#what I’ve learned is I need to rewatch the show and make a video essay on it because not enough people know about this show

[neros-very-first-fiddle]

thinking about freaks and geeks again. It fucking kills me that there’s no second season, that it’s such a perfect show and it never got the chance to become bad which is both a blessing and a curse. I’ve read the character bible multiple times and every character is so uniquely compelling and driven. Paul Feig created an entire town of people, half of them don’t even make it into the show, but they exist and I love them for creating that environment. the town feels real and lived in. you have no idea what I would give to see more of daniel desario’s home life and childhood, but I’m also kinda glad I never will because it adds so much to his character to have a “what if?” bubble constantly over his head. I understand him and everyone else so much and not at all. the most integral part of Lindsay’s character is hardly ever mentioned in the show. when she starts to talk about it to Nick, he cuts her off to talk more about himself. they’re so real, I could talk about them for hours

[lynkhart]

MAJOR spoilers for the C2 finale of Critical Role so read at your own risk of you haven’t caught up!

I have so many feelings regarding Caleb and Essek’s intertwining character arcs I needed to explore, so strap in folks, you’re in for a bit of a ride! (But seriously though, this is like 4000 words long, I basically wrote an essay 😂)

At the start of the campaign, Caleb Widogast was dripping in guilt and self loathing and refused to believe he could ever absolve himself of his sins. Essek Thelyss was a cold, aloof individual who betrayed his people for selfish goals, and their differing yet mirrored narratives have been an absolute delight to watch unfold.

In the beginning Caleb truly hated himself. He shot down any attempt at a compliment, described himself as a ‘disgusting person’, outright rejected the idea that he was worthy of love, and never let the blame shift from him for what he’d done. When Beauregard and Veth/Nott pointed out that he was coerced and manipulated into killing his parents, he reacts in an incredibly visceral way, and I’ve seen several comments likening it to a victim of child abuse who was groomed into believing they were as responsible as their abuser, and I think that’s exactly how it was meant to be read. He doesn’t see himself as a victim, only a murderer, and punishes himself for it every day. We see this in the way he presents himself, dirty and unkempt because in his mind he doesn’t deserve to feel good about himself in any way. Other than Nott/Veth and Beau to a certain degree, he purposefully isolates himself from the rest of the group and it’s a long time until he feels relaxed enough in their company to drop his defences a little.

(Speaking from a purely meta point of view, Liam did an absolutely phenomenal job of showing this through body language and I’d love to see someone do a compilation video of it. He starts off very hunched and guarded, leaning his body away from the closest person to him and avoiding eye contact and physical touch; but by the end stands tall and sure of himself.)

Early on there were a few moments where he had the option to do some pretty dark shit, and I’m sure there’s a possible timeline where he gave into his desire for revenge and really lost his way, but I’m glad he stuck it out and worked through his trauma in the way he did. His PTSD and disassociation when casting with fire was tragic, but over time he was able to work through it thanks to the constant love and support of his friends who kept him from going off at the deep end.

Molly’s death was the catalyst for change in a lot of the party, and Caleb is no exception. On the verge of leaving the group prior to his death, the grief they shared, combined with their frantic attempt to rescue the other half of their party put things in perspective and gradually he learned how to be a person again, to care.

Altering time to save his family had been Caleb’s only goal in life, and so when Essek and by extension, dunamancy was introduced, you could see his eyes light up at the possibilities.

A huge turning point for him is aligned so closely with Essek’s redemption arc which feels quite apt I think. When Essek confesses to his crimes, Caleb delivers a beautifully iconic piece of dialogue where he acknowledges their similarities and how much he himself has changed as a person since meeting the Mighty Nein. (Source - CR wiki)

‘You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you. Was. I know what a fool I have been for years. You didn't account for us. Good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life and no one is prepared. No one is ready. These people changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it.’

This is not the same Caleb we met back in the Nestled Nook inn way back in the first episode. While not yet fulfilled or entirely convinced of his own worth, he knows he’s on the right path. That alone is progress enough, but that he uses his own experiences to help another escape those same chains of guilt says such a lot for his development. When he tells Essek that his ‘venom’ was learned, he’s also talking about himself and his own history of being manipulated and gaslit, with the implication being that it can be un-learned just as efficiently.

Caleb Widogast is selfish no more, or at the very least, doesn’t let his goals undermine anyone else’s anymore. Contrary to what he himself might still think, he is in no way a bad person. He loves fiercely and cannot abide seeing those he cares about in pain.

Early game Essek is what Caleb could have been if he’d rejected his friends and focused solely on his own selfish goal to undo his mistakes. Both are impassive at first and see the Mighty Nein as means to an end...until they get to know them and then their fate is sealed. The Power of Friendship wins once again!

At the beginning Caleb said he wanted to ‘bend reality to my will’ (sic) and in the end he does just that, though not in the way he originally intended. Destroying the T-Dock, and by extension the one thing he’d been building towards from the start, the chance to go back and change time, for me personally was the absolute peak of his journey. I rewatched the scene where Caleb revealed the truth about his parents death today, and it was really jarring to see just how far he’d come since then. It made me oddly proud actually.

I always felt like his plan to save his parents was the one thing holding him back from truly accepting their deaths, which is why the final scene of him in the cemetery with the letters for them hit so hard. He never truly gave up hope that they’d be reunited, but ultimately he realised he was merely postponing the inevitable and never allowing himself to live his own life. While time travel shenanigans would have been incredibly interesting to explore in game, choosing to let the past lie and not go back for them finally allows him to grieve and move on, and perhaps most importantly of all, to forgive himself at last.

I know some people were annoyed by Caleb’s decision in the finale to spend the rest of his life teaching rather than continuing to adventure, but I see it as the natural conclusion to his whole arc and his own personal victory.

He looked Trent Ikithon in the eyes, a man who he’d spent years wanting to kill and run from in equal measure, stripped him of his power and his voice (and ultimately his ability to harm anyone else) and finally spared his life so he had to live with the indignity of his defeat for the rest of his miserable existence. You couldn’t have asked for a more damning rejection of everything he’d been brainwashed into believing as a child. His dismissal of Trent’s position in the Assembly played into that as well. He never really wanted power for the sake of it; he had no desire for politics, he just wanted his family back, and while he didn’t get the one he started with, he made a new one for himself in the end.

As Caduceus once very wisely said:

‘Pain doesn’t make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them.’

Caleb gets to break the cycle of abuse and teach a new generation of mages the way he should have been, with kindness and respect, and I’m pretty sure he’d have introduced a handsome drow as a guest lecturer from time to time. 😉

Speaking of...

Essek described himself as selfish and as a coward, forever putting his own wants and desires first, yet over the course of his journey with the Nein we see his priorities change drastically.

Having friends gives him people to care about, something he’s never had before, and it changes his outlook on life completely. For me, the first time we really see this is when he joins them for dinner in the Xorhaus and stops levitating. It’s a subtle thing, but meaningful. He explains that it had become an expectation of him, a quirk he’s known for, and so to feel comfortable enough around the Nein to drop that pretence is quite bold I think.

Much later, when he chooses to destroy the mini beacon they discover in Aeor in order to give everyone a long rest before the final confrontation with Lucian, he’s essentially giving up everything he betrayed his people for, just to keep his friends safe. The existence and context of that single artefact could have had an earthshattering impact on the Dynasty’s entire culture, forcing them to reevaluate their entire belief system and attitude to the Luxon, something he’d wanted from the start, something he helped start a war for, but he offered it up as a sacrifice without a second thought.

I’d say that’s a pretty big morality shift, and I’m super interested to see if Matt reveals if his alignment changed in the post campaign Q&A. I have a feeling he set him up as a potential BBEG but the party was like ‘no, you can’t have him, he’s ours now’ and that was the end of that. 😂

I think it says so much about the other characters too, that they befriended this person they barely knew, and when he was revealed to have done such terrible things, their first reaction was to give him comfort and an opportunity to atone. Jester held his hand while he confessed, and afterwards, while they didn’t immediately forgive him, they saw the good in him and wanted him to be better, which ultimately feels like what the entire campaign was about, leaving places (and people) better than they found them. It’s obvious that he’s never really had many friends before and has therefore never had the opportunity to be emotionally open with anyone, so seeing him gradually warm up to the Nein and allow himself to soften around them was really lovely to watch.

(Obviously, from a realistic moral perspective, he still fucked up big time. He’s still a godsdamned war criminal and really should have been put on trial for what he did, but I think from a narrative and personal point of view, his redemption arc was far more satisfying, so I’m glad it happened the way it did. (And not to derail but the rest of the gang have done some pretty horrific stuff as well, though perhaps not quite on the same scale)

He has a few moments towards the end that I absolutely love because they show that beneath the guilt and anguish, there’s an incredibly sweet and sensitive soul in there, just wanting acceptance. His dry jokes which often don’t quite hit, (the ‘I will punish the bakery’ line is such an under-appreciated one 😂) his simple joy at learning to garden in the Blooming Grove, and realising that he’d never been asked what his favourite food was before was actually kind of heartbreaking, because it highlighted how lonely his life must have been until that time. There was a moment pretty early on I think when he cast disguise on the party and Jester asked if he could cast it again to change the look of her outfit a bit and while he seemed to find it amusing, he refused, not wanting to waste a spell on such a frivolous request. Cut to their time in Aeor where he burns a fly spell just so he and Caleb can flirtatiously swoop around each other for a couple of minutes, all the while trying to beat Lucian to the city.

His breakdown when Molly’s resurrection failed really cemented to me how much he’d grown as a character. He never met Molly, his only knowledge of him was secondhand, through the eyes of his friends, but seeing it fail just broke him because he knew how much it hurt them to go through it all over again.

His comment to Caleb about not admitting defeat and wishing he could do more did get me wondering at the time if he was going to try and do something crazy, perhaps sacrificing himself via the Temporal Dock to make amends or somehow forcing another reroll, but I’m glad he didn’t. The conversation following that with Fjord was one of my favourites- he shows him acceptance and belief in his potential for the future, something he’s lacked for a long time, and when Caleb bluntly affirms afterwards that he is indeed an official member of the Mighty Nein, it’s the start of the rest of his life, and something he’s exceptionally grateful for.

It all leads to that final moment in Aeor with Caleb, when, presented with the opportunity to alter time and undo everything, he chooses to accept his decisions and carry the weight of his sins for the rest of his long life. That’s...huge.

He’s essentially choosing to live the rest of his existence as a fugitive, forever on the run, with no guaranteed peace or safety. He chooses to spend his life making up for his deeds, rather than looking for an easy way out.

I think that may have had a big impact on why Caleb ultimately made the same decision, as if Essek had been up for altering his timeline I think he’d have struggled to resist it himself. The conversation they had earlier in Aeor about their priorities and resisting temptation really comes to mind as well.

Now, to the relationship.

It was subtle, and not as ‘in your face’ obvious as the other characters, but I’ve been watching and hoping for a long time and I must say, it feels good to be vindicated.

(And if you have any doubt, both Matt and Liam confirmed on Twitter that their post finale relationship was 100% romantic)

I’d been hoping that Shadowgast would be a canon endgame relationship for a while, so the finale, and the aforementioned T-Dock scene in particular had me quite literally shaking with emotion as I watched live. Here you have two men, both damaged and guilt-stricken in their own ways, who find in each other a kindred spirit and a path to redemption.

They’re both very guarded and closed off people, but Essek in particular has a definite shift in the last arc of the campaign especially when it came to his interactions with Caleb. At the start he was quite aloof and stoic, though charming, and they had an instant connection through their shared love of the arcane, (anyone who couldn’t see them making heart eyes at each other when Essek was describing the different types of magic he could teach Caleb was clearly blind) but by the end he was incredibly open to showing his vulnerabilities and that takes a lot, especially for someone whose primary focus was to stay in control of every aspect of his life. The ‘Caleb, I’m scared’ moment during the Trent fight in particular made my heart ache.

No, we didn’t get a dramatic declaration of love or a cinematic mid-battle kiss, but I’d argue that their relationship was just as, if not more intimate than any of the other main characters were. They understood each other in a way the others didn’t, their shared guilt, feelings of inadequacy and their obsession with magic forged a deep connection from the get-go. Neither of them are big fans of PDA I think, though Caleb is tactile as hell (forehead touches and kisses, oh man, I’m so weak for those 😩👌) and some of their most iconic moments have them putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the other. Essek shaking off his forced guilt trip immediately after the now infamous forehead touch in ep140 was beautifully poetic, as was using his fortune’s favour to pull Caleb out of the rubble moments before. Caleb trying to include him in his Sphere of Invulnerability in the finale and Essek staying close to him the whole fight despite being obviously terrified of Trent was the icing on the cake. It’s clear that they care for each other a great deal; whether by the finale they’d consider it love is up for debate, but we know that’s eventually where it ended up and honestly, I love that. I deeply appreciated the fact Matt and Liam both emphasised that they took their time with their relationship, letting each other heal in their own way before they took the next step. All too often in media, and real life too sadly, a romantic relationship is seen as some kind of quick fix, and that a lover will somehow complete you or make all your problems vanish. They knew this wasn’t the case here, and that made it all the better.

