#(i have to take it. iirc it's a requirement for another course i need to graduate)

[bloomingbluebell]

i think i'll be okay with having this blog just be somewhere to shout into the void. i kinda miss interacting online, and interacting in person always feels... idk, it feels bad and i don't really like it, but i think i'm okay with just shouting into the void

[just-antithings]

Re: ageism in "30yo playing teens" ask.

I think a part of it may be ageism, even if unintentional. Part of it sounds like not knowing much about casting, acting, the general business/industry. I don't know much about the workings of it either, so take what I say with a grain of salt, as I'm only repeating stuff I've heard from people working on movies and shows in one way or another.

Back before most of Tumblr turned against Buzzfeed and still shared a bunch of their videos and listicles, one was about showing pictures of the listicle writer's classmates as teenagers vs adults playing teens, and at the same time, there was a post going around showing Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson when they were 16 and 17 (the ages Katniss and Peeta were in the first book, iirc). People were saying how if 16/17yo actors had been cast, the horror of the book's setting would have showed through much more in the movie.

An issue that got brought up but never got as much traction as the OG posts was that in THG movies, there's a lot of physical demands for the actors. Even taking stunt workers into consideration, those demands would be harsher on a teenage body than one in their 20's.

Another issue, which anon had brought up was that when you're (general you) 20-30, physical changes are more subtle compared to, like, 15-25. So because of how long it can take to film everything and get the end product out to theatres/streaming/etc, especially for a series, some rewriting will likely be necessary to explain why 16yo character played by 16yo actor looks so different in movie 1 vs 17yo character played by now 19yo actor in movie 3.

I haven't watched much of the Unfortunate Events series on Netflix, but there was a joke to explain this between seasons, something like "It feels like we've been sitting on this bench for so long that Sunny* aged a whole year" (I don't remember the exact line).

*Sunny is the youngest of the three siblings and is supposed to be about infant/toddler. Iirc, she didn't start taking her first steps until partway through the book series.

And in Game of Thrones, I remember seeing articles when S1 finished airing, positing if any rewrites or rushing to film more would be needed, since characters like Sansa and Arya are young (14 and 10 respectively I think?), but they'd of course get older when their characters stay the same age longer than they do.

An issue I don't always see, though, is about Acting Experience. Acting is a skill, and like all skills, requires practice and experience. Yes, there are child and teenage actors that do very well and blow audiences away, but this is not the norm, just like it's not the norm for a 5yo to compose a minuet like Mozart did. And depending on the budget, the kind of vibe they're going for (in some media and genres, you can get away with not-great acting compared to others imo), etc, casting directors might prefer 30yo actors who can act well compared to teens who can't.

And this isn't even taking to account labor laws and problems there have been with kid actors, as that's a whole other thing and not one I feel like I can talk about, since that's something I know even less about compared to what I already said.

.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Ha, Germany is nothing. People in France are literally outraged when they don't have their government overreach.

Case in point, Pierre Palmade : Famous french actor is rushed to the hospital in critical condition after being in a car crash, drugged out of his mind, with 2 more people (his dealers I think ?) inside the car, who fled the scene and were arrested shortly after. iirc, a few days later, someone anonymously comes forward and claims Palmade showed him CP at a party. I'm not sure those claims were ever proven, it stopped getting media attention before reaching a conclusion and I never followed up.

What was the debate centered about ? In one sentence, "Why didn't the government do more to prevent this ?"

So a man took drugs (already illegal), drove under the influence of said drugs (very illegal !), and then crashed his car into another (even more illegal !), and the public's response was... that it wasn't illegal enough. Let that sink in. So of course the government didn't miss this opportunity and is talking about reinforcing sanctions for DUIs, and increased police budget.

I have so many examples of behavior like this. One time I mentioned the story of magnet fishing in France (guy fishes old ww2 landmines, alerts no one (already illegal), and then takes them home to proudly expose them (even more illegal), and thus contaminates his whole home & car, and his whole family has to be treated for phosphorus poisoning. Government sees very illegal thing and decides to shadow-ban magnet fishing, which now requires permission from the département, something that they have absolutely no reason to give and therefore never do), in a room full of seemingly not completely stupid people, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy and wanted to blow everyone up with land mines. The most sympathetic opinion from the ensuing debate was "That should definitely require a license of some sort, maybe like a driver's license where you need to do it with a certified professional for 20 or 30 hours". Great, so this popular hobby where you throw a magnet tied to a rope into a river, where the biggest thing you'll probably pull out is a stolen bike, should now be illegal unless you spend thousands of euros on a piece of paper that changes absolutely nothing ? Yeah that's a normal position to hold.

Jesus. That's next level brainrot. How do they cope with people being allowed access to the air outside without needing a license and 20 hours of breathing training under a government certified expert? Seems like something that would cause them great anxiety.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Oh, I love the idea of added mental trauma to Ingo after his bond with chandelure snapped. And it was probably a hit to chandelure too, meaning that on top of everything else in the wake of Ingo disappearing, Emmet has to take care of chandelure, who took a massive hit. Is it bonded to both brothers? It'd make sense for them to have a singular bond, Ingo for chandelure, eelektross for Emmet, but also I just love the idea that in the game there's no distinction between Ingo's pokemon and Emmet's, and here that's true too. Like a four way conduit. But then suddenly Ingo is violently ripped from the loop, leaving them all kind of fucked up, but of course Ingo most so. Sneasler probably helps with that, it's not the same as the bond(s) he had before all this, but it's stabilizing. If he's had a familiar bond or bonds for a long, long time, and having a familiar rewires your brain after long enough, then he might actually need a familiar now.

