yourbitchystudentartist

[yourbitchystudentartist]

i respect innie mark for saving gemma at the very least and the romantic in me understands why he chose to stay in hell with helly but it ALSO needs to be understood by both him and every single person in this series that gemma’s feelings come first because no one has suffered more than her and if that’s a hard pill to swallow well then so be it

[yourbitchystudentartist]

On the one hand. It doesn't matter, cause I don't read these books. On the other hand, every friend or acquaintance of mine who does like to read DOES read these books, and I'm just. So tired. Of like, you know, the very popular romantasies with a white main character and a racially ambiguous brown man MC and often a host of diverse side characters, especially in the romance genre, the fetishization of men of colour seems so transparent to me and I'm so irritated by the lack of critical thought around this, or. Even worse, the fact that these books are being promoted to me as diverse lit for me to check out.

Like, the MMCs are always tanned, vaguely coded as possibly, maybe a man of colour if you squint but never described with any particular ethnic features or cultures that would meaningfully identify them as a man of colour. So these white authors can have their cake and eat it too: the veneer of diversity so no one can call them racist for always having a white cast of characters, while appealing to white people by allowing them to imagine these racially ambiguous MCs as tanned white men if they want to. They can drool over their imagined exotic man of colour while still holding on to white standards of beauty.

I'm just so sick of it, and I blame Sarah J Mass for popularizing it. And I know that, for her it's a deliberate marketing/avoiding being called racist strategy cause I READ HER BOOKS and NONE of those bitches were people of colour until AFTER detractors started pointing out the orientalist coding of her work while having every character be white. I was THERE when all the fanart of every character was pale as freshly driven snow. Ain't no way in hell she meant for those high fae whatever to be people of colour.

AND her (and other others in this space) racial retconning remains racist because she fundamentaly sees PoC and their cultures as barbaric and writes them as such. That's why in all these romantasies with racially ambiguous MMCs, those characters are big scary possesive and aggressive, an amalgamation of every racist assumption of men of colour, wrapped up in a vaguely brown package. I had it, I hate it so much when fantasy has these vague underlines of people of colour because non-whiteness can be combined and erased and mushed together, but whiteness will never truly be ambiguous. A white FMC is White. Full stop. And allows for White people to be confident and comfortable in their existence and identiy, but people of colour are expected to latch on to, and even praise ambiguous representation, as if its at all meaningful, sincere or deliberate. As if all people of color are the same, look the same, relate to the same things.

Tldr if I get recommended fouth wing ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR TO GOD—

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Mark was kinda pissing me off this season but I was gonna chalk it up to him being 19 years old and under an insane amount of stress. But this season finale is bothering me for no other reason than, bro, WHY ARE YOU TOSSING THIS MAN INTO BUILDINGS ON PURPOSE. GET HIM OUT OF THAT METROPOLITAN AREA YOU DUMBASS GO FIGHT OVER OCEANS OR SOMETHING OH MY LORD. DIDN'T YOU LEANR ANYTHING FRON NOLAN?

[yourbitchystudentartist]

I have thoughts on why Lumon showed a brief fixation on pineapples (milchick's pineapple centric fruit baskets and the pineapple bobbing perk) and how it's kind of a way to demonstrate how Lumon is, like, just a bit to the right of being normal by replicating everyday outside world things, but having an element to them that is uniquely Lumon and separates lumon customs from outie world customs, but still providing a simulacra of things from outside the severed floor (like the dance experience and the simulacra of music styles in their choices, pineapple bobbing a bastrdization of apple bobbing etc). I think Lumon does this weird twisting of American/subrban/whatever culture and living for the same reason that they put Gemma through realistic but still old fashioned and stylized simulations of real world every day actions with full sets and costumes. Even though, technically they should be able to tell innies pretty much anything about the world and they would have to believe it because they are functionally blank slates and only have vague ideas of what things are and how they should operate.

This is an incomplete thought, cause I equally could see these narrative choices as stylistic ways to translate information to the audience instead of actual lumon strategies (ie: pineapple fixation showing of how out of touch Lumon is with reality and how fixated they are on maintaining their own corporate culture. Or in the sense of Gemma, a way to articulate Gemma's dehumanization because of the extra steps put into dressing her up like a doll daily and putting her through elaborate scenarios for both experiementation's sake and the personal pleasure of the weird dentist dude) but a part of me thinks these are hints to how severance works where Lumon creates imitations of real corporate culture and American culture, but in ways that are out of touch and disorienting as a way to work within the scientific limits of severance? Like innies have no personal memories but maybe they retain information in a more concrete way. Maybe partial immersion is necessary because some memories are retained, but twisting that immersion helps to control innies through promoting a sense of disorientated and separation from the modern world? Maybe it's a way to make sure, should an inner find their way out, their knowledge of the real world vs how the world works is incongruent to the point of confusion and distress therefore they'll go back to Lumon? IDK IDK, but I think there's a point to Lumon's Weirdness because while it's obviously a cult, it's not like cults typically come up with and maintain these strict traditions because of a genuine belief in them, there's always an aspect of alienation and control and I think Lumon create environments for Innies that are just left of normal as a new way to continue that control but idk exactly why and there might not be a why. Like I said I think a lot of this could be for the benefit of the audience for some realities to sink it. Like feeling off kilter with the perks being so close to fun activities we do IRL, but still tinged with weirdness.

