#whatever its not a big deal its just a little youtube video

[sonknuxadow]

also something feels a bit off about sonic and shadow's dynamic in the new tailstube but i dont really know how to explain it

[hyunjins-orange-slice-too]

ChrisASMR

pairing: asmr creator Chan x biggest fan reader

genre: idek. just a little drabble

word count: ~1.6k

warnings: reader has anxiety, descriptions of being anxious and being overwhelmed.

an: i had a little day dream about my favorite asmr creator and about meeting him in public and only recognizing him by his voice and thus, a drabble was born! ig technically this is a fan fic about him (david ily), but this is a stray kids blog, so i made it a chan fic. anywhoooo, here’s whatever this is. :) love ya.

masterlist

it’s been another shitty day. that’s all you seem to have anymore. it’s just one shitty day after another. but there’s one thing keeping you sane. one thing that you look forward to every day. ChrisASMR. sometimes, you feel like you rely too heavily on his asmr videos. you try not to let yourself think too hard about that. about how it’s one of the only things that brings you joy anymore. how when everything seems like too much, you just put your headphones in and click on his youtube. how most nights, when your heart is at its heaviest, his voice is the only thing that can put you to sleep. his deep baritone, laced with australian accent, telling you all of the comforting things that you need to hear.

“its okay.”

“you’re okay.”

“i’m here.”

“i’m so proud of you.”

“you’re doing such a good job.”

and then he polishes it off with soft sounds of his breath, maybe the sound of a kiss here and there, sometimes a little story that makes him giggle, and in turn makes you giggle. sometimes it’s a comforting audio for those on their period, sometimes it’s comfort after a nightmare or after a long day at work.

and he posted a new video right before you clocked out for the day. almost as if he knew you needed it. as soon as you got home, you would shower, put on your jammies, and crawl into bed. you would drift off to sleep with his docile tones in your ear making everything better. you just had one quick stop to make first.

you pulled up to the gas pump, making sure your fuel door was on the correct side this time, and shut the car off. you took deep breaths, preparing yourself for the trek inside and the encounter you will be forced to have with the attendant. you wished you could pay at the pump, but you left your card at home and all you had was cash. you cursed yourself for being so stupid. but it was okay. at least, that’s what you told yourself. this was the gas station you went to all of the time. you went inside frequently for snacks and drinks. so what if this is the first time you will be purchasing fuel, at the register, with cash. it’s not a big deal. but the knots in your tummy said different. you gripped the steering wheel tight, knuckles turning white, and took one more deep breath. then you got out of the car.

focused, thoughts racing through your mind of how the conversation might go, what you needed to say. ‘$20 on pump four please.’ that’s all you had to do. you entered the busy store and got in line. the elderly woman in front of you was buying her lottery tickets, taking her time in picking which scratchers she wanted. you nervously shifted your weight from one foot to the other.

a middle aged man got in line behind you, standing way too close for your comfort. you inched forward, trying to put some space between your bodies, but he also inched forward. your hands began to sweat as another person got in line behind the man with no concept of personal space. the classic rock music was loud in your ears, the sounds of people talking and the glass cooler doors opening and slamming shut, the sound of the beeping as the bored looking attendant scanned the scratch off tickets one by one.

and you thought the bell above the door ringing would be the thing that pushed you over the edge. as grandma dug around for quarters in the bottom of her purse, you looked up to see who had entered the store, causing the ringing that you felt like would be your thirteenth reason. and the man that walked in was.. incredibly handsome. he gave you a small smile and a nod before heading for the drink coolers.

“i can help whoever is next.”

the man standing too close to you cleared his throat, jolting you out of your wide eyed daze. the old woman had left with her lottery tickets and you were next in line. you approached the counter.

“uh, could i get $20 on pump four please?” you asked. the teenage attendant nodded before punching some buttons on her screen. she looked at you. and you looked at her. you could feel everyone in line behind you also looking at you, staring a hole into the back of your head.

“that will be $20..?” the attendant said, holding out her hand.

duh, you needed to hand her the money. you held out the fifty dollar bill, damp with sweat from your palms and crumpled from your harsh nervous grip. the worker held it up to the light, checking the legitimacy of the note. you glanced around nervously, silently wondering if it was counterfeit. though you knew that was a ridiculous thing to be worried about.

the man behind you felt like he was inching closer and closer, pressing you against the counter. finally the attendant punched some buttons on the screen and the cash drawer popped open. she counted out your change, which was all in five dollar bills, and handed it to you. you thanked her as quickly as you could, before shoving the bills in your pocket and rushing out the door.

once in the parking lot, you took a deep breath of fresh air. it helped a little, though you still needed to pump the gas. but you told yourself that the hard part was over. you approached your car and lifted the nozzle from the pump, placing it into your gas tank. as the numbers on the screen ticked by, you let your mind wander to the handsome stranger in the store. how his dark curly hair and dark eyes called to you. his black t-shirt was pulled tight over his muscled chest. in another life, maybe you would have been brave enough to talk to him. brave enough to put yourself out there and shoot your shot. but in this life, you could never. you wondered what his voice sounded like..

“excuse me, miss?”

your eyes went wide. your heart racing. not only were you anxious that someone was talking to you, but.. you knew that voice. you turned to face the stranger, only to find the handsome man you had just been day dreaming about.

he held out a crisp $5. “i think you dropped this on your way out of the store.”

you looked at the bill in his hand, and then back up to his face. he was smiling at you, a dimple in his cheek catching your attention.

“oh.” was all you said. you couldn’t form any other words. what were words? how could you speak in front of this man who looked like he was carved by michelangelo himself? and you were almost certain you recognized that voice. it was your favorite voice. the only voice that could lull you to sleep at night.

you managed to reach out and take the money from him. “thank- thank you.” you stuttered.

just then the gas pump clicked off, startling you into a jump. flustered, you whipped around quickly attempting to remove the nozzle and place it back in its cradle. but your hands were shaky and sweaty, the hose was tangled, and you couldn’t get it turned around right. you struggled for what felt like ages before a familiar giggle graced your ears.

“would you like some help?”

he approached you slowly, making eye contact with you before gently taking the pump from your hands. he maneuvered it around easily, and hung it back in its rightful place. and then he took a step back, giving you plenty of room to breathe.

“there we go.” he smiled.

your brain was going a million miles a minute, racing with thoughts telling you to run, hurry up and get in your car and leave. but there were other thoughts saying that this is your dream man and this would be your only chance. what are the odds you would meet your favorite asmr creator out in the wild? at least, you were ninety nine percent sure it was him. he was an anonymous creator, so you had never seen his face, but you would know that voice anywhere. the voice that brings you peace. while you wrestled with your inner monologue, he held his hand out again, this time is was empty.

“it was nice to meet you.” he said, waiting for a handshake. “my name is Chris.”

okay now you were ninety nine point nine percent sure.

you took his hand, praying to god he wouldn’t notice how clammy your palm was. “uh.. y/n.” you said, half ass introducing yourself.

“beautiful name.” he smiled, before squeezing your hand gently and pulling away. “careful with that $5.” he said, pointing to the money he had handed you moments ago. “it’s sneaky.”

and with that, he gave a small wave, and walked across the lot to his car. you stood, dumbfounded for a moment, before climbing into your own car. you were ready to get home and listen to the new audio. but, you wondered, would this ruin it for you? now that you’ve seen him in person and know what he looks like..? or would it make it better? more enjoyable?

before putting the car in drive, you reached for your wallet, wanting to store the money so you wouldn’t drop it again. and as you slid it into the fabric slot, you noticed writing along the margins.

it was a phone number, followed by a name. chris.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

i’m actually kinda proud of how this turned out. thanks to @httpdwaekki for the encouragement to write it. :)

♡ pls reblog if you liked it! it truly helps a lot and makes me smile :) ♡

©hyunjins-orange-slice-too i do not give permission for this work or any of my work to be translated, copied, or reposted.

[l1brarian1999]

Loadout Tips

WHen I first started playing Warframe, there was a particularly strong META build floating around at any given week, usually it'd be a Warframe or new weapon that you'd use. And almost all of the 'content creators' would throw a build together, usually just some Crit build or status build, maybe occassionally you'd see a hybrid build.

Same for Warframes, it'd be whatever the Warframe needed to be decent. And what bothered me is that these videos were almost always in isolation.

Nowadays there are enough different weapons, with little gimmicks to keep them interesting, and then Arcanes, mods, Warframes, Companions and so on that made things get more interesting for me.

So, here's a general bit of advice on throwing together a loadout.

So when putting together a loadout, I start with the Warframe, and start making decisions on how I want to proceed. There are a few things I want to make sure the loadout has. Depending on the 'play style' I might look for other stuff as well.

So:

How will I get my energy? - Gotta be able to cast abilities, otherwise what's the point.

How will I heal if I get hurt? - I always pack a healing method from my Operator, but maybe I want to stay in the fight rather than doing a funny little healing dance.

How am I going to stay alive? - Am I using an ability? Or my stats? Generally I want two 'layers' of defence.

What is my main way of doing damage? - Will be melee? A gun? My abilities?

How will I deal with armour?

What specific challenges will be annoying for me?

What am I *not* using?

So some examples - say I'm using a squishier Warframe that using Crowd Control to stay alive. Let's say I'm using... Banshee.

I'll use Zenurik Focus for Energy - that way I can cast Silence for free every two minutes, and can regen energy between casts. If I take the Sahasa Kubrow, they'll periodically generate energy orbs for me to help keep me topped up - they're also able to do Finisher attacks which will be amplified by Savage Silence.

I've got my Operator, but I'll also use the Furis with the Winds of Purity augment to get Health back.

I'll use Savage Silence to Prime enemies for Finishers, so I'll also use Arcane Ultimatum to get a fat chunk of armour every time I do a finisher kill. Armour and Crowd Control.

I'll be focused on using my Primary to target weakpoints from Sonar, and my melee for Finisher Kills. I'll be using a high crit, high accuracy rifle for the precise feeling, maybe the Sybaris. I quite like the Sparring weapons finisher animations, I'll use that, though I'd be better using a Dagger or Hammer for a better Finisher multiplier.

