#what i mean when i say i'm not really a viewer is i truly did not watch any episode the whole way through

[jhzhuxx]

maybe it doesn't account for much considering i'm a very casual viewer - in fact, even calling myself a viewer is generous - but the finale of hidden agenda really felt so mismatched with the rest of the series in a lot of different aspects. also appreciate what it did in highlighting tense family dynamics but it left a lot to be desired

[tabithatwo]

What do you think about the scene in ep1 where Shauna masturbates on her daughters bed while looking at pictures of her boyfriend? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I found it disturbingly similar to younger Shauna sleeping with Jackie's boyfriend

Oh hey, so this response is like perhaps over a year late but someone else asked me about this and I remembered I had 3/4 of this response drafted so hi I’m here now lmao

Anon, I do NOT think you’re overthinking this scene. I actually think there is so much room to think about this scene that a thesis could be written on it. It’s so layered and an incredibly bold choice on the show’s part to include it. It is our introduction to adult Shauna, and I think that the creators of the show clearly felt that it was very important.

This scene made me so uncomfortable as a first time casual viewer that I actually tried to rationalize it away. I remember saying aloud to the person I was watching with “No, that has to be her own childhood bedroom, right? She must be, like, visiting her aging parents?” Clearly I was ignoring the very ridiculous set design of Callie’s room entirely lol, but my mind wanted to find a different explanation. And it took me a while to come around to really loving Shauna as a first time viewer of the show, in part due to how much that scene shocked me.

All that to say, it is absolutely reasonable to find yourself very uncomfortable when thinking about that scene, as many people say that they do when they’re proclaiming that they wish it didn’t exist in the show. But I don’t think that means the scene should be ignored by any means. That discomfort is the point of the scene. Shauna is such a fascinating character, because she swings back and forth from shockingly depraved and cruel, to heartbreakingly kind and loving. She draws both the audience AND the other characters into this unpredictable back and forth with her, and it is easy for us AND them to forget what she is truly capable of when she is in one of her sweeter moments. That is what makes her one of the most fascinating characters of all time to me.

Okay, now we can get into my personal interpretation of this scene. I have always felt it was about Jackie. I think that was clear early on, but, after s2 aired, having more information about Shauna’s relationship with Callie did impact my interpretation of the scene and solidify some suspicions I had.

Shauna clearly does not see Callie as her daughter in any traditional sense. She tells Lottie as much, that she never could fully believe Callie was real and hers. And we see, with increasing clarity as the show goes on, that Shauna views Callie as a peer more than anything. Shauna has both stunted development and difficulty expressing affection. We see her tell Callie that it would’ve been easier if she HAD just had sex with the cop. That’s a very strong indicator of their dynamic. Shauna just doesn’t have the capacity to mother Callie.

That is important context because, with the scene in Callie’s bedroom, Shauna is recreating the thing she used to do when she was young and Jackie was alive. I don’t think she is even thinking about the fact that it’s her daughter’s boyfriend or bedroom, because she doesn’t even really think of Callie as her daughter much of the time. It’s so complex and muddled and, you guessed it, uncomfortable!

In my opinion, people are NOT ready for the intricacies of the ways Callie is a Jackie proxy for Shauna to be developed further. Like the show is establishing it pretty heavily, and I think in a very compelling way, but if it goes down that road more explicitly I have a feeling that people are not going to be able to separate the WAYS in which Shauna sees Jackie in her, if that makes sense.

I think s2 did have some compelling threads of this. Shauna caring for the Jackie corpse doll and getting frustrated and “hurting” her with the ear coming off scene. Shauna not being able to protect her, initiating and endorsing the consumption of her, then hinting at having fears that she’d hurt the baby when she was pregnant, losing the baby, worrying that they’d do to the baby what they did to Jackie, twisting it so much that she can’t help but believe they ate the baby too.

She associated the baby with Jackie very heavily. And in doing so, I think she parentified herself to Jackie in a really fascinating way, like Jackie was her first failure.

If she couldn’t care properly for Jackie, who loved her so much (and became an actual martyr and saint to her), and she couldn’t care for her children who were absolute innocents, then she must be the epitome of horrible and she should squash those caring instincts bc clearly they aren’t actually Good, type shit. That’s how I feel like Shauna spirals into her destructive behavior.

So what happens here, imo, is that Shauna doesn’t really see any of her relationships clearly. I don’t think she consciously thinks of Jackie as The Girl She Was In Love With, and I don’t think she consciously thinks of Callie as her daughter most of the time. Shauna just thinks of them both as people she has loved and failed, as well as people who piss her the fuck off and make her feel trapped in a life she doesn’t want.

She sees a lot of Jackie in Callie, and she acts out in really horrifying ways throughout the entire show to try and gain control, and this scene is one of them. Shauna has always used sex as a way to reclaim control, even when it is absolutely insanely inappropriate, and often when it isn’t at all about actual pleasure. We see more of this in s2, when she BRINGS JEFF TO THE ART STUDIO OF THE MAN SHE KILLED AND FUCKS HIM THERE (that was fucking INSANELY risky and destructive). With masturbating on Callie’s bed, looking at a pic of her bf, Shauna is acting from the same place she was when taking Jeff from Jackie in a way, and I get why that’s uncomfortable to watch. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable, it is SUPPOSED to!

But I think that we are viewing it with so much more logic and thought than Shauna is capable of applying. We draw conclusions from it that are based on a sane person, and Shauna is far from that. I think Shauna is briefly recreating multiple feelings and motivations that drove her to sleep with Jeff as a teenager. The sexual side of things is so wholly Jackie driven, she is constantly seeking ways to feel the way she felt when she was creating that proxy sexual connection with Jackie that she verbatim discusses with Jeff (which is so crazy btw not over that scene). But the side that relates to Callie is driven purely by the frustration and anger. Again, I don’t think Shauna has consciously thought about ANY of it, but if I had to interpret the driving emotions, then I think those would be the most likely.

And I think what it says about Shauna is that she is not living in reality in the slightest. You can not overstate the lack of conscious thought that goes into her actions when she does these things. She is acting on pure impulse, and without any certainty that anything is actually real.

She breaks my heart and this convo about the masturbation scene is so interesting to me because YEAH, that was a ROUGH introduction! and it took me rewatches to allow myself to dig into her character and that’s the point tbh.

On instinct, people either see the actions clearly and hate her, or obscure them to the point of forgetting they happened and love her. But it’s much harder to reckon with them and dig in and come out still loving her.

(I truly can’t believe I have to say this, but I was recently introduced to the fact that yj incest shippers exist, so disclaimer: this is NOT meant to be taken as a romantic or sexual interpretation of Shauna and Callie’s relationship at all. In fact, when I say that I don’t think people are ready for detangling the WAYS in which Shauna sees Jackie in Callie this is exactly what I mean. I just assumed people would wrongly assume it was That and be horrified. I didn’t consider the opposite, and I would like to continue not considering the opposite, so I will prob block anyone who engages with this in that way simply bc I do not want to see it and this is my social media lol)

[dollypopup]

also also- to cut so many intimacy scenes in a season where body positivity was the focus is a slap in the fucking face

The showrunners claiming that love scenes matter less after the couple has gotten together- bullshit. I call fucking bullshit. Because that scene of her riding him at the end of the season could have made up for a LOT of disappointment in the ending. That bed is symbolic. Them being TOGETHER in the bed is symbolic and meaningful and says so much and is such a perfect way to represent they are a unit again. He was on that sofa for so long in part because of a rift between them with Lady Whistledown in the storyline, but also because that was a safe place for him. That was the first place he and Pen had sex as a couple and they were happy and they were in love, and it was difficult for him to leave that.

A scene at the end where she is on top, riding him, and they are on the bed together, signifies his trust in her and them moving together into the future. It is important. And it should have gotten more than just 20 seconds on the screen. Her on top was meaningful, because in the carriage, she is a passive participant to pleasure. On the sofa, she asks him to tell her what to do, and when he says he'll do it all, she demands to be a part of it. And in riding him, she is an active party in the intimacy. He can relinquish the control, trusts her enough to do so, and she trusts him enough to be in the vulnerable position of being on top. A position women who have had concerns about their body in a fatphobic society know all too well. Why cut it so short? Why not truly lean into that?

You cannot pat yourself on the back as a body positivity season to make bank off of your plus size viewers and then cut so many intimacy scenes, Shondaland and Netflix. That's fucked. You cannot profit off of us and then do a half assed job in telling our stories.

Where are the fat writers in the room? The fat editors? To say 'actually, this love scene is important. we should cut something else'. Why is it that we don't get Colin going down on her? It was filmed, why was it cut? Why are there less intimacy scenes between Pen and Colin than there were for Benedict?

How are you going to claim over and over that this is representation, and then do our representation dirty? I would understand in part if it wasn't even filmed, for various reasons. Actors feeling uncomfortable, the scenes being unnecessary to the narrative itself- but they were filmed, and they were VITAL.

