standard.

Getting off my tiny little tumblr soap box, I think that’s about it for my thoughts. Of course I’m a writing nerd, so I have thoughts on every line written in every show I’ve seen in the past five years, and I’m not going to subject myself or anyone reading to the tedium of that. Of course I didn’t even scrape the surface of all of the topics covered by this pilot and what I thought about each and every one of them -- Liz’s characterization and relationships with her sister and best friend especially -- but suffice to say if I didn’t pick on it then I really enjoyed it. 

Anyone who enjoyed this, let me know! I’m not putting it in the tag since I’m trying to limit my fandom interaction, but I am interested in maybe doing more series or pilot reviews if people want to read them.