I can use Sonic Fracture to remove enemy armour.

Nullifers represent a threat since they will be immune to my Silence, thankfully the Furis is a rapid fire weapon which will pop Nullifier bubbles quickly. If I put on Secondary Fortifier, it'll also help deal with Eximus units, and increase my own Survivability.

Soundquake is annoying to use, I'll use Helminth to replace it with Radial Blind from Excalibur so I can get more Finisher kills.

And just like that, I've got a Build that feels like I'm playing Banshee, covers my main basics, and references one of my favourite Youtube content creators. (If you know who that is, you're too old to be following me, I can't help you)

Thinking like this can make your Warframe experience a lot more interesting - its like a big box of toys, and some of the fun is knowing how they fit together.

[adarkrainbow]

Did you ever watch Simsala Grimm?

How was it really like?

I only learned about this show by watching that video about the troubled production of Happily N'Ever After.

Did I watch it per se? Yes and no...

Simsala Grimm was one of those cartoons that was aired almost daily on television when I was a kid, so I knew about it, I knew about its opening, its main characters, thanks to often seeing this on TV even when I didn't want to or coming across it when switching channels. That's the type of "very popular" I am talking about.

However as a kid I never actually watched it because it did not interest me... As a kid I was not a fan of fairytales, as I think I said before - this interest only really came up during my teenage years and further on. I came across them again on Youtube because thanks to everybody uploading childhood cartoons on there you have a ton of Simsala Grimm episodes.

And... Now I need to do a serious, complete re-watch of the thing, but basically the thing that puts me off - not that it is bad, but my mind tends to fold away at the idea - is that it is the same principle as those "Tom and Jerry X whatever movie". The principle is that you have your two cute little furry critters that enter into a Grimm fairytale as it is about to happen, get involved in the story, and help it come to its happy end. As a result, while the episodes can be interesting in some times (especially when they deal with lesser-known Grimm fairytales) other times it has this bizarre feeling of for example those Tom and Jerry in, I don't know, The Wizard of Oz, where you wonder "What is it adding to the plot? Why not make a straightforward adaptation of the fairytale?"- even though sometimes the involvment of the protagonist does derail a bit the story as they themselves get trapped in one way or another...

I am not an expert or a long-time watcher of Simsala Grimm so I am not the best person to explain, BUT I will point out that this logic of retelling a Grimm fairytale but by inserting additional characters we follow the adventures of alongside the "regular" story that plays in the background seems to be a recurring German thing in media. I remember how "Six in one go" (that was simply called in French "The Grimm Fairytales") they had the habit of doing this regularly to - adding parallel plots and entirely new characters that are here just to wrap around the main story or pad a bit the time.

But yes, Simsala Grimm IS a pretty big thing in France, that aired everywhere and was unescapable for a while - I think it is even more famous in Germany and in the Netherlands? Though I can't say for sure, due to not being there - however Germany is its homeland and the quantity of Simsala videos in Dutch the Internet is flooded with lets me think it does have a certain popularity there...

[humorisstoredinthetits]

The Heathers+Veronica Trip to Disney World

I guess I should probably introduce myself, hello people I'm Heather and I talk about Heathers and thats about it

I made some earlier headcannons about this but I'm gonna be expanding upon them

Now onto the gays TM

PS I'm gonna explain all the Disney stuff for the people who haven't been

Mac had always wanted to go to Disney World since she was little kid

Her parents wouldn't take her because 1 they didn't want to deal with each other for that long and 2 they didn't want to spend all that time and money to go only for Mac to have a meltdown and not want to do anything

But now Mac is an adult and can do what she wants and she wants to go to Greedy Rat Park (also Disney implemented DAS which is for people who for whatever reason cannot wait in line for extended periods of time, it lets people come back to rides at certain times and skip the line)

Veronica was all in for it, she thinks it would be fun and a good time, and despite the fact they have all this money they don't really go on vacation that often

Duke was pretty iffy on the whole thing, it sounded like fun on paper but they would be in the heat and have to wait in lines and people, but she also knows it would make Mac so happy to go so eventually she gets on board

Chandler is the big holdout

She knows that to get to Disney World they would have to go on a plane and she is super afraid of planes, plus she's also not a huge fan of amusement park rides

It gets to the point that Veronica and Duke planned a surprise trip for as a gift for Mac's bday and they just told Chandler they're going, suck it up buttercup

Chandler throws a hissy fit but they remind her that it would make Mac so happy to go

Mac is like Chandler's kryptonite so when they brought that up Chandler decided to just deal with it

They also decide to take a trip to the beach for her at a later time to make up for this

So her bday comes around and it comes down to the final present

Mac opens it and there's 4 Magicbands (Its a bracelet that acts as a park ticket, payment method, room key and more) in their signature colors and a small note saying 'We're going to Disney World!'

She starts happy crying and pulls them into a big hug

She hugs them so tight that it starts to hurt

They plan to go in October bc it won't be super hot but also not super cold, and most of the kids will be in school so there won't be as many people, both of which are chosen to make the trip as least stressful for Mac as possible

Over the next few months Mac spends all day watching Disney World videos on youtube to know what to expect

She orders everyone matching shirts for every day so they can have cute group photos

She packs her suitcase months in advance and it just sits in the corner of her room

In the meantime Chandler is regretting her decisions

She's afraid of planes and Veronica spends a-lot of time reminding her that planes are safer than cars but she's still afraid

She also shows Chandler videos of the rides to show her exactly what they are gonna be when they get there

Fast forward to the night before, Mac is so excited she is bouncing off the walls while Chandler is internally freaking out because she doesn't want to go on the plane

Veronica seriously considers putting some NyQuil in her coffee so she sleeps the whole flight

They drive to the airport and go through TSA and Chandler is still freaking out but she doesn't wanna ruin it for Mac

Mac finally notices Chandler looking upset and they talk

Chandler confesses that she is afraid of planes but she wants to go on this trip bc Mac has been looking forward to it for months

Mac comforts her and when they get on the plane they get out the split headphones and watch Disney movies the whole ride there

Of course they watch Frozen bc it was their favorite movie during their childhoods

In a weird role reversal its Chandler being the one holding on to Mac's arm during takeoff and turbulence

Veronica and Duke sleep the whole way there bc between dealing with the ball of sunshine who barely slept last night and kept tossing and turning and giggling and the nervous wreck who did the same neither of them got much sleep either

They get to Florida and get their luggage and get on the bus to Disney World

The plan is to spend 5 days not including the day of arrival and departure, one for each park and a free day

They're staying at the Grand Floridian (Biggest, most expensive and fancy hotel) bc they have the money so why not

They arrive at their room and get settled

There's 2 queen sized beds so they have to decide who gets to sleep with who

Duke and Veronica quickly take one of the beds for them bc they would like to sleep and not deal with the other two not being able to sleep

They go have dinner at 1900 Park Fare (Restaurant, weird name ik) where they get to meet Aladdin, Cinderella, Tiana and Mirabel

One of the things they decided while planning was to get as much character dining bc they thought it would be something Mac would enjoy, and they were right

Mac makes a plan there to try and meet as many characters as possible and take pictures with all of them

After dinner they go take a dip in the pool before going rest for the night

Day #1: Magic Kingdom

They decide to go to Magic Kingdom 1st because both it and the Grand Floridian are on the monorail so it would be the easiest to get back to the room if Mac starts to not be able to handle it

They get up super super early bc Mac physically cannot contain her excitement

They have breakfast reservations at the Crystal Palace where they can meet the Winnie the Pooh gang which makes Mac excited (Pooh is her favorite bc he's yellow)

From there they go to Tommorowland

I'm not gonna go over every ride bc if I did that we would be here all day and I would have to make 10 posts to contain it all so I'm just gonna do hilights

Chandler usually stays outside the rides bc she's scared but there's a few that she will go on, usually those that are slow

She does go on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (shooting ride) and obviously she goes with Duke bc she must beat her

They both fight over who gets to control the spinny stick in the middle

They have special spots that give more points which Duke looked up in advance so when they get to those sections her points skyrocket

Chandler is mad butthurt whenever they exit the ride and Duke is gloating

Veronica actually got more than her but she lets Duke have her victory (She also looked up the special spots in advance)

Mac tries to do literally everything which takes a minute

They go on the Carousel of Progress (show) which occasionally spins to the next scene but Chandler didn't realize this was gonna happen so when it does she screams

After they go on the Tommorowland Speedway (You drive a little car) which is hard to control and Chandler's life flashes before her eyes while Mac goes as fast as she can

They move into Fantasyland where they see Gaston

Gaston goes to Chandler and starts flirting

Mac intersects and asks for a pic and when Gaston poses with his flexed muscles she pulls down her sleeves revealing her toned cheerleader muscles and Gaston's mouth drops

Veronica and Duke are off to the side dying of laughter

When they get to the Haunted Mansion Chandler gets so scared that she has to go through the 'chicken door'

Veronica has never looked more embarrassed in her life when her 20-something-year-old gf has to leave a theme park ride bc she's scared when they went over it before they left

They have lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table (in the Castle) where Mac gets pics with Cinderella (duh), Aurora, Ariel, Snow White and Jasmine

When they go on Jungle Cruise (explanatory) Duke laughs so hard at all the stupid Dad jokes

They finish up the rest of the park and still have some time to spare so they go shopping

Chandler finds a couple of shirts and some cute Disney jewelry but not much else

Same with Veronica, but she buys a couple of pins and other random collectibles

Duke buys some pins of her favorite characters for her office at work plus a few other things

Mac buys so much stuff that she can barely carry it all, shirts, collectibles, pins, stuff for their home and so many stuffed toys

Thankfully they can get it all shipped back to their resort to pick it up when they get back so they don't have to carry it for the rest of the day

They have dinner at Be Our Guest (Beauty and the Beast restaurant) where they meet Belle and Beast

They try the grey stuff (its delicious)

Afterwards they go back and ride some stuff again

Chandler looked up where all the special spots were while everyone was on other rides so she goes for a rematch and she beats Duke and is celebrating but then Veronica shows that she got 100,000 points over her