Pen and Colin are FROSTY after that Lady Whistledown reveal. To use words from a very hilarious video: he doesn't wanna dip his quill in her inkwell anymore after finding out about the lies. Because for Colin, love and intimacy and trust are all entwined. He can't have angry sex with her because he craves intimacy, not just sensation. To have one without the other isn't fulfilling for him. So they split apart and apart and apart, until they come together again. (pardon the innuendo) Them having sex at the end of the season is supposed to be the sigh of relief the viewers AND the couple get after that angst. It's the payoff. They had distance, and now they are together again. They were apart and now they are one. They are joined.

Where was the payoff?

Nicola talked about the importance of intimacy scenes, that they are not throwaways, that they mean something to the plot, and for them to be scrapped feels like an injustice. An injustice to the people who saw themselves represented in this story, (note: I'm a fat woman, and I'll say, I do NOT feel personally represented, because I'm a size 18/20 and a size 8 lead isn't my representation, but many many people do not feel as I do, and so if you DID see yourself on screen, I'm sorry: you deserved that intimacy montage), an injustice to the narrative, and an injustice to your actors, who put themselves in a very vulnerable position to deliver the most poignant love story they could, who really went for it, and who ended up on the cutting room floor.

Nic and Luke love this pairing, you can TELL they're shippers, you can tell they have so much empathy and adoration for Pen and Colin. They poured their heart into those scenes. To see them cut is a disservice and a disrespect.

We fucking deserved better.

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

TOM GLYNN-CARNEY INTERVIEWED BY HOLLYWOOD REPORTER MAGAZINE.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO READING THIS GRUESOME TURN OF EVENTS WHEN YOU FIRST LEARNED ABOUT IT?

"I knew it was coming."

"When it was coming, I wasn’t aware."

"But my immediate reaction was about how it came together by our amazing writers with this sort of amazing, theatrical, rousing, terrifying, unpredictable craftsmanship that I was very happy to be on the receiving end of."

FIRST LOOKING BACK ON EPISODE FOUR, WHILE IT SEEMED PRETTY OBVIOUS TO THE VIEWER, I'M WONDERING WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS GOING THROUGH AEGON'S MIND WHEN HE GOT ON SUNFYRE AND WENT CHARGING INTO THE BATTLE?

"He’d been a bit backed into a corner by all the things that have accumulated over time with being king, where his worst fears and insecurities were coming into plain sight and becoming true."

"He felt weak, and he was seen as weak, and kind of useless — with what Alicent (Olivia Cooke) had said to him (“Do nothing”) in his chamber, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back."

And he was just resigned: “I don’t have any option, I’ve got to prove myself in some way.”

"But you know, being the way he is, and not being an actual warrior with that sort of fearless courage that other people have, he had to numb himself and so he got blind drunk and jumped on a dragon."

HOW DO YOU THINK HE FELT ABOUT AEMOND'S BETRAYAL? IT SEEMED LIKE IT WAS CLEAR? I DID WONDER IF AEGON WAS TRULY SURPRISED...

"I think the moment of recognition was the fact that the fireball was coming at it."

"I don’t think he had time to think that he’s done this on purpose."

"If those thoughts are to come off, they will probably come later."

"As a viewer, I’m still unsure."

"I want people to make up their own minds."

THERE'S AN ARGUMENT TO BE MADE THAT SINCE THE BATTLE, AS DISASTROUS AS IT WAS, WAS EVENTUALLY WON, THAT HE SAVED THE DAY? AEGON THE HERO? OR NO.

"You’ve got to take them where you can get them."

"Yeah, he’s a hero."

WHAT'S THE PROSTHETIC PROCESS LIKE FOR YOU MOVING FORWARD?

"Long."

"Very detailed."

"I got to know my amazing hair and makeup team very well."

"I also got to know myself very well."

HOW DO YOU MEAN?

"The amount of time I was spending in that chair with those people in my own thoughts…. But yeah, [the prosthetics] really influences and informs my performance."

"It sort of instructs me how to move now."

"How you breathe, how you speak changes."

"I have a piece inside my mouth that I asked for to sort of distort my speech."

"So all this is great because it makes me feel like we’ve made a shift."

"Aegon has to have changed after this."

"We’re going to find a difference in him and and allow that to continue and [impact] his decisions and have a new approach to life."

YOU'VE MENTIONED CHANGING HOW HE MOVES. IN A PREVIOUS INTERVIEW YOU MENTIONED HOW AEGON USED TO MOVE DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU DO. WHAT WAS THAT DIFFERENCE?

"He’s a little bit more hunched."

"He is a bit narrower."

"I feel it’s a bit weak and more weaselly."

IS IT WEIRDLY MORE FUN TO PLAY HIM AS NOW? BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH MORE THEATRICAL, IN A WAY.

"Yeah! It feels like we’ve transitioned from Richard II to Richard III, if that makes any sense to you."

"Almost like a level up — though on paper, obviously, it’s a level down."

"I think what he loses physically he gains emotionally and mentally."

"I’m trying to see it like that."

THERE'S OBVIOUSLY A PARALLEL THERE TO HOW VISERYS WAS AT THE END, INFIRM AND GHOULISH. DID THAT INFORM YOUR PROCESS AT ALL?

"I mean, it’s just fraught with danger, isn’t it?"

"Having a crown on your head."

"Something nasty is going to happen to you at some point."

"Isn’t it being not having my crown on yet?"

"There’s definitely a Viserys comparison, especially toward his final days and in bed."

"No quality of life whatsoever."

"It was only weeks, months before his dad was in that same position and in that same bed."

LET'S SAY HIS FATE WASN'T LITERALLY WRITTEN. WHAT, IDEALLY, WOULD YOU WANT FOR YOUR AEGON'S FATE?

"I want it to be, in an ideal world, for there to be an opportunity to prove himself and make decisions that he has made — not somebody else who thinks they know better."

"To carve out his own path as king."

"And then just see if he fucks it up as much as people think he might."

"I’d like to give him the space and the time to work it out."

"It’s a dangerous request because they could go horribly wrong."

"I think people underestimate him."

I FOUND IT INTERESTING THAT NOT ONE PERSON SAT BY HIS BEDSIDE OR HELD HIS HAND OR TRIED TO COMFORT HIM IN ANY WAY — AT LEAST NOT IN THIS EPISODE. SEEMS PRETTY HARSH.

"It’s desperately, desperately sad."

"Aegon is a boy in a man’s body and all he’s ever wanted is to be shown love and made to feel seen or not judged."

"All these things that he’s done in the past that have given him a reputation, I believe he’s felt that any attention is good attention."

"Unfortunately, he’s made a name for himself now — people kind of want to keep their distance and they see him as a poisoned chalice."

"At the end of the day, he’s a product of his history."

"He hasn’t had the emotional intelligence to be able to deal with that in a healthy way and move forward from it."

"Back then, therapy wasn’t really a thing, was it?"

"He’s been left to his own devices."

[httpseungmxn]

Surprise!

Quackity X Streamer!Female Reader

🍬 - fluffy

Authors Note: Well howdy there new people and older readers, bet you’re surprised I actually decided to go through with this, hm? It was an idea for a while and now I’ve decided to type it out for all of you to read! Hopefully this is as good as I think it is! I hope you all enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing this! <3

Warnings: Cursing, from the reader once, reader is called “hermosa” at the end, that's it though!

Triggers: None as far as I’m aware!

Today wasn’t any different from any other day. Except it was. Today was your 21st birthday, and you decided to  spend it with a big birthday stream. Logging on as soon as you were done with lunch, sending an alert to your few viewers and starting the stream. Staring at the stream pulled up on your phone for a moment and immediately greeting your excited friend.

“ Thank you for the birthday wishes, its been a pretty okay day! Had some birthday pancakes for brunch and I'm wearing a cool shirt that was gifted to me! So let's see, what should we play today? Hmmmm, how's minecraft parkour sound? ”

Looking at the chat and smiling when the three people agreed it was a good idea. Pulling up a new parkour world you had purchased the night before for some fun. Nodding at something someone asked before remembering they can't see you.

“ Yeah, I saw the notifs from WhatsApp that Q is going live today. Maybe I'll tune in after my stream if he's still going. ”

Noticing one of the viewers leave just as you got the notification that Quackity was going live, pouting faintly before beginning to play. Under the impression that it was just one of the others. Though it wasn't, it was your best friend. 

While you were distracted with the parkour, your friend was logging onto the man's live and choosing when to get his attention. Immediately sending a superchat when he quieted down to read some of the chats. She had made sure it was a hefty amount so it would get his attention.

Relief flooded through her body when he noticed it and read it over. Quickly tapping back into your live before he spoke since she had already been gone a few minutes.

You were too focused on trying to escape the lava that was rising as you did the parkour. Letting out a faint curse when you jumped just a little far and fell to the platform below. Moving just as the lava rose to the platform you had been on.

Immersed in the game and trying to get to the end, until a familiar sound erupted from your stream. You had only heard it on a few lives before. Usually charity streams that people were doing. The sound of a raid happening.

Glancing at the screen, assuming maybe it was just some other small time streamer coming in with a few more viewers.

Almost losing your breath when you notice what the little notification says.

[ Quackity is raiding the stream with 19.8k viewers ]

Looking at the chat which was now booming with thousands of birthday wishes to you and others spurring you on since you were still in the parkour.