Cyllene's bond wasn't healthy in any way, but if she had it long enough for it change her, then re: abra, it could be that she's subconsciously looking for a stabilizing bond, even though she's also adverse to it because of her terrible experience with it. Perhaps abra latched onto her and likes her best not just because she interacted with it first, but because it could sense that she was basically free real-estate? Her brain and soul were more appealing because, to use pla terms, her heart was already open. Nice and cozy already, like a pre-furnished apartment. I don't necessarily think abra would think of it like that because it's so baby, but just instinctively cyllene feels better or more comfortable to it than someone who already has an active bond or who's never had a bond ever. Wait are the abra line basically blink dogs? But on top of being able to teleport any gear attached to it, if it has the magic boost from being a familiar it can also teleport places with people. Which would be a pretty appealing reason to bond with it for cyllene, even though she's reluctant to, because it's a good way to get them kids out of harm's way

if a sudden loss/suppression of a familiar bond is destabilizing (mentally/emotionally/magically/etc), that might even be another reason for irida to want to seal ingo's magic. if he legit can't control it as well (without a familiar, but they don't know that's the driving factor atm.) though idk if that's what you were thinking, vs it being more of a physically draining thing than a destabilizing one.

either way tho. i do think the idea of some kind of interconnected loop is fun here... it would be beneficial to all of them with that increased power boost, with basically no downsides unless. this happens. which nobody could have really anticipated. and now they're all suffering equally for the loss. or maybe it's more of a triangle, with just chandelure and the twins, since she's the one that gets shared between their teams mostly iirc. i guess this raises the question of. can you have more than one soulbond at a time. or is it sort of a one-time deal. or maybe you can theoretically have multiple, but it's such an intensive commitment most people don't go over 1, 2 max.

yeahhh abra as an emergency teleporter!! which would be super helpful esp. if akari is as big of a target as it seems like she is, since cyllene can rely on abra to vwoop in-grab her-get out if she ever gets caught (as long as they... know where she is.) that's definitely a space magic thing too, which opens an interesting link btwn it and irida maybe. (if irida can teleport i think it's very short-range or it requires a looot of setup on her part, almost more of a ritual spell than anything else, to target a specific place. most of her domain is in like, navigation/orientation. she's very sinister vs. abra's more dexter fast-teleport.)

i do think it would also be interesting if soulbonds are a thing that weighs on magic in particular, and cyllene's loss of one (or, moreso the scars that come with that) mean she can't use magic as effectively anymore. she's still a very deadly swordsman, of course, but that's another reason to hide her ley lines, if it creates an expectation that she should be able to do spells she really can't. at least, not until abra comes along, which is a fun power-up (esp. if having the link with abra rather than a dragon means that her magic is slightly different than it was before, and more uniquely her own than just swordguard magic.)

[andpierres]

im currently looking at starting the Master Tattoo Institute thing, they're like a trade school for tats. they have payment plans, they'll send you supplies & stuff and when you complete the course you get your license or smthin like that (its been a minute since ive been told this info ajdbshf) , but im not sure if they have a studio where ur at, so you might have to make a trip to Florida for like, the final exam thing,,, but they're super helpful with their payment plans! ive been going thru a rocky patch with jobs too & they've given me a lot of time to save money for it, so it might be worth it to look into :]

tattoo schools are......... ngl they're kind of. known to be scams 😭 at least in states where u are not required to have a license (like CA, where i live). places like oregon iirc require u to go to a school to get a license so obvs it's different there (and idk what the laws in florida are), but even so getting a license in florida would sadly not rly help me in CA :( here, the issue is that in order to become well established in the community u need to work under another established artist. it's the whole thing. + having to pay for schooling... i already dropped out of private school once I'm not doing it again 😭😭😭

I rly appreciate u taking the time to send me this message tho 🥺 it's rly sweet tysm. i will look into them regardless it never hurts to take a peek

[asknarashikari]

2 early quotes already established Kekera's villainy:

While it's true that said trait can put him on back foot, this'd be a common reaction to deem kindness as weakness for that, and try to "help" them from being vulnerable, used, exploited, etc. by insisting them to become toxic and cruel as a "solution". Which'd just turn them similar to those people that take advantage of them and further normalize cruelty. Bad people also can be taken advantage of, like Daichi's Tree of Knowledge being hijacked by Beroba.

There are people in fandom (not strictly KR) who though they want heroes and celebrate them, they want to purge their "weakness" - basically actual good traits they'd see as "soft" like compassion and empathy, wanting them to be cold, pragmatic and operate in the end justifies the means view so that they can "get the job done".

He didn't only believe this, but actually put this into practice as well. He'd encourage extremist approach to throw people under the bus for the sake of people they want to save, because he believes saving people is always an either/or choice and they shouldn't be "wishy-washy" to strive for everyone's sake (being indecisive is often hated in fandom). Sorta like Kagawa in Ryuki to insist sacrificing the few to save many.

I don't necessarily think the first two screenshots are villainous, per se.

The first one is a pretty valid criticism of Keiwa, to some degree. He is way too soft-hearted and trusting, especially for someone in the DGP. By that point he'd already been duped several times by other characters- Ace and Daichi, for example. Kekera was simply pointing out that he can't always be "the nice guy" when he has opponents like these who do not act in good faith.

The second screenshot... that's just Kekera describing Kamen Riders in general tbh. Iirc there's even this whole thing about how markings on the Rider's masks are supposed to symbolize their tears. Heck, Saber's OP even has a line referencing the same thing. It's not about how Kamen Riders discarding their "weakness", but how they set aside their own trauma to help those in need.

The other two screenshots, I think, are only villainous because of the context of the DGP and Kekera's own actions.

In some sense he is kinda right. Not about the fixed amount of happiness thing, but about how happiness and unhappiness is about people giving and taking it from each other.

Realistically, a world where everyone is happy is impossible. One person's happiness could be the misery of another, or attaining happiness requires resources that one doesn't have access to- that's just how life works. Thus there are people who are bound to either sacrifice their own happiness for someone else's sake, or people who will fuck over others for their own sake.

Kekera and the DGP believe the latter is the ideal, which is what makes them wrong. The Riders, on the other hand, strive for a world where neither is necessary, however when push comes to shove, they will choose the former- that is, to be the one to sacrifice their own happiness for others.

Is that a good thing for them? No, of course not. Is it the right thing to do, though? Usually, in their case, yeah. It is.

[lefae]

Some potential progress is being made towards fixing my desktop. After over a week of struggling, I finally got something to be able to access the Windows Systems Restore points (thank gods I remembered to turn those on in the first place, since, iirc, they're not on by default anymore). So I'm currently waiting while it processes that, and hopefully will be able to successfully boot to Windows when it's done.

Do I know exactly what I did to lead to at this amount of progress? No, not really. Do I actually care? Also, no, not really, so long as it bloody works. I had to delve into the command prompts and rebuild the boot records to get this far, which is frankly anxiety inducing, because I essentially know just enough to handle doing it, but not enough to actually be fully confident in what I'm doing while doing it.