Duke and Chandler mope for the next 15 minutes that they got beat by Veronica

They go find some of the characters that Mac missed on the first go round like Buzz Lightyear or Jack Sparrow who only come out randomly

They then go get a spot for fireworks which they watch

Mac happy cries again

They then go back to the resort and pick up their purchases

They have to make 2 trips because Mac bought so much crap

They all pass out because as much fun they had, they are exhausted

Chandler's Favorite Ride: Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

Duke's Favorite Ride: Jungle Cruise

Mac's Favorite Ride: Under the Sea; Journey of the Little Mermaid

Veronica's Favorite Ride: Haunted Mansion

Day #2: EPCOT

They get to EPCOT early

Mac wants to stay at each park from open to close and bc this is her trip everyone agrees

Veronica enjoys the more educational rides like Spaceship Earth (the globe) and Living with the Land (shows off EPCOT's farming) but Chandler and Duke are bored out of their minds

They go to Cosmic Rewind (Guardians of the Galaxy rollercoaster) which obviously Chandler sits out of but while she waits she goes into the gift shop

In there they sell Infinity Gauntlets and she decides why the hell not

She gets one of the Iron Man ones bc its red and thats her color

When they get out of the ride they see Chandler with the gauntlet on her hand they start laughing bc the sight of Chandler with this oversized thing on her hand is too funny

Chandler goes up to them and does a terrible Thanos impression and goes "I am inevitable" and tries to snap but she didn't realize that it physically cannot stop

She gets mad that she spent all that money on it and it can't even snap which is like its whole deal

Of course the other 3 buy one too

They go on Test Track (car ride) where you can design your own car and they create the dumbest looking car possible

The wheels are bigger than the rest of the car, it has all these stupid add ons like spoilers and giant exhausts and stickers

They dub it the Heathermobile

They have lunch at Space 220 (it simulates being in outer space) which is cool but Mac is disappointed there are no characters for her to see

They go around the countries on the World Showcase which also bores Chandler and Duke bc its just learning

When they get to Japan Duke and Veronica buy so much anime crap

They all get kimonos in their own colors

Duke debates buying a samurai sword but realizes that she probably wouldn't be able to put that on the plane

They buy a bunch of Japanese snacks including some pocky

Mac and Veronica play the pocky game, Mac loses bc she's giggling the whole time

At each Pavilion Duke makes a terrible impersonation of that country's accent and Veronica just facepalms every time

They go to the Norway Pavilion and Mac and Chandler are excited bc they have all the Frozen shit

They're slightly disappointed bc on the Frozen ride the faces of the animatronics are projected and they look kinda creepy

But after they get to go meet Anna and Elsa and this was like a dream come true moment for kid Mac and Chandler and they take a really nice picture

When they get home they frame it and put it on the wall

They have dinner at Akershus (princess restaurant in Norway Pavilion) where Mac meets most of the princesses she had already seen plus Aurora

Chandler takes a picture with her bc that's her favorite Princess and Disney movie

They get done with everyone pretty quick bc EPCOT is alot smaller than Magic Kingdom so they decide to go drinking around the world

Drinking Around the World refers to going to each country and doing their favorite activity, drinking alcohol

Veronica stays sober bc one of them has to make sure they get back to the room

By the time they get halfway around the Heathers are all wasted and Veronica basically has to drag them back to the room

Chandler's Favorite Ride: The Seas with Nemo and Friends

Duke's Favorite Ride: Cosmic Rewind

Mac's Favorite Ride: Frozen Ever After

Veronica's Favorite Ride: Living with the Land

Day #3: Hollywood Studios

The Heathers wake up hungover as hell

Veronica prepared for this and got some water and other makeshift hangover cures she could make with what they had in the resort gift shop

By the time its time to leave they feel mostly better

They get to the park and go straight for Toy Story Land

They go on Toy Story Mania (similar to Buzz lightyear) and Duke and Chandler had been researching to see what they can do to cheat and win

Upon finding nothing they both try new tactics

During the third section Chandler realizes she's down so she keeps ramming into Duke to try and throw her off balance

Seeing that Chandler is playing dirty, during the next round Duke kisses Chandler which stuns her for a few seconds which allows her to regain the lead

Duke gets the win but then Mac gets more points than her to the shock of everyone

She takes a victory picture and orders a shirt off of Etsy saying "Toy Story Mania champion"

They head to Galaxy's Edge (Star Wars Land)

They got reservations for the lightsaber building and droid making

They each build a lightsaber, Mac is upset bc she can't get a yellow crystal but she finds out she can buy one so it all works out

Once they realize that if they fought with those they would break they go to another gift shop and buy the cheap toy ones

They also all make droids in their signature colors

They go on Smuggler's Run (Millenium Falcon Ride)

Mac and Duke take the pilot role and Veronica and Chandler are the gunners

The two other people unfortunate enough to be with them have to deal with them all yelling at each other bc the gunners arent shooting fast enough and Duke keeps ramming the Falcon into things

They get a low score and they're all kinda upset with each other but not really, they get over it in like five minutes

They go on Star Tours (Star Wars simulator ride) and Veronica is the rebel spy

After they get off the Heathers keep calling her a traitor to the Empire and shit like that

Mac fucking loves the Muppets and nearly happy cries during MuppetVision3D (muppet show)

They have lunch at Sci Fi (you eat in cars and watch old 50's scary movies

Chandler and Duke sit in the back and are scared of the cheesey old movies while Veronica and Mac just laugh at how obiviously fake they all are

They go watch all the shows like the Indiana Jones and Beauty and the Beast ones

Mac goes meet Olaf which is also a childhood dream of hers

They all go to the Frozen Sing a Long and Mac sings along

The rest of them think its cute

Duke is the only one who isn't scared of the Tower of Terror and she goes on alone

There's a great picture of her screaming her lungs out on the ride that they wanted to hang on the wall but Duke wouldn't let them

They have dinner at Hollywood and Vine (just a regular restaurant tbh) where Mac meets Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Donald

They go see Fantasmic! (Nighttime Show) at the end of the night

When they leave they're just in awe, Mac is happy crying

Chandler's Favorite Ride: Toy Story Mania (even if she lost)

Duke's Favorite Ride: Tower of Terror

Mac's Favorite Ride: MuppetVision3D

Veronica's Favorite Ride: Rise of the Resistance

Day #4: Animal Kingdom

They get there early like every other day

They get in line for Flight of Passage (Avatar flying ride) and they are just in awe of how amazing of an experience it was

Even Chandler who doesn't normally like rides through it was an amazing ride

They buy little Banshees which sit on their shoulders and its really cute

They have breakfast at Tusker House where Mac gets to meet the whole Mickey Mouse gang

Next is Kilimanjaro Safari (self-explanatory)

Mac has an amazing time seeing all the different animals, especially the stuff they don't have back in their local zoo like hippos and crocodiles and she takes a bunch of pictures

Afterwards they has reservations to go on a closer tour of the ride where they can get a whole lot closer to the animals and they even get to feed some of them which makes Mac so fucking happy

They go to the Tough to be a Bug show and right as the show ends the seat moves like bugs are crawling under it and it scares the crap out of all of them

There's several shows involving birds where they can see him up close and afterwards Mac talks to the handlers about the animals

They go on Kali River Rapids (raft ride) and they all get soaked except for Chandler who wisely sat that one out

They all come back with wet clothes and Chandler just has this 'i told you so' attitude

Mac is pretty disappointed with the Dinosaur area and how low quality the whole thing seems

Animal Kingdom is pretty small and there isn't a whole lot to do so they call it an early night

Chandler's Favorite Ride: Flight of Passage

Duke's Favorite Ride: Expedition Everest

Mac's Favorite Ride: Kilimanjaro Safari

Veronica's Favorite Ride: Na'vi River Journey

Day #5: Free Day

They decide to sleep in and just cuddle when they wake up

Even Mac, who wants to go out and just do things is tired and in desperate need of physical affection from her gfs

They decide to spend the morning at Disney Springs, the shopping center for Disney World

There's plenty of non-Disney shopping to do there like Uniqlo, the Coke Store, M&Ms and their favorite, the LEGO store

They all get a plush M&M with their signature color and they snack on a giant bag of them that they bought

They buy just so much Disney crap bc its their last day

Clothes, Collectibles, Duke buys like 20 different pins, Home decorations

Mac gets a bunch of plushes

When they go checkout at the World of Disney (main store at Disney Springs) the cashier just sees 4 women all carrying as much stuff as they physically can and has to call someone to help them bring it all to the area to ship it to the resort

Then they go to the LEGO store and buy the 400 dollar Disney Castle plus other Disney sets

They go around and eat a bunch of different treats and snacks

They go back to the room to rest for a little while before deciding to go to putt-putt golf

Obviously Duke and Chandler make it a competition which Mac wins

Mac is really good at putt-putt

Then they go back to the room, take a dip a the pool and get some drinks

In the following morning they have to arrange the shipment of all of their purchases to their home which is made more difficult bc Disney needs their receipts to be able to ship so they are just scrambling to find all the necessary ones before the bus to bring them back to the airport gets there

They do manage to figure it all out and they get on the bus and eventually the plane back to Ohio

Despite everything they all had a good time and they're thinking about making it a yearly trip, much to Mac's delight

[whatelsehappened]

A bit of sadness but I wanted to have this public for whatever reason.

I've been having an insane amount of mental blockage. I started taking anti depressants and those are obviously contributing but I don't think think its just those. Its dumb but I get excited for the new year but it's been impossible to get myself to do most anything. Not even counting the days I've laid in bed. I had so many things planned and I've been putting them off for over a month..

Last year was good, definitely the best year of my life but also my worst? I feel like I went through the decade of growth spurts I didn't experience in my 20s in a single year. A lot of was good and necessary and very due but OUCH. I try my best but I'm too sensitive and inexperienced to deal with relationships. With people that, while I love them to bits and say this with kindness, have a lot of their own issues. I made a lot of mistakes and I'm not perfect but I'm also learning that other people can make mistakes and I'm not a bad person for feeling hurt and telling them that. That was a big thing, I don't want to be a doormat people pleased it only leads to ruin.