Voice shaky as you speak up finally, wondering if this is really happening or if you're still dreaming

“ Thank you, thank you so much for the uh…the birthday wishes. This is so nice. It means a lot to me! ”

A specific chat from the special man himself caught your attention, quickly reading it to yourself before you focused back on the parkour.

“ Yeah. Uh I mean, yes, I'll have my friend drop my discord handle in the- thank you, lenai. ”

Your nerves were popping now after rereading the chat he left that asked if he could call you so you two could speak. Calling was easier than risking losing chats in the thousands of messages people were leaving on the stream.

Accepting the request when it popped up and accepted the call when it flashed onto your screen. Calming your breathing for a moment and starting at the screen as he spoke up.

“ Happy Birthday, hope you don't mind us butting in. ”

“ No, No, I don't mind at all. This really means a lot to me, truly! ”

“ So, Minecraft parkour, hm? ”

“ Yeah, I'm a big parkour fan, I do a lot of it in my streams. Same with roblox obbies. I like challenges. ”

“ I think I have a challenge you'd like. ”

“ Oh? Do tell ”

The words escaped your mouth much flirtier than you meant for them to. Regret coursed through your body until you heard his laugh faintly in the background. Glancing at the chat and feeling your cheeks heat up upon seeing most of them talking about the flirting happening right now.

“ There's a world I've been playing on for a few days now. Huge parkour spaces, survival mode, mobs on hard mode. Escape the mobs and make it through the parkour. I have yet to make it through, that's how difficult it is. Think you'd be up for the challenge? ”

“ A chance to beat the Quackity at his own parkour? Definitely up for the challenge. ”

Smiling when you hear his laugh again, letting out a silent cheer to yourself when you see the end up ahead.

“ You've got some confidence, don't ya? And please, call me Alex ”

“ They say confidence is the key to success, Alex. ”

“ That they do..that they do. ”

Clapping to yourself when you make it through the end, watching the chat immediately get excited about your win.

“ Looks like I'm in for some competition. ”

“ You could say that. Text me whenever you want to do this challenge and I'll be there. ”

Finger tapping on your screen and getting ready to hang up the call. 

“ Wait! What's your name? ”

“ Its ____. See you later, Alex. ”

Smiling as you hang up the call with the boy. Butterflies swarming in your stomach. Having never interacted with a boy like that before. Especially not someone so popular.

Logging off of the world and saying your goodbyes to the stream after thanking everyone again for joining in. One last big chat catching your eye and causing a blush to spread across your cheeks.

[ See you soon, Hermosa. ]

Authors ending note; So what did we think? I actually really enjoyed writing this. I figured it was a nice sort of change and something others can enjoy reading as well! We need more Q gifs though cause looking for banner shaped gifs of him was so hard ! If you want more Q oneshots, tell me in the comments or drop an Ask into my box! Until next time, My Angels 🫶

[project-sekai-facts]

i recall some kind of theory or pointing out of the fact that tsukasa's focus sets have had him getting less and less authority each time, and with the role of a minor character, it seems to have been intentional

oh i remember a lot of players on JP and KR side pointing that out when Phoenix released! and yeah I think it's definitely true

he went from king -> commoner -> jester/circus performer (for the king) -> a shadow

actually i have a lot of thoughts about his new card and i doubt this set will get an official blog post so i might just ramble a bit. (ftr: haven't read the event yet, sekai.best isn't updating and i surprisingly haven't really found anything from looking through JP/KR side either). specifically, i have a few thoughts about tsukasa being a shadow in this card because it's actually way more than that. oh to be a media student

first off the costume name: phantasmagoria. according to wikipedia, this was an old form of horror theatre that involved projecting scary images. (it's quite interesting actually you can read the article here). the effects in phantasmagoria productions would be done using magic lanterns, the ones you slide a disc with a picture into so it projects it onto a wall. usually, they'd use rear projection, where the lantern is placed behind the surface it's being projected on (so the surface would usually be smoke or some sort of semi-transparent screen) to keep up the illusion (rear projection is how old movies did backgrounds for reference).

now here's where the light in the card comes into play. for starters, rear projection clearly isn't being used here because he's on the stage-thingy (that will be relevant later). also instead of the light shining at him as if he were the subject being projected, it's shining down on him. while partially this was definitely done in part for composition cool points (the composition on this card is so fucking good actually it has nothing to do with symbolism but like holy shit), it's very reminiscent of a spotlight. as i said, i haven't had the chance to read the event yet but i'm assuming this will connect with him having to play a minor role (or play the shadow as the gacha says) and still putting himself in the spotlight.

i like that idea actually because if you link the fact he's standing in the spotlight that means he is still casting a shadow. it may appear to the viewer as if he's the centre of attention - he's right in the light, literally hitting all the composition marks to make him the sole focus of the card - but he's still just a shadow in a larger phantasmagoria. and actually, the spotlight sort of goes around him, he's pretty much cast in darkness despite being in the light and i love how that reflects him being part of a smaller role or "shadow". he stands in the spotlight and puts on a great show no matter if he's truly the star.

lastly: the pose. now look at this 4koma where he does a bird pose:

familiar? while in this 4koma he's meant to be imitating an eagle, i can't help but notice some striking similarities in how he's posed.

also the gacha has a feather! specifically a black one. unfortunately since there are no actual birds on the cards, nor are there feathers, I can't tell you exactly what bird he is meant to be..,

although if you wanted to really grasp at straws then his last event was called Towards the Phoenix at the Sky's Edge the play from that event was called Happy Phoenix and both the play and the lead role in it are incredibly significant to Tsukasa personally and he ended up cast as the lead role in that play and even though the lead role isn't the phoenix that bird is still significant to him in some way.

also going all the way back to the original point of his class decreasing with every set i think while yes in this set he has been reduced to nothing more than a prop, or even less so a mere shadow, but at the same time if you chose to go with that incredibly reachy phoenix idea, it's a comeback. the phoenix rises from the ashes, tsukasa can be reduced to nothing and still be the star owning the spotlight, the most powerful one in the room. hell, he's still on a stage despite everything. i think it's super neat actually that despite this being him at the lowest rank, he's actually in the place where he belongs.

i believe i've only briefly mentioned it in passing on this account before, but theatre is his life. above all else Tsukasa is an actor and the stage is where he thrives. i think it's so interesting how with each set he loses authority, but he also gets closer to being on the stage. the king is at (well, near) his castle where he leads (link to WMS), Torpe is at his piano where he performs (link to Dazzling Light), the Jester is at the circus where he performs, and then you get the one that's hardest to define as any set character. it's not a king or a pianist or jester, it's just some performer on a stage. this time there's no character, and it's not just "some performer" because this is tsukasa. it's still another role, but this time the role is, as the event synopsis states, more "real". this is tsukasa where he belongs, he never needed any sort of power or to play the role of another performer in order to shine because he himself is a performer at his core. Torpe is a performer, but Torpe is not Tsukasa. Tsukasa is Tsukasa, and Tsukasa is a performer. Something like that.

sekai.best please update

[luckthebard]

So this is a very niche rant that is probably only something I've noticed or been annoyed by, but:

The longer Critical Role has gone on and the more changes they've made/content they've created, there's been an increase in weird people who are desperate and determined to prove that changes or content they don't like are "an objective failure" - but often lie or deliberately misunderstand viewership statistics to do so.

There are a few big "facts" I see repeated by people to argue that CR has "gone in the wrong direction" that are just plain wrong, and I think what annoys me most is seeing so many people engage with those "facts" without bothering to double-check them or push back against the certainty with which people state them. An example of one I keep seeing now is "twitch streaming numbers are down" and it's like, yeah, sure, in comparison to when they didn't simultaneously air on YouTube. If you add up the YT and Twitch numbers these days it's about the same as mid-late C2, but people love to act like YT streaming doesn't exist to make a point that "people don't like C3". And I tbh don't care if people like or dislike C3 but why this determination to falsely quantify and validate a personal preference?

The earliest I saw this was an intense agreement on reddit that Exandria Unlimited was a "failure" for CR, "unlike Undeadwood," because viewership numbers were lower. And it was tbh baffling to not see pushback against that narrative, because it's just objectively untrue. Original EXU's VOD streaming numbers are higher than every single episode of Undeadwood, and it premiered literally years later. It also has a lower "drop-off" in viewership (comparison of how many views episode 1 vs the finale has) than Undeadwood, despite frequent claims to the contrary. And don't mistake me here, I really enjoyed Undeadwood, but it actually was a viewership misstep for CR to the degree that they didn't try anything like it again for a while after and significantly changed how they approached marketing and airing miniseries. (A big one being: don't air a long miniseries simultaneously with the main series, it's too much content for most people to invest in during a week.)

(Sidebar, but another great miniseries CR did that didn't get a lot of viewership love is the Elder Scrolls Online trilogy, so I'm going to plug it here. It has some weirdly low viewership numbers on episodes 2 and 3 and I promise you they're both well worth it.)

