#this show doesn't do random

[yannaryartside]

THE DRIVING METAPHOR

images by @unladyboss

So, there are a lot of mentions of driving in the show, I will do my best to put them all together. 

Carmy doesn't own a car, but he seems a competent driver. We have seen him walking to his home at night multiple times already, particularly in 1x02. We don't know why he doesn't own a car. 

Sydney was a professional driver; however, she described the experience as "the crazy shit that made me do this crazy shit" (talking about the restaurant business). She mentions not owning a car to indicate how much she hasn't accomplished, next to still living with her dad. 

Both Carm and Sydney are the designated drivers of Richie's car.

Both Carmy and Sydney commute by public transit and walking. 

Claire is a terrible driver, but she enjoys the risk of it. Yet, when she is with Carmy, she is the one driving. 

Richie got his license suspended. This could be for many reasons. I think that he may have been intoxicated while driving or had a road incident of some sort, something that happened after finding out about Mickey's death. 

Cicero had a vivid dream of being driving a car out of control while Carm's dad was in the passenger seat. They eventually have to push the brakes to avoid hitting a kid on the road. Carmy's dad went through the windshield at full speed, with the kid waving at him. Many people have speculated if this is some metaphor for Papa Berzatto's addiction. If you are a car, the addiction makes you go out of control. But then, why is Cicero the one driving? I think this may be an analogy for their business, KBL, which supposedly has some dark corners that gave Cicero all his money. Was Papa Berzatto's death something related to KBL? 

Donna, on Christmas night, attempted suicide in front of her children and her whole family by crashing a car through the wall of their home. My God. How the fuck we even begin to unpack all that? If Cicero's dream was more literal, and Donna's attempt had succeeded, both parents of the Berzatto family would have died in car-related incidents.

Sweeps, Tina, and Ebra don't drive.

Marcus drives, and we have to presume he owns a car since Carmy offered him to go to pick out flour in 1x02. Random fact: Marcus mentions sleeping in the restaurant to save time on his commute. How long would his commute be if he owned a car? This may be an indicator of him living way outside of the city. 

THE RESTAURANT IS THE VEHICLE

Carmy is "driving," as in conducting the restaurant his brother and mom previously drove. He is supposed to give "direction," aka purpose, to the passengers so they can move in the same direction. He was supposed to have the wheel and the map on hand.

Her mom wanted to crash it all, the family and the restaurant, giving that burden to his eldest son. 

Carmy doesn't trust himself to control the restaurant or the people, the other passengers in the car, and he finds Sydney and gives her that role. Right after he learned she was a professional driver.

Sydney didn't like driving for ups, the same way she didn't like managing people in her previous jobs, as mentioned at the beginning of Brigade. Still, she takes the wheel.

The people unhappy with the sudden change of driver and direction gave her a bad time.

The most unhappy person with the change was Richie, the most unqualified person to drive because he got his license suspended. His redemption arc was completed when Sydney asked him to call the orders, the passengers listening to him and Sydney's voice. "Richie, drive."

Tina, Ebra, and Sweeps didn't "drive" the restaurant because they still needed to have a purpose and identity. 

DRIVING IS A METAPHOR FOR TAKING OWNERSHIP AND DIRECTION ON YOUR LIFE:

Again, we won't start with Papa and Mama Berzatto wanting to crash it all.

Mickey was Richie's map for finding the love of a family. So Richie had to find a new map and destination. The map was hospitality, based on recognizing his own people skills. 

Carmy let Claire take the wheel of their relationship, again, there is so much to unpack here. But she is a terrible driver and doesn't seem concerned about how her recklessness behind the wheel may affect others. Sydney, again, was a professional driver. Is this supposed to be a message of people with addictions or trying to heal from them, surrounding themselves with people who have direction, vs the reckless ones? I will take this as a chef-kiss victory.

Sydney wants full ownership and the capacity to make her path. That is why she wants her own car.