[yourbitchystudentartist]

I finished it. The thing I didn't like was 100 percent unnecessary. I'm quite disappointed

One of my biggest pet peeves when reading YA is when a character starts speaking incredibly formally in a way that is outdated out of character and just weird, considering everything we know about the world. Why the fuck is an 18 year old boy saying "woe betide"

[yourbitchystudentartist]

I'm having a hard time with this book. It's the 3rd in a series, and I really liked the 1st one, the 2nd one kind of annoyed me, but I think it was still a well written story I just wasn't a fan of some of the author's choices, but this one feels poorly edited. The pacing is stressing me out and one of the main twists for this book feel so contrived and unnecessary? I'm not gonna name the book but I'm gonna talk about it more under the cut in case someone recognizes it

Basically, the main character loses her memory of her friends and family because of some magic thing and the fact that those memories were stressing her out and making it impossible for her to control her magic. And i really hate this idea because the whole memory loss thing operated in a way where the character and her personality and motivations remain entirely intact but she is just not emotionally effected by the mention if those people she loved. I like this idea in theory, but in practice, I'm halfway through the book, and this premise bothers me more and more cause I feel like we're not gaining anything from this aspect of the story. it just bloats the story with tension and conflict that doesn't need to be there, when in fact I feel like the main character still having all her memories would be way more interesting for when she eventually reunites with her people, cause they she actually has to contend with the choices she makes instead of get a get put of jail free card a la "a forgor". I thought it was a way to speed up the process of her learning her magic, but then there's like a 4 month break in between chapters (??) So the author didn't need to do this with this much of a time skip. The MC is about to run into her former lover interest and I think the memory wipe this is just supposed to be a barrier to keep the pair from getting together until the very last book, but like I said, bit characters have made choices that would have cause enough issues by itself. It just...feels so lazy? Or even cheap? Like I'm reading fanfiction if this series instead of the real thing. And it's just so loooooong a lot of parts could have been an email.

One of my biggest pet peeves when reading YA is when a character starts speaking incredibly formally in a way that is outdated out of character and just weird, considering everything we know about the world. Why the fuck is an 18 year old boy saying "woe betide"

[yourbitchystudentartist]

One of my biggest pet peeves when reading YA is when a character starts speaking incredibly formally in a way that is outdated out of character and just weird, considering everything we know about the world. Why the fuck is an 18 year old boy saying "woe betide"

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Rent Emergency

Rent is due tomorrow and we're still short $480 for the rest of that balance on top of $458 due for utilities and $359 for a desperately needed trip to the doctor to have my wife's ongoing sinus infection handled.

I can't stress enough that everything helps and would be appreciated!

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Ah, I'm in that jam again...

most of my bills are paid but the phone and internet bills need to be paid before the 5th to avoid cut-off. I'm sorry for reaching out like this again, I know everybody hard up right now but I have no other options. Please share this around and donate if you can

Cash || venmo|| kofi || ppal:spicysobanoodle@gmail.com

[yourbitchystudentartist]

I think it's interesting that in all the scenarios Gemma goes through, they put her in elaborate costumes and really work hard to simulate those environment and even specific time periods. But, what exactly is the point? You could say full immersion into the world each of Gemma's innies are in, but, tbh, you could tell an innie anything about the world, and they would believe it. In fact, the anachronism nature of Gemma's rooms kind of proves that. If the immersion was for Innie's sake, as in the innie is expected to know how things are supposed to look and feel like in the outside world, then Gemma would be put into 70s and 60s environments, because she would innately know about the time period she was supposed to be in. Which makes me think that Lumon is either a) still testing the limits of Innie/duties memory situation. So what they coukd be doing is placing innies in a simulacra of the real world but with enough questionable differences that they can calculate what is retained and what isn't (so language and historical event being retained while personal memories are not. Idk) or snth like that or B) they're having too much fun dressing Gemma up like a Doll, which is another part of the ongoing methods of control, repression, manipulation and dehumanization that Lumon does, where they sink time resources and money into someone's science experiment marital fantasy.

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Rent Emergency

Rent is due tomorrow and we're still short $480 for the rest of that balance on top of $458 due for utilities and $359 for a desperately needed trip to the doctor to have my wife's ongoing sinus infection handled.

I can't stress enough that everything helps and would be appreciated!

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Rent Emergency

Rent is due tomorrow and we're still short $480 for the rest of that balance on top of $458 due for utilities and $359 for a desperately needed trip to the doctor to have my wife's ongoing sinus infection handled.