If this works and I can get back into my Windows environment, first order of business is backing up the settings for all of my software that has exportable settings files, and tossing those files into two or more clouds, just to be on the safe side, and in case I decide in the end that doing a full Windows refresh is the best course of action in the long run.

After that, I'll still need to try to recover my secondary drive, where most of my files are actually located. The 3TB drive is currently showing as being less than 4GB of capacity, which... is not good. It's still possible to potentially recover everything from it, but... it's going to continue to time consuming and stressful, and I will have to have an external drive to recover the files to, because I simply don't have enough space left on my other drives.

Honestly, I really need a spindle of DVD-Rs as well, for the non-essential access files that I just need to keep but don't need regular access to. I'd actually rather have a Blu-Ray burner and blanks to burn to, but I at least already have a DVD burner installed, so it would be better than nothing and I could free up space by getting those files moved to disk rather than taking up room on the hard drives.

But the bulk of the recovery will require another drive, and I'd rather avoid having to do any hardware stuff if at all possible (I'm not supposed to do hardware work at all, due to palmer hyperhidrosis - not that I've always been able to avoid it).

My current pinned post has details of how to donate if you want to help me get an external for this task. But for now, I'm going to go fix myself some coffee, because it's like 5:45am and I've already been at this for over 2 hours trying to get my pc functional again...

--

EDIT: Nevermind. Still borked, and at this point reaching FUBAR levels.

[senzacaponecoda]

Was thinking about how some languages show a parallel possessive system to their verbal inflection.

To my knowledge you can kind of explain this with little v (lv) and little n (ln) in a minimalist/generative framework.

lv came about, to my knowledge, trying to explain hierarchies in voice morphology and derivation, and, like, lexical vs morphological voice, kinda Aktionsart stuff. Iirc it was a heated debate and Chomsky called the guy who proposed it stupid.

Some parallels were noticed in nominalized verb phrases

x gave y to z

x's gift of y to z

Langs that can do that tend to put the actor (agent/force-like) in a possessive construction. Like subjects possess their verbs, or maybe possessors are the subjects of the head noun.

There's also something interesting going on there with the two "genitive expressions" there semantically; they differ. Even with normal nouns, we tend to use "of" more attributively like it's part of the essence of the noun and the 's more with a clear understanding that they're semantically distinct entities with a looser connection. It's hard to think of a good example of what I mean; maybe Sheba's Queen vs the Queen of Sheba - I at least expect with the former phrase that Sheba's Queen is a queen, one of many, one of many things belonging to Sheba, while the Queen of Sheba is more definitively a singular, specific entity. But this is a digression.

In sum there are a lot of parallels that make a case for a ln analogical to lv that introduces an actor/possessor determiner phrase (DP; nouny argument of a verb or preposition or something) to the phrase.

Granting that

Interestingly the saxon genitive ('s) is mutually exclusive with an article to the possessed (*x's the y; nb you can have the x's y, but not *the x's the y). Usually mutual exclusivity like that means they're the same functional PoS; 's is a determiner like the or a.

The DP might be expected to default to D(ln(N)) for head initial and ((N)ln)D for head final languages. To get lnDN structures you need movement (copying one of the inner structures, pasting it next to one of the outer, and deleting the original (or surpressing)), which is well motivated by how regular movement is in the rest of minimalist theory. Specifically you need to take ln and cut and paste it next to D, on the other side in this case. Usually movement correlates with fusionalism too. Like, almost always when there's fusionalism something's moved syntactically.

So the possessor gets raised out of the ln and fused with the D. You get the weird backwards genitive thing. Also raise the N and you might get Afroasiatic style pronominal possession. (And the construct state of Arabic comes from something similar).

Raising the possessor and fusing it to a focus-information-bearing structure, tho... that kind of parallels the way the "EPP" ("extended projection principle"; jargon saying most languages require a sentence to have a subject) raises the subject left of T (the inflected verb or helper verb).

I kinda think DPs are really PPs (adpositional phrase). Like there are languages that need applicative (e.g. Hebrew) or ergative (most ergative-absolutative) particles.

Adpositions work a lot like conjunctions and complimentizers in general, and they commonly grammaticalize into each other. So if the (P:)D:ln:N is analogous to the C:T:lv:V then P is analogous to C (and V to N and of course lv to ln).

Maybe you can liken the D to T then, but I'm wondering rather if the focus and topic layers treated as part of C are really something else, like there's a verbal "determiner" layer responsible for the EPP and focus logic, like C:Foc-EPP:T:lv:V is analogous to P:D:Num:ln:N

(not sure they need to be directly analogous though. Tense and Aspect are at least three things and Number is, well, also like three things but in a completely different way. And I'm not sure of another non-lexical feature set for nouny things not given an X yet (class/gender's lexical)).

The whole "T almost always has a spec" thing/EPP seems less weird at least if there's a verbal determiner imo. I'm not really sure how to evidence it in a way that isn't just reinterpreting minimalist analyses on focus though.

[suncaptor]

That post you reblogged, I've always found the way the afterlife works for anyone who isn't human to be really fucked up. Like they don't have a choice in the matter of whether they are human or not (angels are created the way they are, monsters are born that way or turned into one, not sure if it's like this for all demons but selling your soul no matter the reason means you go to hell and your soul gets corrupted) and then when they die they go to a place where they live out their regrets for eternity (the Empty) or they're hunted by Leviathan (Purgatory). And I'm not sure how it works for others who are half monster or demon, but iirc Nephilim also go to the Empty so like even though they are half human, their non human side still condemns them to an eternity of what's essentially psychological torture

!!!!!!!!

Okay so I have a lots of thoughts about liminality within supernatural, and therefore a large part of that is then people who are deemed "liminal" (which is basically everyone within the framework in some way besides the concepts in which the heroes are "protected" which is like. white suburbia.) Now, the interesting thing about Supernatural early on is that this sort of liminality is the antagonist, but also many of the liminal “Othered” entities are like... made to be mirrors, they’re intentionally sympathetic, and the fact that they are liminal is like, the issues at hand. Now, like, every different writer seems to take different approaches to this of course, and it’s still like, never actual counter to the eugenics plotline that is it’s foundation because of the lack of coherence and then the glorification that occurs, but it is extremely interesting to watch these “places” that different creatures belong come into play.