While I would have *loved* to have seen them together as a couple right to the very end, the change in their relationship felt right, if bittersweet. I doubt they ever stopped loving each other, and if anything, choosing to shift to a deep and lifelong friendship over a romance that would cause them both so much pain is one of the kindest things you could do for someone you love. After all, friendship isn’t a downgrade, just another way of experiencing that same love, and it wasn’t as though they broke up and never saw each other again, it was pretty strongly implied that they remained a major feature in each other’s lives, they just changed their label slightly. Caleb would hate to have forced Essek to watch him wither away, and although his eventual passing would hurt Essek regardless, incompatible lifespans being what they are, having a period of time to adjust to it, to give them a buffer between the inevitable heartbreak was actually really sweet.

Their romance was no accident, they knew going in that it had a time limit, that it wasn’t going to be forever for one of them, and the fact they did it anyway says so much. They began their adventure wholeheartedly believing that they were both, in their own way incapable of love, only to later find it with each other. Whether their relationship lasted for a couple of years or multiple decades is irrelevant, what matters is that while it did they had a happy and fulfilled life together.

I know some folk wanted Caleb to use the transmogrification spell on himself so he could live on with Essek as another elf, or make him human instead, but that would have been way out of character for both I think. If they could have backwards engineered one of the rejuvenation stations in Aeor and used it to extend Caleb’s life by a hundred years or so, so he’d have a similar lifespan to Veth, now, I could have seen him possibly doing that, so he could spend more time with his best friend too, but nothing further I think. He longed to be reunited with his parents too much to postpone death unnaturally like that.

That both Caleb and Essek ultimately chose to live with their mistakes and make peace with themselves was incredibly cathartic, and I couldn’t imagine it playing out any better.

The fact Matt has explicitly stated Essek is Demi too means so much to me personally because the latter is a label I’ve been identifying with a lot recently, and it’s so rare for aspec relationships to get any representation! It has honestly given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and I really appreciate it.

To conclude, here’s a bit of shameless self promotion. I wrote this after watching the finale and honestly feel like it sums up my feelings on the nature of their relationship pretty well.

‘A casual hand on a shoulder, a waist, a wrist; a gentle kiss placed on a forehead is common between them now, an intimacy born of trust and mutual affection. Over time it grows, like a fire born of seasoned timber; gradual and steady, no spluttering kindling that flares and sparks, but a slow burn, one which lasts.

Their love is embroidered into every aspect of their lives together. Acts of service, of comfort, of understanding.

Sometimes a kiss leads to more than a kiss, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they are content.‘

So yeah, I love these two wizard boys so very much and I couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of their stories. ❤️

[space-blue]

Dune, the mostly spoiler free review.

Spoilers will be under breaks.

Having slept on it (and since I got to bed at 4am I needed that), and having eaten enough sugar to kickstart my brain again, I can now confirm, wholeheartedly, that Dune is a masterpiece.

Hardly a hot take on the internet right now, I know. I'll say this, to start on a low note : Dune's greatest flaw is that the side characters (anyone outside of Jessica and Paul) can be left wanting development. Some non-book readers might struggle to get attached.

The film simply doesn't have time to deliver narrative, mood and emotional characters the way Fellowship of the Rings did, as I often see the film compared to LOTR. Unlike LOTR, Dune has not shot part 2, and it doesn't have enough action beats/plot beats to give you engaging character interactions for 1/3 of the story.

As a result some characters seem to be "seen in passing". Which... Bothered me a little at 3am, but has since faded. My memories turn to Jessica and how incredible Fergusson was. Absolutely show stealing. And Skarsgard!! Yeesh, the Baron Harkonnen does not need more screen time to be intimidating...

All the cast delivers. The visuals, design, costume, photography... It's clear to me everyone involved in this was at the top of their craft and giving it their all for a career turning point of a production. I even struggle to believe book 2 could land such a punch again, I mean, I've rarely been punched in the face this hard by a movie...

I mean, I'm not the type to be into spaceships or anything. I even struggle with models in the Star Wars universe and I published 58 fan fics for that fandom so... And yet in this film, hah... When the Atreides ships are introduced (you see these big transports in the trailer) I was like "No. He didn't... OMG the madlad, he did." — the music, the visuals, the scale... And then there's the thopters, and I was having moments of prescience myself, seeing actual ship/spaceship nerds rise up, foam frothing at the mouth. Modeling thopters and making videos about them for years to come.

The audio was loud, bold. The music alien. The sound mixing done so well I had a snappy thought 2min in, along the lines of "I hope Nolan sits to this film and learns something about sound mixing from this" (don't @ me, I'm still spicy about my viewing of Tenet).

In short, Dune is spectacular. It oozes with mythos and charm, feels lived in, intimidating yet beguiling. The plot is as sound as the book's the visuals are a cinema/SFF fan's wet dream, the acting and production value are stupid crazy, and the only drawback IMO — for non book readers — will be the "in passing" characters (like Raban, Piter, Gurney, Hawat... Who simply don't have the space and time to shine yet) and the ending, which is 100% "INSERT CD 2"

It feels jarring and leaves you begging for more. But book readers probably won't feel the same pang, since we can now close our eyes and image how bonkers part two can be in such visuals.

I've over-heard old french people saying it was super boring and slow and... lol I can't disagree more, but then again the trailer does market an action movie, and the film is not any more action packed than BR2049 was. When the action comes calling it's big, fast... When it isn't, the movie is moody, deliberate, and meticulous.

It won't be for everyone, but if you've so much as "enjoyed" the books, you'll be having the experience of a lifetime.

Before I delve into some mild spoilers I'd like to make a disclaimer: Denis has begged people to see Dune in cinema, and I was thinking "of course, what film maker wouldn't want people in cinema?" but also suspected he might want the numbers in order to get part 2 started.

I owe him an apology for these impure thoughts. You MUST watch Dune in cinema, not for Denis or part 2 (though, come on...), but for YOURSELF. There is not a single home cinema set up that can do justice to this film. It's the definition of why you go to the cinema for. It's epic in scale, it makes you jump at startling moments, it punches and screams at you, and makes you squint at others, and you walk out of there with a sense of having witnessed something like... To me, like Interstellar. Remember seeing that docking sequence scene in the theater and walking out being like "holy shit" ? Well Dune is very much like that. It was made for the big screen, and anything short of IMAX or Dolby ATMOS would be a disservice to both the film and yourself.

I will be seeing it in France the instant it comes out in September. It begs rewatching.

Now for some spoilery thoughts (mild spoilers, and a warning for further spoilers below).

The film takes surprisingly little time to delve on certain topics. Like the spice. Sure you're told it's important, and the economics that drive the story make it feel important, but not nearly as much as I suspected it would be. There is no clunky exposition on the topic (lol no fucking time for that!) no scene where someone shoves spice in your face and goes “oh but blah blah spice must flow”. It’s said in passing and newcomers better hold on to their seat and pay attention.

Sadly though a fair bit of the dialogue was expositional imo, and too little of it over all felt like that heart warming moment between Paul and Leto. It's not a big drawback, but since I enjoy more character driven stories, I regretted the lack of general emotional investment.

On the point of emotions though, I was taken aback by Jamis! The scene of him in the trailers "I'll show you"... creates a sort of very subtle and implied dynamic that was probably one of the biggest heart punch for me, and started driving home how dire Paul's visions can be. I suspect some viewers won't interpret it the way I did though.

THE VOICE WAS SO WELL MADE YOU GUYS!! The thopter escape scene was always a "meh, sure, they get away" moment for me in the books. Good teamwork between Paul and Jessica... But *hearing it* was a completely different business. I was at the edge of my seat, I LOVED IT.

There's also a lot of actual signing in the film! And the Sardaukar don't speak english but a super guthural language. Kind of like making a conlang merging German and the Black Speech of Mordor and giving it to a Danish to speak. Felt very cool.

The shields were just as badass as you think they'll be. The slow impact weapons are just... *chef kiss*

Finally some heavy spoilers on book story details (jihad, Muad'dib, some characters) :

There is no mentions of Jihad, but not because it's avoided. The visions of a fight Paul has are rare, and he mentions them once. At that time he says war or massacre but not Jihad. I didn't notice until I was asked.

He also doesn't chose the name Muad'Dib. If I recall that's right after killing Jamis, but doesn't happen here, even if we see the literal muad'dib in the desert. It's also fine. Those scenes were at the very end, and I felt like slamming newcomers with such a significant moment with alien language at the very end might be a mistake. I'm curious to see how it's handled in part 2 though.

I was looking forward to Piter... His role is uber minor. As much as Hawat's. Like, the Bull that killed Leto's father gets more screen time, funnily enough. There's a heavy imagery around it that's going to fuel many video essays.

[floater0352]

TL;DR warning: TFATWS Ep. 6 / Finale There’s a lot to unpack in this series finale, and I sure as hell am not the expert to do this, but I thought I’d highlight some particular issues I have. Much of this, admittedly, will be coming from the high character tenors of the previous episodes, whereas this episode is really where the “MCU kind of movie denouement” kicks in. If you can call/criticize something as “Disney formula” writing, this might be it. Did it hamper/dampen my enjoyment of this series? Not THAT much, but it really stands out and suggests it could have been better. So let me do a few numbers. 1. PRO: A very acceptable execution of selling not only Sam’s first outing as ‘Captain America’, not only the affirmation of Bucky Barnes’ commitment to heroism, but the apotheosis long-denied to Isaiah Bradley. I’m getting the impression much of the gushing here in Tumblr will be focusing on that--and to an extent, I am in agreement.  their characters were very well fleshed out and to be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. There may be still other things I would recommend as a better laid-out recognition for Isaiah (something more faithful to the Truth comic miniseries), but that’s a minor quibble compared to the others below.  

2. CON: Falling into the trap of a “GOT-layout” series ending Ok, that description might be too harsh. After all, point # 1 is near perfect. 

However, and this is a very big HOWEVER... A really good show does not rely solely on giving your main characters the best ending possible. Their supporting cast deserves at least a fair amount of character development (understandable motivations, a good appreciation of their character arcs, more moments which make you empathize with them especially if you are trying to experiment with moral ambiguity on their characters). The fact that the action sequence ate up more than half of the final episode’s near-50 minute runtime really prevented any further character development moments. How, to some extent, this became insufficient with Karli Morgenthau and John Walker become really apparent in the end.  3. CON: Under-served Character Denouements Karli and the Flag-Smashers, in practice, were basically given the “Killmonger” treatment: they’ll have to die, but the validity of their moral argument will be recognized. As someone with a very limited set of fandoms I follow, the only other place I’ve seen this done is Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. The protagonist cast was left to die, but the tragedy of their situation led their world to improve things for the better. (For those familiar with this fandom, many will understand that this did not go down well.) Compare this, in turn, to how Breaking Bad gives even the supporting cast and side-characters understandable character endings.

The reason of complaint here, being, that this kind of story flow robs these characters of agency not only in their tragedy--but also how they choose to go out. Sympathetic tragic characters, to an extent, are at least given some dignity in how they go out. The fact that Karli and the Flag-Smashers are practically disposed of by a) Sharon, now fully revealed as the criminal Power-Broker and b) Zemo, whose butler is no less capable in extreme action even while he was in prison further highlights how they are basically reduced into ‘plot elements’, not a fully-realized group/faction of people.

John Walker, for his part, is also given very little to do (and indeed, what little he was able to do in the entire fight sequence is laughable). Even his one spark of “good choice” (seeking to save the falling vehicle’s occupants), even if he failed, was ultimately overshadowed by Sam’s more flamboyant rescue. One might be able to make argument, perhaps, that that is the point: Walker’s arc in this episode, perhaps, is to finally learn why exactly he can’t become Captain America: because he remains primarily a soldier, and only good at that. Witnessing Sam arguing and pontificating in front of the cameras, perhaps, is what hammers it home to him--and why perhaps his last scene in the series is him accepting his new role as U.S. Agent. If his world is going to be small and he is going to be pigeonholed into what he is good at, so be it. If he can’t be Captain America (now that he knows why exactly that symbol is powerful, and what is required of it), he’ll find his way with people who will let him be what he can be. Notice, however, how even between these two underserved characters, John Walker has a more understandable progression. I don’t think I’ll really be able to fault ‘left-wing’ viewers of the show who will be left dissatisfied by this ending (especially those who are sympathetic to the Flag-Smashers’ demands--especially as to some extent (due to my own line of work and leanings, I’m kind of one of those). And then there’s the reveal of Sharon as the Power-Broker--its own can of worms, but I’ll fold it in the next item. 4. MIXED BAG: How the show’s social layout closes

The fact that the MCU’s undercurrent politics remains to be “institutions are bad, mob/grassroots action will always be misguided, let media-chosen/private individuals and orgs show you the ‘right way’ of doing things”--it isn’t really as helpful as it could be. The show basically ends with Sam and Bucky’s individual arcs and moral world-views affirmed. It is definitely a happy ending for them. It is, however, pretty difficult to swallow that it ends well for them when the bigger picture is left unaddressed.  (For those who may be interested in this line of critique, this video essay, “Imagining the Tyrant” by Kyle Kallgren / Brows Held High / oancitizen should be helpful.)