I can't stress enough that everything helps and would be appreciated!

[yourbitchystudentartist]

They don't even have conversations anymore, they just tell stories and tell us the moral of the story, everyone has the same personality. There is no more subtlety, no more genuine situational humor, the patients no longer have moments to show WHY were supposed to care. Which is wild because the episodes are the same length and while the cast of characters rotate I don't feel like there are significantly more main characters than before. It's just that time isn't being budgeted properly, nobody and no storyline is able to breathe, they way it needs to. And what's even more wild is that the set and world feels so much smaller. I don't even think the nurses even really have personalities anymore

What I liked about early greys is the ability to do a lot with so little. Little screentime and strong acting choices. I remember a scene between two characters in like season 3 with no dialog just emotion, and it was a strong scene! I know Grey's anatomy is known as the corny hot doctor show, but I think it had a lot of very well written moments! And a lot of strong actors and powerful performances! So watching the later season after watching my favourite early season episodes is super jarring cause it really shows why Grey's was successful, cause but wasn't corny initially it was well written! And well acted!

I think one of the reasons it's really failing as a show is 1) the lampshades or whatever of social issues and veering away from character focused drama to make social commentary. And you know I get that they wanna do something good but in a show that basically worships the military they are woefully unequipped to actually deal with the topics they are targeting in a meaningful way, beyond how they affect individuals. 2) it's just being going on so long, no show can run as long as this one does and not significantly loose it's charm or bite, 3) they are leaning way too much into the greys episode formula, but they seemed to have forgotten what made the formula successful, and they stopped switching things up. 4) the Doctors aren't as hot at the used to be. Bring mcsteamy back.

Rn I'm jumping through newer episodes of greys anatomy and it's weird to watch this show get leached of all it's charm and heart and become a show that consistently craps out very cheap and unearned emotional moments. And I tried to think about why, exactly I can rewatch season 1-10 and still get emotional at cases and side characters that's I've seen a million times, but whenever new, objectively heartbreaking things happen, it feels hollow. I think a lot of it is pacing issues because there are so many cases and characters that we don't really connect with anyone, I think it's also because the Grey's Formula has been watered down. I feel like every episode is about a unique tragedy and there are no more causal or comedic cases anymore. The stakes are too high all the time that my meter for caring about these patients is broken. And also I don't think it helps that half the doctors on this show are entangled with owne hunt, who I fucking HATE, so whenever so thing happens I'm rooting against them cause I want him too suffer. That and greys anatomy's hard on for the American military is tiring me

[yourbitchystudentartist]

ONE good thing I will say is that instead of letting people get together and break up and get back together, the married couples are actually staying married. Shout out to Grey's, you did it. It only took each character having a minimum of 3 ex married partners

Rn I'm jumping through newer episodes of greys anatomy and it's weird to watch this show get leached of all it's charm and heart and become a show that consistently craps out very cheap and unearned emotional moments. And I tried to think about why, exactly I can rewatch season 1-10 and still get emotional at cases and side characters that's I've seen a million times, but whenever new, objectively heartbreaking things happen, it feels hollow. I think a lot of it is pacing issues because there are so many cases and characters that we don't really connect with anyone, I think it's also because the Grey's Formula has been watered down. I feel like every episode is about a unique tragedy and there are no more causal or comedic cases anymore. The stakes are too high all the time that my meter for caring about these patients is broken. And also I don't think it helps that half the doctors on this show are entangled with owne hunt, who I fucking HATE, so whenever so thing happens I'm rooting against them cause I want him too suffer. That and greys anatomy's hard on for the American military is tiring me

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Rn I'm jumping through newer episodes of greys anatomy and it's weird to watch this show get leached of all it's charm and heart and become a show that consistently craps out very cheap and unearned emotional moments. And I tried to think about why, exactly I can rewatch season 1-10 and still get emotional at cases and side characters that's I've seen a million times, but whenever new, objectively heartbreaking things happen, it feels hollow. I think a lot of it is pacing issues because there are so many cases and characters that we don't really connect with anyone, I think it's also because the Grey's Formula has been watered down. I feel like every episode is about a unique tragedy and there are no more causal or comedic cases anymore. The stakes are too high all the time that my meter for caring about these patients is broken. And also I don't think it helps that half the doctors on this show are entangled with owne hunt, who I fucking HATE, so whenever so thing happens I'm rooting against them cause I want him too suffer. That and greys anatomy's hard on for the American military is tiring me

[yourbitchystudentartist]

Idk how severance is gonna end but I want Helly and Helena to be reintegrated into 1 person. This has nothing to do with themes or having a satisfying ending, I just wanna see what that looks like, I bet it would be awful (for them)

[yourbitchystudentartist]

I gotta re watch season one cause I notices a split second where Milchick seemed to use more colloquial language which makes me think he's been aggressively code switching this whole time to match the Lumon cadence.