Like when we first learn about the concept of an afterlife it is only Hell, which is this land where “demons” (who are also the most straight forward corrupt entity) belong to. They are citizens of Hell, they are a threat to American Suburbia and hurt your family. It is unknown where ghosts go, it is also unknown where any other creature including humans go, when they die, except for anyone who is damned. But then when Heaven comes into play it’s an unwanted catch all: essentially, it’s a place to make Earth desirable to some extent. Earth is home, and the people who belong their should not be forced to go to Heaven even if it means saving the “world” from an archangel “war” basically. At this point there is like, bordering process among the concepts of demons and Hell, but it’s not until Purgatory that it becomes like.... so outright. 

Now, Purgatory for me is the most glaring example of the liminality bordering process: the literal only logical thing that connects it’s inhabitants is that they are not capable of fitting into a very specific niche of Homo sapien sapiens which also includes many types of illnesses/viruses/mutations off that branch they cannot become. “Eve” as the mother of monstrosity being that in then perception of liminal entities. You can either be born or become it, and when you do you’re essentially damned. And a large part of it comes down to biopower, leads to eugenics enforced by hunters. Basically, Purgatory is a physical manifestation of the already existing bordering processes that existed, which also in turn hardened those borders. (I also have an essay on bordering processes and liminality but it’s academic oriented).

The thing with angels early on is that the bordering process if anything is just that of “heaven”. They are on the side of “heaven” and that is wrought with wars that could destroy the home needing to be protected, but then when they like... continue on and become liminal in another way (post angels falling, I would say) they like become threats in a different way because they’re like trapped on Earth as entities that cannot then assimilate into society (unless they can achieve it). And like as that draws on there needs to be a way to draw where they would go and categorise them off, which ends up the same as the entities from the other side of that war (Hell): the Empty. And yes! Jack is condemned because of this as well because being liminal is often not something that can be done in parts (though I am very interested in the concept of blurred and bright borders in terms of assimilation, this would definitely be a bright one). 

Like if you’re looking it from Chuck’s perspective too it’s still about this control over evolution and prioritising the name of “humanity” deeming everything else then liminal and belonging to another bordered physical and metaphoric existence. But the way that it’s done is through enforcement of these hierarchal power structures through his “heroes” that have been created from the same processes, and therefore communitas is impossible because it requires whoever is going through this liminal phase to have some form of equality (the closest I would say happening being like in Purgatory with Dean, Cas, and Benny).

I apologise for the length of this, but basically I deeply agree that it’s fucked up that not being a very specific definition within humanity damns you to planes of existence that are horrible. And I think it is very much a reflection of the different bordering processes around the “Other” within the context of the show and the times in which we then see these concepts take place reflect this.

[ectonurites]

I know Jason "came back to life" in the eyes of the public etc but like legit interested in your opinion on this because I'm just confused and interested in how he went about that, y'know? Like wouldn't it take him years? And who does he get to confirm its him and not some rando? IIRC Bruce didn't know he did that until the iceberg lounge thing which is weird if his son came back to life you would think he would testify or something sooner? I just don't know how it would work lol 😳🤔

SO you sent me down a reading rabbit hole. 

The thing about Jason’s situation compared to most situations irl is the fact that since he genuinely did die, there was a body and everything. That definitely makes it tricky. However, even though in our minds he was dead a super long time since he was killed in the 80s, he was only really gone for what’s probably 5 or so years by the time in RHATO he’s trying to ‘come back’. It being not even a decade is in his favor (I haven’t found a ruling for New Jersey specifically yet but in Ohio for instance a death ruling can’t be overturned if it’s been more than 3 years, so less time dead is better. But Ohio’s the only state i’ve seen the 3 year thing for so working with 5 should be okay here) 

Most cases about people needing to re-declare themselves alive that have happened irl I’ve found are either missing persons who were presumed dead after many years being away (the base line is 7, some states have it as less though), OR the more common situation of literally just clerical error on this thing called the ‘Death Master File’ (apparently like, nearly 40 people get declared dead by accident every day in the US! which is WHACK!) 

The grounds Jason would likely try to use is that it was a mistaken body (so somebody else) and he had actually just been missing all this time, which would kinda be a mix between a ‘fraudulent death’ claim and then the missing person type thing. Fraudulent death seems to be one of the harder ones to prove (because most of the time this category is more for people who purposely faked their deaths). In general, the fact that this happened with him as a child rather than as an adult, means there’s less cases I’ve been able to find that are even remotely similar but it also might help him out since there’s less precedent and also it’s more clear it probably wasn’t a like ‘get insurance money/run away from money owed’ scam. 

However, identity theft with dead people is like, a pretty common thing, so yeah proving oneself alive is not the easiest process in the world.

But most of the like, ‘things that make being declared legally dead even if you aren’t a really really bad and a lengthy process to fix’ are like, money related (social security, life insurance, bank accounts, property stuff, etc) and for someone like Jason who was 15 at time of death (so not married or owning property) and money apparently does not seem to be a problem for due to his various criminal activities, these wouldn’t be anywhere near as big of a deal. Like, sure a little inconvenient perhaps but definitely not entirely devastating like it can be for the real normal people that this kind of thing happens to. Also, when he bought the Iceberg Lounge, he bought it out from under the fuckin’ Penguin, so like, there’s already some shady shit going on there, so even if he was still in the process of ‘coming back to life’ he’d probably have been able to get that all started.

Also the ‘confirming it’s him’ thing as far as I’ve gathered from what I’ve read doesn’t... anywhere say it actually requires he bring someone from his life (Bruce) to verify it’s him? It’s way more about the combination of your presence & the documentation. So as long as he has photo ID and like as many of his official documents as possible (which. sneaking into the manor to steal his real passport from childhood and other documents like that i think is absolutely something he could/would do especially since like, earlier in RHATO 2016 it’s shown Bizarro’s door thing can literally get into the Batcave. I think it’s not unlikely to assume at some point he thought it could all come in handy and swiped ‘em) he could get the process going. This might differ since he was a minor at time of death but again every real case I’ve found so far was dealing with adults so I’m not sure.

Getting the US government to declare you alive though, like, from what I read can honestly be done as quickly as within a few weeks OR it can take years (but usually the ‘years’ there is more figuring out all that money and insurance related stuff, which again, not as big a deal for Jason specifically)

Another consideration I’d like to bring up is the fact that being presumed/found dead and later turning back up definitely happens a lot more in the DC universe than real life. Like, there’s supervillain attacks and world disasters and shit all the time. I think that realistically in the DCU there is probably a better system set up than IRL for handling cases like this, which would work in his favor.