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in 2 instances: the setting of Walker’s rechristening as U.S. Agent, and Sharon’s “pardon” scene--now that we know she is in fact the Power Broker. Both events happen in the U.S. Senate Committee hearing hall--basically making the statement that even with a new Captain America that is more ‘home-grown’ and closer to the ground and common people (even as he literally flies high), the institutions of the U.S. government is still as impervious and clueless to its corruption and enabling of crime and injustice. Criminal elements like Valentina de Fontaine and the Power Broker foster the underground economy with impunity, and the U.S. government allows them to for a number of unbuilt/unestablished reasons. 

It’s a valid/backed-up argument to make, and with historical/real life basis at that, but this is the kind of plot development difficult to credibly sell within a 6-episode miniseries already crammed with character arcs--and it shows. Compare this, for example, with how the Netflix series The Punisher built throughout its Season 1 run how exactly can black market profiteering grow under the CIA in a believable way. There, you see exactly what needs to happen for a previously-established upstanding character living in a grey environment to turn grey--even full on black (be it Frank Castle/the Punisher himself, Dinah Madani, or even Billy Russo). I’d want to chalk this up to the possibility of merging/reintroducing that world--and by god, imagine Jon Bernthal’s Punisher returning in this kind of gray area--interacting with Captain America AND the Winter Soldier, as this series is now likely to be titled--should be very interesting.

---- These are the top points in my head after my first watch of this finale. I may be rewatching this again--who knows if I get to come back. Still, it’s been a pretty meaningful ride. P.S. I should probably admit to my Filipino background here again, but it’s hilarious how the closing shot of this series (Sam and Bucky having a party with their family/community near the Louisiana seaside) is basically how mosts 80′s/90′s era Filipino action and comedy films end (either a beach party or a wedding/outing near a beach/swimming pool). The presence of Pinoy shout-outs in this series (”Amatz” and “Isang Tao, Isang Mundo”) really emphasize how this might not be an accident.

[lachambers-central]

I’m rewatching Stand by Me, adding as I go along.

- The opening scene. That’s someone mourning their dead lover sir

- the soundtrack SLAPS

- Teddy is French 🤧🤧🤧

- Teddy’s forgotten burnt ear ❤️

- I RAAAN ALL THE WAAAY HOOOMEEE dubabpubabuuuu

- me watching the penny scene like I’ve never seen it before

- Charlie was such a twink 🤧

- watching it with subs realising what they’re actually saying

- “TOO COOL. TOO COOL. VERY COOL”

- Gordie’s dad raking 😤

- the voice changes between scenes because puberty 🤧

- Eyeball looking at Ace harassing Chris like: 😍😛💦🥰

- Gordie and Chris kicking each other: a love story

- “or a garbage can”

- did your mother ever have any kids who lived?” “What do you mean?”

- “if Choppers there we’ll send you in”

- my mans Teddy really saw that train and went, yeah, dodging it after a kid recently died from being hit by a train is the way to go.

- Eyeball and Ace really were boyfriends, huh?

- Eyeball was so unhinged btw

- 👌🏻💦

- Teddy at the pump going AT IT

- goocher

- the boys just wrestling and poring water over each other. Calm down.

- “I lost a brother in Korea” yes, please tell me more

- they’re eating meat, mashed potatoes and then there’s bread pieces because k

- Gordie’s shirt 🤧🤧🤧

- “what do you do?”

“I don’t know” SAME

- “white chick hehehehhe”

- Chris’ hand on Teddy’s shoulder 🤧

- “we showed him” calm down Vern, y’all didn’t do shit

- Gordie eating bleach is MOOD

- I’m gonna say it, Vern has a good voice tho

- “we’re going to see a dead kid. Maybe it shouldn’t be a party”

- the cobra tattoos are ugly as fuck

“Not where they’re looking” CALM DOWN CHARLIE

- “you’re making me fuck up the snake part!”

- Teddy and Vern Dancing to lollipop: a video essay

- “everybody’s weird”

- Chris and Gorde: serious convo

Teddy and Vern: Superman v Mightymouse: an essay

- we stan supportive boyfriends 🥺🥺 Chris really said “I believe in your dreams bitch” ✨

- Gordie really insinuating Teddy would start jerking off in the middle of the woods. Ok boy

- rip comb (1959-1959) 😢 (🎼in the arms of the angel🎤)

- “we’re gonna die damnit” Vern really was ready to die on that hill

- I can’t watch the train scene without thinking about how Rob Reiner screamed at Wil and Jerry because they weren’t scared enough. Can’t watch most of the film without thinking about bts facts

- “hey, at least now we know when the next train is due” prick

- “VEEEEERN”

- Vern’s eyebrows: non existent

- “like Charlie Hogans brother... if he had one.” Big brain time

- “she looks like a thanksgiving turkey” how ???

- the radio guy could compete against Eminem istg

- there’s a girl in the lardass audience scene that I always had a lil crush on when I was younger 🤧🤧

- the principles nervous laugh after the twins comment, I can’t

- the kid who played Lardass was a hero, king just swallowed that egg raw

- they’re all puking blue because logic

- the mayors wife just awkwardly ready to hug

- “no Vern, they just let him in”

- “he’s a dog” teddy knows, ironically the only one with a brain cell in this debate. What a world we live in.

- the filter on the dream of the funeral is blinding and ugly

- someone’s wearing grey, the disrespect 🤧 (I’m jk)

- it’s the way I’d die for Chris and Gordie for me

- Gordie put on shoes challenge

- “even Vern knew I think” is my boy THAT oblivious?

- Chris crying 💔💔💔💔

- “I just wish that I could go someplace where nobody knows me”

- I am once again learning of lines where I never knew what they were saying, and finally hearing it with the subs on

- Gordie and the Deer. ITS LIKE YOURE MY MIRROR

- what are they even eating ???

- gordie calling seeing brower an obsesssion. CALM URSELF YAXLEY

- Vern falling tho. I need to know if that was on purpose, because it probs wasn’t

- my dad asked me if I was watching Lost Boys, sighed when I said it was stand by me (the way I disappoint my family)

- “we use you as a raft” scream

- “it’s not that deep” 🤡🤡🤡

- “pile on” I am once again asking y’all to calm the fuck down down

- Gordie went DOWN

- “maybe he’s dead” Verno you 🤡🤡🤡

- GO VERN !!! HIT HIMMM

- sass master LachanceTM

- VINCE LOOK AT THE FUCKING ROAD

- “I got him” 🤡🤡🤡

- Billy’s scared face had me dead

- “I won” *sip*

- what the actual fuck is Eyeball’s laugh?

- that actor is not a 12 year old tho, he looks 18

- Gordie crying 😢💔

- Gordie crying and Chris comforting him was the beginning of my lachambers obsession. My origin story.

- Stand by me said toxic masculinity ??? I don’t know her. Men cry and comfort each other. Very smexy stuff ✨

- “we better start running Eyeball, they got dibs”

- Billy reaching for the belt 🤧

- who wanna cosplay the cobras with me?

- Charlie acting as if he’s threatening. Ur not scary boo 🤧

- Chris was legit ready to die for this shit. He needs to sort out his priorities.

- my mans Gordie was unhinged as FUCK

- oh you know Denny Ace?

- “suck my fat one you cheap dime store hood” iconic

- the cobras can’t coordinate outfits

- “this is big time, baby” you calling me baby? 🥺🥺

- teddy’s dog tag appreciation post

- “not this way Teddy”

- the cinematography ✨

- “penny :)” qt

- why is Vern everyone’s younger brother ???

- “you can do anything you want man” supportive boyfriends part 2

- “not if I see you first” 😢

- Chris is not dead: an essay by me

- old Gordie is typing...

- Gordie’s kid inherited his sassiness

- he looks straight at me

- “Jesus, does anyone?”

- vibing to Stand By Me in the aftercredits

- my brother just asked “you still watching that shit” my family is done with my stand by me obsession

[jamaiskookie]

bangtan headcanon: OT7 IN HIGH SCHOOL 📓✂️

☞ genre; fluff, crack

☞ warnings; excessively stupid

masterlist  u wanna talk to highschool!bangtan?

《KIM SEOKJIN》

class clown

always manages to sneak kimbap in class, and stuffs his face despite being in the front row. 

he’s alarmingly good at sneaking food into places. 

cafeteria ladies love jin so much. 

and every christmas he brings in his perfected sugar cookies and never shares them.

(he’s in the cooking club)

((he’s the only one in the cooking club))

will interrupt the teacher to make a bad joke. 

“yes so helium is the fo- oh yes seokjin?“

“i was reading an excellent book about helium, i couldn’t put it down!! ahHAHAHHYUKHYUKAHHAHAHHA“ 

nobody’s?? really sure?? if he’s dating namjoon or not?? it’s the schools biggest mystery, there’s currently a betting pool going on worth about $500

likes to annoy namjoon and yoongi about holding bake sales. 

is surprisingly good at planning parties?? but never hosts them?? hoseok always gets him to plan his parties and he even planned prom!!

he’s particularly proud with the theme he came up with. 

‘zombie meets elegance‘ 

it was actually pretty nicely pulled off (much to the shock of the entire student body) 

《MIN YOONGI》

student council president 

takes his job very!! seriously!! 

fights with the principal on funding daily. 

doesn’t come to school without coffee and resting bitch face.

even the teachers are afraid of this short little emo boy. 

is the only one who actually wears the school uniform properly with the little tie and jacket because that’s how you show school spirit. 

definitely that closeted gay in high school who thinks nobody knows about his homosexuality when in fact, everyone knows.

(nobody has the guts to bring it up to him though)

“hyung why are you staring at jimin’s as-“

 “-NO WHY GET BACK TO WORK” 

actually enjoys doing morning announcements. 

“make sure to check out jin’s dumb bake sale i think he’s selling brownies for some charitable reason anYWAYS time for min’s advice column!!“ 

min’s advice column is yoongi’s free therapy. namjoon suggested adding an advice column to the school paper so now yoongi just judges his classmates’s decisions gives subpar advice. 

“i personally think you have no chance with this girl, but you’re clearly hell bent on asking her out. it’s a dumb choice. good luck.“ 

《JUNG HOSEOK》

fuckboy

throws obnoxious parties at his parent’s huge ass mansion. 

somehow?? is?? the nicest? playboy??? evER??

will respect your girl’s boundaries but also would 300% hit on her when you’re not looking. 

aftercare king wILL cuddle with you and help you clean up or whatever until jimin eventually comes in screaming. 

his school id says “hobi 💦👅” ... noone knows how he managed to do it (taehyung thinks he seduced the secretary) 

surprisingly good at romance even though he deTests dating

“it’s a waste of time, money, and ass.“  “- what?”

gives everyone dating advice whether they want it or nOt- he lives his *shhh very secret* romantic fantasies through his best friends. 

once helped taehyung ask out his girlfriend... they’re still going strong!!

defo has daddy issues that he never talks about,, maybe if a girl finds it sexc™️ in that kind of messed-up-bad-boy-she-could-fix vibe he’ll bring it up

kinda failing science lmao he probably needs a tutor.. but will never admit he needs a tutor for sake of his pride. 

most definitely has had sex in the janitor’s closet a couple times, up until yoongi caught him once, reported him to the school board and got him suspended... for a month. 

(yoongi has no regrets, that was the best month of his life.)

《KIM NAMJOON》

student vice president

honestly would probably be the council president and is the most qualified for it but can’t be bothered.

plus he hates public speaking and the president has to speak at assemblies.  

genuinely enjoys learning!! bUT HATES GROUP PROJECTS

because every single fucking time taehyung and jimin pester him about teaming up and he ends up doing like 75% of the work.

not because anyone forces him to or anything.

it’s because jimin and tae are such dumbasses every time they finish their work namjoon has a sudden uRGE TO REDO ALL OF IT BC THEY GOT IT WRONG.

tries to take all AP subjects.

gives up and drops half of them by the second semester.

great student but also will “no yoongi i don’t want to fucking play basketball i've been awake for thirty hours trying to finish this goddamn essay that’s due tomorrow. wHAT DO YOU MEAN WHY DIDN’T I DO IT EARLIER I WAS BUSY TAKING CARE OF MY BONSAI TREES.“

started the school paper!! it’s called “persona post”

writes about actual relevant things like political events and global problems, but everyone else just writes about school gossip *sigh*

although that one column examining hobi’s sex and dating life was a pretty fun piece of writing to read through. 

he sits in the back of the classroom and never raises his hand even though he knows the answer like 95% of the time.

definitely has a crush on seokjin

《PARK JIMIN》

the one everyone has a crush on

and when i say everyone i mean everyone, even hoseok has had a crisis over park jimin. 