On top of that my own little mental health spirals causing me to do shit like sleep on the couch watching dumb youtube videos until I pass out because I couldn't bare to be with my thoughts for a minute, bawling my eyes out constantly thinking about my past, being very depressed, and getting myself into a psych ward.. ugh.

I'm in a better place now and have the love of my life taking care of me and vice versa but god all that really messed up my head. My brain feels like a chunk was cut off and the cut seared and scarred. I think I'm better for going through all that but its going to take time to heal. I feel like before last year I wasn't a real human being more like an amoeba but now I feel like a person covered in bruises and my muscles atrophied. I'll walk again but I'll always have a limp.

[enginator2000]

What are your thoughts on Infidget (the ship of Infinite and Gadget the Wolf)?

i think its fine? i dont inherently dislike it or anything, and i dont mind seeing it from time to time. the only thing that i dont like is like, a lot of the shipping community's interpretations of it. and by that i mean the people that twinkify and feminize gadget into being a little wooby baby that cant do anything without his big strong man and infinite is just the stereotypical scary-on-the-outside soft-on-the-inside masc/male/im a man/im he him boyfriend. either that or gadget is fine and its just infinite who is extremely out of character. i had a lot of "he would not fucking say that" moments with infinite when infidget was at its most popular bc these kinds of depictions were everywhere and it was really annoying

the only version of infidget ive ever shipped was a lovers to friends to enemies to... somethings type deal where they dont go back to how they used to be by the end but its not vitriolic, they just outgrew each other in their own ways during the events of forces. that or their relationship cant get mended at all and theres no closure bc infinite dies or whatever like he did in canon. and i know this is the best version of infidget bc i made it up, thanks

i actually shipped it before forces even came out bc i thought that that was sort of the route that sonic team was going to take with tying the avatar into the story. it made sense to me for the avatar (or in this case gadget) to have some sort of previous history or connection with infinite bc in my onion, that makes their dynamic a little spicier and more compelling. in my version, gadget and infinite (then zero) used to be very close until zero started getting more involved with a local gang, the jackal squad, which began to drive a wedge between them until they got more and more distant from each other. and then some more time passes and gadget hasnt heard from zero for a long time and then the events of forces start. i think part of the idea was from this dialogue that we got to hear when footage of infinites second battle came out before the game itself:

(image text reads as infinite saying "and those eyes.. i feel like we've met before.")

-which implied that the avatar and infinite had history. which was technically true, but it was within the timeline of the game bc it turned out he was referring to like. the flashback cutscene of the avatar being too scared to fight back the first time they ran into infinite before joining the resistance, so it wasnt what i was hoping for

another reason iirc was uhhhh whatshisface? sega scourge on youtube? they made a theory video about infinite getting his mind wiped by the ruby or something and that added fuel to the fire. its a really cool concept and while i dont think that the avatar wanting to avenge those they lost is necessarily bad, i feel like its just kind of meh for the kind of story forces was trying to tell, what with the friendship-is-cool themes and whatnot. so i thought the avatar/gadgets arc was going to be we get to find out how they and infinite (or at least just the former lol) know each other, and how infinite became infinite in the first place, and gadget wanted to both help put a stop to everything but also get his friend back through, you guessed it, the power of friendship. hooray! i read a really good fic that was like that called til we touch the sun on a03 (that fic still makes me go insane thinking about it) that went with a sidestory for gadget that was quite similar to what i just described

plus the idea of infinite and gadget having shared a past but only one of them remembers it and now has to deal with a monster that looks like who they used to be but is no longer the same in every other regard due to them going dark side (willingly or unwillingly) is super angsty. and i like my ships raw and some degree of brutal for the soul. it keeps me young

but yeah im overall neutral. tl;dr: infidget is a fine ship, i just wish it had more canon-supported flavour and i wish the majority of shippers would stop writing infinite so poorly to make him fit properly into their milquetoast domestic fluff romances, but whatever. we all get enjoyment out of different things, even if theyre wrong :3 (for safety reasons i have to disclose that the previous statement was a joke)

[violetreminder]

Happy Willamette Outbreak Day!

So today is the day where Frank West first arrives at the Willamette Parkview Mall, and as I start typing this it is in fact 11:27 AM, the exact time that Dead Rising 1 starts as Frank West is flown over Colorado. To celebrate I thought I'd write a little about Dead Rising 1's story and why it holds up so well even in comparison to its sequels bc I just love this game so much!

So then, what is the *deal* with Dead Rising? Well firstly it should be mentioned that this game came out in 2006, right in the middle of the mid-00's zombie craze. I say this because what sets Dead Rising apart from its numerous peers of "yet another piece of zombie fiction inspired by the works of Romero" is that Dead Rising is seemingly one of the few of these to actually understand Romero's films and their messages instead of just having zombies around because they're popular and scary. Specifically, those in "Dawn of The Dead", which it cribs to the point Capcom put disclaimers out saying that DR isnt associated with DotD.

The parallels are obvious: both stories revolve around people trying to survive in a shopping mall amid a zombie apocalypse using whatever is on hand not only against the zombified hordes, but fellow humans driven to extreme violence. Both also overtly critique American consumerism though Dead Rising takes the established themes from DotD and runs farther with them, but for more on that let's jump back a little bit to remember the plot to DR1

So in brief: Dead Rising tells the story of photojournalist Frank West, who flies to the quarantined town of Willamette, CO amid supposed 'civil unrest' to try and land a career-making scoop. Upon arriving at the town's shopping mall Frank is shocked to find out Willamette is overrun by zombies who soon-after overturn the barricades and flood into the shopping center. After a couple days of aiding/investigating a pair of DHS agents also trapped with him in the security room, Frank comes to realize the dark truth:

The Willamette outbreak is the result of a terrorist attack perpetrated in an act of revenge on the US government for a brutal coverup of the original zombie outbreak in the Central American town of Santa Cabeza, which occurred after US-backed researchers mutated a local species of parasitic wasp in an effort to increase cattle growth so as to sustain American eating habits. Frank at some point becomes infected, though with some help is able to synthesize a temporary cure. This lasts long enough for Frank to escape amidst the chaos of a military clean-up operation and reveal the truth about both Willamette and Santa Cabeza.

Again the parallels are clear, neither story is very subtle about the destruction consumerism causes, though Dead Rising goes a little farther to add a light colonialist aspect. While the origin of Dawn of the Dead's outbreak was an unimportant mystery serving only to set the scene, Dead Rising frames its zombies as an act of almost righteous comeuppance, the US "Finding Out" after "Fucking Around" in Santa Cabeza and the decades of US imperialism leading up to that, if you will. These themes also extend beyond just the shared vision of zombies shambling around a mall vacantly pushing shopping carts and into the world design of Dead Rising itself, for instance:

Dead Rising fans have remarked for almost two decades now that Willamette is a fairly small town for supposedly having a population over 50,000, and that even if this number holds true then the Willamette Parkview Mall is absolutely massive for a population that size. Honestly even just two of these plazas would likely still be too big [for reference, I live in a city of over 177,000 people and our main mall is about a quarter the size of Willamette Parkview Mall]

[above images taken from STiP0 on youtube, who has loads of great videos on DR1] While some of that may just be down to the scope of the game and what the developers were able to make/what they felt was strictly needed (Why model a whole town when youre only going to briefly see the zombie-filled main street before spending the rest of the game in The Mall) this also ends up serving the themes of 'the human cost of consumerism' even if by accident.

As stated by Frank's helicopter pilot in the prologue: The Mall seems to be the only notable spot in Willamette, hanging around its numerous plazas seems to be the only thing anyone in town ever does. Whats more, automated intercom announcements tell you that The Willamette Parkview Mall is only 3 years old by the time of the game. So while Willamette may not have had much before, any prior local identity has been totally wiped clean by the grand temple of consumption erected in its center.

Perhaps this is why Carlito chooses Willamette as the staging grounds for his grand plan of vengeance: this was a town that had no purpose but to aimlessly consume, with no thoughts given as to the suffering created in the wake of that consumption (for starters, one might ask how many local businesses and livelihoods were destroyed by The Mall?). A perfect microcosm of the stateside societal conditions that brought about the Santa Cabeza incident.

All of this to say that even if it is a bit heavy handed and unsubtle, Dead Rising 1 is well-grounded in those themes of the United States's over-consumption and its bloody struggle to maintain that level of avarice at the expense of the already impoverished. The military coming in to try and cover up the truth of Willamette and by extension further covering up Santa Cabeza underlines the latter.

Dead Rising is not always a serious game though, and in fact the majority of it is quite silly. Zombie hordes are treated largely as one big combination Stage Hazard/Meat Gag, you can clothe your Frank in ill-fitting kids clothes, dye his hair blond, and as you level up Frank learns a repertoire of moves straight out of professional wrestling that will see you decapitating zombies with backflip-kicks and ripping out their guts like you were in Mortal Kombat. What makes all that silliness really stick though is that the story never drops the dead-serious tone it opens with. Sure it has bits of humor here and there, and the seriousness of the cutscenes can be a little undercut when everyone is stone faced while Frank wears an oversized horse mask, but its that same dissonance that makes the game unforgettable. In my opinion a similar comparison to make would be to Saints Row 2, widely known for having a more serious and hard-hitting story in a game where you can hose people down with a septic truck in your free time. This comparison becomes even more apt in regards to the sequels to both titles sort of...missing that point and losing that identity, instead giving in to the chaos of the setting and making the world and its stories wackier with every installment to the detriment of the overall believability of the main plot. This might sound a bit ridiculous to say about a series where oversized wasp larvae zombify people (PLEASE do not ask me to explain how transmission works in this series) but throughout Dead Rising 1 once youre past the threshold of "Zombies are real" the rest of the plot and the world it takes place in all make sense for the most part, but by the time of Dead Rising 3 the world is mired in a stew of government and corporate conspiracies that makes Deus Ex look utopian by comparison.