I also think that due to the fact he was a relatively known person in Gotham, and we know Gotham’s systems are NOT the most uhhhh ‘by the books’ especially if theres public pressure and money being thrown at them, I pretty firmly believe he could have gotten it settled relatively quickly.

In real life it would be a lot harder due to the factor of the body, since he’d have to try to prove that wasn’t him even though it literally was, but liiiike unless Bruce had cashed in big on life insurance and didn’t have the means to pay it back (which this happened years before he lost the fortune LMAO) he should probably be fine, this is a comics world where most problems can be solved if you throw money at them (real life’s kinda like that too of course but comics take it to an EXTREME).

I do agree that Bruce would probably need to have been at least a little aware this was all happening, but for dramatic effect since this is in fact a comic book I understand why they had it be a surprise to him. A panel of Bruce getting a phone call from his lawyer wouldn’t have been nearly as effective as Jason just suddenly being on TV. Also like, I don’t think it’s impossible to rule out Bruce could have known he was in the process of legally coming back to life but not have known he was doing so in Gotham, because Jason being back in in the city was Bruce’s actual problem there.

Also funnily enough one of the cases of a person I found who was declared dead but is still alive was someone with the last name ‘Todd’, weird coincidence world. 

Some further reading about real cases of people coming back / things I might have referenced but wasn’t sure exactly where to link along the way: (one) (two) (three) (four) 

[milf-harrington]

If it helps to get another college perspective, I’m currently in my 3rd year and have studied in the US and Spain. (I do statistics & data).

In the US, you only need about 10-15 TOTAL classes for your major throughout your four years (most colleges do 4 classes a semester, so that’s 32 classes total). The exception (as far as I can tell) is engineering, which is much more intense and takes up more classes. My major requires 10 classes (5 specific courses, and then 5 types of classes, so I HAVE to take Linear Algebra but I can choose which “programming depth” class to take from a list of about five). I’m also doing a sociology minor, which is 6 classes (iirc it’s 3 specific and 3 general).

Many US universities have general requirements, so everyone has to take one writing class, one math class, etc. Some universities even have the SAME class that everyone has to take, usually in the first year, but most just have a general ‘type’ of class. If there’s not one specific class, many classes will be geared towards this requirement — e.g. “math for people who hate math but need to fulfill the math requirement”-type classes.

On a related note, many classes have pre-recs (pre-required classes that you have to have taken before you take that class). For instance, I have to take a higher level calculus class before linear algebra. There will often be ‘101’ classes for first years, like I took Sociology 101 my first semester. Usually those are for people planning on majoring in the subject, or for people who want to take a higher-level class in the subject. For instance, in order to take the really cool “sociology of gender & sexuality” class at my college (i.e. “soc of sex”) you had to take soc 101. 101 classes are also great for figuring out if you want to major in a subject!

On a related note, in the US, you don’t have to know what you’re taking before you get there! I didn’t have to ‘declare’ my stats major until the end of my 2nd year — although usually if you declare sooner you can plan better ahead of time and, at my uni at least, get a better pick of major advisors.

In contrast, in Spain (and most of Europe, which has the same system), it’s incredibly rare to take a class in a different subject. You have to declare your major before you enter the university, and (almost) all your classes are set. You can usually choose some electives in your 3rd or 4th years, but they’re still within the same major, so you wouldn’t be a stats major and take a literature class (as I’ve done in the US). There are also six classes every semester instead of four. (This would probably not be the system you’d want to write about if you want them to have different majors but take classes together.)

I don’t know very much about the rest of the world unfortunately, but I hope that was helpful at all! I love talking about this kind of stuff so I’m sorry the response was so damn long, but feel free to reach out if you want haha 😊

im so sorry i genuinely appreciate this so much, i love learning things and knowing about other things but this is just so many words for my poor brain right now but i love you (/p) i hope you're having a good day

[inmyarmswrappedin]

So, because Fatou’s season ends today and, as far as we know, Druck hasn’t been renewed yet, I want to go over the things I feel the team did well in this season and the things I hope they take with them when they sit down to write the next season (which I’m manifesting will be Ava’s).

I think that s5 and, perhaps to a bigger extent, s6, were the team’s attempt to address fan feedback for and criticisms of s3 and s4. So I have hopes that, after possibly the most scrutinized season of any Skams, they are still willing to read even more feedback and sit down once again to craft a couple more seasons (possibly even 3 or 4 more seasons!).

So, without further ado, things that were done well! (Do I have to add “in my opinion”? Do I??)

I liked that for both s5 and s6, the thorough-line for the season wasn’t made obvious or shared in a press release, but rather it was up to fans to connect the story threads for themselves.

I loved that the team sought to address one of the biggest criticisms of s3, that is, that Matteo was given so many symptoms of a mental illness, but it ultimately went unaddressed in the narrative. They did this by giving Nora a dissociative disorder, and Fatou dyscalculia. (Matteo has been headcanoned as being mentally ill and having a disability.) It allowed the teams to develop both fan theories into full-blown seasons and give each of them the importance they deserved.

I have said this already, but I really appreciate that the team chose misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented mental illnesses and disabilities. I feel like s5 and s6 will be referents for many years, because they really took the time to portray a dissociative disorder and dyscalculia in a down-to-earth, unhurried way that isn’t meant to shock and awe, but simply allow us to understand why and when Nora and Fatou will struggle. Druck got the viewers to anticipate when Nora and Fatou would struggle, and that’s the first step in being able to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the Noras and Fatous of the world. I really can’t overstate how important this is and what a difference it makes in a real, tangible way. These seasons aren’t meant to be enjoyed for voyeuristic reasons, but they will legitimately help people.

One of the biggest criticisms of s4 was that Amira and Sam didn’t connect as women of color. In fact, it seemed like in s4 Sam was treated as another white friend, when in s2 both she and Amira were the victims of Kiki’s racism. The team addressed this by giving us Ava and Fatou’s friendship, which I want to say might be the first friendship between main characters of color where their race is a substantial reason for their bond. (There are the Sanas with their Jamillas, but the Jamillas aren’t main characters, and then there are friendships like Jo and Megan and Zoya, or Imaan and Liv, or Luca and Yasmina, but iirc in every case their bond as women of color isn’t made explicit.)

Another criticism of s4 was the way Kiki turned into the world’s most understanding white friend offscreen. The team addressed this with the Ava and Mailin storyline, which I think was wonderfully and subtly set up in s5, then built on with the biology test leaked answers.