(jungkook is definitely president of his fan club) ((in case it wasn’t clear, he’s dating jungkook))

school’s golden boy, basically gets away with everything with a bat of an eye... and the most infuriating thing is he doesn’t even realise it. 

“omg jimin!! you’re so cute!! this shirt looks sO good on you, can i touCH?” “omg thank you i didn’t think it fit well because it’s my boyfriends but that’s so sweet!!” “boy... hm?”

mom friend: sweetest bitch alive and is always worrying about his friends but everyone knows he’s secretly really fucking kinky.

(again, jungkook has no comment)

the kind of person who celebrates christmas in june. 

literally- he starts putting decorations in his locker and around the school mid june. by november, he’s wearing reindeer ears to school.

*lowkey kind of a nerd* genuinely enjoys studying with namjoon.

“well, studying with anybody else is just too stressful!! plus, namjoon’s so chill. he doesn’t look like it but he actually is super sweet and nice!!!“

“... please take those reindeer ears off, it’s embarrassing.“ 

half of the school would probably cut off an arm to sleep with him. seriously, he gets offers like everYDAY it’s kinda getting tiRING

is considering starting a youtube channel where he just takes videos of all the dogs and babies he meets throughout the day. 

“idk i think vlogging would be fun“

《KIM TAEHYUNG》

art hoe

nEVER FUCKING STUDIES OR PAYS ATTENTION BUT GETS DECENT GRADES.

the definition of bisexual mess, WILL trip when he sees hot people.

exclusively wears wired gold glasses and soft neutral sweaters to school. if it’s a good day he’ll wear a beanie. on special occasions he’ll maybe throw in some fUN loafers.

dyes his hair to match ~the vibes~ of that season. the most recent wild hair colour is cool toned teal. 

jungkook said he looks like leprechaun shit, but tae really likes it. 

tried to go vegan countless times, failed each and every one when he passed by a mc donalds. 

carries his sketchbook wherever he goes. he has that thing around 24/7, 100% would not be surprised if he slept with it under his pillow.

really quiet until he has a point to make;; like that time where he launched into a three hour screaming lecture on how phineas and ferb is an animated masterpiece.

drinks tea purely for the aesthetic of it. 

goes to hipster coffee shops to pretend to study... ends up watching barbie movies and critiquing them on the writing blog that he thinks nobody knows about. 

watches anime in class (he recently rewatched all of ATLA for the third time,, failed his econ class but worth it!!1!!1)

《JEON JUNGKOOK》

preppy jock

once again, everyone is attracted to him, but he’s so whipped for jimin everyone’s crush fades away once they talk to him because-

“oh it’s so cool that you have a dog!! you know, i think jimin kind of looks like a pomeranian sometimes it’s sO CUTE- hm? oh jimin’s my boyfriend.“

... it’s disgustingly adorable. 

plays almost every sport and is somehow always the team captain. not out of obligation or with leadership skills or anything, everyone else just votes for him. 

mess with his friends and he’ll put a stink bomb in your locker. 

his nickname is “golden baby” because he’s good at everything, teachers love him so much. 

grades? sTELLAR. sports? he’s done them ALL. creativity? pAINTED THE SCHOOL MURAL. service? volunteers at a pet shelter whenever he can (the bunnies love him for some reason) 

everyone either is 

a) in love w him, wants to fuck

b) jealous of him but is also secretly gay for him

pretends to not know how talented and cool he is and plays it off super cool

proceeds to fail, the only thing he’s bad at is humble bragging. 

“wow omg lol i got a 100 on my bio test and yesterday i got a hole in one in golf, my first time playing it but it’s chill i guess hahhah day in my life amirite.“

**this headcanon is the start of the bangtan school series, stay tuned**

wanna be tagged in school series or my writing? here or send me an ask

[puppy-phum]

thank you once again @yibobibo​ for tagging me ♥ even if, like I said, this is pure torture. I have so many sons that I’ve given up on counting them sigh but here goes.

favourite male fictional characters.

I took it that this meant ten so am going with that (tho am not gonna try and put them into order). am also sticking to all the characters I loved this year. and gonna ramble and add gifs so cutting it here. 

1. Liu Sang

The Lost Tomb Reboot/Reunion: The Sound of The Providence

I have so much love for this boy it’s not even healthy. it’s a bit funny tho bc once I started tltr, I didn’t really like him and almost forgot about him as the first season ended. he just felt so annoying and bitter in what I saw him, even if I did get that he had a Tragic BackstoryTM (I felt for him but well. tltr really made him hard to like at first). but then they brought him back in the second season with his sad puppy eyes and inability to handle his thoughts on wu xie and being all touch-starved and pitiful and whatnot and baam, I had the adoption papers ready. he’s wonderful and so strong and so smart and amazing. and liu chang as his actor has been wonderful (and he’s so pretty my god, have you seen him??)

2. Shen Wei

Guardian

never did I expect to just. fall into this hole after a year? I remember what a mess I was when I first watched guardian over a year ago, right after finishing the untamed. I was in shambles even as I knew how it would end. and now I’ve done this all again while also reading the novel and. my love for shen wei, especially bc it’s zhu yilong acting as shen wei? astronomical. I want to write poetry about him and his stupid responsibilities that he chooses to carry silently and his devotion to zhao yunlan and his love for his ppl and his didi and. I hope that one day I manage to write weilan bc I have this one idea and you can come pry it from my cold, dead fingers if it doesn’t get out there (am also super happy about the edit I made bc my god does he deserve at least that)

3. Cloud Strife

Final Fantasy VII

ok so stepping into the video games territory now. I was waiting for the remake like crazy and it was everything to me once the quarantine hit during spring. the game is so beautiful and I felt like I looked at this gorgeous boy once and was ready to give him my heart (tbh am quite sure he owned my heart before I even learned to know him). he is tragic in so many ways (I’ve only scratched the surface of all of his pain I know) and I wish I could just. hug him a lot. he is kind and cares very deeply even if he hates to show it and I love it how remake showed him also just being a human disaster (some of his scenes are just. peak comedy). I would kill for his smile (I have already cried for it a dozen)

4. Geralt of Rivia

The Witcher (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)

if there’s one grumpy, brickwall of a man I love, it’s geralt. I affectionately call him “papa wolf” while playing witcher 3 and his voice in it does things to me (I am just so fond of him ok, begone you dirty fuckers). I got introduced to him through the books and adored him in them bc he is so prickly and sarcastic and still so full of love even if he will never admit to it. he is the father figure I wish I could have in real life. (and yes, I’ve seen the tv series (or at least a couple of the first episodes) and it looks stunning but. this is my version of geralt and that’s the hill I will die on)

5. Xiaoge

Zhang Qiling, Daomu Biji (The Lost Tomb 2)

(wow finding a gif for him was a pain, apparently I gotta learn how to gif or?) ah, my dear boy who I’ve ended up just calling xiaoge bc he seems to prefer it over his real name/title/whatever zhang qiling really is. I got introduced to him through tltr where we really didn’t get to know that much about him bc he was just... there. huang junjie was absolutely stunning tho and his soft smiles made me super fond, but only in the lost tomb 2 did I really fall in love with xiaoge as a character. I was surprised tbh bc I didn’t expect it to be this drama? I had so many doubts about the cast in tlt2 but they all delivered! and I think cheng yi’s xiaoge is now my favorite bc he somehow captured that softness and the pain of him? (and we do not talk about that buxun storyline tyvm) tho now that ultimate note is on the way, I gotta say that xiao yuliang does a wonderful job as xiaoge too!

6. Wu Xie

Daomu Biji (Ultimate Note)

(sorry we have to go with a pingxie gif now but maybe it’s only fitting) tbh it’s hard to choose my favorite version of wu xie. I think all of the actors for him have done amazing job showing wu xie in different parts of his life (all of them are very distinct but still feel like the same person) but currently zheng shunxi takes the lead. I really wanted to put the reboot version of him here (bc I love that mature, relaxed and somehow very soft version of him and the angst is phenomenal and the thoughts he has about death... yeah) but I already have zhu yilong’s face here once so :’D wu xie is just one of those characters you cannot not like. he is so strong, so kind, so stubborn, so wonderfully stupid sometimes and in need of careful protection. I also adore it how smart he is and I could listen to him spew history facts for 10 hours straight (even if it was in a tomb full of blood zombies) ♥

7. Jiang Cheng

Jiang Wanyin, The Untamed

my darling boy! my beautiful angry grape! I love him beyond words. I love him in all of his raging, misunderstood, stupid, sassy, constipated, abused, tragic, bitter, big hearted glory. I could write novels about him (and I did and am still writing oh boy) and his love for ppl and his inability to show that love and his loneliness and his issues. I could also write another novel for all of his outfits etc. bc damn, what a fashion king. he is just so great. he owns my soul. he deserves happiness and in this essay I will

8. Isana Yashiro

Adolf K. Weismann, K Project

I rewatched k project this spring bc a) it’s one of my favorite animes ever (it just looks stunning with all the colors) and b) I love yashiro to bits. I remember falling in love with him when I first watched k project many years ago bc he was just so kind and bright. this time though, I ended up seeing another side of him and my god did I cry. he is... so sweet. he cares for others so deeply and is ready to sacrifice so much for them and his love for his two clansmen... yeah. I think I finally saw the tragedy of him too, all the pain and loneliness and insecurity he decides to hide behind his smile and obnoxious personality. he reminded me a lot of myself and watching him made my heart bleed in a good way

9. Qi Tiezui

Ba Ye, The Mystic Nine

(wow am going to riot for the lack of all the gifs hhh) yes, we’re continuing with the dmbj universe that sucked me in big time this year. the drama of the mystic nine wasn’t probably that earth shattering for me as it somehow got boring more than once but I did love ba ye to bits. he was just... so nice? I got it that he was somehow this “comedic relief” in the drama with all of his funny scenes and ridiculous mannerisms but I could see the brilliance of him. he is warm and smart and kind of a romantic too and he cares for all of his friends so deeply? it was also sweet how protective of him his two zhangs were (does that run in the family? the tendency to imprint into one smart but disastrous man and keep him safe? maybe) and I really hope I knew more about him bc he seemed to have a lot of knowledge and a lot of impact to ppl’s lives (I yelled when they mentioned him in ultimate note, I miss him ;;)

10. Dorian Pavus

Dragon Age Inquisition

(yes I’ve been replaying DA:I this year, this counts!) another darling boy! my lovely sass master son! I have so much love for him and his story in DA:I. he is my favorite companion (and his romance is my favorite too, probably obvious in the way am currently romancing him for the third time) and he has given me a lot of strength. the way he stands up against his father, how he’s ready to reform his homeland instead of walking away, how he’s so caring for those he sees struggling... it’s very warming and I feel like I’m safe with him. it feels a bit silly to say that but he really is that comfort character I will seek out when I just want to know am doing fine :’) (and I am so excited to see him again in DA4! probably?)

+ 11. Li Cu

Tomb of the Sea

yes I cheated a bit (with my own rules lol) to fit li cu here. I didn’t really expect to like him or tomb of the sea as much as I did once I started it? I’ve seen leo wu elsewhere before this (battle through the heavens, nirvana in fire) and his face always makes me think about a sad puppy so maybe I just grew fond over li cu instantly bc he was... so hurt? the first episode really slaps you in the face with all of it, showing him being abused, wounded, kidnapped, tortured, used and then just very, very scared and broken. he continues being that throughout the whole drama and I feel like tomb of the sea (or sand sea or sha hai idk) is the darkest and angstiest story in the dmbj universe. I know it deserves to be bc this is a dark time for wu xie but... my darling li cu. I wish him only happiness ;; he was so strong and smart and wonderful in this and it was just so amazing to watch him grow and find his own place in the world just bc he did something himself (even when he got dragged into all of this bc of wu xie) also I support the wu xie adopts li cu -agenda

Honorary mentions: 

Zhang Rishan, Xie Yuchen and Hei Xiazi from DMBJ universe. The Twin Jades of Gusu and Ouyang Zizhen from The Untamed. The Iron Bull and Fenris from Dragon Age games. Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko and Jaal from Mass Effect games. The whole lot of Assassin’s Creed protagonists (especially Ezio Auditore and Shay Cormac). Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle. Neil Josten from All For The Game. Eduon and March from The Smoke Thieves. Qiling from L.O.R.D. Critical World. Luo Fei from Detective L (played by Bai Yu). 

well, with this I can really see that I have a thing for those who are tragic :’D I have a thing for grumpy, prickly and antisocial guys or those who hide their pain behind a smile. maybe it’s bc I am somehow both, even if I can’t show my anger or be mean to others and even if I feel like my smile never sticks either. I just find kinship in all of the characters who are on this list. and I feel like I aspire to be as strong and as kind and as loving despite all the pain I’ve been put through.  

thank you, this was so much fun! and sorry I made this so long and so complicated ^^’ but well, there are just way too many male characters I love haha

at the end I want to tag @i-am-just-a-kiddo​ @ashenwren​ @kholran​ @tiesanjiao​ @lan-xichens​ @aheartfullofjolllly​ @manhasetardis​ and @lzswy​​ ♥ feel free to do this in your own way or not at all! and thank you if you managed to read through my rambling :’D

[arkus-rhapsode]

First of all, I followed you because [orange] + [blue]. I did it back when you still cared about fairy tail enough to review new chapters. I know it sounds weird, but I truly used to love all of fairy tail, no matter how dumb or nonsense it was - and still, I would always wait for your review, even though you pretty much always dragged it down.