The other one I keep seeing is "4 Sided Dive has lower numbers than Talks" which is also just not true. Most 4 Sided Dive VODs have nearly twice as many views as Talks VODs (and I'm using the ones that aired directly on the CR channel as a metric here, not the ones re-uploaded from G&S which lost numbers in the change-over). And I'll tbh chalk that up to the fact 4SD airs much less frequently - people are more likely to think it's necessary to watch whereas with Talks if you weren't interested in the guests you might skip a week. I'm not making any claims about the quality of either show, but the use of false viewership statistics to support "one of these sucks" is so rampant and so weird.

All this to say that yesterday I saw a weird viewer-hungry YouTube clickbait video titled "Midst a FAILURE for Critical Role!!" with a truly absurd confidence on what the VOD streaming numbers for the Midst YouTube videos mean for the series mere days after the premier and snapped.

tl;dr, people just make shit up and say whatever on the internet all the time and we hopefully all understand and expect that BUT (and here's the more annoying thing) 9 times out of 10 people just engage with that WITHOUT LOOKING INTO IT THEMSELVES

[dust-jacket-analysis]

I was gonna make this an anonymous confession on @tmf-confessions but decided to be brave and actually post it here, so here goes nothing.

I've seen a lot of people suggest that, outside of his own insecurities and inner turmoil, there "must be a reason Drew bullies the club." Or that "The club had to have done something to cause Drew to start bullying them."

And no hate to anyone who has made this take, but every time I see this I facepalm. Because no.

Now, I'm the first person to come and argue in defense of Drew as a character. I love him dearly and consider him one of the best-written characters in the series. He has that full package that I just eat up in a character every time. The good writing, the parallels to multiple cast members, and he's angsty as hell.

But, despite my deep love for this character, I still can acknowledge that him bullying the club, is wrong. It's a bad thing to do. But I find a lot of Drew stans cannot admit that. That's a whole other conversation though.

The point is, I notice a lot of people across the tmf community search for a reason to justify Drew's bullying. And I just find that wrong.

For one, on a writing perspective, it really diminishes his character. A part of why he's so fascinating is because he's flawed. And it's not something small that people find annoying, it's a big thing that makes people think about morality and all that. He's doing something that so many viewers have experienced ourselves, have been impacted by. Something that everyone of us can see is reprehensible and morally wrong. Whether you love him or not, that's a basic thing we should be able to agree on.

So to have something have happened? Write in that the club had done something that caused Drew to bully them? That's taking away that flaw, and almost like justifying it. Saying it wasn't so bad because the club "deserved it."

And that leads me to point number two.

A lot of people point out that Drew listens to music. Constantly has airpods in. "So there has to be a reason, because it's not simply due to them liking music because he does too."

And... yes but no.

It isn't because they like music, but it isn't not? Truly the reason Drew is a bully is because of his own inner conflict with himself. Hailey was spot on when calling him insecure because that's exactly what it is. He was just able to hone in on the Club because they liked making music. Because it was a hobby that in that universe is considered weird or odd.

Basically, them being musicians just made them easy targets for Drew to project onto. So it is and isn't the reason he bullies them.

The problem with suggesting anything otherwise, is that it pushes a narrative. A narrative that you did something to warrant or deserve the bullying. It would spin things to make Drew look better and the club look like the assholes who deserved the years of mistreatment.

Which isn't true! I don't even like the club that much, but they did not deserve the bullying. They were pretty much minding their own business when Drew started being a prick.

And that is how it is with bullies in real life! You usually didn't do anything to provoke a bully. They just are miserable and insecure people projecting onto easy targets.

And there are obviously outliers. But this is not one of those cases. Drew's an asshole and bullied the club of his own fruition and reason. Not because they "did something first."

This doesn't mean you can't like him or enjoy his character. He's written in a way where you're supposed to despite his flaws. But it get's annoying when people try to justify and erase the bad things he's done for those reasons.

[ruufie]

So there's something we really need to talk about, generally as a collective, but especially in nerd/fandom spaces. And that's the collateral damage that comes with hyper-policing of "objectionable" content that will inexorably roll into fascism. Strap in, this is that kind of Tumblr post.

If you look at the of ideology of generations throughout the twentieth century, there's a pattern: each new gen is going to swing opposite of their parents. 50's patriotism, 60's and 70's hippies, 80's Reagan era America, 90's 3rd wave feminism, 00's ultra patriotism, you get the idea. So to some extent, it's not that surprising that Gen Z is starting to lean conservative. But as someone who's been in fandom spaces for well over two decades now, believe me when I tell you that the pendulum has swung so far right that--given the current political climate in America (and to some extent globally)--this is a microcosm of a much bigger issue.

Back in the 2010's, the internet was starting to grow its roots. The truly experimental days of random websites, chat sites, strange niche forums, etc, had started to congeal into a handful of massive platforms. Facebook was taking off. YouTube was past its baby stage and into its adolescence. There was a fragile stability that allowed for growth and expression in art. Particularly in fandom culture. We as a generation were growing with this new, amazing technology. And humans, when curious, like to stretch their limits. Fandom and geek spaces stretched wide, from insanely ambitious fancomics to the dredges of FF.net. And a not insignificant part of this new community was diving into the dark and the taboo.

Artists and writers wanted to explore all elements of humanity. Because, plainly, we weren't allowed to experiment with mass media. And so we made our own. Queer kids explored identity and sexuality, trauma survivors craved catharsis. Growing brains tapped into the dark and depraved if only to see where it led them. It was a playground. It wasn't always safe, and it wasn't always productive. Sometimes it was just porn for porn's sake. But that in and of itself was not a moral judgment. Sure, you'd absolutely get side-eyes if you proudly boasted that your favorite anime OVA was Boku no Pico, but most people would laugh it off at a convention and then head out to their next panel.

What I'm saying is, ten, fifteen years ago, there was a sense of understanding that the dark, sexual things in fandom spaces were just another facet of the culture. This is not to say that truly disturbing media and criticism of it did not exist. Hell, when Twilight debuted, I was one of the first of my high school to criticize the abusive relationships for what they were. The ability to criticize, to analyze and reflect on what makes something "good" or "bad" is a healthy mechanism to have. And those who did not want to engage with material that they found disturbing or uncomfortable simply didn't have to engage with it. It's why AO3 has tags. It's why Tumblr has a block or mute tag function.

But what we're seeing now is so far beyond the healthy critiquing of distasteful art. More and more now I've been seeing well meaning, liberal presenting voices equate real harm to distasteful material found in books, movies, TV shows, you name it. That is not to say that things like racial stereotypes or romanticised abuse does not have real world implications. But it is one thing to point out that "hey, 50 Shades of Gray is an unrealistic depiction of a BDSM lifestyle and if you try these things you'll likely get hurt" and "seeing characters on screen have sex violates my consent as a viewer." (that is a real argument I have seen online)

There is a hyper moral slant to this kind of thinking. The same line of thought that immediately equates "a character does a bad thing" to "the author must condone this bad thing." I have always said that we do not have a lack of media literacy, but an uptick in a reaction based economy. That reacting to a controversial thing without first digesting the thing you're reacting to gets good views and feeds the algo, so the conversation then becomes a shouting match between people that haven't even seen the damn thing. This is how you get people coming away with "Steven Universe is a show that supports genocide" with their full chest.

The push to have blatant censorship in fandom is upsetting for a good number of reasons. It's discouraging to younger creatives who want to play in those spaces for their own reasons, and it feeds into a frenzy of paranoia. Because at a certain point, it no longer becomes about the art, but whether or not you, with your Right Opinion, is the first on the dogpile.

So what does this have to do with fascism? A whole hell of a lot.

One of the first targets in a fascist regime is art. It's expression, it's creativity. Why? Because creativity is often the best vehicle (sometimes the only vehicle) to criticize the people in power. Why do you think gigantic corporations are trying to push AI art on us so bad? Because art makes us human, and humans like to point out when Shit Is Going Bad. So if you take the human out of the art, you can trick people who aren't looking too closely into being compliant.

The recent hyper-policing of fandom spaces is a tool of fascism. This is not hyperbole, nor hypothetical. It is the reality of how fascism lives and breathes. If you can convince a population to weed out the "bad" art on their own volition, weeding out the rest on your own is a piece of cake.

Before anyone puts words in my mouth, I am not talking about child abuse content, content surrounding victims of trafficking, revenge porn, or anything that brings actual physical or psychological harm to another person. With that being said, policing sexual content in fandom leads to policing any kind of intimate content at all. And as so often is the case, queer content is often lumped in with the former, despite the fact that identity and gender has nothing to do with sexuality. And that sexuality itself is a part of the human experience, and its rejection of its imitation in art is a rejection of that humanity. It's the dominos that lead into history being flat out erased. Once all the nasty sexual content is dead and gone, they'll push further. What conflict, what subject matters, are obscene? Coming of age stories? Slice of life stories? Epic fantasies, scifi, non fiction? Perhaps all of them. You can't be too careful. The heart and soul of stories, art, poetry, expression, all of it is subject to the whims of an oligarchy that frankly doesn't care if you have food in your fridge. If you speak up, speak out, put your foot down, you too are subject to those same whims. And it is so much easier to make sure you shut up forever than to be diplomatic.