[a solid example of Dead Rising 3 and its tone, though the issue there is less from the psychos and more that the setting has gone fully off the deep end by then] This isnt to say I dont like the sequels, in fact I think Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is the peak of the series in regards to gameplay, and maybe I'll do more writeups on the other entries [I wanted to get into more but this is already SO LONG] but the short of it is that Dead Rising 1 manages such a captivating balance between its ridiculous moment to moment gameplay and the dramatic weight of its setting all while not only holding on to the core themes of its greatest inspiration in Dawn of the Dead, but expanding upon those themes to make a stronger point of it than Romero did. Wow this went on longer than I'd thought. Its also come out way more coherent than I expected, but lemme wrap it up. I dont have the money for the Dead Rising Remake that came out today, but I've heard good things so far outside some performance issues, so maybe Capcom might be looking to bring Dead Rising back like they did with their other zombie-fest, Resident Evil. And maybe, just maybe, if we dream hard enough, they can retcon Dead Rising 4 like they should retcon RE6, but thats a writeup for another day. PS, to all Dead Rising fans: As someone who lives in the PNW, the game says Willamette wrong and it peeves me every time, its supposed to be pronounced "Wool-Lamm-Iht" not "Will-uh-met" but I know thats a losing battle.

[yssjj]

erasing meaning from gangnam style

Since we’re an Asian-interest magazine, I’m going to assume that you know what K-pop is, if you aren’t vaguely familiar with it. Living through the 2000s has been a very exciting time for Korean identities in the mainstream. One could sense the time dependence of my identity in the US; in elementary school, I mostly interfaced with the American joke wondering if I had come from the North or South, which failed to consider that all of my grandparents had come from the North, and would never see their family or friends again due to US intervention. But by high school, my fortunes had turned around! At this point, we were being accosted in Marshalls by well-meaning parents who wanted to ask us about BTS because their daughter looooved K-pop, which raised another question: how did they know we were Korean in a primarily Chinese community? 

But regardless of my personal bitterness, it’s important (to me) to consider how this happened. And it was a gradual change, to some extent, but really a large paradigm shift happened to change the visibility of the Korean identity in the US, around when I was in 6th grade. K-pop at this point had been what my other Korean friend and I watched on old YouTube during playdates for her to fangirl over, and for me to vaguely stare off into. It’s not like K-pop hadn’t had any international success, but it felt limited to the Korean-American diaspora and niche internet communities. “Gee” by Girls Generation is a song I would like to argue really first crossed the border into mainstream success, but I think that’s wishful thinking for an iconic song I happen to like (seriously, go watch it). 

I don’t think it would be a controversial statement to say that “Gangnam Style'' was a really big deal. Statistically speaking, it topped iTunes charts in 31 different countries, it was the first video with a billion views, and it’s still the 11th most watched video on YouTube. But I’m sure just mentioning it brought you back to whatever you were doing while I was arguing about how stupid Harry Styles and Call of Duty were (I wasn’t a particularly critical-thinking middle schooler). Gangnam style was all over the radio, blessing my 7 a.m. rides to school in my mom’s Corolla, and I’d climb back onto my main after-school activity of the desktop computer to see the thumbnail on YouTube before clicking away and watching two very large buff men put together a mega burger made out of bacon instead.

Not that I had a global perspective of things at the time, but what was interesting about the virality of “Gangnam Style” is that it seemed to originate from completely different reasons across the US and its original target audience in Korea. I sensed this as one does through the American cultural hegemony, another middle schooler friend, who confided to me that it was great that Korea would be seen in such a positive light thanks to “Gangnam Style”. I wasn’t sure. I felt a little uneasy knowing that my cultural diplomat was PSY freaking out over a lady’s ass. 

“It’s awesome,” the guy who oversaw our after-school pick-up told me. 

“Did you know,” I said, pausing my round of Touhou 7 that I would bring in on a USB, “that it’s actually about capitalist critique?” I had learned this after Googling the lyrics because it felt a little rude to not know what a song in my own language meant. I wasn’t 100% sure what that meant, either, but they were words I knew went together according to Tumblr. 

The entire video, really, made me a little nervous. Who was I in the eyes of others at school? PSY? Who even was he?

I didn’t really want to be associated with this goofy Korean man who wasn’t very handsome. I wanted to be taken seriously.

We can chalk this up to the nervous identity crisis and desire for acceptance of any middle schooler, but this difference in understanding “Gangnam Style” wasn’t just personal, but a symptom of cultural differences. Not just cultural differences, but a refusal to translate or understand the spectacle of Korean messaging in the US. We can look at this with post-feminist theory as well as the pervasive use of ironic justification in the 2000s-2010s.

Background history

In Korea, PSY was already known for being a runaway success, starting as an underground artist who began to produce hit after hit, starting in 2001 with the success of his first full-length album because of his non-traditional styling (compared to the extremely polished and conventionally attractive looks of K-pop groups), use of comedic lyrics, as well as vulgar lyrics criticizing Korean society. So “Gangnam Style” wasn’t a far departure from that. 

The lyrics of “Gangnam Style” feature a guy who describes himself as “macho” and wants a girl who “looks quiet but parties hard when she goes to party,” or is “sexier covered up than a girl who is scantily dressed.” This narrator’s thoughts lean into the post-feminist sexism of the idea of a “girl who isn’t like other girls,” but PSY openly mocks the narrator’s preferences through the narrator’s parallel ideas on his own looks and perceived attractive features. This narrator brags that he also “can get crazy passionate” and “has bulging brains instead of bulging muscles.” While not necessarily as applicable in the Korean feminist scene during this time period, in the US this can be understood as the attempt to validate “alternative masculinities” that are not based on the traditions of physical power, but instead “intelligence” that became popular in the 2000s and 2010s. 

The hook, “Oppa Gangnam style,” can be understood as the narrator calling himself a cool guy from the Gangnam district, which can be thought of as posturing that you’re from a rich, high-culture district. The classical comparison is to Beverly Hills, but you can also think of people who brag about going to Harvard, being snotty about New York City, or so on. It mocks the idea of constructed masculinity through materialistic attempts at class mobility with commercial goods (the Mercedes car) and images of lifestyle (lounging at a “beach,” going to high-end spas) by showing these as tasteless, corny, and crass. “Gangnam Style” critiques the materialistic culture of Korean youths, who aspire to come off as rich and upper class through elegance and “taste.” But PSY lampoons this through an overtly corny music video that claims that he is portraying these “elegant” people who ultimately are chasing after masculine ideals of being considered attractive and meeting women who are feminine ideals in aesthetics. These men treat women like objects because they believe that they can achieve their masculinity through materialism and class.

But how many Americans know that “Gangnam Style” is a satirical critique of Korean materialism?

At the risk of being unfair, my two examples certainly didn’t know. Most other K-pop music videos have English captions, including the videos that were released before “Gangnam Style” caused a huge growth in interest in the genre. But “Gangnam Style,” 10 years after it’s been released, still has no translations on the video itself. Which seems strange since so much of the music video is guided by the lyrics. If the lyrics are lost on the American audience, where does the international appeal come from?

International Appeal

The answer is that the themes behind the lyrics were never part of the appeal. Most of the appeal comes from the music video. T-Pain tweeted, “words cannot even describe how amazing this video is...”, which is directly linked to the skyrocketing popularity of the video as news sites began to cover it. So the virality of “Gangnam Style” in the US must be studied through the lens of pleasure removed almost completely from the lyrics. Taking the music video at face value, then, we can get a different reading using post-feminist themes of irony, the choice of objectification, masculinities, as well as the construction of the consumer through advertising and sexuality.

The positive response to “Gangnam Style” has generally been attributed to the absurdist nature of the scenes in the video, as well as the dance itself. The Washington Post claimed that “'Gangnam Style' has made an extraordinarily stupid-looking dance move suddenly cool,” ignoring the fact that the dance was chosen to look stupid in the first place.

The Sydney Morning Herald claimed that the video “makes no sense at all to most Western eyes" and it "makes you wonder if you have accidentally taken someone else's medication."

The deliberate removal of meaning from the video is reminiscent of Adorno’s concept of the culture industry. The video loses the power of “psychology” over the “structure” of the music video. The Western viewers thus avoid the confrontation of culture in the music video by brushing the visual themes aside as “meaningless.” So it becomes “uncritical fun” and viewers can thus transcend the need to even know the lyrics. There is a racial aspect to this as well—the Korean-focused message is brushed aside since it “makes no sense at all” to a Westerner. So the minority Korean message is subjugated and destroyed, made invisible by mocking the silly Asian man doing his silly dance. In this way it becomes pleasurable to an audience that may otherwise be alienated by its themes.

Another way “Gangnam Style'' is understood in the US is through sexuality, as advertisements and other video forms have already created this sexualized “set of images.” It is likened to LMFAO, probably in reference to “Sexy and I Know It” for their satire of the grandstanding of masculinity. But LMFAO creates satire through the focus on male genitalia and body humor. The comparison of “Sexy and I Know It” can be understood by “Gangnam Style'' being seen as a video about a satire on male sexuality instead of consumerism, with American viewers focusing on the nudity and Noh Hongchul’s pelvic-thrusting dance. The latter dance is actually a trademark of Noh Hongchul’s comedy acts, but the American audience doesn’t know this, and thus interprets it in the language of images they are familiar with. As Sut Jhally puts it in “Advertising, Gender and Sex: What’s Wrong with a Little Objectification?”, the viewers are informed through the “system of images'' that are present in American society, and also happen to be obsessed with “gender and sexuality.” The one English lyric in the song is “Hey, sexy lady”—which adds to this perception and leads to a later ironic reading of other scenes where women are sexualized.

So of course there is no closed captioning—PSY understands the appeal for American audiences includes taking the lyrics as nonsensical and meaningless.

Another distinctly American reading occurs for the objectification of women, notably the yoga lady image that became the icon of “Gangnam Style.” With the context of the lyrics, it’s clear that this is a direct critique of the sleazy nature that comes from commodifying women. The women present in the music video are also traditionally beautiful, with the woman who seems to be interested in PSY in the music video being an idol herself. Without the context of the lyrics that deconstruct the delusion of a romantic, classy lifestyle where women only have value from being traditionally beautiful, however, this scene is transformed into the post-feminist “irony” that Rosalind Gill talks about in her paper “Postfeminist Media Culture.” American viewers thus participate in the sexualization of these women by the constructed “silliness” of the music video. By making “Gangnam Style” absurdist and bereft of meaning, PSY’s yoga lady scene is seen as “funny” and “subversive” towards sexism, even though the original critique is on materialism and commodification.