Secondly, [dark blue]. Dude, the last time I watched anime was about 2 years ago, and I literally know close to nothing about new shows, but I still follow you and reblog stuff you post/reblog. I don't think I'll stop anyway. Plus, you give me a lot of "they are a youtuber who makes hour long video essays about stuff they're passionate about and then get a lot of hate for it" kind of feels. Don't know why, don't ask. Have a nice day/night and be as cool and intimidating as you were back when I was 16.

Yeah, I’ve been told I can be a pretty hard guy to approach and be pretty jerkish. But all of that does come from a genuine passion from the medium as well just how me and my friends talk with each other.

I don’‘t talk about FT much anymore, due to not really having much freetime as I used to when I was younger, my own mental state and how eventually I just got really unhappy talking about 100 YQ, but I would be lying if I said when I was younger my favorite thing to do was review FT. Even if it was bad, I was young and really discovering what it meant to be in a fandom. I definitely cringe at things I did back then (like ship wars and the FT confess arguments. And jeez, I really needed to learn the difference between reblog and reply.), but I will never regret the experience it gave me. Without FT, I definitely wouldn’t be here or have met a lot of my mutuals that I would consider my friends.

Yeah. Anime is a tough genre to keep up with. At this point I’ve just made a series on posting about stuff I’m rewatching because I’m so damn old. Seriously,  Seven Deadly Sins is up to what season now on Netflix? I have no idea what’s happening!

I’ve definitely not seen much hate anymore, though I still get the occasional comment. But thanks a lot for the support. Seriously, it means a lot to me when someone comes to this blog for... Well me... And not just likes whatever random essay I have for that date. So thanks, you have a good one too.

[alchemist-shizun]

As expected, Dealing with intrusive thoughts is now one of my favorites

Here I come with almost all of my reactions on the episode, even though I tagged the spoiler warnings I put everything under the cut just in case. Enjoy the emotional rollercoaster while I'll probably go and rewatch it again.

Okay kinda expected one or two of the warnings but all of them together what is gonna happen???? (Though they make sense after reading the title)

HELLO FRESH BACK AGAIN

"I'm awesome and I can do this" there goes my boy. *said boy falls flat on the floor* ...come on

I felt that yawn bc I stayed up all night waiting for the video but it dropped at 8 am, I'm an idiot who should've gotten more sleep

"help me" why is he such a mood "everything is going wrong in my life" same but YOU SHOULDN'T SAY THAT LET ME HUG YOU

They're all sinking up so fast god I missed my bois. Also the general awkwardness of Virge and Pat, greeeeat something will go wrong

Virgil just ignoring everything and touching the railing, a mood

ALSO PLEASE LET ROMAN IN THE SITUATION

SECRET SECRETS ARE NO FUN TELL ME NOW OR ELSE WE'RE DONE

wait why does Ro want to be deeply troubled- man are you okay-

LOGAN'S HERE

"your most extreme reaction is an eyebrow raise" "FALSEHOOD" "I stand corrected" omfg

"what are you ta- what are you talking- what are you talking about?" I loved that whole take it made me feel complete

"Look I barely got any sleep" this can apply to a lot of us and I love just how we're all always like "TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF" but in the end this is where we all end up anyway

Okay I'm very curious about these troubling thoughts though

"so sushi" FUCCC I DIED RIGHT THERE

"Don't act like that was an accident" "everybody, Virgil. Let's give it up for the Purp Man" these speak for themselves. Also the purp man is my new fav nickname and I'm gonna use it.

4:17 Patton is adorable bye

"if you continue to push this we're going to end up in really dangerous territory" AND THAT'S WHERE THE TENSION STARTED TO BUILD UP

great flick

"am I delirious or is this the funniest video I've ever made" I felt that

YOU HIGH-JOCKED

okay but when Thomas starts disassociating I also feel really weird like as if there was something blocking my own hearing for real?? And not just the audio edited like that?? Maybe I'm just too tired

WHAT WHO WHHH first intrusive thought making its way what is gonna happen

OH MY GOD ROMAN WATCH OUT ALSO THAT'S DEFINITELY A NEW DARK SIDE OR SMTH LIKE THAT

W HO THE FUCKLKDSL IS THAT A MOUSTACHE IS THAT GLITTER WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HE WEARING WHAT IS HE DOING THERE PLEASE- okay but he looks crazy af I like that

"-evIL" "-SHOW UP"

First time I watched the scene where Ro gets knocked out I literally just screamed "ROMAN" in a high pitched sound I was shook wtf my bOY

Patton and Thomas's yells in unison plus "YOU KILLED HIM" I just I JUST

"Ah, he's the Duke" "....... boo" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Okay but his voice is so on point with his character portrayal he's so weird it's awesome?

SONG SONG SONG and oh goodness the visuals I can't fathom how much editing work must have gone through this, they're all so talented.

"aunt patty naked" A G AI N??

"IM GONNA WHIP YOUR BUTT"

a snaKE IT'S DECEIT oh my these silouhettes are so great this is my favorite scene

this is gonna be stuck in my head all day

THE COOL MIRROR EDIT.

god i hate him so much already but i'm super intrigued he's so chaotic the whole team made a wonderful job i'll never stop saying this

"i'm really stupid right now" just how much out of context relatable content are we going to get on this fine day?

omg the dark version of creativity, which can be associated with intrusive thoughts, that's very clever

THE JUICY STUFF DANCE

"Repression can be very bad indeed" I mean he's right tbh it leads to never solving the problem at all

GO LOGAN GO HAVE YOUR TIME TO SHINE FINALLY i missed him

"i can't hear youuuuuu" much like "I don't understand what you're saying I don't know anything about words" THE DARK SIDES ARE ALL SASSY LITTLE BITCHES

pattonnnn did a real good job

THE BRAVE HANDSOME UNBEATABLE ROMAN and mashed potatoes

"scary" and Virgil just gives Thomas a look idk I live on the little details (Im ten minutes into the vid and look how long this post already is)

GEE Remus (already using his name bc it's shorter) looking so offended at the label and then pointing out it should be a Virgil problem whAT DOES THIS MEAN IM SHAKING

WHY WOULD HE BE DECEIT AGAIN IM DYING. "Idk if you guys can tell but I'm a little silly"

"then why are you lying" no everybody I don't need angst

THE BLACK AND THE WHITE THEORY I SAW GOING AROUND good job to whoever thought of that

JOAN

the forbidden dance

INTO A BUTTHOLE WHAT IS IT WITH HIM AND BUTTHOLES

there u go thomas said it too

haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate FHDSLAKLFD

irresponsible parenting, Logan completing the parental unit of the sides

"maybe there's hope for you after all!" me looking at all my wips

REMUS' LAUGH IS PERFECT. also "BITCH WHAT IS *YOUR* DEAL"

"you've never been one to soften the truth" OH BOI HERE WE GO

"do we have some case of brain swap???" I legitly said "maybe" in unison with Patton the first time

Vee pls stop putting Thommy boy down he's having a bad time

Logan trying to put some sense into the situation is my only spark of hope for this to turn back good

REMUS IS SO DRAMATIC

That lick was ....... let's pretend it never happened

"you know who can help us with that???" DECEIT'S SONG COMING UP that was great, imagine the chaos that the duo would create

"THATS WHAT REPRESSION IS?"

gasp Remus trying to make Virgil angry at Logan shall not stand DON'T PUT THEM AGAINST ONE ANOTHER HE'S JUST TRYING TO HELP

"you all are not listening to Thomas" this is the development I needed

"you're just para-" and he cuts himself. You all know what I'm talking about. Foreshadowing probably? This happened too back then when Roman was almost calling him the same. And then Virge looks so hurt I- "thank you for being on guard" that made me want to cry idk

the whole speech Logan gave? Pure gold. That was perfect.

HE SAID FIGURATIVELY *CLAP CLAP CLAP*

"UH RECORD SCRATCH?"

"does this make me cool?" djslagrkglhf also the teeth thing right after what the

... the deodorant eating ...

DUKEY

The first time I watched I thought his name was spelled Remis that's how dumb my Italian ass is

Still I love his name bc I'm a nerd for ancient culture, ESPECIALLY Roman (and ancient Greek but it isn't mentioned here) and I love the little thing they did with both Creativity names, super clever and very much liked on my part.

"I would never hide anything from you" and he looks at Virgil JUST ALL THIS FORESHADOWING

LOGAN SHOWING HIS TEETH BACK UP

"how about you shut up" Roman what the hecc man

THAT THING INTO LOGANS HEAD UNSETTLED ME A BIT

what are they doing to him today let him rest

double blow

"can we logic our way out of that?" everybody nodding was so pure

"shit"

THAT FUCKING JUMPSCARE I'M SORRY WHAT THE FU

"not all thoughts are meaningful"

He's go- no he's back again

THE CALLBACK MENTION AND PATTONS REACTION... probable foreshadowing to what Joan said about there being a part two of SvS?

"When are you actually gonna jump out of a moving car I've been bringing it up for years" so it's not just me..?

"it is okay if the thought happens to cross your mind"

"everything is okay" I'm going to cry I needed that

I love how Logan touches the topic that there is no problem in seeking help from therapists. There's a lot to say on this, but I was really glad that was pointed out since the are a lot of stereotypes on the matter

why did Virgil look like he was about to cry

Patton I love you

Thomas going to rest is what everyone wanted to see

Virgil confronting Remus I'm living you're doing amazing sweetie

"you tickle me emo"

"it was just like old times" then Pat and Lo's looks in this essay I will

ROMAAAAN

VIRGILS SMILE

"YOU'RE ALIVE"

"I LOVE YOU" ME TOO!! ME TOO ME TOO

"are you good?" "are you hurt at all?" I love when the sides look out for each other

"I'm sorry Logan" right through the heart. Another development.

I need y'all to look at Virgil in this exact second because. he.

that's my point.

All those smiles while Logan's talking are making me alive

"No seriously, you're ... really ... cool" I started tearing up right here. Twice. And then Logan sinks down cause he's not at all used to this and he's feeling t h i n g s please keep on being appreciated you deserve it

Also Patton always learning from his mistakes and understanding them when he does something wrong or he thinks in the wrong direction, that's something I think a lot of people need to learn, including myself. Like, it's okay to be wrong and make mistakes, just do your best to make sure you're improving yourself afterwards, instead of dwelling on it too much

"I don't like him" makes two of us

"Soooo you have a brother?" oh boy

The m i r r o r it's making me cry

"He's gone now and he's never coming back!" "I don't think that's-" "BYEE" what was all that talk about repression for if you contiNUE TO DO THIS ROMAN please I beg of you let us hELP YOU he's making me die inside

Oh boi the big moment. I already expected a bomb to drop since Virgil was the last one remaining.

"You okay buddy?" "Huh?" op somehow was already found crying

"I'm a little disappointed in myself" istg all that foreshadowing mixed with me wanting to hug him

The music picking up tension, this is poetic cinema let me tell you

I noticed how he calls them "the others", all these tiny details is what I'm living for

"I should know better" I couldn't beLIEVE IT, also how he seemed to be so frustrated made something inside me break

the pause and then "Because I was one of them", the music stops for a second, a little second in which you can hear my distant screaming "GOSH HE SAID IT IT WAS TRUE"

Thomas is speechless and just stares at him while the music picks up again and then Virgil's sigh and expression sinking down like "there you have it. that's the truth. and you can't do anything about it" he looks so defeated I'm breaking down.

Did I already mention poetic cinema? I just love angst and this scene was perfect

First time watching I, too, barely understood anything I was listening to in the last parte because all of that was really a lot to take in.

