#you don’t have to agree with me

[mylambandmartyr]

when you have the time and energy id be very interested to hear why you dislike the punisher (2017)......... because i also dislike it but can never put into words why or even point to a reason. its always "frank's vibes are off" or "the general vibes are off" or "its painfully unfunny" or "it just annoys me". if you have anything more specific or analytical id love to hear it

Where to even start…

Ok. I'm going to be focusing on just the first season where it’s at it’s "best" to be generous, because all of the most egregious issues get so much worse in the second season so it barely counts in my mind.

It’s got all of the trademark Marvel Problems. The cringe dialogue, the convoluted plots, the nationalist propaganda, the aggressive heterosexuality, sacrificing an interesting story in favor of an American-dream-Apple-pie-and-motherhood ass-plot… etc. etc…

I’ll split this up into a miscellaneous laundry list of complaints for structure, so this doesn’t end up turning into a rambling essay.

• Incoherent messaging/Bad politics

First off, It’s US military propaganda, but we all know that. That impacts its ability to tell an authentic, thoughtful story. Propaganda is always full of contradictions and exceptions to its own rules, which exacerbates problems that already riddle corporate media.

The most glaring problem I think most Marvel properties have is lack of a cohesive message and themes. Daredevil suffers from a similar issue, which is as much of a "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem (too many contradicting ideas) for what they wanted as it is with the producers being spineless hacks who were unable to decide what they wanted their story to be.

They wanted to have their cake and eat it too, in a lot of respects. They wanted to tell a story about trauma, vengeance and the brutality of war but they also wanted a All-American Badass Gun Guy to get young people interested in enlisting, so it constantly jettisons back and forth in tone and makes for shitty television.

• Stupid Plot

The conspiracy-thriller plot feels off-base for a Punisher story, and is jarring if you saw season 2 of Daredevil. It doesn’t even feel like it takes place in the same universe (none of it feels cohesive, which as stated is a running problem)

The series begins with Frank "finishing" his mission to eliminate everyone involved with the murders of his family and symbolically burning his Punisher vest. This is beyond stupid for a variety of reasons. From a continuity perspective, a storytelling perspective, a character motivation perspective… it just doesn’t make sense. This means the writers have to scramble to come up with a new conflict, which is absurd to me when they could’ve just… had him keep going.

• General Characterization

You’re entirely correct in that Frank’s character just feels off. Like I said earlier, going into the Punisher fresh off of Daredevil season 2 is jarring, even before I knew anything about the character from the comics. There’s a sense that there’s something missing with Frank’s motivations and it definitely has a lot to do with the aforementioned stupid Government conspiracy A-plot in season 1.

Imo, Jon Bernthal, despite everything, plays Frank pretty well considering the material he’s been given, but there’s still something off. @cabfarewell says that it’s because he plays him too much like a cop, which I think is true. There’s just air of… Bootlicker throughout the whole show that undercuts the fact that Frank, at his core, is a character who gets fucked over by his government, which is vaguely gestured at but never satisfyingly addressed.

• Sexism

It goes without saying that Marvel is dogshit at female characters and the Punisher is no exception.

It’s tragic because Karen Page, Dinah Madani, Sarah and Leo Lieberman (and to some extent Maria) all have potential but are woefully underutilized. It’s very clear that the writers are using stock archetypes as a crutch (Potential Love interest, "Virtuous" Cop, Mother, Daughter, Dead Wife etc…) and never expand on them more, because clearly they do not see them as people, but like I said, this is par for the course for Marvel, nobody’s surprised.

• The Liebermans

Then there’s my beloved Micro.

I adore Micro as a character for a variety of reasons and I think Ebon Moss-Bacharach plays him fantastically, BUT it has to be said that he embodies a lot of antisemitic stereotypes.