The real absurdity is the American response to “Gangnam Style” as a force to “understand Korea” in the US by Obama, and even as a way to hail world peace by the UN.

Even Noam Chomsky was part of an MIT parody of “Gangnam Style,” partaking in “mindless fun.” I felt a little disturbed at the time that this might be the image of Korea constructed for the American mind as actual interest in the culture was swept away by the exaltation of the video as nonsensical and meaningless. As a 6th grader, this wasn’t how I framed it to myself, but the way the Western viewpoint became dominant over the original meanings of the video signaled to me that my Korean experience would become destroyed and overwritten by the white, American viewpoint. The post-feminist mindset also created a post-racial mindset where irony was used to mock other cultures, setting a white gaze in media much like the male gaze asserted by Laura Mulvey in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” That’s why so many TV shows were able to partake in blackface (like The Office and 30 Rock, just to name a few) and take pleasure in unashamed racial violence—to the white gaze, it is funny, because the original meaning of racial violence can be stripped away.

 

References

Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Sexual Culture.” The Routledge Companion to Media & Gender, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203066911.ch54.

Horkheimer, Max, et al. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, 2020.

Jhally, Sut. “Advertising, Gender and Sex: What's Wrong with a Little Objectification?” (1989).

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 1999.

[marilysugarcoated]

I have no words to describe how I feel right now

All i can really make out of this huge messy ball of unidentifiable emotion, is my unwavering gratitude.

Thank you. so much.

objectively, it sounds dumb and stupid that I’m getting so worked up over the ending of a “silly minecraft series”, but it is so much more than that. To me, this represents something so much bigger, -a hard truth i refused to confront.

Growth is inevitable, and childhood does not last forever. I knew that- I’ve always known that. and still, a part of me had always rejected the idea of change. I’d always described myself as an optimist who was open to change; someone who embraced and relished in it. I held a firm philosophy in not mulling over outcomes you couldn’t control, and i did whatever I could to keep myself in that ‘healthy’ positive mindset. I knew that if I’d done anything differently, the girl from my childhood would wander farther from my reach.

Eventually, the favourite foods id once adored as a kid began to lose its flavour, (I’d briefly wondered if they’d changed the recipe) I began to notice the slight changes in my behaviour and body language; more tentative- almost insecure. The results from personality quizzes did not match with those I’d taken in previous years, I never really realized exactly how withdrawn I’d become.

Reality was rearing it’s ugly head, and we couldn’t have that, could we? -so, I desperately clung to anything and everything that was reminiscent of the little girl I’d grown to know so well. Subconsciously, i started regressing- I found myself helplessly depending on others, unable to go out anywhere without a stuffed animal, frequently putting my hair in pigtails, and engaging in more child-like activities, (at least, more than usual.)

These past few years, I’d felt as though I had lost my sense of self. I would force myself to feel and act accordingly to this perceived version of me. ‘Turns out that this ‘version of myself’ was just the girl I was before. Before the pandemic, before high-school, before I’d learned that the world was not all cotton candy and sugar cookies.- before; where my worries consisted only of stardew and genshin- before; where being happy was my default.

Watching the final episode snapped me out of my delusional reverie, and it felt as though Stampy had allowed me a sense of closure. I was beguiled when his video popped up in my youtube recommendations, not to mention the fact that it was his FINAL episode.

In truth, I didn’t expect it to hit me as much as it did. I mean, I hadn’t exactly planned on spending my saturday night sobbing to a minecraft let’s play vid lmao. Sure, in retrospect this really isn’t as big of a deal as I’m making it seem. And to that I say; yea. lol im even cringing myself out a bit, but hey, i’ve always been one for theatrics. ;)

But really; as I scrolled through the comments (still crying btw), I’d finally allowed myself to mourn, and confront the fact that I have grown up. I could no longer consider myself a little kid,, and that’s okay. it will be okay.

This is the end of an era. further more, it is the start of something new. The real world awaits, and i have Stampy (and others) to thank for the person I am today:)

It has been such a privilege to be part of this community of others raised alongside me, and to have had the pleasure of little-me experiencing the elation she’d felt when Stampy posted a new video.

Sincerely, thank you. Thank you soso much Stampy, for bringing so much joy and laughter to us many young kids— turned young adults

It’s been an unforgettable ride:)

Now, all we can do is move forward.- Take life as it is, and carefully construct our own worlds so that maybe, (just maybe,) they can become as lovely as yours has. ❤️‍🩹🐈

[hertwood]

director's cut for a collection of statistical improbabilities please? <3

i am so so sorry for taking this long to answer!! as a treat i will share an actual deleted scene!

i say in the author's note that this fic was inspired by the kdrama the lover, but outside of concept it is nothing like the kdrama. the concept of ~foreigner becomes short term roommate, they fall in love but wait! time is running out~ is pretty much all i took, and everything else is different.

But I did write a scene with lolex that I remembered playing out in the drama, and then cut it specifically for that--it didnt add much to the story of my fic, and I liked there being as little as possible from the inspo making it into the fic.

HOWEVER this kdrama came out in 2015, and i watched it in 2015 (it is actually lost media now, only supercuts of the mlm plotline have survived on youtube.) I have not watched it since. I went to look through the video to find the scene I ripped off and it wasnt there!! My brain just made it up and remembered it so I thought I was ripping this kdrama off when it rly was my own lil scene. (even though the cut scene still reads as heavily inspired by the kdrama). I still don't feel bad for cutting it bc i don't think it fits well but its still cute!!

below the cut uwu

Logan nicks himself when shaving. It's dumb, and stupid, and not a big deal, but that doesn't stop Alex from digging through boxes of toiletries to find a bandaid. They're standing in the cramped bathroom, and Alex is so close Logan can feel his breath on his face as Alex applies the bandaid, eyes furrowed in concentration. Logan watches, for a second, as Alex's eyes flicker to his lips, then back down, knowing he's been caught. Alex clears his throat and leaves, and Logan has to remember how to think. Logan lies awake in bed, wishing he'd done something, anything. Tries to convince himself this will all hurt less if they just repress whatever's between them until he leaves.

[soudakuwunmoment]

expressing my take on dream is how i finally get cancelled but tbh im ready.

so i just watched the moistcritical video on whatever bullshit happened on twitter regarding him.

i wanna establish that im not exactly a dream fan. i dont watch videos of his or really anyone from that part of youtube. i dont think hes that great of a person necessarily.

also, i want to establish that i am an idiot 18yo boy. ight? im not some kind of expert on this shit. its literally just my take. its an opinion. and im putting it on the internet. as people tend to do.

okay. recap. dream allegedly sent snapchat videos of him moaning to a minor. there is zero proof that the video was from him, and zero proof that it was sent to a minor. then the fight between dream and gumballva. oh my god. guys. god i cant even with this bit. alright alright ill get to it

im gonna completely fuckin disregard the snapchat thing. theres absolutely no proof. innocent until proven guilty, as it goes.

about the fight between dream and gbva. holy shit stop taking sides. both of these men are immature man babies whos fame got to their head. "it was a physical fight!!!!!!" believe it or not, drunk slapfights happen sometimes. just because the fight was between two famous guys doesnt make it any more important or significant.

gbva was referring to himself as Michelangelo. he was saying how dream is "miniscule compared to him" like the worlds most pathetic dick measuring competition. he mentioned his "intellectual stature" guys. my friend told me about how the gumball va TOTALLY BURNED DREAM and DESTROYED HIM so i had high expectations. but no. the guys just stroking his own ego and shittalking some other guy, and people are hype about it because the other guy is dream and OOOOOOO DREAM BAD GUYS.... and because gumball is pretty well loved as a show. he called dream a slur. like on one hand, it is INSANE to me that a famous guy called someone a slur and twitter cheered. on the other hand its actually not that big a deal. yes, slurs and homophobia are a big deal. but let me reiterate that this is literally just two drunk dudes trying to roast each other and failing miserably. a slur isnt going to end the world. like it isnt cool that he said it, he shouldnt have said it, but honestly what the fuck ever. people are being killed in mass rn and this is what we're arguing about and im part of the problem so WAHOO.

and then theres the fact that dream recorded it. guys its not that fucking weird. im sorry to burst your bubble but recording arguments or recording when someone is aggressive towards you isnt abnormal. was it a little bit dramatic and incredibly childish to post it on twitter? yeah!!! duh!!! this is dream we're talking about. dramatic. childish. but the thing is, and hear me out, hes allowed to do that. insane as it may be, humans are allowed to be dramatic and childish. humans are allowed to brag about their "intellectual stature" in a cab after a night out. humans are allowed to be flawed. no, i dont think he was recording it due to feeling unsafe. i do in fact believe he was recording it to start drama. i believe whole heartedly that dream recorded the argument hoping his teenaged fanbase would run to his rescue. and you know what? who gives a shit!! are you actually surprised? are you REALLY? because dream very obviously has something wrong in his head. im not saying that the shit he does is okay because of it. but i want everyone reading this right now to imagine how you would realistically cope if you suddenly became famous during the fucking plague at the ripe ass age of 21 in the span of a month and then spent the next 3 years being either worshipped by children in mass or brutally harassed by literally the entire world. because believe it or not, 21 year olds are immature and are not normally equipped to deal with a situation like that. its entirely possible that dream already had issues, and its also entirely possible that he FORMED issues in the past 3 years due to the intense stress of his situation. dream is fucked up. dream has issues.

but listen to me. as far as we know, dream is not a pedophile or a murderer or a racist or a homophobe or any of that shit. sure, hes awful at babysitting each and every one of his bajillion preteen fans, but thats kinda not his fucking responsibility??? if a kid is going around doing awful shit in the name of some guy, blame the kids parents. its their job to teach their kid how to act online and around other people. and sure, dream is very very likely a narcissist and seems to be incapable of criticism and needs attention constantly or else he keels over like a scared gerbil and dies. hes kind of a shitty fuckin guy!! BUT GUESS. WHAT. so is like 70% of the population!!!! most of us are fucking awful!!

i know i cant change shit, i know id get bodied by even a single dream anti. i just wish people would stop giving him attention, leave him the fuck alone, and let him get therapy or spend a year in the woods or smoke some fucking weed idk.

seeing the reaction people have to literally just some schmuck makes me TERRIFIED of putting myself out there. can we all just accept that everyone is flawed and sometimes good people have shitty takes or do shitty things. if you had the same exposure to the world that dream did, how quickly would YOU get cancelled? im just. im fucking begging you to look at this guy (and other equally underwhelming schmucks) with a critical mind and context to why you may see them the way you do.

im not tagging this shit i dont hate myself that much. i dont mind if no one reads this i just wanna rant. just leave the guy be.