We are facing a dictatorship here in America. We are going to be looked in the eye and told that we do not matter. That the best thing for us to do is to stay in line and be thankful for the stale bread on our plate. The last thing you should be doing right now is trying to speed up the process.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Doctor Who: Dot and Bubble (14x05)

Wow, holy shit. This season keeps getting better and better.

Cons:

I really only have one tiny complaint, and it's that I wish the walking thing had been done a little differently? I think, allegorically, the idea that they all need arrows and instruction to be able to walk around when they have their bubbles up all the time is a good idea. Like, often when I'm driving somewhere I should know how to get to on my own, I still pull up the map on my phone just as an extra sense of security, or because I never bothered to fully memorize which side street to turn down or what have you. So it makes sense on that level. But the part where Lindy is literally running into poles and desks and stuff read as a little too ridiculous. I wish it had been a little less literal? Like what if instead of running into stuff, it's that Lindy is overwhelmed by the variety of things she's looking at around her, constantly distracted and overwhelmed, and she needs to mutter instructions to herself in order to force herself to walk, and she still takes the sharp 90 degree turns everywhere because that's what she's used to. And then when faced with a monster right in front of her that's blocking her most natural path towards the exit, she freezes up and can't figure out how to make herself find an alternative route right away. That would work better than the scene where she's literally just running into a pole multiple times.

Pros:

But honestly! What a fucking stunning episode, with one of the best... I guess you could say, "twists", of any Doctor Who episode I can ever remember seeing. I'm not talking about the computers turning on the citizens of Finetime, I'm not talking about the home-world being taken over and not coming back to save everyone. I'm talking about Lindy and the others rejecting the Doctor's help at the end of the episode. That scene is an all time classic, instantly, I just know it.

But first let's back up and talk about Lindy as a character. I think this episode hinges on the way she toes the line the whole episode - you don't understand at first if Lindy is an example of her society, the same as everyone else, or if there's something special about her. Is she an exception to some rule, or just a coincidental POV character? She's terrified, but she tries her best - I was moved by the moments when she realizes how truly helpless she is without the bubble and cries out "I'm so stupid!" You feel a certain sense of connection with her utter helplessness and fear. She's so coddled, so trapped in her bubble, literally, that everything new and scary seems hostile to her.

So... she can be forgiven for not instantly trusting the Doctor and Ruby, right? Right? I mean, they're strangers who came out of nowhere, and she has no idea what's going on. She's just a girl in a socially dystopian scenario where everyone's so addicted to their phones that they've shut out the rest of the world, and she needs help!

That's layer one to what's going on here.

But underneath that layer, you start to notice other things pretty early on. We learn about Finetime, we learn that it's a place that only the most elite people send their children to work. We learn eventually that the very computer program running their lives has started to get sick of them and has decided to exterminate them due to the... inanity, the intolerable repetitiveness, of their pointless, vapid lives. This isn't a situation where everyone in the world is like these people. This is a situation where the wealthiest and most privileged have literally cut themselves off from experiencing anything outside of what they know, and it's a look at the reinforcement of certain beliefs that exist in that society, due to the extreme level of shelter these people are subjected to.

The way that privilege operates within the episode is also subtly and effectively condemnatory to the viewer, or at least to this viewer, in a way that really worked. I did note the whiteness of this world, specifically the white, blonde, stereotypically attractive, thin, able-bodied woman serving as our protagonist. She seemed to represent a type of person; she stands in for a type of ignorance and privilege that we recognize in our own world. But when that moment came at the end where Lindy and the other survivors reject the Doctor's help? You bet your ass I was scouring the background of the scene, searching for any people of color in the shot. I didn't find any. And yeah, it hadn't occurred to me that all the faces we see in Lindy's friend group, all the people we see in this whole world, were white - a white majority is burned into our brains as a default, it's what I, a white person myself, am accustomed to seeing on the screen.

I think the reason the scene at the end is going to stick in people's heads is because it's not a metaphorical bigotry the Doctor suffers in this moment. It's actual, it's in your face. These people aren't "symbolically" bigoted of the Doctor's otherness, they're literally just racists. They're fucking racists. And Lindy never was special - she only lasted as long as she did because her last name starts with a letter later on in the alphabet. She is utterly typical of the people in this world, and this world is a world of white supremacy, and that's all there is to it.

Ncuti Gatwa's performance of outrage and grief was absolutely stunning. I saw one reviewer talk about how it makes sense that the Doctor being Black hasn't been addressed on screen yet, as it would be a pretty wretched look for the show to cast this actor in the role and then have the character immediately suffer racism because of it. But at the same time, it should be addressed in some way, and here's the way in which it finally is. I was also moved by Ruby's silent grief. For the treatment of her friend, but also for the way in which something so evil and stupid and pointless is going to result in all these young people probably dying in the forest, all because they couldn't look past their ingrained prejudices to accept help from someone they deemed their inferior. Gatwa screams and laughs and it's clear that he's feeling so many things, such helplessness and bewilderment and frustration. I don't know how much the show will go into this, but it would be so interesting to have the character reflect on this moment where he realizes something completely arbitrary and out of his control actually has an impact on his ability to do his job well. The character has been a white man a bunch of times in a row, then a white woman, and now a Black man. The mind fuck of having direct evidence of how the world's prejudices work in all ways big and small... what an interesting avenue for the show to explore.

I should also bring up Ricky September, legend, gone too soon from this world, shoulda joined the Doctor and Ruby in the TARDIS and had a threesome with them, tbh. I love what this character represents. At first, he seems like the ultimate symbol of this vapid, image-obsessed, bubbled society, as he's shown mugging the camera singing twinkly little songs and being a sex object for his followers. But then we meet him, and he's a genuinely nice, thoughtful person who does his best to help Lindy. We learn that it's possible to live a life using the bubble for work and then logging off, learning more about the world through history instead of constantly partying and getting caught up in the moment. This story isn't really one about "kids these days on their phones with the TikToks and the blah blah blah." It's more about being entrenched in a loop, stuck with your head in the sand. And Ricky is someone who proves that there is a way to operate outside of that system. He's not necessarily a paragon of anti-racist virtue, but he's a dude who at least has taken some steps to push back against that automatic entrenchment, proving that such a thing can be done, even given the social pressures to sink into the reinforced bubble of prejudice. I also loved Ruby and the Doctor both having a crush on him.

And I love how his character winds up, a turning point where we're starting to realize that Lindy might not actually be redeemable as someone we need to be rooting for. Her sacrifice of her celebrity crush to the killer Dot was brutal, and it feels like such a good appetizer for the final scene of the episode, as the twist comes fully into play.

I think that without that final reveal at the end, this would still have been a good episode of Doctor Who. But with it, it's an all-time great episode. God, I already feel like I want to do a re-watch just to catch more of the build to that moment. I hope that next week we get more time with the Doctor, as we've had two Doctor-lite episodes in a row. But seriously - this season just keeps getting better and better as it goes.

10/10

[full-clown-car]

Something I really liked about Midsommar is how well they established how smart, well-educated people can still be horrible in their own right. Christian, Mark, and Josh are all anthropology graduate students, with Josh even being clearly well-versed and dedicated to the field. He reads books about niche cultures as a hobby, while on travel. He knows what an attestupa is and is eager, if somewhat apprehensive, to see a real one in person. He clearly goes in ready to view it with an open mind to the cultural practice, even if he knows how disturbing it's going to be, just for the sake of his own education. And he still fucking sucks as a person.

I think it's well enough established that Christian and Mark are kind of assholes, and also that they're mediocre at best in the field of anthropology. Mark's reaction to the grief shown by the Harga over his urinating on their sacred tree shows that he has no capability to open his mind to the cultural experience they're having about the defilement of this monument to the deceased. He wouldn't be able to adequately educate an outsider on their relationship to the spiritual world, because he is entirely closed off to that experience. You get the sense that this entire trip to Halsingland is, like, a super weird vacation for him. He cares a great deal about the experience of their drug trip and wants them to all come on together, but not because of any particular connection to the way the Harga use the hallucinogens. He just wants to go to a festival on vacation and do drugs.

(And yes, I know that the Harga are a cult. Midsommar is not setting up the viewer to think of their practices as such a great thing. I'm just talking about what the mindset should have been like from an anthropological perspective. Participants should be willing to participate with the purpose of learning what this means to the culture in which they are immersing. Mark and Christian have failed at that profoundly, and even Josh lets his curiosity get the better of him when he refuses to respect the way the Harga elders view their book of sacred paintings.)

And then there's Christian. I really like the way his character has been built, because we can see that he is consistently indecisive and directionless as a character. This isn't just reflected in his failure to end his relationship with Dani even as he began to experience feelings that it wasn't what he wanted. Christian seeks safety in the past of least resistance in all regards. We see it when Josh gets angry at him for copying his thesis. Josh isn't just angry about that, he's angry because he's observed that Christian has been a hanger-on through the duration of their graduate career. How did Christian even end up in grad school for anthropology anyway? We don't know - possibly he chose anthropology as his major in undergrad because he didn't know what else to commit to, and proceeded on to grad school when an immediate career path didn't present itself to him. Whatever the reason, we can see that in all aspects of his life, Christian doesn't really seem to fully understand why he is where he is, but he lacks the motivation to examine where he truly wants to be and take the necessary steps to get himself there. So now he's found himself in the position of needing a thesis done, not knowing exactly what he wants to say but having the opportunity to write about a once-in-a-lifetime cultural practice and knowing he can probably coast on a paper about that. He offers to collab with Josh, proposing it as a favor to him, which Josh sees right through because he can tell that Christian wants to collab with him because Christian will not be able to fabricate any real ideas about this experience on his own.