On the topic of race, I think a major criticism of s3 was that David’s ethnicity wasn’t acknowledged (to the point where a white actress was cast to play his sister gvhvhv). The team has made up for this with Josh (more in the s6 sm than in s5, but I still count it) and with Kieu My. Fatou and Kieu My bonded over being first/second gen children of immigrants, and in doing so, they acknowledged that these characters aren’t white and have different experiences than white Germans.  

The first 6 episodes of this season were some of the finest writing in the Skams. The storylines all connected and built on each other. The motifs were just so good and beautiful and fitting. The themes were all clearly defined and easy to follow.

The tortoise plot was one of the most fun and imaginative storylines in any Skams, it connected Fatou and Ismail in a believable way. And not to rave about a fucking tortoise, but animals can be really uncooperative and that tortoise delivered every fucking clip. Druck has a reputation for being one of the most depressive versions of Skam, but the Maike/Burger plot was just plain fun.

I feel like some of the old gen’s instas were a bit self-indulgent. I’m thinking specifically of Matteo’s memes and how they they weren’t necessarily the kind of memes a gay dude born in 2001 would pick, but someone a decade older. I think this is much better done with new gen. Fatou’s memes reflect her age and her sexuality, and not just that, but Ava, Mailin, Kieu My, Josh, etc. all pick memes and even focus on different aspects of recent news, based on their gender, race, personalities, interests, etc.

I appreciate that the team found a way to fit a sex scene between Fatou and Kieu My to add to the small catalogue of wlw sex scenes on Skams (I’m including the scene in lovleg or we’d only have two lol). While I understood the reasons eskam opted not to include one, I thought there were ways to feature a sex scene that didn’t sexualize the actresses and didn’t require nudity. Cases in point: the lovleg scene, and this scene in Druck.

And it also needs to be said. This is the first original season with a main of color, and the third season overall (after Liv and Imane) where 10 episodes are given to a character of color and no one else. Of the three, it’s certainly the season that loved and respected its main the most. The bar is so low it’s in hell, but Druck did clear that bar!

With all that said, let’s talk about the things I would really want the team to address in following seasons:

The thing I most want them to fix might be small or unimportant for a lot of people, but I think it’s at the core of why the season has been unenjoyable or certain plot points haven’t come across the way the team wanted, for many people. I am talking about the overly expositional nature of the writing.  It appears as if the team approached the writing of the clips with the intention of hitting each beat as noted in their agreed upon outline, and absolutely nothing else was to be added. This is an issue both in s5 and s6. It’s just less noticeable in s5, because s5 is setting up stuff for Fatou’s season, and possibly even seasons that haven’t been written yet. The fact that absolutely every second counts makes for a stressful watching experience for me, because the narrative tension is always heightened. Whereas with Skam, the narrative tension would build throughout the clip. Take the Pride scene in Skam, for instance. The clip allows for Isak and Eskild to get increasingly more agitated as they butt heads. I feel like if this Druck team had done the Pride scene in s5 or s6, the clip would’ve started with both Isak and Eskild already on edge, and cut much of the dialogue that got them there.

On the topic of naturalistic dialogue, this season doesn’t have it. Here is an example from ep 10 clip 2, Wieder vereint/Reunited 11:37.

Fatou: I’ll get a certificate too and bring it over to you. And I checked it, I only have to change one course and my schedule will work.

Teacher: Miss Jallow, you are not the first one to come to me with an epiphany. We could fill entire school weeks with the lessons you missed. In addition, Doctor Steinberg told me about your, well… activities. You don’t have a lot of arguments on your side. 

Fatou: But I’ve spoken to all of the teachers and they said they are okay with it. 

Teacher: You seem to have friends among the teaching staff. Mrs Pavlovic put in a word for you. Okay then, do it and go before I change my mind. [translated by @kieu-tou! Thank you!] 

Like. This is the bare bones version of a dialogue. This should be the first draft, not the final version. The coordinator goes from absolute no to yes, with just one line from Fatou. The coordinator gives reasons that would necessitate more than one sentence of counterargument, like Fatou’s absences and the Biology test leaked answers. The coordinator even says Fatou doesn’t have a lot of arguments on her side, and yet it takes Fatou one line to change her mind!

And of course we viewers don’t want or need a lot of time with the coordinator. And particularly at this point in the season, no one would enjoy a naturalistic dialogue with the coordinator of all people.  But my point is that this is an issue with the dialogue all this season (and last season as well, but this season has been more scrutinized), the reason I picked this example is because of how easy it is to see here.

Which brings us to the pacing of the clips, and specifically the Friday clips. Because the script goes straight to the information the team wants to convey to the viewers, skipping the build up to it, many Friday clips have fallen flat, felt abrupt, and have been, tbh, unsatisfying. Again, I had this issue in s5, but as that season went on, I felt like the team had a better grip on Friday clips. But then they did it again in the first Friday clip this season, and so I think this is something the writers really should work on. The first Friday clip in Isak’s season closes on Isak being sandwiched by Emma and Even on a bench, visually setting up the love triangle, or more accurately, the personifications of who Isak should want to hook up with and who he really wants. But in order to get there, we’re shown a good amount of info, from the way Vilde, Eva and Sana are handling Noora’s absence, to Chris and Kasper, Even hovering around Isak, Emma trying to impress Isak, Isak escaping and, like, draping himself on the walls because he’s so over it all. Isak playing a game on the bathroom to stall for time. The paper towel maneuver to immediately give us a sense of what a weirdo Even is. A conversation between Isak and Even that gives us some clues about Even’s shame, as well as establish interests in common (like weed), and this is all before Emma even joins them! Just think of all the stuff we learn about who Isak, Even, Emma, Eva, Vilde or Sana are as people, before we get to the point of the clip! Fatou’s season simply didn’t have that. Compare it with the first Friday clip of Fatou’s season where the cashqueens quickly talk about the leaked answers, one of the major storylines this season that only gets a couple lines, before Fatou says she doesn’t want to talk about school (Fatou’s struggles with school, another major storyline), and then we’re onto the point of the clip, which is that Kieu My likes girls too. AND FADE TO BLACK. When people say they want longer clips, what they mean isn’t artificially inflate the clip length or add more plot stuff. Just let us watch the characters interact with each other so that we get a feel for how they relate to each other. I know I wish we’d have gotten more of Ava and Fatou interacting with each other before things turned to shit, and Ava with the other girls, so that I know why they all like and value Ava so much. I wish we’d have gotten more of Kieu My talking to the cashqueens about, like, why she didn’t make use of the biology test answers, instead of getting it on a chat. Or food combos they don’t like. So it makes more sense that later on Kieu My actually thinks she and Fatou are friends.  And every line doesn’t have to count. In Skam España, the characters are constantly talking and not everything they ever talked about ended up being relevant. When one of the characters lied about her house undergoing renovations to hide the fact that she was poor, the characters joked about Italian marble and put on bad Italian accents and made that Italian hand gesture. None of this was important to the plot because those renovations weren’t real to begin with, but they made viewers feel like these were real friends joking around, instead of characters needing to hit every storyline beat in a clip.