The narrative aggressively pushes the audience to view him as an unathletic, cowardly effete intellectual who’s reluctant to get his hands dirty. He’s scheming and not entirely trustworthy, he’s simultaneously hypersexual and impotent. Literally the only way they could’ve made it worse is if they made him a cheapskate with deep-seated mommy issues.

It’s kind of bizarre because there are things David does that directly contradict the stereotypes, he’s clearly very capable, and not a coward, but Frank and other characters insist that they’re true. It’s just bad writing.

They kind of half-ass a suggestion of a character arc, but it ultimately ends with a restoration of the status quo which MAKES NO SENSE for David as a character.

Sarah’s an even worse case, not even getting an arc and barely changing as a result.

Like I said earlier, Sarah is neglected by the narrative which makes a lot of the things she does not entirely make sense taking into account how a real person might respond in her situation. Sarah and her kids are more plot devices than people, which is disappointing, because I feel like giving her more character would have enriched the story a lot. She’s positioned as a mirror to Frank, being also recently widowed and coping poorly, and like most things in this show this is never addressed fully.

[doyoulikedem]

i think a thing about ‘the manuscript’ is that, more than any other song i think of taylor’s, this one feels most like taylor just singing to me.. like she just sat down at the piano and began to sing me a song she wrote

[alarrytale]

When you mentioned organic and non-organic earlier regarding Louis at Glastonbury, you mentioned that his encounters and pics are non-organic. Many of those pics came from his friend, Ray, who actually went private on his account when he realized pics were being shared. People are quite pissed about it actually. People close to Ray even said that and called it disrespectful to Louis and his friends. So many of the pics we got from the first couple of days there were definitely organic and him just having fun with his friends from back in the day. His managers only showed up there recently. The pics we’ve been getting are either from his friend’s private account, sneaky shots or pics with fans that see him there. But that’s been happening even before his managers arrived. I think to say his time there is non-organic is not really accurate this time around and it was refreshing to see him hanging out with his childhood friends, sister and band mates that he’s grown close to, like his family away from home. Louis is a person above everything and I think it’s ok to say that some things he does is just him being a person and not always non-organic. He loves attending festivals, always has and I think it’s good for him to have that time to be with friends he’s had since he was a kid. I think it keeps him pretty grounded actually. Some famous people leave regular friendships behind when they make it big, he didn’t. I think it’s just friends hanging out because they haven’t seen each other in a long time so they were all letting loose. Nothing wrong or considered toxic masculinity about it. Maybe that his managers are there something flipped, who knows but those couple of days when they first got there was definitely just him being with his friends that he’s known forever.

Hello Marte, today I woke up and saw articles in The Sun about Louis at Glasto, there was a photo of F wearing his hat, in addition to him having the same haircut as Louis. So he's just in Glasto for fun? But there are articles and a photo of his fake son. Ah yes, I understand, it's all quite natural

Hi, anons!

I still think this event serves both purposes. Please don't be so naive to think that this Ray guy didn’t post all this with Louis' blessing and consent. They're all under NDA's. His managers and band are there. Lottie has also posted pics, so Louis being there is supposed to be shared and publicised. And yes, Louis being there is covered by the Sun, saying that Louis is slumming it among the commoners, exactly how he wants to appear and the image he wants to project. And a bonus reminder that he has a son. He wanted attention from this and he got it, and managed to confirm his image and narrative through it.

He's having a good time with friends and family and being mostly himself, but it's also publicised to enforce his image, which is also being done through the Sun. So it's semi-organic? Organic, but controlled and planned to be publicised? And only one side of what he does there is shown? An attention grab to put focus on his son without having to stunt? Call it what you want, but everything he does to confirm and enforce his image is non-organic in my book. Even though i do think he's having a really good time there, it isn't all him and who he is, and it's being taken advantage of to project an image and confirm a narrative.

[lichtecht]

die drei fragezeichen sind in einer queerplatonischen, polyamoren beziehung. no i don’t take criticism

[mumblesplash]

i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers

you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.

AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character

see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.

mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.