But Josh, man. Josh knows what he's doing. We see Josh reading the text on historical Northern European tribal symbols on his way to the Midsommar festival. Josh asks questions of all members of the Harga and deliberately arranges opportunities to learn about their culture. But let's talk about Josh's fallacies. He sees himself as an academic before being, you know, a person. His failure to truly connect with the Harga is reflected in his inability to connect with other humans in his own group. Let's talk about his relationship with Dani. He doesn't respect her because Christian doesn't respect her, and he likely sees her as an inconvenient hanger-on to his anthropological trip. Like all of Christian's friend group, he is well aware that Dani has recently experienced a major life trauma revolving around the act of taking one's own life and that of others. And yet, though we see that, unlike the others, he has a good idea of what's coming at the attestupa, he doesn't bother to warn Dani. It would take him all of ten seconds to gather an ounce of human compassion and be like, hey, you're not in anthropology, and you're really struggling right now, you might wanna hang back for this one. But Josh doesn't bother. If it's not serving his own academic career, he simply doesn't care.

Josh's failure to connect to humanity reflects in his failure as an anthropologist. A skilled immersive anthropologist remains empathetic and in active participation with the cultural views of the culture they have joined - or at least, open to them. From an anthropological standpoint, Josh should have gone along with the Harga elder's refusal to allow documentation of the Oracle's paintings, in the name of participating in the way the Harga view those paintings. But he was so tantalized by the prospect of writing about material that no other anthropologist had yet seen that he chose to violate the terms of existence held sacred by the group in the first place.

I see a lot of people talking about how cults recruit vulnerable people, and how this made it easy for Pelle to target Dani as a potential new member. This is very true. But there were weaknesses to exploit in the others that show exactly how they were drawn to Pelle as well. Mark absolutely does not understand what he's doing in fieldwork. He sees it all as, like, this far-out trippy vacation and he goes into it having absolutely no idea what mentality is required of him as an anthropological professional. Christian himself is vulnerable in his own way, confused about what he wants in life and relying on others to give him the direction he's not courageous enough to take. And Josh is so hungry to be the best academic in the field, so absorbed in the nature of his own work, that he is functionally wearing blinders to the human perspective required to be a decent participant of that work. Josh is a stellar researcher, but he sucks at immersive work. This is a weak point that Pelle absolutely takes advantage of, because of course Josh will jump at the chance to see the Harga in action without questioning what will be required of his own living perspective while engaging in Harga life activities.

These people are all meant to be a group of intelligent, driven young men, and yet they all still kinda suck. Even Josh, arguably the smartest of the group, kinda sucks as a person. I definitely think that Midsommar calls upon the viewer to examine that in professionals amid certain academic fields, and to highlight where many of these people think they are protected by their status as so-called professionals and where it makes them blind to their own vast personal fallacies.

[miss0atae]

4Minutes a science-fiction story with near death experience and time travel (Ep 1):

I recently watched the first episode of 4Minutes. I finally found how to do it. I was really anticipating this series. I thought I knew what the story would be. I read the synopsis, I read other posts about it, I saw the pictures and the gifs and I made my own story in my mind. I don't know for you, but I can never stop myself from imagining what the story can be. As long as I have few information about a story, my mind is already working and trying to convince me about how the story will be told. After watching the episode there is one thing that it's true: I knew nothing. Let me explain, what I imagine it would be, wasn't what I watched. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate what BOC is trying to do with its BL stories. Kinnporsche was this revisited mafia story, Dead Friend Forever played with the tropes of teen horror movies and now 4Minutes is showing us a mix of noir fiction and science-fiction. I wasn't expecting it and I find it truly interesting to see what they can do. I appreciate how they never use the same formula story for their projects and how they try to give us something different. So I'm not going to review the episode because so many people did it better than me. I just want to talk about why I consider 4Minutes to be a noir science-fiction story at its core and how the link between near death experience and time travel make sense together .

Let's start with saying what is a noir fiction and what is science-fiction and then we'll see why I think it works for 4Minutes. A noir fiction is a genre that really changed a lot. However there are some recurring characteristics: a corrupt system, corrosive effect of money, absurdity of the existence and psychological instability. I would also say that you can also find a mix of violence and sex too as it's often links to the Human condition. In 4Minutes, Great our main protagonist comes from a family who runs a company that serves as a cover for their illegal business. In this first episode, the patriarch of the family is entrusting his first son, Great's older brother Korn, into the “investment department” where most of their illegal business is occurring. We learn that the family has made their fortune through this means. Korn doesn't reject the idea. He is only fearing the difficulties to manager this new job. Is he accepting it because he believes it's right or because he doesn't have another choice… it remains to be seen. Korn and Great's family environment isn't really good. The two brothers, despite being half-brothers are close, but Great is avoiding his parents. As for Korn, he seems to hide them a part of his life such as his relationship with Tonkla (is it because it's a man or because they have this vibe of sugar baby/sugar daddy, we don't know yet). About Great, we know he is drinking and smoking, so mostly he doesn't have a healthy lifestyle and his parents usually have to save him when he mess up. At the beginning of the story, Great is experiencing his first 4minutes time travel that will remain the central plot of the story. This experience puts him in a psychological distress as he can't find a rational explanation to it.

Which leads me to why I believe the story is also from the science-fiction genre. Great is experiencing precognition and time travel and those are topic of undiscovered scientific possibilities you can usually find in science-fiction. It allows the characters and the viewers to experience speculative events. The premise of time often involves changing history or the future. As for now, Great can go back in the past 4 minutes. He only experienced it few times in the episode so he and us, don't know yet how everything is working or why is he experiencing it. Usually, time travel is about altering the past and see how it changes the future to create an altered present or future. The first time, it happened to Great he didn't avoid the woman, but she wasn't as hurt as she was supposed to be. The second time, it changed his first meeting with Tyme. Will Great do more change when he'll accept his new power or will he tries to avoid it? How is it really working? We'll have more answers in the next episodes. I wonder if the story will focus on the paradoxes and alternate timelines or if it's going to be more about contemporary and social issues. The latter works well with the noir fiction, but it's still too early to draw any conclusion. The first episode just set the plot, but also showing us some characters and their links together. I feel we still haven't seen everything.

Then we have another part that was developed in the story and it's near death experience (NDE). I believe it links together the number 4 (Great goes back 4 minutes in the past with his time travel power) and the idea of a time warp as an imaginary spatial distortion. Through this spatial distortion the character could possibly change the past and therefore change the present and the future. I will try to make it simple because it seems easy in my head, but I'm not sure I'll be able to write it properly. So firstly, the number four is considered unlucky in Thai culture, as it is in other cultures too. It is associated with death and bad luck. The Thai word for four, “si,” is also a homophone for the word “death.” Then, we have Dr. Den (a co-worker of Tyme) who is working on NDE by interviewing people who faced it. Their comments are common traits reported by NDErs: a bright light above, a sense of awareness, an out-of-body experience, being(s) dressed in white, receiving a life review… Most NDErs when “coming back” feel a change of attitudes and behaviors. It doesn't mean all of them are positive (I feel like it could be associated with Great's psychological answer after discovering his power). It's also important to notice that Great started to get his power of going back to the past 4 minutes ago, after he hit a woman who wanted to die. So his power of “time travel” is linked to death. I wonder if the series is questioning the paradox of Time: is death the end of time and does time has any end? If we can manipulate the time, can we manipulate death and consequently life too? Maybe I'm trying to find something too complicated in here, but I like that it made me do all these researches. I'm sure it's not a coincidence between all these plot sets, but we'll probably get more answers in the next episodes.

I think BOC is really putting a challenging story and I can’t wait to see how they will do it.

[randombrambles]

Okay...going to wade into the Sabezra discussion. May the flying spaghetti monster in sky have mercy on my soul...

I guess you could call me a "causal viewer" because, despite being a life long Star Wars fan, I'd never watched an episode of Rebels before watching Ahsoka. I just never got around to it and I've only watched a handful of eps of The Clone Wars too. But anyway once I started Ahsoka I was like "this show will clearly make more sense if I watch Rebels" so I started. I'm almost done season 3 of Rebels as of writing this post. And really loving Rebels btw. Part of me of like "why didn't I watch this earlier?" but on the other hand I don't have to wait for the next episode and I know the major spoilers already so I'm not going to get the rug yanked out from under me.