"Those thoughts that you may have thought do not define you"

"[the thought] may simply be that we are really okay"

"Go to bed!" me

no im not in the mood for food because for some unfathomable reason I had anxiety before the video dropped yay me

WHY ARE U DRINKING RED WINE WITH THAT DISH

GAVIN BEST BOY EVER

and last but not least: are you fucking serious Remus

THERE'S A SNAKE IN MY BUTT FANDFKJL

I didn't expect this topic at all and I am so glad it was talked about, thankfully my intrusive thoughts do not bother me as much as I realized other people's do. And I never saw anyone talking about this before, which is why it makes this video so important. I saw a tweet recently about someone saying that it is okay if you think about weird things, the important is that you never act on them, that's what makes you a good person. But I think this video really explains it far better and I never realized how common something like this was? So yeah another time in which I've been educated and couldn't be happier about it. These people really are bringing light to the world gah I LOVE THEM.

oKAY guess I'm done this was a wild ride and yeah I tend to point out EVERYTHING, so here you have it, as I already mentioned if you feel the need to geek out too, I'm here for ANYBODY! (pls I have no friends)

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 4x22 Restless

aka a trip to the show’s psyche

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And today’s episode is a challenge to talk about. Not because there isn’t stuff, but because there’s so much stuff that you just know that everyone already dissected each and every beat of this episode. All we have left is to enjoy it.

First of all, I’m just gonna leave this video here for you in case you haven’t watched it yet. It does a wonderful job of dissecting a lot of the core details of the episode that you might miss without further research (like the Sappho poem Willow’s writing on Tara’s back or even who the band members are during Giles’ musical exposition scene).

As an addition to that, I must say that I’ve also been guilty of listening and re-listening to the Once More With Feeling soundtrack even before I started this rewatch. And that album has a Restless track (as well as a Hush one), so I already had those haunting melodies stuck in my head.

So… I was very much in the head space for Restless, and as a result, I don’t have much fresh thoughts to share about it now. But I’ll try.

Because even if this is an episode that everyone already took apart to pieces a million and ten times, it’s still one that we go back to again and again. For instance, when I, personally, try to dive into Xander’s or Willow’s characters, this is one of my first go-to episodes.

Buffy’s arc is evident throughout the series, and what we get of Giles isn’t necessarily all that defined in this episode, but Willow and Xander? Restless is a neat corner piece of the puzzle that’s their character motivation.

Willow’s dream is also an interesting one because it’s perhaps the most disrupted out of all. The video above already mentions Xander’s masturbation joke (where the show takes a hit at its own metaphor), and how that’s a scene where we leave Willow’s perspective - but the scenes from the play are also weirdly out of PoV.

Tara and Willow are talking between the curtains as we cut to dream Riley, Buffy and Harmony acting out their absurd play. Twice. So if we consider that we’re in Willow’s dream, it’s almost like she’s disassociating, or getting detached from her own sense of self. Which doesn’t necessarily have to translate to reality, dreams are dreams after all; but it does work with the theme of her dream, which is identity.

I will also say that I don’t view the implication that Tara’s talking about Willow’s sexuality with those lines about how ‘they’re going to find out’ as a red herring. It’s merely that there’s also another, deeper layer to Willow’s insecurities when it comes to her identity. And how the two are connected, since… well, I’ll probably have a separate rant about that later on, in which I’ll be undoubtedly citing Restless too.

Meanwhile we’ve got Xander’s dream. And one of the best and worst parts of Xander’s subconscious is the inappropriate sexualization of some of his friends.

I think my favorite two details about how Xander pictures Joyce and then Willow and Tara is how in some scenes, their mouths aren’t even moving as they’re talking. It heightens the fantasy nature of these scenes and highlights the way Xander’s dream objectifies these women.

The other is the fact that after each of these scenes Xander almost immediately finds himself back in his basement.

It shows how Xander’s always reaching for the unattainable, but it never ends up being what he actually needs. Or even wants. What Xander wants is love, but the shadow of his upbringing will always loom over him. He doesn’t know what he’s searching for, because he didn’t grow up experiencing it.

When the show makes it clear that the monster Xander’s been running from at the top of the stairs leading from his basement is his father, it’s one of the most lowkey chilling moments of the show. It’s not surprising, given all that we’ve already learned, but it’s still shocking, seeing it on full display.

As for Giles’ dream, I guess the one thing I will challenge the above video review on is Willow’s use of “Rupert”. Since this is Giles’ dream, my reading is that it says much more about how he sees Willow as a peer, rather than Willow’s own perception of him (which is still valid though, because she did have a crush on him, bless her heart).

This will of course have much more significance in season 6…

And then there’s Buffy.

One thing that I want to point out right off the bat, is how Buffy’s dream is about isolation, and the whole point of it is that she can’t find her friends. The people that are most important to her.

So consider then the characters who do appear in Buffy’s dream: Anya and Tara, or course, the two love interests of her friends who she hasn’t had a chance to establish her own relationships with yet. Her mom, who she’s been distant from throughout the season, and is unable or unwilling to bring back into her life.

…And Riley.

The fact that Riley appears in two forms also seems to underline that he’s someone that Buffy feels distant from in some ways. When dream Riley is with Adam, he is representing something that’s perhaps beyond his character. But then he also appears in street clothes, calling Buffy a “killer” (the same thing Forrest called Faith when she was inhabiting Buffy’s body).

It perhaps foreshadows that Buffy could never fully share the Slayer parts of herself with Riley. Or at least that that’s how she feels on a subconscious level.

I also read somewhere that they wanted to have David Boreanaz as Buffy’s guide and to be the one giving voice to the First Slayer. Which I found odd, because I thought Eliza Dushku would’ve been a more natural first choice for that… But I just did a quick wiki fact check, and apparently the plan was to have her for the scene in Buffy’s bedroom, and him in the desert.

Instead, out of necessity both of these parts have been given to Tara. Which then makes it interesting that the script only calls out her desert appearance as her not being part of Buffy’s dream, and being “borrowed”.

The implication here is that while she may not have been the production’s first choice, her earlier appearance in Buffy’s dream is intentional in-universe. Which plays well with what I earlier mentioned about Buffy choosing characters she felt a distance from at this point for her dream, especially since we transition to this after Anya’s brief appearance as dream Buffy’s college roommate. And Tara being the intuitive magic muffin she is makes her the perfect prophetic conduit.

(Also, Buffy/Tara is real, there, I said it, you can quote me on that.)

I can of course see the same scene playing out with Faith too. It would’ve once again established the shared dream universe of the slayers, given that Buffy talks about the bed they made in Faith’s dream earlier in the season. This scene is a callback to their shared dream in Graduation Part 2 too, with the direct reference to the clock as well.

The drawback of Buffy’s dream and perhaps the entire episode is the portrayal of the First Slayer herself. A “primitive” African girl that we’ve “evolved” from who couldn’t even form her own words, and whose hair Buffy makes fun of.

So… that’s not good.

Otherwise Restless is still my most favorite presentation of dreams in media. This is largely true for the entire show of course, but Restless puts those previous dream sequences on steroids, and just goes off.

The combination of what the episode reveals about the characters, the fun easter eggs and massive foreshadowing, and the absurdity that makes it all truly dreamlike… We could be here all night, all day, write essays and perhaps dissertations, and there’d be still stuff to talk about.

I just love this weirdo season finale a lot.

[thisrocksandwhy]

The Beginner’s Guide: Can I write the same thing twice?

Recently I watched Ian Danskin’s video essay on The Beginner’s Guide called “The Artist is Absent.” In it, he uses (and flawlessly explains) theories of art, language, and storytelling such as semiotics, death of the author, and enunciation theory to propose his reading of the game. Danskin suggests that the game is warning us not to mistake The Beginner’s Guide’s author for its narrator. In other words, a work of fiction should not give a reader the sense that they now know about the person who wrote it; they only know about the work itself. And I agree with this reading wholeheartedly. However, I still stand by my analysis of the game, that Davey the Narrator represents an ego that constantly criticizes the self while Coda stands for the artist’s persona that is challenged by societal norms, audience expectations, and even their own ego’s chatter. So, to reconcile the two, I’d like to make some amendments to my past article.

But first, rather than simply editing the post, I’d like to discuss whether I have a right to change it, since this idea is thematically relevant to both the game and Danskin’s video essay.

To illustrate the concept of authorial intention, Danskin asks if The Sopranos’s creator David Chase should retroactively be able to determine that Tony dies at the end of the show. Danskin’s answer to his thought experiment: “Fuck this guy!” If Chase wanted to explicitly convey this in the first place, he should have put something in the show to indicate it rather than the vague ending he did write. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the ending of The Sopranos, but we don’t need to have seen it to get the concept. Stories are meant to be interpreted by their audiences, and authorial intention doesn’t have to be considered. People can come to conclusions just from the evidence in the text. However, historical and cultural context along with author biography are incredibly useful tools for analysis, so a text’s readings don’t always have to be isolated to the text either. This is a more complicated question of art theory that I’m not going to try to argue. I’m simply presenting the reader’s (assumedly your) perspective on this question of whether I can change my article. According to this train of thought, I could say what I now believe and would like to change, but you don’t have to consider it relevant and should judge my previous work as it was originally presented. Fuck me, right?

Now, if I were to use The Beginner’s Guide as my guide on this issue, I think the game would support an antithetical position. For interpreting and even changing his games, Coda says to Davey the narrator “Fuck this guy!” (my paraphrasing). The Beginner’s Guide questions the role of the audience in interpreting art and the artist’s responsibility to its audience. Art is usually thought of as something that is seen, something that gains value once an artist lets an audience see it. However, I suggest that art that is unseen by the public can still be valuable, specifically for the artist. Put simply, art is expression, and personal expression can be valuable without anyone to hear what was said. Coda makes games just to make them. But do I write essays just to write them? In some sense, I write these for others to read them, to express my thoughts to others and test their credibility and clarity. However, these essays are most valuable to me; I get to conjure up concepts and realize them on the page through language. I get to look back on these records of my thoughts and see how I have changed since I wrote them. These words are much more valuable to me, since I know exactly what they mean while readers will only ever get close to understanding – that’s not a knock on you, that’s simply the nature of language (Danskin simply and elegantly explains this concept as well in his essay). The Beginner’s Guide offers a similar view, that art can be valuable without ever considering its accessibility or an audience’s enjoyment of it. Here lies another complicated issue of art theory which I will not firmly debate, merely present a school of thought on the matter. With this concept in mind, though, I do have every right to improve my work so that I may more thoroughly enjoy it, and I shouldn’t have to consider you readers when I change it. Fuck you, right?

Hey by the way, I just wrote all of that, and now I’m realizing I don’t actually want to change anything. I brought up the whole “I don’t know Davey Wreden” thing in the article too (and in the title; I feel dumb).

Hi, Will here. That last bit may have come out of nowhere. Let me explain. I wrote all that at around midnight on October 2, 2016, and I’m currently reading it all again on May 30, 2019. This is gonna get meta. I’m now responding to an article I wrote about responding to an article I wrote about responding to a game (about a guy responding to a game designer). This act of responding is what I wanna talk about.

This article means something completely different to me now than it did when I started writing it. I’ve been thinking about how people reinterpret art as we gain new life experience, and how we engage in conversation not only when we create art but when we analyze it. I’m thinking about this more especially as I’m getting older, like when movies from my childhood feel very different because I’m reading into aspects I had never seen before.

Danskin’s video essay has, funnily enough, guided my thinking on this topic. His video has taught me about the audience’s role in giving art meaning and how subjective that meaning really is. Since I wrote the first half of this, I’ve rewatched that essay every few months, because it explains ideas that are fundamental to my current understanding of art. Please watch it. Really, I don’t care if you read the rest of this, it’s more important that you watch this video. Watch it. Now.

So what is my article about? What does it mean to me now? It’s about the endless conversation good art can start between artwork and audience. If a work is complicated enough and speaks to a person’s experiences on a deep, profound level, that work can be interpreted an infinite amount of different ways. And each way can be just as important and meaningful to a person. On top of that, the responses to that art can be equally valuable. Maybe this response to myself is a bit self-indulgent, but I do think it illustrates my point. I look at The Beginner’s Guide differently now because of how I’ve reconsidered it.

This piece is also about a writer who constantly rethinks his work. He’s trying to improve his thoughts and compare them to essays and thinkers that he admires. This becomes a cycle of read, analyze, respond, repeat. I’m constantly re-reading what I’ve written and checking whether I still agree with myself. In this way I aim to improve my skills in presenting a position and convincing someone of its substance.

This process exemplifies the dialectic mode: thesis (presenting a thought) -> antithesis (questioning a thought) -> synthesis (a greater understanding of the thought and the next starting point, literally the “new thesis���). This process supposedly progresses humanity’s collective intellect, as if all thought moves us towards an end goal of “the truth.” I don’t agree with this idealistic notion of truth, because to believe that is to dismiss the subjective nature of individual interpretation like I was saying before. But I do think that my understanding has evolved since I wrote the first half of this, and it’s fun to enter my previous mind and see how I’ve grown since then.

Now, I do want to answer the question I asked at the beginning of this all: Should I or should I not edit my original post?

Right now, I say no.