[vlaserbeam]

Was opening a fresh tab to listen to some video game music, and because I hadn’t logged in on that window and didn’t have any cookies, I got the default recommendations that Youtube gives someone in that scenario.

And it was? Upsetting? Filled to the brim with right wing humor and shit like “Try not to get CANCELLED joke compilation” and “Can one WOKE TEEN survive TWENTY REPUBLICANS?” To non-humorous outright right wing politics like “The democrats TRICKED me” “Trump is bringing the Bible BACK to America 🥳” and a literal RFK Jr. video.

It wasn’t all that it was random stuff, it’s that a huge amount of it was that kind of edgy right wing stuff that starts people down the pipeline.

It’s genuinely kinda disheartening. Not because that stuff exists, dealing with the fact awful people exist isn’t anything new, but by the fact that was put on me that quickly. I didn’t know the pipeline was still that active, one video listening to video game music (Which, to be clear, was from SLARPG. A furry game about a trans lesbian. Nothing about the content I was viewing was related to the recommendations) and a bunch of videos promoting harmful views were lined up on a silver platter.

Like, yeah. Algorithms are algorithms, they’ll push what gets people to keep watching more and more sludge. When they have so little data on you, they’ll poke and prod to see whatever will get you to sink more time into the site, its not just right wing or fundamentalist Christian stuff, you’ll get other stuff, but its a big one when its determined you’re a teen or young adult. I suppose it’s just disheartening to know that a lot of impressionable young teens are going to be brought into those ideologies because of scrolling habits.

Because people usually don’t search out individual videos. They just click something in the recommendations and keep going from there. Social media is like that, it’s why people get hooked on short form content like shorts and Tiktok. I don’t really care about that on its own, but it’s frustrating how it can, and is, used to drip feed impressionable people into these harmful movements.

[kozykricket]

yknow maybei ll write more about this in a big vent post (oops, this post ITSELF turned into the big vent post.

honestly i feel like im having a sort of Creativity Crisis

like. ehngv theres so many things to make but i also just. cant be bothered. and. for some things, it seems they've been done before for other things? they havent been done but they're very daunting and. overwhelm me and... i should probably just like, actually plan things out.. and not scope things so high i really wanna be able to say "heres a clean nice youtube video i have where i explain the concept behind what i think pokemon swsh had going for it and how i'd take some of its existing elements, change a few themes, and make it awesom!!"

i want to... make tons of cool builds in minecraft and terraria i want to.. make mods for minecraft! that do subtle lil things.. and tweak lots of aspects of the game! or maybe even sometimes big things! i. want to. but i also, really dont . because theres just so much

i think im just... really scared that i wont be able to ever get all of or even any of my best ideas out there in the world, and. im also desperate to try and prove that im not just an ideas person. that i am someone who can create things and i mean i LIKE creating things! i LIKE the trial and error process! i like... when i get really into something, and have to try and like. troubleshoot what problems may arise but sometimes theres certain types of troubles where they just push me away because im uncomfortable about having to learn how to deal with them and. shit. i dunno. woe is me i guess. despite this id like to clarify im in a p decent mood overall, i certainly havent had a bad day. its really just uh, past midnight thoughts that have suddenly happened. i had a nice day.

but GOD i . i want ot be someone do soemthing and . yet im so convinced that im someone who just WONT. whos just a little whiny person who wont be able to do anything because... im just unmotivasted or whatever and. im also just , genuinely like. i find it almost hard to care sometimes. about the things that i know i desire. because i just Cannot be Bothered. ill just wait until someone else makes the thing... or ill just, write it down as an idea and itll forever be a WIP i want to build stuff in terraria and minecraft at the VERY least right now and like. i have ideas for both of them. but GOD it just. seems... so.. i dont CARE. they're cool Little Ideas but i donT CAREEee waaah whatever its like 3am rn my mind is . not worth listening to

[unhinged-comics-screaming]

I don't usually watch the Marvel short series or whatever but I was hoping for some crumbs from S2E1 since it's literally "What if Nebula joined the Nova Corps".

Positive and negative notes below! Also spoilers, duh.

This is like, stupid long. Probably longer than the video itself. It kinda makes me want to come back and write a proper essay

Author disclaimers/context: I'm a Nova girly. Duh. Love comics. Have bad memory. Have not watched every MCU thing but have a lot of vibes about it.

I really enjoyed the color...ing? color grading? whatever fancy word is used for the colors of a film. A lot of nice compositions as well. I'm glad there were a lot of visually bright moments.

I generally like the style of What if but the animation/rigging itself is... not great. It's definitely a little chunky. I'm not looking for like, feature film levels but maybe a bit more than 3D animation youtubers.

Plot wise, I understand what they were going for but it doesn't really build well in short format. The ambiance was there but literally "corrupt police chief" is soooo overdone. Also like Howard the Duck and Groot were fun to see but am I supposed to know the other guy? Or like Korg?

I legitimately had to rewind the section where she gets uhhh apparently some Captain Marvel dude? out because his name is goofy and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to recognize him earlier. The end bit where he's next to the other Nova Officer is so funny because its just. Two white dudes next to each other that are nearly identical.

Euch okay not a shining example of the art style. It's okay generally I promise.

On that note, the total lack of uniqueness in the Nova Corps was boring like is this the Nova rapture (vol 4)

Like okay not totally perfect examples but at the very least I feel like it's important to emphasize that the Nova Corps are an intergalactic thing and not like, Humans+. They show some other alien races on Xandar itself but all of the Corpsmen just look like humans.

I mean, on the whole the Nova Corps aren't fleshed out which is fine since we don't have a Nova focused thingy yet but I feel like the MCU on the whole misses iconic things in favor of just omitting details that they can't handhold. Nothing about Worldmind, the Nova Force or anything. In general they just aren't setting up any MCU folks to root for them at all. Like imagine a Ko Rel cameo in the scene where Nebula is getting beat up by a bunch of unpowered by virtue of lack of explanation dudes and Ko Rel has some compassion and helps her out. Imagine knowing anything about the Nova Corps beyond "space cops".

On the hand holding, I get that some of the over explain-y-ness is a bit eg. *shield closes in on a ship with big explosions* "the shields are closing on the ships!!" but like all of the writing is just. So much. I probably could've listened to the whole thing like a radio play.

A lot of the writing felt like it was trying to be self aware eg. *wow person breaking into something talks to lock* "why are you talking to the lock it doesn't even have actual mechanisms" which is at least a fun Nebula line but it felt even more cliche. I probably could've guessed how most of the lines in the movie were going to go. Also everything with the comic relief group. I like Howard the Duck calling Nebula 'Nebby' but every bit in the casino/bar was unfunny and boring. Why is Korg here aside from the Rock, Paper, Scissors joke.

God the stupid "aren't you a big deal baddie?" bit was so long and painful. ugh. made worse by the fact I haven't seen Captain Marvel.

Anyway. After making an essay longer than the episode itself. Sandwich time. More good uh I don't like Nebula because of how far removed she is from her comic self but hey. It works and I actually quite liked her. Space cop cars were cool. They included one Hala star which satisfied my curiosity of "how are they gunna look near the nova stars".

Wow I should like, make essays proper instead of going full stream of consciousness on everyone's ass. Maybe if I did video essays I could give you a consolation prize for getting this far from one of my sponsors. I really didn't mean for this to get this long I just started having feelings

[kimberly-stocks]

Warning. A long rant about Rory Gilmore ahead.

I was doing a research for a story I'm writing (it's literati fanfiction), and after watching a few clips on YouTube from the show I kinda got sucked into this whole realm of Gilmore girls content. There's literally a ton of videos, and a lot of them are uploaded recently. Which is so fascinating, considering the show aired 2 decades ago. And while I was going through vids on analysis of the show and its characters, I kinda got stumbled upon a whole bunch of them called 'the downfall of Rory Gilmore' and the likes. I watched some of them... And it made me feel weird. I mean, there were several valid points they made about her character, but at the same time, I tried to reconcile them with my thoughts on her the first time I watched the show because they didn't necessarily coincide.

I first watched the original series a year ago, meaning I was 32, just like Lorelai was in the pilot. So, I wasn't a kid watching it when it aired. I was a grown adult with some life experiences under my belt. So I didn't just get automatically sucked into what the creators of the show wanted me to believe. And I remember I kinda liked Rory in the beginning. She was this studious introverted girl, kinda like myself at her age. She had a great relationship with her mom which I could relate to. It was a very cozy show, homey, and it was easy for me to remember what it was like to be 16 again. I had a harder time identifying with Lorelai, even though we were the same age, because her personality is way different than mine, and also she often times annoyed me a little. And I could understand the logic behind everything Rory was doing. I didn't necessarily agree with all of her choices, but I could understand them. Why she stopped spending as much time with Lane when she met Dean, why she didn't tell Lorelai about Jess, why she was mad when she saw him with Shane, etc. I could even understand why she slept with married Dean. Like, it was bad, i get it but I also understood why she did it. She wasn't perfect, and I could see her logic behind what she was doing.

But as the show progressed, I guess I started having problems with Rory's character and have a lot of questions for her, because the more I watched (from the late season 4, and then season 5, 6), the only thought I had about her was 'god, what a waste! What a waste of resources, potential and time'.

Personally, I don't think having negative thoughts about a character is necessarily 'hate'. I thought the writers did her dirty. And here's why.