So back to Ahsoka and Sabezra...the big questions. Did I see the romance "coding" (not sure I agree "coding" is the right word but whatever, that's semantics) in Ahsoka? Yes. Sabine's actions definitely come across as her being in love with Ezra to me. That said I can also see the platonic angle, especially after having watched some of Rebels, so I'm not going to tell anyone they are wrong for viewing Sabine and Ezra's relationship as platonic. These things are subjective and open to interpretation until anything definitively romantic or definitively not romantic happens on screen. And at this point nothing definitive has happened either way on screen. Nobody has been proven right and nobody has been proven wrong yet. Sabezra is basically schrodinger's cat right now.

Next how did I interpret the "like a sister" line in Ezra's holo. Um...full disclosure the first time I viewed that scene I didn't even register that he'd said she was "like a sister" to him. I'd never even seen Rebels at that point so I didn't know Ezra yet. So as a causal viewer my take away from that scene was Ezra meant a lot to Sabine and Sabine meant a lot to Ezra. And I'd be wiling to bet that that was the takeaway for most causal viewers.

So on rewatch do I think the "like a sister" line means that Ezra truly sees Sabine as a sister? No. On rewatch, paying close attention to the body language, and after having watched some Rebels, I think Ezra is both struggling to find the words to tell Sabine how important she is to him and telling her what he thinks she needs to hear in that moment. The problem is that in English we don't have a word to describe someone isn't technically family but who isn't a lover either but who's also way more than "just" a friend. Sister is the best word Ezra can come up with in that moment but you can tell from his awkward body language and his literal scoff as soon as he says it that its not the right word. And yeah I think Ezra thinks that Sabine sees him as a brother so he tells her what he thinks she wants to hear right before he heads of on what very well could have been a suicide mission.

Do I think Sabezra is going to be made canon on Tuesday's final episode of Ahsoka (of season 1 at least). No, but hold on nobody panic!!! I also don't think that means Sabezra is dead in the water either. And frankly I'm kind of mystified as to why Sabezra shippers seem to think that the next episode is make or break for Sabezra when its clearly not? If there isn't a love declaration or a kiss or both (which is what I'm assuming people would interpret can them being made canon) its not like either Sabine or Ezra are going to marry someone else on Tuesday either. And since much of Ahsoka has been set up, meaning not much is actually going to get resolved in the next ep (Thrawn hasn't even left Perida[?] yet! I fear we are ending on a cliff hanger), we'll be seeing Sabine and Ezra again. There's no rush for them to get together romantically (and I know that's hard to hear for people who've been shipping for years but its true).

And further to the "there's no rush" point I actually have to say I that I think its WAY too soon for anything definitively romantic to happen between Ezra and Sabine yet (and again I get how hard that is for those who've been shipping them for a long time). And I say that as both a "casual viewer" and someone who's also watched a good chunk of Rebels now. For the causal viewer who hasn't watched Rebels, which is probably a big chunk of the audience for Ahsoka, they barely know Sabine, have just met Ezra and have only seen them interacting for ONE episode and don't know any of their history. A kiss or a love declaration would seem out of the blue at this point I think. And as someone who's getting into Rebels I still think its too soon. While I agree that Sabine is very likely in love with Ezra I don't think she's admitted to herself yet (that's why Baylan used the word family when he was getting her to hand over the map thingy imho) no way is she ready to tell HIM. And as for Ezra...dude is clueless that Sabine might might have non platonic feelings for him so no way is he going to risk ruining their friendship by blurting out that he's in love with her. And not only that they've been separated for 10 YEARS ffs. They need to get to know each other again before anything romantic can happen, again imho. I want Sabezra to become canon but I want it done WELL. Sabezra is a friends to lovers ship, they are still firmly in the friends stage right now, it needs to be a sloooooow burn.

And finally do I think Sabezra will become canon? Honestly...I don't know. I'd like it to, it would be really nice to have a non problematic ship, especially after the sequel trilogy robbed us of FinnRey and tried to force freaking r*ylo. But I think Filoni and the other powers that be over at DLF (he is NOT the sole person calling the shots here, keep that in mind everyone) are probably testing the waters right now and waiting to see what the audience reactions are like before they make any decisions. I'd be wiling to bet that by the end of Tuesday's episode the door will be left wide open for pretty much anything to happening shipping wise. So we'll just have to wait and see. Time will tell, it always does.

[hallowpen]

The plan was to start watching The Sign by divvying up the series into two episodes per day until I could finish. Well…that plan went completely out the window and I ended up binge watching the entire thing in one go. So, as I try to gather my thoughts, I wanted to sort of get my feelings out there on what I thought was an incredible show before I finally unfilter the tags (as to avoid any outside influence on my opinion).

Let me preface this by saying that this is going to be an incredibly bias opinion given my cultural upbringing and background (I'm half-Thai and I've spent almost half of my life living in Thailand), so please take that into account before reading any further. I metaphorically removed my western-lensed glasses while watching this series and preferred to watch as a Thai viewer, which probably made the more confusing or difficult parts of the show a lot easier to swallow. So, yes, I will admit that the show was not perfect by any means, but I was able to overlook a lot of its shortcomings given the parts that had been done so well and what this series could mean for Thai QL media going forward.

My goddess, where do I even start…

I'm a sucker for the reincarnated/fated lovers trope, so the show had me before it even started. What I absolutely loved the most about the romance and the A+ chemistry was that it didn't dominate or singularly drive the story, which was refreshing to see. It gave room to explore the fantasy/mythological elements of the show, the investigatory plotlines (which we'll get to later), and the relationships of the characters surrounding the "main leads".

Episode 3, my beloved, was what solidified my trust in this series and served as the foundation for the personalized experience I curated in my continued viewing. First off (and a bit of a side note), seeing Yoshi show up as Sand just made my heart super happy. I've been following her off and on since 2018, and she was one of the only things I actually liked about หมอ มือ ใหม่… but I digress. Behind the main story (and maybe even because of it), this episode was, for all intents and purposes, a love letter to Thai culture and its religious mythology. Which, when you consider how much international draw a BL series can hold, is truly momentous. International viewers got to experience the Bang Fai Phayanak (the naga fireball festival) that occurs every Wan Ok Phansa (the last day of what is considered Buddhist Lent) and the significance it holds over Thai history and culture. Using this as the stepping stone to establish the importance of the series' reliance on naga folklore…brilliant! The episode was also the viewers' introduction to the Buddhist idea of the cyclical intermingling of karmic fates. How the implications of an interdependence on one fate more than the others would later define the relationship between Phaya, Tharn, and Chalothorn…genius! All of this!? In one episode…of a BL!? I was overwhelmed by a sense of cultural gratitude and pride, that I still can't quite shake. I think Saint knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to adapt this series and I love him even more for it.

Aside from the cultural dependency and relevance, the show delivered so much beyond that as well. The production quality sailed high above previous BL standards and, in turn, lent itself to beautiful visuals and cinematography.

The casting! Billy and Babe's chemistry was just so *chef's kiss*. I knew Billy would absolutely smash it in the role of Phaya, but I often forgot that this was Babe's first ever acting role. It was an undertaking, that you could tell, he did not take lightly. Heng!? Wow! What a performance! He's been a staple in every Idol Factory series thus far, but he really nailed the purely villainous role of Chalothorn. Gap as Yai? No notes. He was able to flesh out what could have been a very one-dimensional character. Tack and Poom as Khem and Thongtai were a welcome levity inbetween, what was otherwise, a more weighty plot.

If I had to address any gripes I had with the series, there were only two that really stood out:

1) I wish the moments/conversations between Tharn and Chalothorn that eventually led to Tharn's return hadn't happened off-screen. There was a lot left to be resolved that could have been explored in that instance. But using my own inference based on Tharn as a character, his relationship with Chalothorn, and the core of his personality, I could kind of piece together how that ending came to be.

2)The lesser intriguing elements of the investigation storylines were shaky, at best. (If you were looking for the show to have a firm western-influenced ACAB agenda, then I'm sorry to say you were setting yourself up for disappointment. As much as I selfishly wanted it to be, this series was never going to be that show, it's a Thai drama.) From a Thai perspective, it made sense that the "copaganda" aspect of the series focused on the incompetency and inefficiency of a police force where justice is often informed by wealth and greed. I got an idea of what the show's stance on the matter was supposed to be but the overall plot and its consistency got lost somewhere within the final execution.

Other than that, I was left feeling satisfyingly content with where the series landed and I will continue to highly recommend it. It's easily one on my top five favorite Thai BL dramas and just Thai dramas in general! And…

There is such a rich history of mythology and folklore left for the show to still sink its teeth into: the garuda of it all, the pre-existing feud between the naga and garuda and why that is… Aside from a few minor specificities that were missing from naga folklore (their exclusion didn't really detract from anything, but it could have served to benefit non-Thai viewers), all of that could be addressed in a second season. Which, at this point, seems pretty likely 🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾 and would be HUGE in the BL world.