Why does Carmy keep failing/avoiding the role of the person behind the wheel? Is there something related to Richie calling him Donna, who tried to take her own life behind the wheel?

Is Carmy dealing with some hidden addiction? check @unladyboss theories about Carmy being a high-functioning alcoholic in this post, they got me sweating at night.

[aethersea]

it is funny though how kids' shows are so so so careful about death, no one's ever killed except MAYYYYBE the big bad, all those random side characters are fine, here have a quick shot of them before we leave just so you know they really did survive that 50-foot drop into a stormy sea,

and meanwhile kids' books nearly all agree that it's not an adventure until it has a body count.

[thefirstknife]

Besties, I need help. Especially people who have a lot of reach on twitter.

Two of my friends had their Destiny names forcibly changed at the roughly the same time. Their Destiny names were "bisexual mara sov" and "trans king oryx." They just logged in and got a pop-up saying that for some "crossplay" reasons their names were changed to a default Guardian####. None of them are using crossplay. Both are on Steam only, if that's important.

One of them posted to Bungie forums and got this reply:

Both of my friends suspect that they were mass reported. Obviously falsely. Their names are not breaking any rules and are in fact canonical statements about the characters. They always play together so if some homophobe sees them, they would report both, so it would make sense why this happened to them at the same time, possibly (the other option is that there was a wave of forced name changes happening recently that caught them both, but for all intents and purposes, their names should not be subject to change).

This upset both of my friends quite a lot. It means there's enough homophobes out there falsely reporting their names. It's also upsetting to think that these reports were reviewed and then accepted. I genuinely don't think there was a manual review. If there was, I think everyone would like to know which rules this is breaking and why.

Another friend tried raising this issue on the official Destiny 2 reddit, but his thread was not approved by moderators because of "politics":

Thanks reddit! /s My friend also messaged the moderators, but to no avail.

The only thing that remains is trying to raise this issue with the community managers somehow, but clearly this isn't possible on reddit, so we want to try twitter. Unfortunately with the way twitter works, unless you have the reach, nobody will see it. One other friend literally made a twitter account for this to tag the Destiny 2 Team, but as expected her attempt has zero visibility. These are her two tweets. I'm not sure what would be better; to just boost this existing tweet or to make new tweets tagging Destiny 2 Team, but if anyone knows and thinks they could help, feel free to do either!

I don't expect much to happen, but I would like to at least try bringing some awareness to this because it's quite upsetting if homophobes can just mass report a completely innocent name, while absolutely gross names are allowed and visible every day in the game. It's also not a good look if these mass reports are acted on without review, and they are worse if they were acted on WITH review.

A lot of people have usernames that are about in-game characters; I think a lot of us would like to get some information on why these aren't allowed anymore. Both of my friends have had them for years.

Anyway, if anyone knows something they could do or has the ability to get this visible somehow, it would be appreciated!

[ryllen]

jade who got heartstruck by someone who listens, and trey who generally takes interest on really listening to what people have to say, about things he doesn't know yet

[tutterypuff]

tbh though if you look at the older episodes, Betty was always like absolutely 100% fully and irrevocably unhinged, and her going insane was barely a departure from the status quo at all

like this woman is and always was nuts, and I think it's for everyone's benefit that they're both equally obsessed with each other, because that means nobody else ever has to get involved with their fucked up dynamic

I think it's less that she put her life on hold for Simon's benefit, but that she's a scary lady who knows exactly what she wants, and what she wants is a relationship with a nice autistic guy who's really into femdom

[jakeperalta]

the state of my dashboard right now 😭

[kyouka-supremacy]

I think we should just bring back Wungo Wednesday and start a fandom collective anime rewatch

[angelsdean]

me, dean, and everyone else watching: ok sure, sammy

[givehimthemedicine]

stranger faves screenshot game

need to know who's been your single favorite character at any given point in Stranger Things using screenshots of the exact moment that person first became your fave.

this is not a ranking or a top list! this is for your #1 spot only and who it has belonged to over the years. start with whoever first stood out from the ensemble to you and add a new pic every time someone surpassed them as your new favorite. last pic is your current fave.