I have this joke with my friends about Druck always going 🤪🤪 in the last third of every season, in which a season that was very tightly written and cohesive suddenly pulls something inexplicable and pretty much impossible to resolve in 1-3 episodes. Hanna’s season suddenly switching to Mia, Björn creeping on Mia in episode 9! of a total 10, David getting outed in episode 8 and then disappearing for a whole week, Amira’s season pivoting to Mia and Hanna. It has happened in every season except Nora’s, so I thought the team had learned its lesson, but then the forgotten date with Ava happened. To be clear. It really makes no sense that Nora would have hung out with Ava several times since Tuesday, and the topic of the cashqueens being officially introduced to Kieu My wouldn’t have come up. it’s just not realistic.gif I feel like at that point the writing for the rest of the reason became super contrived to keep Fatou miserable and apart from Kieu My and Ava to artificially delay the reunions until episode 9 and 10. Why add a cheating insinuation and the main checking her partner’s messages in episode 8 if you know you won’t be able to properly resolve it? Why make Kieu My mock Fatou’s “uhm” if it’s not going to be addressed in their reunion clip? Kieu My had taken the initiative for a lot of the relationship, so it’s okay for Fatou to take the initiative when it comes to making up. You don’t have to add things that can only be resolved through an expositional info dump. (Please no more exposition than it’s necessary! I think we’ve established that at this point lol.) In the case of Fatou’s season, this is even sadder because I feel like Kieu My’s intimacy issues could’ve been the reason to drive them apart for two weeks, rather than the Maya/uhm stuff. This could’ve also been resolved through Fatou and Kieu My explicitly negotiating their boundaries and how they want to be comforted and how they want to comfort each other, which I thought was the issue with Fatou rejecting Kieu My’s attempts to help while wanting physical touch, while Kieu My didn’t want to be touched but rather seen.  

There are going to be many thinkpieces on why a myriad of stuff didn’t work for people, so I’m going to keep this simple and address one last thing. I think that choosing to focus on Nora’s mental illness and Fatou’s disability is a great choice that doesn’t complicate the themes too much, but Druck (and all the Skams, but I’m invested only in Druck succeeding at this point) still struggles with being intersectional. This is the major reason why the Ava/Mailin storyline ended not with a bang, but a whimper. There just wasn’t enough work done to connect Fatou’s struggles not just to her disability, but also to her race (and even her sexuality). I think that if people really want (and lbr, it’ll be mostly poc who will put in that effort and work), they can see how Fatou’s race affected the way other people and especially adults reacted to her, but this wasn’t made explicit. If Ava and Mailin are going to argue about racism all season, why not connect that with Karin firing Fatou from Aquarius? As it stands, Karin fired Fatou because of a disability neither of them knew Fatou has, and that was the resolution to that storyline. Why not make it explicit that the Physics teacher had preconceived ideas about Fatou because Fatou is black? Why wasn’t Fatou’s disability addressed in the meeting with the coordinator? Why didn’t Fatou express to Mailin that Fatou, too, had issues with how Mailin was acting wrt racism? It felt like, with the way the season was putting so much emphasis on racism, all these threads were going to be connected. In the end though, it almost felt as if only Ava is affected by racism (aside from Mailin mentioning Fatou in the last episode). It’s not like talking about how racism affects Fatou is going to make the topic redundant for Ava’s or Ismail’s season. As a light-skinned black lesbian with a disability, Fatou’s life is going to be impacted by racism in a different way than Ava’s will, as a dark-skinned black fat straight cis girl, or Ismail’s, as a Turkish-German possibly Muslim possibly non binary person. All these experiences are specific enough, and different enough, that they can be touched upon in different seasons without becoming redundant. The fact that Fatou’s season almost seemed to forget at times that she is a black lesbian, doesn’t bode well for Ava’s and Ismail’s season to acknowledge all their struggles.

The bottom line is that this season really was great and did a lot of good, and I feel like the writing just needs to be tweaked a bit for further seasons to be even better and more enjoyable overall. I am very pleasantly surprised by how the team took s1-s4 fan feedback to heart and worked to implement suggestions, and so I really trust them and hope they keep working on the show. It’d be a shame if Druck wasn’t renewed, with this team at the helm.    

[mercyburned-aa]

blyeth + teaching style!

She’s not great at first.

The game doesn’t show us this, probably because it wouldn’t have been interesting enough gameplay wise for most folk (tho it could have been a better tutorial tbh), but I do personally hc that H.anneman and M.anuela and S.eteth gave her a crash course in education, maybe for about a week or two, before she formally took over the class, and I also headcanon that someone probably sat in on classes for the first few months especially (another thing that just doesn’t need to be there gameplay wise imo). We’re not exactly told how much time passes in between when she arrives at the monastery and when she actually begins teaching. There’s that quick cutscene that shows B.yleth studying something in what looks like the reception hall before we see all the students, and iirc, the game starts in the first week of the first month of the year. For all we know, a month could have passed in between the bandit attack and the first day of class. It’s probably more likely to be a couple weeks, but I don’t hc it to be like, the very next day either. Also I think school was already in session? Lmao. What are timelines.

Also, remember that this is not the modern era where people go to school to learn how to teach and they have internships and exams etc to make sure they understand at least the fundamentals of education. That’s a modern concept that matters in THIS world; I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter at all in a fictional medieval-ish society, but…. It’s not the same thing as if someone walked in off the street in today’s world. Fodlan is not a contemporary society governed by our understanding of teaching and qualifications and etc. Even without the whole R.hea-wants-to-bring-back-S.othis thing, I feel like it’s not absolutely preposterous for (at least some of) a medieval society to believe / accept that the child of a famous mercenary / former captain of a military organization, who has themselves been a merc their whole life, might know a thing or two.