PLEASE, LET IT HAPPEN! 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

[mikuni14]

I wanted to reply to this post by @italianpersonwithashippersheart and it turned out to be a very long text, so I'm posting it separately 😉

I have a tactic of reading posts on Tumblr, that as soon as I start reading and see that the author is going in a direction that I know I won't like, I immediately stop and move on (ALTHOUGH sometimes the author writes something I don't agree with in such an engaging way that I read it to the end for intellectual pleasure, or it's someone I like with whom I disagree just this time, but I read it anyway because, after all, I like that person for a reason 😚). That's why, fortunately, I usually (<- key word, usually) avoid fandom wars and problematic fandom behavior. I do this because I know how irritating fandom can be sometimes, especially when a it goes to war to defend its blorbo, or ship, or the entire series. And I regret to say that defenders are the most aggressive... Personally, I don't mind fans living on ships, their blorbo, squealing about them and so on. (I mean, I do that!) Unfortunately, as I'm sure you all know, so many fans who live it, LIVE IT and it's not just fun for them, it's the meaning of their lives. This is where the attacks on actors come from, like the recent attack on Nut, a homewrecker 😆 in Pit Babe, having the audacity to be friends with the actor playing Alan AND HE BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE!, or, as in the case of DFF, tearing Ta into two parts by his ukes two fandoms lmao. Unfortunately, such behavior poisons a positive fandom experience and even I can see it, even though I try very hard NOT to see it.

It also seems to me that DFF viewers could be divided into two distinct groups: DFF fans and BL fans 😉 I'm a DFF fan and that's why I'm interested in meta, theories and Tan. I like PheeJin for their dynamic, but, I don't really care if they end the series as a couple. Besides, for me DFF is a mystery/thriller/slasher/social commentary series with BL elements, in which I DON'T HAVE to have a happy ending for BL relationships to be happy, I only want Tan to be happy. However, someone for whom DFF is only a BL series could be frustrated because 1) there is no monogamy 😬 2) there is "cheating" 3) the characters behave unpleasantly 4) the characters behave in ambiguous ways and it's often not clear what they think and whom they truly love 5) the characters behaviour becomes unpredictable and non-standard and often problematic 6) the plot keeps getting weird, instructions unclear 7) what about my ship?? *panic*

Regarding the concerns about the ending of the series: in any other series I would have EXACTLY THE SAME worries. But I look at DFF in two categories:

as a slasher

as a story about life, without a moral lesson

This makes me NOT worry about the ending because:

if you look at it as a slasher and my favorite film of this type, i.e. Scream and to some extent also Final Destination, there is no moralizing here, because the victims are often innocent and still die, because this is the rule of this genre: people die in masses

if we do NOT look at it as a story with a moral lesson, we also get rid of the compulsion to judge, like, did they deserve or not to die?

I know that in the DFF fandom we often joke, more or less seriously, that we would like this one or that one to die, or for everyone to die, but this is completely normal behavior when consuming media in which someone gets hurt. In the case of DFF, emotions are high because we naturally stand on the side of someone who is bullied and we see how others, through their actions or omissions, or often making stupid mistakes, saying cruel words in anger, contributed to the great tragedy of the entire family. But what I noticed is that the series does not actually moralize. It emphasizes very clearly that Non is a victim, but he is not entirely innocent and has made many stupid decisions himself, having had other choices, while also showing why he makes such choices. It shows Por as a complete asshole, while showing his environment and expectations towards him, but it does not absolve him. It even shows Keng not as a typical sweaty, brutal pedo, but someone who is genuinely concerned about Non, AT THE SAME TIME showing the issue of his pressure on Non, the money, the grooming.

The series presents dry facts, shows characters from different sides, in different situations, it also shows how events move from point A to B and further along the letters of the alphabet :) all the time discovering new facts that explain more and more, sometimes posing a seemingly already explained situation in a completely new perspective.

Personally, I don't get the impression that the series even WANTS us to moralize in our high glass tower, because the series clearly shows that the innocent, defenseless and vulnerable suffer and no one helps them. That a stupid event can lead to tragedy with the butterfly effect. That sometimes things happen beyond our knowledge, that we are just a pawn in someone else's game and, despite our sincere intentions, we cannot stop the course of events. And that the poor have a hard time and lose entire families and their future, with the first fatality in the series being the only son and the future of the richest family.

Therefore, I am 99% sure that:

we do not know all the facts that can turn all our predictions, judgments and faith in what is happening on the screen 180 degrees

whatever happens to Tan, Phee and Jin, I doubt it will be presented as a punishment/reward for anything

Tan can kill them all and not be the winner, Phee can kill Tan and live with it for the rest of his life as a loser

there is no way for the series to end sensibly AND with "the victory of good over evil" and"justice", because evil has been winning all the time and every kick to Non's face, the death of his parents, Tan's "madness", the death of two young people, the trauma of the others were proof of that, also all the lives lost and their future in which change for good is possible

At the moment, I have nothing to complain about the 10 episodes so far, for me the series is run logically, and any question marks that appear in my head, I am calmly waiting for their answers in the next episodes. THERE IS HOWEVER ONE THING THAT WILL ANGRY ME ABOUT THE ENDING: IF THE SERIES MAKES TAN A CONVERTED SINNER WHO CHOOSES LOVE, PEACE AND FORGIVENESS AT THE LAST MOMENT 🤮 I don't even want to think about it. This is the worst thing that can happen.

Despite everything, I still believe that the series will not do something so stupid at the end, that from a painfully realistic story about life with hints of a thriller and a slasher, it will turn into a fairy tale with a moral lesson, in which good (the established social order) will be rewarded and evil (anarchy represented by Tan) will be punished.

I have my dream ending, but whatever, it's my fantasy 😍 But at least 3 BL series from recent weeks ended exactly NOT the way I wanted, so I'm resigned to the fact that DFF may also fail in this matter 🤡

tl;dr everything will be fine, and if it's not fine, we have a great team to sit together and bitch together 🥳

@italianpersonwithashippersheart I fucking love rant posts 😤😤 I LOVED YOURS 💖💖💖

[thesamoanqueen]

This episode of Smackdown REALLY showed Cody is not interesting at ALL. With Roman back and the bloodline in full swing, it's more clear then ever. Three people had bigger pops than the "face of the company" (even though Roman is actually advertised on everything) he's cutting promos that make him not sound so great and taking credit for things he really shouldn't be. If that man wasn't so insistent on being a babyface, I'd swear he was turning heel (he'd make a fantastic heel w his current character). I mean, he was getting bored around Roman! Plus this weekend, I don't know if you saw, Bron made a kid cry so Jey brought the kid into the ring. If that was Cody every right piece he runs to would have a story about it and would have been on the Tik token because that man doesn't have sn authentic bone in his body, but it's silent for Jey because he didn't do it for brownie points. That promo was so terrible and the difference between when we see Roman and when we see Cidy truly exposes his weaknesses

Cody is one of those people who you find in big positions but who really don't deserve to be where they are. I'm going to sound like a hater, but I don't really care... the fact is that he hasn't improved one bit from years ago: it didn't happen in NJPW, it didn't happen in AEW, it didn't happen now after his return. Cody is the same hungry boy as always, what has changed is WWE's vision of him because he negotiated his return and found himself in the right situation to fit in when everything changed in the company. New boss new top guy, simple.

The fans perception is something I consider not always reliable. Whether people like it or not, the companies have effective ways of selling products and with him they have chosen an unbeatable marketing strategy on their market (the american hero, well dressed but with principles, a dog for the kids, old values, tragic family story). But strategy alone doesn't cover everything and it's situations like this one with the Crown Jewel match that prove it.

They built nothing after his win (good matches don't make a good run in WWE, sorry) because in fact they had nothing ready for him except a match with The Rock which they are still not sure, for obvious reasons, and the feud with Randy. Unable to push the first agenda, they left him in the wake of the Bloodline as a catalyst and only now that Roman is back, they are hinting at Randy and the evolution of their feud helped by the great wrestler that KO is. And that's because they knew when Roman would be back he wouldn't take a back seat. It's what Roman does... he pushes forward. The confrontation at Summerslam and after was in fact harsh, because if they don't tell Roman to hold back like they did for WM, Cody disappears sucked into the vortex of the mainevent machine that is Roman with his storyline. The champion vs champion fight at Crown Jewel is a tragedy now... everything is wrong, the idea, the belt, the moment, the people involved because nostalgics will say it's a throwback, but neither Cody nor Gunther are attractions that sell the match when Roman is out there taking the opening, closing and backstage segments every week with a story that draws 3 million viewers on social media alone in just a few hours after SmackDown ends.

I don't like Cody, I never liked him, but I know he can be a champion now, just not THAT level of champion they're trying to sell and he think he is. He doesn't have the qualities to compare with what Roman has become and the drama is having both of them on the same show playing the same top role when they're not on the same level of aura. The confrontation is continuous and Cody has too much power for his abilities: he messes up interviews, talks about issues he shouldn't, continues to tease fans on social media, doesn't make an effort to change his approach and is lulling himself into the idea of being on top fomented by a company that is playing all possible cards to prove that they made the right choice at WM. They won't always be able to justify with the help of journalists on Twitter why after his win the views collapsed and the weekly sold out ended, why the Bloodline storyline still attract more attention and someone built organically like Jey Uso outsells the champion or have bigger reactions. But the damage is there and they can't go back because they invested and pushed too hard now. It's a problem that will only be solved when Roman retires and the company is forced to abandon its life preserver, will it work? I don't think so, because I know how it works with Cody and I don't trust him in that role, but we'll have to deal with it.