I probably already know who your faves are but I wanna know what exact frame of film did it for you.

mine: Joyce lying to Karen. I felt that in my bones -> baby Eleven becomes my legal daughter. hello 911 I'm having chest pains from needing to hug a fictional character -> Max lies to her counselor. hey I identify with this character more suddenly, good things must be coming her way this season! (tagging some friends but if you see this you're invited) @bananananurr @elmaxjunkie @heroesbyler @aemiron-main @elevenmayfieldz @fantasticdragonglitter @reikunrei @gshepgf @rogueddie @sacchrineskies @henrysglock

[nb2000]

Look the showrunner called Rogue/Gambit the OTP in an interview (er...before he got fired) so they're clearly going somewhere with this and it's FINE and I can be patient and wait to see where that somewhere is and it's FINE.

[socctime]

I'm trying not to be, but I'm getting really scared about the upcoming election.

I'm worried about how much "they're both bad so why does it matter" and "just vote 3rd party" propaganda will affect the outcome. Because it's going to be very close either way.

[beansterpie]

rewatching LoK, i'm being reminded how much I dislike the.... the brothers, mako and bolin, yanno? they're such underwhelming characters on basically every level. it'd almost be impressive if they weren't in every episode and didn't annoy me so much ugh

[bearyyayay]

ONE OF MY CLASSMATE ALSO PLAYED MAFIA SO I YAPPED TO HIM AND TOLD HIM I LIKE SAM TRAPANI BUT NOW HE WONT STOP TEASING ME HOW I LIKE A SIDE CHARACTER

[smile-files]

oh yeah i watched the new ii and it was pretty wack. my only two thoughts are

i love cabby

they had to neutralize clover?????? hello?????????

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[numericalbridge]

A random AU where Darius isn't a rebel, but also Hunter actually is a spoiled beloved nephew of the Emperor.

Maybe Belos actually did get attached to a baby grimwalker in this AU (but he is still terrible, just not terrible towards Hunter) and fully intends to bring him into the Human Realm. Hunter is still the Golden Guard, but it is a position of authority to prepare him for taking over the witch hunting duties and there is no physical punishment or abuse, though Belos's influence is still unhealthy. Hunter is still not very happy and feels restricted, and still meets Luz and Flapjack, but his personal stakes are different in the beginning. Belos would probably still react very badly if he discovered Flapjack, but Hunter doesn't know it (still hides him because palismen are forbidden and 'dangerous' and gets attached).

Darius is like he was presented before the rebel reveal - he is not really cruel, just doesn't care much; but he still values individuality and doesn't like the idea of betraying one's friends (others might a different matter). Maybe in this AU the previous Golden Guard died because of something clearly unrelated to Belos, so Darius never got any suspicions (although i prefer to headcanon that his rebellion was not solely because of his mentor); or maybe Darius was never mentored by the Golden Guard in this AU and his path towards the Coven Head position was very different and made him less caring. But then there is less edge to his initial relationship with Hunter in this scenario, he is just distantly somewhat playfull and doesn't pay much attention. He still accidentally makes Hunter to go get the recruits because he doesn't want to be bothered, and still - initially more on accident - guides Hunter towards character development.

But anyway somehow by the end of ASIAS they still bond and influence each other's character development.

How it goes after that might branch into different directions - a) Hunter still ends in the Emperor's mind, only Belos at first honestly tries to convince Hunter to join him in destroying the Isles, but Hunter choses what is right and goes in hiding (he might be convinced he will be able to reason with Belos in the future), then Darius tries to find him and switches sides when he has to save Hunter from Graye/other CHs and gets proof about DoU. b) Hunter doesn't go into Belos's mind (Luz goes alongside Raine while Eber accidentally is left behind and has to get Eda's help) but when he hears about Graye branding the students, he goes to warn his new friends, while Darius - for whom branding kids also seems unreasonable and suspicious - follows him, and it spirals from there.