All art is influenced by its moment in time as well as an author’s beliefs and experiences. That author can be one person or a collaboration of personalities, all contributing to a combined philosophy which comes across as one message to the audience. John Green once said in an interview that “Writing is always an attempt at radical empathy.” I’m gonna reference this in another article (coming soon), because this thought has defined the value I find in art. Even if just for me, this article can take me back to the moment I wrote it. And that is valuable.

So Will, next time you read this finished post, think about me, sitting in the corner of my mom’s living room, at the table you made into a gaming corner, having a kinda depressed day because I couldn’t get myself to do anything, until I starting looking through my folder of old “This Rocks” docs, and I was hit with a wave of inspiration to write this. Remember this feeling. Remember, things aren’t always as bad in your head as they are when you’re sad. Things get better. Just give it some time, and when you feel you can do something else, do it. It’s better to move on than wallow in the muck of a slow, disappointing day.

And to you, the reader that is not me, thanks for indulging me. I know this piece is really only for me. But if you learned something from this, or maybe had an issue with how I explained something, or thought about your own work or experience, or maybe you even enjoyed being in my head for a few moments as you read this, then you’ve engaged with these words, I’ve done my job, and art prevails once more.

Art is dead, long live art!

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 1x04 Murphy’s Law

I’m a new fan of The 100, who first binged it last year, August to November. This is my first full rewatch of the show. I was planning to start it anyway and finish it before the season 6 premiere on April 30, and when I saw that Fox Serbia was airing a rerun (Monday to Friday, 40 min. after midnight, with repeats the next day), starting on 1st February, it was a great opportunity to start my rewatch in HDTV on my beautiful new TV. I decided to do write-ups and tag other fans on SpoilerTV website, as I did when I was first watching the show. But my posts turned into full blown essays. So, finally, after over a week, I’ve realized: Why don’t I post them on my Tumblr blog, too? I’ll copy my write-ups of the first 7 episodes, and then I’ll post my rewatch posts after I watch each episode. (The next one, 1x08, is on Monday’Tuesday.)

Spoilers below for all 5 seasons of the show. I go of on a tangents and make a lot of references to future events.

Rating: 7/10

The first 3 episodes took place over something like a day or two, This one happens a week later. Which is a way to avoid having to show Clarke's immediate reaction to Wells' death, and to have to spend a lot of screentime on her mourning, because most of it took place off-screen (we just see her at his grave, and later talking to Finn about him and how good he was to her while they were growing up). At least Finn got an entire episode, even though it lasted just about a day in-universe. This is something that TV shows like to do - have the characters mourn for an episode or a few scenes for a dead character and then never have them mention that person again. Well, at least they did have Wells' father see apparitions of his son multiple times and mention him several times, including when he was dying.

This episode instead isn't at all about Wells, but starts with the Delinquents learning that he wasn't killed by the Grounders and that it was instead one of them, using Murphy's knife. The title of this episode, Murphy's Law, aside from being a pun, also describes the chain of events not just in this episode, but the show in general: everything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong. This a really good episode right until the last 5 minutes or so. The interactions between Clarke, Bellamy and Murphy are really interesting. Murphy is at this point at his peak obnoxiousness. He's basically acting in the textbook "How to make enemies and alienate people" way. In the first couple of episodes, he was only antagonistic towards Wells, but now he's using his position as Bellamy's sidekick to bully other Delinquents for no reason at all, to try to make himself feel bigger, out of his own envy and hate and resentment, and his inferiority complex. To use a Buffy reference, if Murphy was a high school Mean Girl, he wouldn't be "Queen C" Cordelia Chase, he would be one of the Cordettes - people who latch onto someone more powerful and popular (in this case, Bellamy) and then bully others through that newfound 'power'. The infamous scene where he urinates on another Delinquent happens when he's overseeing the work (the Delinquents are building a wall to have a defense against a possible Grounder attack, since they still have almost no weapons) after he's first mocked that guy for not working hard enough (implying 12 year old Charlotte would work harder), and then mocked him when he said he needed water, but then Bellamy told Murphy to go and get him water. And that's probably why Murphy then urinated on the guy, he couldn't take it when Bellamy took the guy's side, so to speak, and cut down his position of power (or what Murphy sees as such) by sending him to fetch water. Hey, look, here's Manny Jacinto as one of the boys bullied by Murphy. Of course I didn't notice him before, he appears for like a second. Even with knowing Murphy's later development, there's no two ways about it, he was a total dick at this point. Which makes the situation more ambiguous when he's blamed and almost lynched for something he didn't actually do - Wells' murder - though he had threatened to do it, and together with Clarke jumping to conclusions and accusing him of it, because Wells was murdered by Murphy's knife, and the fact that most Delinquents obviously really dislike Murphy at this point (no surprise) leads to that result. What happens to him is wrong, and someone should have apologized for it. But that doesn't excuse him at all for what he does next, trying to make people kill Charlotte instead, after she has confessed, and then, after realizing no one is supporting him, doing his best to kill her, including threatening Clarke's life at one point. I wouldn't think this needed to be pointed out, but I've seen some people in comments to YouTube reaction videos to this episode actually, in all seriousness, argue that he was right and that Charlotte should have been killed. WTF? What's wrong with people that they don't get the whole being 12 year old thing? I know that USA has the weird habit of putting minors on trial as adults, but even then, I'm pretty sure even US legal system doesn't go that far to execute 12 year olds. At which point did the writers and viewers decide that Clarke was "the Head" and Bellamy "the Heart" (which the show made explicit in the season 4 finale, and then overturned in season 5)? I've always felt that was a huge oversimplification and I'm generally not too fond of it. Season 1 Clarke was pretty impulsive in some situations, especially in this episode (it was her best friend who was murdered, after all), immediately deciding that Murphy is the killer and should be punished, while Bellamy argued that this would be a bad idea, because it would create unrest and make the Delinquents turn on each other, and that it was better for them to keep thinking it was the Grounders who did it. Which was maybe cynical, but pragmatic and rational. (BTW, I don't think Bellamy made a connection that Charlotte was the killer - he probably forgot about giving her Murphy's knife or thought someone else took it, but in any case, I don't think it would have occurred to him that she would do it.) Then Clarke actually confronts Murphy angrily in front of everyone, which causes the avalanche of disastrous events, as the boy that Murphy bullied earlier and a bunch of others immediately decide to hang Murphy and ask Bellamy to do it. 

Clarke had a lot of moral certainly at this point (which will be eroded slowly over the course of the show) but sometimes it was a bit too straightforward (she didn't stop to think how people will react - you could say, she didn't know her audience that well as Bellamy did), and here she realized that things weren't that simple - she wanted to get some kind of justice, but didn't want Murphy killed, and seeing what she had caused, she admits to Bellamy "I was wrong earlier, you were right". 

But where Bellamy goes really wrong in 1x04 is decide to "give people what they want" - in this case, a culprit they want and his death. It's one of his biggest mistakes in S1 and one that will come to bite him in the a.$s, especially at the end of the season when Murphy starts his revenge spree, which will be directed at the guys who first wanted to hang him, but most of all at Bellamy himself. And Bellamy will learn his lesson, an opposite one from Clarke, that you need to do the right thing and not just give the crowd what they want (in 1x12 he tells Clarke "Crowds make bad decisions, just ask Murphy").

The moment when Bellamy goes ballistic and starts acting on pure emotion - and tries to kill Murphy immediately - is later after Charlotte commits suicide, due largely to Murphy's pressure - because of course he would react like that to her death. Guess what, Finn acting decently (actually decently, not just on the surface) didn't last. We find out he was exploring woods by his own and found an old shelter, but he didn't tell anyone. Instead, he gives Clarke a pencil to impress her (right after she's told him about how Wells used to give her stuff when they were growing up, and that she didn't realize at the time that he was denying himself things to give them to her... hmmm). Later he reveals the shelter to Clarke when they need to hide Charlotte from Murphy and his gang. Clarke asks why he hasn't told anyone, and immediately thinks about how they could use things, but Finn tries to justify himself, saying that the food has all expired and there are no weapons, and besides, if he had told everyone, then they couldn't use the shelter now that they need it. So how does that work - he foresaw they would need to hide someone from the rest of the Delinquents?? Or he was just waiting for a chance to use that shelter to show it to Clarke and just Clarke, impress her and show her how good he is to her and how much she needs him? Am I being too harsh on Finn? He does some good things in this episode, like do his best to stop the crowd from hanging Murphy. But still... I never liked him much, my perspective on him is different now, after I have seen season 2 Finn with his "I killed all those people for you, Clarke!" thing, At the time I first watched this, I assumed that Finn was meant to be likable, but that the combination of bad writing and bad acting made him unlikable. I didn't know what it was about Finn that rubbed me the wrong way or that didn't resonate with me. But now I see more and more reasons to dislike him, and I think that his character is more consistent than I initially thought, but that he was never meant to be a really great guy, and that his romance with Clarke was just supposed to create drama and angst rather than be a great ship people would root for. (The whole thing with Raven really shows that.) Maybe I was too harsh on Thomas McDonell, though. He wasn't as good as some other cast members, but he's not that bad, now I have Tasya Teles' acting to compare it with. (I'm sure Tasya is a nice person, but she just can't act.) It's kind of funny that the climax of this episode is focused on Clarke and Bellamy being shocked at Charlotte's death in such a way that it seems like their child just died, and then arguing about leadership (it's already pretty clear that the two of them are those who decide on most things), as Finn just looks on. This may be the crucial moment where their co-leadership begins. Clarke argues "We don't decide who lives and who dies". It's so ironic that she will later during the show be expected and asked to decide just that, more than once. Meanwhile, on the Ark, we get to meet a couple of new characters - Kane's mother, a preacher, who'll be around for a couple of episodes, and Nigel, a woman at the Mecha station who runs a black market, and who, I think, won't ever appear again. But she gets Abby arrested by Kane, and also, through her, we get to learn more about Raven's backstory - that her mother was an alcoholic and that she used to prostitute herself to get stuff. Life on the Ark, especially those of lower classes, seems so freaking wonderful... The last few minutes of this episode initially annoyed me a lot, because it seemed like a return to the cheesy teen soapy bullcrap of the first couple of episodes. The love triangle was set up - Raven takes the pod by herself, since Abby can't go, and is arriving to Earth, while we get a confirmation that Finn is the boyfriend she wants to save - just as Finn and Clarke end up kissing and having sex for the first time. Now that I know and love how this triangle is eventually resolved, I don't hate this so much, but this scene is still really cheesy and feels like the classic TV insta-romance. And it's not just that, I also hated the scene where Octavia kisses Jasper, after praising his courage (for "standing up to a bully" -? I still have no idea what she was referring to, it's always confused me) and telling him that heroism gets rewarded. Ugh. And then Monty gives him a high-five. One of the things I hate the most in fictional romance is when romance/sex is portrayed as a reward that someone - usually a female - gives another person - usually a male, for performing heroic deeds. Gross. I'm so relieved, because of that, that the Jasper/Octavia ship went nowhere, even though I wasn't a big fan of how her romance with Lincoln was portrayed in S1, either.

[tyrus-time]

current mood: i have a re-emerging desire to make an in-depth video essay about andi mack/tyrus and LGBT rep (for my independent study)

and as i’ve been rewatching/transcribing old episodes, i’ve been trying to figure out a coding scheme for a ~proper~ content analysis of the show, but i just... idk, i’m having trouble with it, especially trying to outline a quantitative analysis, because that’s just not what i’m into. and this process is solidifying that. which is like, cool, i’m learning more about myself, but also SHIT what am i doing

i’m a sociology major but lately i’ve been feeling like i should’ve been an english major or something, because i personally prefer to analyze things with a narrative/storytelling approach, rather than scientific methods?? but i love examining social structures, so, i love that aspect of sociology

i just, i think -- no, i KNOW -- that cyrus (and his relationship with TJ) are very important and worthy of attention, but i keep getting so overwhelmed with the different types of methods and theoretical orienting strategies that are used in my discipline.... so i feel a bit lost and idek how to convey my frustration to my profs/advisers. sigh

anyways, idk if what i’m saying makes sense to anyone... i really just needed to vent... but if you have any input on any of this, pls feel free to hit up my inbox ashdkajshdkj

[theamberfang]

983

Apparently I’ll be going in for an eye exam and, ostensibly, new glasses. Honestly, it’s something I’ve been kind of worried about because—though the lenses have been fine for me—the frames are old and have a number of visible cracks. So yeah, I’m grateful for this, though I have no idea how my parents are paying for it. I mean, we’re not exactly poor, so I guess my father could just be paying for it outright. I don’t know; I just have this anxiety around money and anything medical or whatever, like an eye exam even, just immediately makes me think of the cost (in a way that I don’t quite think of as much with other things, like food).