[lilislegacy]

percy, holding out his fist in his palm: ok wise girl. rock paper scissors time. if i win, i get to pick the movie for date night

annabeth, doing the same: fine, but if i win, we move back across the country to that house in westchester that i love

grover, looking over in alarm: what?! how is that even—

percy, nodding firmly: deal. rock pap—

[totallynots8tan]

Personally I think she and Leo secretly bonded late at night in the Argo ll and opened up to each other a lot (this included lots of crying)

annabeth hates to cry infront of people she only does that infront of percy or piper. she trusts them and knows they won’t judge.

[talxns]

y’know something that goes hand in hand with the coldification of bruce in regards to his relationship with young dick is this idea that alfred is the one to always intercede and basically shame bruce into doing something nice for the boy. it makes it so that if alfred wasn’t there to reprimand him for being cold, bruce wouldn’t show dick any warmth. and i don’t like that. i think that it’s important that bruce, while not super communicative and someone who is notoriously difficult to get along with, treats young dick with an appropriate amount of warmth and understanding and kindness. he doesn’t have to be scolded by alfred into making dick happy, he should be wanting to make dick happy irrespective of anything else.

the only exception is when bruce is doing something he thinks is good for dick and needs some perspective from an outside party (usually alfred) who is able to see things more objectively.

idk, it just seems like so often bruce is written like taking dick in is kind of a burden, and then alfred has to nag him about taking care of dick, when originally these two characters did not need any outside persuasion to be attached at the hip, sleeping in the same room, cooking for each other, spending every waking moment together, etc.

[bruciemilf]

Idk if you've seen this before, but I think you'd like it. In a comic, where Bruce was a teenager, his priest told him to go to confession daily because the priest believed that he would die/get murdered at any moment. Bruce believed like he was sinful, rotten, and irredeemable, so he acted like it.

It's just gshsidnsfxusnsshs. I love Teen Bruce so much. Babygirl, you're not fundamentally doomed or evil. You're just 15

HEY???????

only priests in Gotham, man. Well. And every red state.

[inkbagel]

That moment when your golden retriever gamer boyfriend turns out to actually be your evil government agent gamer wife

[iknowwhereyousnoozeatnight]

just remembered that i can draw literally whatever i want forever

[lethal-effect]

Not sure where all this “K didn’t have consent or ask Evan for permission to fix his arm” talk is coming from but that actually isn’t what happened. Evan was confused obviously, because I don’t think anyone expected THAT. But K very explicitly asked for permission to fix some of his previously healed injuries and Evan agreed to it. Like I get where the anger and the sentiment is coming from but that’s just not what happened.

[spaghetticat3899]

When you absolutely despise something a lot of people like, and no matter what way you look at it you cannot see the appeal, but you know you can’t talk about it in public or else you’ll get dogpiled to hell and back, so you just kinda sit there frothing at the mouth like this

[quillkiller]

thinking about my favorite mortal enemies regulus and remus

[spooksier]

can i speak my freaking truth and say that i feel like a considerable amount of ppl in the magprotocol tag are reacting to a completely different show than what is currently being aired

[jack-of-amulets]

A (slightly) Visual Guide to Fictionkin, Otherhearted, Etc.

Hello, I’m Jack! I’m a fictionkin with a couple stels that has been seeing a lot of confusion on the internet lately about my identities, so… I present to you - This guide! If there is any more I need to add, let me know.

Common Terms

Common Misconceptions

Resources

Fictionkin: Carrd, Tumblr help blog, Wiki

Otherhearted: Wiki

Otherlink: Wiki, 2nd Wiki

Fictionflicker: Tumblr help blog, Amino

Constelic: Tumblr, Carrd (Archive)

For the rest of my information, I got them based on my personal experience as a Multikin with multiple Stels, and my friends’ experiences with these labels. Ask me questions anonymously (or not) for any questions you might have and I’ll try to give a good answer!