When I was in college I had two girls in my class who were straight A's students and basically stars of their local schools in their respective small towns. They graduated with honors and whatnot. And one of them, Angy, was like a perfect little girl, her mom was a teacher, she was a straight A's student, she participated in every shindig her school threw, everyone loved her, her picture was even posted on a special school board of best students or whatever. And when she first came into a big city and a big college (our uni had probably more students than her whole town's population combined), she expected everyone to treat her like she was a star just like she used to be in her school, and she acted accordingly. But in a big city and a big school no one gave a damn, nobody knew who she was and they didn't care. That was a serious reality check for her. I remember one time my friend and I passed the exam and we got A's, while Angy went before us and got a B. And when she found out we got A's she got so mad! And she literally threw a temper tantrum like 'why did THEY get A's and I didn't???? I'm gonna go back to that professor and demand a retake' and she said 'they' in such a tone which implied 'such losers', because, my friend and I, we kinda struggled, especially me, so getting an A was a big deal, we were by no means excelling. To her credit, Angy later realized that she had to earn her status all over again, and she kept up good grades, and was even helpful to her fellow students, and later she even helped me when I really stuggled with my math assignments. So, in the end, she realized she had to work to get what she wanted, and it wouldn't just be given to her because she was The Angy. Season 5 Rory hadn't. She met Logan instead.

I don't blame any of her boyfriends in her short comings, it was more her upbringing I feel like. She was a product of her environment really, if you think about it. Her whole town treated her like she was a special snowflake, a gifted super child. Lorelai herself said 'if you see a girl with a halo above her head and a book, that's my daughter, Rory'. Her grandparents told her she was smart and talented and whatnot (which I guess was better than the Christopher's parents attitude), but in the end it didn't really help her in the long run. It's hard to accept you're not as special as everyone told you you were your whole life. And even though Lorelai encouraged Rory to pursue her dreams and such, it seemed like she didn't give her any room for error or exploring the world on her own. Rory was always kinda sheltered and lived in a bubble.

Which in turn makes me question where did that dream to become an international correspondent even came from? I was so surprised to hear that when she told Jess about it in Teach me tonight. She was so introverted, she didn't make any new friends at Chilton. If Paris didn't pursue her from day one, she might not even had any friends at Chilton at all, because she had Lane, Dean, her mom and books. Then at Yale having Paris as a roommate also didn't do her any good. It was a safely blanket. Instead of branching out and finding new people she just stayed with Paris instead. She said she wanted to travel and see the world and be a journalist. But you don't have to be an international correspondent to travel. And sure, she's good at writing, that's great. But why Christiane amanpour? Wars and trenches, Rory? Really? She couldn't even handle her first day at Yale on her own without her mommy. Which was kinda the point of chosing Yale in the first place, and a dead give away of the fact an international correspondent is not for her. The signs were always there, but no one in Rory's circle took them into account.

And then the Mitchum incident. When I first watched it, I thought, "my god, you can't possibly take everything he says seriously. He doesn't want you to date his son just like the rest of his family, that's why he gave you the internship and then critiqued you, so not to be a jerk at first at that dinner, but then mess with you. Isn't that obvious? Am I the only one who sees it???" Why was her first reaction to steal a yacht and drop out of Yale? Would she do the same if she was covering a war overseas, and someone told her, 'there's no place for you here, go away'. And she what, would be like 'oh? Okay'. The first criticism in her life and instead of retreating and regrouping and fighting back, she just decides her career is over before it even started? Like wtf??? There's a lot of different kinds of jobs where you could apply writing. Even if journalism was not for her, she could've figured something out without dropping out, especially considering she was majoring in English, not in journalism. That's a lot broader category with more flexibility. Why wasn't her first reaction to prove him wrong?

I struggled a lot in college. Granted, I was a STEM major, so the experience is not exactly the same, but still, the amount of people who told me I wasn't smart enough, that I didn't have it, was astounding. If i listened to everyone who doubted me, I would've dropped out after the first semester, and would not have a PhD I have today. That's why that storyline was not relatable to me, and I did not agree with her decision. Frankly, it pissed me off. I mean, it's easy to just give up when you have rich grandparents to fall back on, when they're gonna pay for everything, and you wouldn't have to work a single hour to pay the bills. I personally didn't have that opportunity and privilege, maybe that's why it made me react so passionately about it, I was fuming when I watched that episode. I was like 'girl, please! Get you shit together, Gilmore!' Her grandparents and Lorelai are extremely stubborn, but Rory in that situation seemed like she didn't inherit any of the Gilmore stubbornness and resilience. Maybe it's flaky Christopher genes, I don't know. And from then on I kept thinking what a waste of money that was. I wondered if she would throw that away if she had a student loan, or Lorelai was paying for Yale from her own pocket, and not her grandparents who basically just gave her money for free, and refused her offer to pay them in installments when she gets a part time job (Which she never did).

I don't know what's the point of this whole rant. I guess I can kinda understand her story arc was realistic in a way, and her being nowhere near successful in her thirties makes her relatable to the audience, but I still think it was a waste. Especially when you think about guys like Marty who had to bartend to cover his expenses and couldn't pay $70 for a meal. Rory never had to do that.

I guess, it makes me sad that her character turned out to be written that way. And I have a lot of questions to Rory, and maybe to ASP. When I first watched the show, I didn't notice a lot of stuff because I binged it. But after reading a hell of a lot of fanfiction and watching all those analysis videos and reading fan theories and whatnot, I watched bits and pieces more closely, and noticed a lot of discrepancies, which made me question the show and Rory's character. And I wonder if those things were just a sloppy writers' job, or was it intentional, and they dropped hints on what Rory's trajectory would be like all along.

For example, it still surprises me to this day, that Rory only realised she needed extra curricular activities to get into Harvard when Paris told her about it in JUNIOR year!! Like, wasn't it your dream school since you were a little kid? You had at least a decade to do a thorough research on this school, and memorize everything about what kind of stuff and grades and things they were looking for in their potential students. How come Rory didn't know that having just good grades wasn't enough? Like, how? It seemed like Rory's dream of going to Harvard was exactly that, a dream, not a realistic plan. And she kept living in a fantasy world where she's so special and would get into Harvard no sweat just because Babette told her she was smart. How come she didn't have doubts? Also, Lorelai, who encouraged her Harvard dream, how was she going to pay for that if she couldn't even pay for Chilton? It was like Chilton price came as a total surprise to her. Didn't you know the cost before your kid applied to that school in the first place?

I understand that going to Yale was a plot device to keep Rory close to her mom, so that the show could still be 'Gilmore girls', not 'one gilmore girl is going to Harvard and the other opens an inn'. But I think, character wise, it would be better if Rory went literally anywhere else. Maybe not necessarily to Harvard, because I feel like it was more Lorelai's dream anyway, and she already dreamed about it for too long, which builds expectations, that the school might not meet in reality, and that would lead to another identity crisis. I think Rory should've gone to some school that was further away than Yale, so that she couldn't visit as often, and so that she would have a chance to do her own thing, without the pressures of constantly being a perfect unicorn child, or a perfect granddaughter, Lorelai 2.0, where she could just be herself, and try new things and meet new people, and just explore the world outside of stars hollow and Hartford and her grandparents house.

It makes me sad. I understand she had a lot of flaws and did some questionable things, and that made her character so realistic and appealing to the audience, but she had so much potential, and it makes me sad the writers wrote her the way she turned out eventually.

And I guess, it also bugs me that after all those vids it's harder for me to ship Rory with Jess, which I need to be able to keep doing for the sake of my story 😄🙈 because I can't get those mean things said about her out of my head. Also, Jess had the best character development on the show, in my opinion. Of course he did a lot of stupid shit too, and he was by no means perfect or better than Rory. But seeing her so helpless and flailing while he's going steady is disconcerting.

What I liked about the show is that the characters seem very realistic, they have real flaws and great treats as well, they act like human beings, that's why it's such a beloved series. Also, while I was watching i could mostly understand not only Rory's logic but everyone else's logic behind the things that they did. I loved the chemistry between Jess and Rory, and that's probably the reason i shipped them from the start, from the first episode he appeared. I was like 'ooh, this is gonna be fun' 😏 and it was super entertaining and I wanted more, and discovered a beautiful world of literati fanfiction. Which is the only outlet for fans to get Rory and Jess the relationship they deserved. I really hope I won't burn out, and finish the story I started after all. 🤞 Maybe I should stop with those analysis videos 😬

There are literally keyboard wars unfolding in the comment sections of those vids. The comments range from 'rory is the worst, i wish she died' to 'why is everyone hating on rory, she's so sweet'. I guess, my point of view is that I'm not a crazy Rory fan that would defend her no matter what kind of shit she does, but I don't hate her either. After reading so many stories about her and Jess, after discovering so many beautiful plot lines people came up with, where Rory still does screw up and make mistakes, but she learns from it, it makes me more disappointed in the original canon writing, more than anything. I mean, there are so many different ways ASP could've gone, and she chose to go with this? I mean, really? Dude!

I think she said something like she wanted the show to resemble life, and you not always get what you want, and not all of your dreams come true eventually, which is understandable. But the show started as this portrayal of mother-daughter relationship who had this amazing bond, and I feel like, a lot of people don't have that, so it was nice for them to watch that kind of close relationship. But then it turned out like Lorelai only loves Rory as long as she does everything Lorelai wants her to, but the moment she deviates, Lorelai flips out or stops talking to her. What is the moral in that? That motherly love is conditional? That you only deserve to be loved when you try to follow unrealistic expectations of perfection? That's not exactly nice and comforting. It's like the show digressed from being a sweet family show to a depressing therapy-needing mess.

Also, many people view the series as a comfort show, the one they watch to feel better. Of course, ASP didn't intend it to be a comfort show, so she didn't have to do what the audience wanted, but a happy ending, at least to a certain extent, would be nice.

Phew, rant over. I guess.

P.S. I also saw a lot of posts and comments saying that Rory gets way more hate than any other character on the show which isn't fair to her. I guess it's true, but at the same time, she IS a main character, next to Lorelai she has the most of screen time, hence the most of footage and material to analyse her behaviour. And it's a general knowledge everyone loves Lorelai and god forbid you criticize her in any shape or form. So, by elimination Rory gets all the shit, unfortunately.