Hmm, I’m actually reminded of a video essay I rewatched today. It was about Monsters University from the perspective of disability, and part of it brought up how people who are born talented—born “gifted”—can struggle mentally once they are challenged, because, due to their talents, they hadn’t grown up learning how to deal with adversity. (And the larger point was that this was a way for people with disabilities to find solidarity with those that can appear highly-abled, as Mike and Sully find in one another.) And yeah, I relate to that a lot: probably a big part of my struggle with perfectionism. But where I want to go with this for this post is that I grew up with the social support that’s provided to a military family: full medical, dental, and whatever. It’s stuff that I simply didn’t seriously grow up worrying about, so now I’m paralyzed when having to consider such things. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a privilege, because it was, but I also was left unprepared for losing that privilege as an adult. Like, I figure a lot people reach adulthood with relatively similar levels of medical security that they had as children, so they either never need to stress much over it or they learn how to manage and deal with it growing up.

Speaking of stress, I think “my darkness” was in my dreams last night, except they weren’t present as a bunch of shadows and dark. Instead they had the form of, like, a rapidly shifting animated cartoon-style character. Like, their proportions drastically changed from moment to moment. The context of them showing up was me trying to board up a room/building, as if I were barricading the place for, like, a zombie attack or something—except there weren’t zombies as far as I was aware; I was just doing it against some vague danger. And I guess I had the lucidity to question it, and that’s when this other part of myself became angry at me, and I was lucid enough to figure out who they were.

And I think this dream does have to do with my recent attempts to recognize my paranoia for what it is: and to understand and manage it. Something I didn’t mention from a couple of days ago is that I stepped out into out backyard for a bit: to get some air and sunlight. The thing is that we don’t have any fences or anything; I could just walk over into the neighbor’s backyard, and over to the street out front, without any obstruction. And while I was out there a neighbor kid saw me from, like, their front yard I guess, next to their drive way, and I ended up panicking my way back inside.

I guess maybe “paranoia” really might not be the right word to be honest, because it’s not like I have some delusion that the kid was going to try to, like, get me. It could just be an intense anxiety that would be associated with some sort of personality disorder. Yet, recalling what happened after, I do recall hearing people outside, and my assumption was that the kid told their family, so they were looking around for whoever was “sneaking around”. So yes, I did believe they were out looking for me without any sort of justification other than “a kid saw me.” I didn’t think they were coming to, like, hurt me or something, but the thing is that such an encounter, if they were to find me somehow, would be bound to be greatly embarassing and stressful; I could see it triggering an anxiety attack. And like, it’s probably overly reductive to think that paranoia is only when you think people are coming to do you physical harm. Being unduly fearful of mental and emotional trauma—even if it would probably be unintentional from those inflicted it—could possibly qualify as paranoia.

But mostly my insistence on the word “paranoia” for my symptoms now is to more accurately describe the intensity of what I feel, because “anxiety” doesn’t cut it no matter how I modify it with adjectives. I guess a “phobia” can possibly describe my experience, but I don’t feel like I’m scared of anything specific enough for that.

[recentanimenews]

ESSAY: In the Middle of the Pandemic, I Watched Anime With Friends

For the past few months I’d been talking to friends at work about starting an anime club. Now that we were heading into 2020, I decided that it was long past time to make those dreams a reality. I reached out to some interested peers, and made a date to meet up and watch. I puzzled over my DVD collection. Perhaps we could watch a great movie, like In This Corner of the World? The first episode of a TV series, like Mushishi or Haibane Renmei? Or I could throw them into the deep end with the first episode of Penguindrum? I eagerly awaited the experience of watching anime together with friends. Then the pandemic hit.

  In the following weeks, despite difficulties of scheduling and communication, my friends and I managed to keep our anime club alive. All this despite watching remotely, coordinating through Google Hangouts while finding workarounds for faulty internet connections and temperamental audio. With 12 episodes of Mob Psycho 100 down, we’re looking toward the future. But this experience, fun as it was, has me thinking about how I watch anime today. When did I forget how fun it was to watch anime in a group?

    The way I’ve watched anime has changed over the years. In middle school, I caught episodes on TV channels like Aniplex and Toonami. In high school, I navigated carefully between episodes of Naruto divided into thirds on YouTube, their opening and ending animations excised. Now it’s easy: go to a video service like Crunchyroll or Funimation, click on an episode, and (if you pay a small fee each month) watch without ads. No more having to spend money on DVDs or videotapes or having to miss out because the show wasn't available in your region.

  For me watching anime has become a ritual, a solitary pursuit. Park in front of the computer. Find the most recent episode of a new series. Endure 24 minutes in silence. Post a hot take on Twitter, maybe a screenshot or two, repeat. It’s not the way most people watch television. There are plenty of folks out there who’d rather cook or exercise while half-paying attention to something like The Floor is Lava, which is absolutely valid. But I’d reckon there are now thousands of folks out there hooked on their niche entertainment, watching episodes of a series only they know about on a format that caters exclusively to them.

    Watching Mob Psycho 100 with friends reminded me of a few things. The first is that group watching is a great way to see old favorites through new eyes. I’d already seen and loved the first season, returning to scenes on occasion as the mood struck me. Very little in the show now comes as a surprise. But being able to see and listen to my friends react to it, even remotely, reminded me of what it was like to see it for the first time. In the first episode, when a character whose chin looks exactly like a butt walks past, a friend of mine yelled “this show rules!” In the fifth episode, when Mob weakly punches an incensed Teruki, another friend told me that despite the good amount of anime he’d seen, he’d never seen a punch like that. A punch that spoke of weakness instead of strength.

  Group watching is also a great opportunity to remind yourself of the sheer amount of craft that goes into a series. The frequent use of paint by glass animation, a difficult and time-consuming technique that is used for key scenes. Great moments of character animation. Funny music cues. Being reminded that what makes Mob Psycho great isn’t the fights (though they are very good) but instead the attention paid to Mob’s growth and how he interacts with the rest of the cast. Mob Psycho 100 is not a particularly complex series, and there are no mysteries to tease out in the same way as, say, rewatching Evangelion can be surprising. But I came out of this watch-through with an even stronger appreciation for it than I had before, while acknowledging some weaknesses I’d missed the first time.

    Years ago, I used to watch anime with friends more frequently. A blogging friend and I marathoned through Honey and Clover in college, another series that stands out to me as being heavily informed by the life experiences you bring to it. Before that, we had the honor of rewatching Penguindrum with friends, including one of the original writers on the Altair and Vega blog back in the day, which obsessively broke down episodes of the series each week it aired. Penguindrum has far more moving parts than Mob Psycho 100, and rewatching it involved talking through what bits we’d missed the first time, what bits had aged well — and, of course, where the series dropped the ball completely. But getting through to the end reaffirmed to me what Penguindrum had always meant. Years later, I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have had that experience.

  In this Age of COVID, many of my friends are scared and alone. It’d be easy, if you have the luxury, to hole up in a corner with your favorite series and take comfort on your own. There are times when this is needed. But if you’re able, I’d recommend doing what I did and watch some anime with friends. You can use an app like Netflix Party, or you can do it like we did, the old-fashioned way, synching up your Crunchyroll players and hitting the Play button at the same time. In the process, maybe you’ll find a new favorite, or discover something new about a show you loved. Maybe you’ll learn something new about your friends.

    As for me, once I round up my coworkers again, I’m set on introducing them to Kyousogiga. A series I never fully appreciated the first time, but want to give a second chance, with friends. Join me, will you?

  What are your experiences watching anime with friends? Were you around for the era before streaming? Never heard of Kyousogiga? Let us know in the comments, and go watch Kyousogiga right now!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When not corralling people into an online chat box to watch anime, he sporadically contributes with a different loose coalition of friends on a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can follow him on Twitter at: @wendeego

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[jmkitsune]

LONG POST IS LONG

hey

I’m JM

you to one degree or another know that as well as being an over all in general nerd, I also stream video games on twitch. either you know this because you’ve seen me post about it at one point or another, talked to me and it’s come up or happened to have stopped by at one point or another and watched a stream maybe.

See I know that to a LOT of people understanding what I do is easy but also hard.

There is the “you play video games live. like youtube.”

that’s the simple as fuck way to look at it

here is the detailed version.

-- I learn how to edit footage I record while streaming to upload to youtube. I do a basic type of editing where it’s not cut/shaved, I simply edit a days stream into episodes for daily uploads, these edits take me a few hours every time I do one streams worth of editing. so we’re looking at say a 5 hour stream takes me bout 3-6 hours of editing (waiting for videos to save is the majority of that time spent)

-- I have to learn how to trouble shoot game problems, software problems (OBS can be problematic and OBS is the program used to broadcast to twitch as well as record) I learn how to use external stuff like twitch alerts so that if someone follows, donates, hosts they can be recognized instantly for it. (usually meaning I’ve got to learn different software for that- it’s not DIFFICULT but it’s still a lot to learn, memorize, keep track of and adapt to as stuff like this always is changing on twitch)

-- I have to maintain a schedule. Now this to you probably is the confusing part.

“JM how is it hard to maintain a video game playing schedule?”

1- having depression and anxiety  means I can miss one day or a whole week of streaming because HAHAHA mental illness doesn’t give a fuck if I have people who like watching me, it comes and makes me unable to function.

2- I have other things to do too, I have friends, I have a book I’m writing, another one I’m editing/publishing. I have my own health to look after, I have work stuff responsibilities offline. SOMETIMES those get in the way or take priority to streaming. And that realistically speaking means “sometimes I have to give up time streaming where I could be entertaining people for something else.” and I’ll be honest- I hate it. If I was physically able and all- I’d stream all the time because I get joy knowing someone enjoys my casts, someone watches and loves watching me make an ass of myself playing games I love.

3- streaming is taxing. You may not think this but playing a video game- not that difficult (in comparison) but try doing that WHILE entertaining people. Like the best description I can give is remember in high school when you have to read a paper to the whole class? You wanna not BORE everyone, but you also wanna get it right? Well imagine WHILE reading that essay to a class watching and (for lack of better word) judging you, you’re trying to play your favorite game. Your mind is divided between “entertain the audience- be engaging, don’t ignore them, they are here for you, let them know you appreciate that and don’t want to alienate them by ignoring their presence.” and “PLAY THE FUCKING GAME entertain them you’re gonna die here, focus!!”

it can be taxing. especially for longer streams (for me an average cast is 3-5 hours. I have however done 24 hour streams before, 12-16 hours as well. Those casts are PHYSICALLY taxing as hell not to mention emotionally/mentally.)

-- Another thing- I have to keep up with trending games, but also play games I’ll enjoy. 

See this is the double edge sword of being a variety entertainer in video games.

Say I played only minecraft, I’d have a guaranteed audience. People who LOVE minecraft. They’d come for that and they could use that as a starting foundation to why they enjoy my content. BUT I’m not a minecraft streamer. I’m a variety streamer. So someone could follow me because I played dark souls last month, but this month I’m playing Rainbow Six Siege, a shooter game. They aren’t into that. why would they come back? I need to bring them back by my personality (which personally I find is my biggest flaw. I don’t know how my personality doesn’t drive people away, but I’m told it doesn’t and I’m TRYING to see it, and not be as harsh on myself in that area) 

See being a variety streamer means I can play EVERY game under the sun if I enjoy it, but I have to accept that people that show up- probably are short term viewers, because they are there for THAT game, not me. I can HOPE that they find me engaging enough to be like “you know what- fuck it I’ll hang out regardless, I like them, they’re cool/funny/engaging/nice/a welcoming place.” 

THIS is what I do 5 days a week. All this culminates in a few hours a day of entertaining where I boot up the stream and start off by saying “Good timezone everybody, how ya doin, welcome to the show, welcome to the channel, welcome to the chat.” It is done because truth be told when I’m doing it and I know people are enjoying it, and they are like vocal bout that enjoyment I get filled with a joy that I can only describe as that feeling when you “find your purpose.” because I am good not amazing but good at video games. I’m good at dry and sarcastic humor but I’m also good at wanting to make people happy. I might not always do it but my intent is what makes me keep trying day after day.

you’re probably wondering “whyyyyy the long post about this”

answer- because recently I’ve been facing a LOT of self doubt, self criticism and the like because I have not been growing streaming wise. I’ve streamed for an empty channel more than not. and I know it’s gonna be a thing but it makes me wonder what I can do to fix that. I know on twitter I can be more engaging and social I’m working on that. But here I wonder the most. WHAT is it about the people who follow me on TUMBLR and what can I do to invite you guys all of you to hang out with me for a few hours every day (but wed/friday) when I stream, how can I bring you guys over to hang out, join the chat and laugh with me when I fuck up, jump/scream with me when the game scares the shit outta me (or laugh at that, most of my friends laugh at that part honestly.)

I know so many my followers on here are huge gamer nerds, but I dunno how to invite you to share twitch with me, and our love of gaming

this bothers me because I want so badly to entertain you guys, it’s why I edit all my streams into YT playlists episodically so that if you miss streams you can go and binge the game on YT as if you didn’t miss it OR if you just wanna go back and rewatch a game cause you loved my play through. EITHER OR.

THIS is what’s bugging me tonight and it bugs me a lot because normally I can think my way out of problems, but this one I can’t.