It’s also a required mechanic of the game so like…. I don’t take it too seriously. Same thing as with recruiting a student to your house is a required mechanic for them to not be an enemy during the timeskip whether or not it makes sense for their character. Some things just aren’t that deep. That also isn’t to say that I think B.yleth should have immediately been made a professor, because I don’t, but that’s what we’re given to work with and so I go with it. (Honestly, a lot of things I just recognize are gameplay mechanics / coding requirements and it doesn’t necessarily inform how I play my characters, or how I think about them, because the way things work in a game and the way things would work in “real life” are not the same, or so black and white).

Anyway, even with a crash course and likely weekly or even daily off-screen 1:1’s with S.eteth (because lmao, I do not believe he wouldn’t try to like, make sure B.yleth actually did a good job) to improve her skills, it’s a bit of a rocky start at first, but eventually she finds her footing and starts to gain confidence in the classroom. Also like, she isn’t teaching them math and history etc. It isn’t a high school although obvs there’s overlap with the age group and social dynamics. This is literally an elite military academy backboned by a large religious institution. They’re learning weapons, magic, and social responsibility. Luckily those are things she’s good at.

Anyway, she’s generally pretty straightforward with feedback — praise where it’s due and critiques where they’re necessary, though as she gets to know her students better, she learns who responds better to what kind of feedback and adapts her delivery to each student. She’s less about theory (although can talk about it) and prefers practical demonstrations where she can show in real-time why locking your joint is bad or why coming from this or that angle is better. She’s not as great with magic as she is weaponry itself and — this is another gameplay mechanic that I just have to headcanon around because otherwise it makes no friggin sense why B.yleth can have an E rank in flying and yet teach Ingrid who starts with a D rank — probably studies theory on her own with H.anneman and M.anuela before she tries to teach those lessons. Maybe one of them even takes over the class for that day.

She knows (most of) the material because she learned it herself albeit differently, but I strongly believe there’s a lot of off-screen 1:1’s and feedback sessions that happen between her and the rest of staff. We don’t see it in-game because that’s not what the game is about, but this is what make sense to me.

Tl:dr my personal hc’s about By.leth and teaching are a lot more flexible than the game permits and B.yleth is a direct sort of instructor but as time goes on she adapts to what her students need. She doesn’t tend to go off on stories or tangents but the practical demonstrations, I like to think those keep class days interesting. It’s how she learned, after all.

[sepublic]

WandaVision Finale!

           Okay, that finale was AMAAAAAZING! Everything about it… Particularly, I love that with all of these references to American, black-and-white television shows, we got a bit straight out of what felt like The Twilight Zone! Let me tell you, when Dottie came up to Wanda and started begging to be with her daughter, bargaining, playing with the role and trying to appeal, even offering up her daughter for the antagonistic, demonized role of bully, just to be with her; That was INCREDIBLY messed-up and really shook me up, as did everyone else in that sequence! It was utterly wonderful, and really, the entire premise and set-up DOES seem like a Twilight Zone episode; Perhaps the final homage/allusion by this series?

           The Vision battle was great, some much-needed action and usage of Vision’s powers that we needed. I love how Vision manages to talk down the White counterpart with logic and existential thought… The philosophical, almost deconstructive way Vision deals with stuff and life isn’t cold, but rather appreciative, like someone taking apart a clock and marveling in how its put together; They don’t rage at the clock for no longer upholding the undefinable illusion it used to have… 

          And of course, the idea of ‘illusion’ I feel applies to Westview as well. The difference being that Westview’s mechanisms are inherently immoral, but the way Vision gets down to the basics and fundamentals of things in his almost wondrous, childlike curiosity- It’s great. He’s questioning everything, but in anticipation and acceptance of an answer, he does not view the world with cold disdain the way someone like Ultron would.

           The Theseus Ship paradox was a wonderful discussion, as was the suggested answer that either neither of them are the ship, or they both are! As is Vision’s constantly poetic talk of how the ship is more the experience and memories, so if they’re attached to either, then sure- They’re both the same! I love for a hypothetically cold android, this dude is so poetic and marveling at everything. He should be a writer, a poet… But that’s not happening anytime soon; But it doesn’t mean it won’t EVER happen, either! As Vision realized, they’ve said goodbye before, only to say hello again… I love his little way of looking through and exploring loopholes in apparent certainties, both at the end and with White Vision.

           Not gonna lie though, I half-expected/anticipated for White Vision to emerge with Ultron’s mind, once Vision reawakened those memories, and I have to wonder where he is. I was kind of hoping both Visions would merge together to complete a true one, given how both acknowledge that the other has something that they don’t. White Vision is still out and about though; And I like the clever usage of color, with blue representing the cold and mechanical Ultron side of him, and yellow being the Mind Stone, but most importantly Vision. And I LOVE the idea that Scarlet Witch has the last remainder of an Infinity Stone within her, preserved like her love for Vision; Some things you can’t truly eradicate, Thanos!

           That reference to the Darkhold from Agents of SHIELD was great, and I imagine it’ll come into play now that Wanda’s taken it from Agatha. How Agatha got it, I have to wonder; But that’s a story for another day, I presume. I guess she’s been brainwashed truly as Agnes and is doing her own thing in Westview, without anyone to realize she doesn’t quite belong; Or maybe they will? What a wonderfully poetic, vicious fate for her character- She faked it all, and now she gets to be real! The idea of playing a ‘part’ is just a fascinating motif in this show for me, and I’m sure there’s some philosophical stuff I could dredge up about that term, ‘stories’, from my Philosophy class.

           Wish we got some more resolution with Darcy, and Hayward kind of just left; But I do appreciate how we could’ve gotten a bit of an all-out brawl, with the SWORD agents targeting Agatha and how she alludes to the Salem Witch Trials! Also the allusion to the Sorcerer Supreme, AKA Doctor Strange, was great- And things are still complicated with how Wanda more maturely vouches to save those agents, even if they’re also against her… She knows that people’s dislike and hostility is pretty valid. It’ll be interesting how she’ll own up to the ‘role’ of Scarlet Witch now, as a lot of her vilification came from her own actions, admittedly. I imagine she’s going to try and it do it on her own terms, see what loopholes in the requirements she can exploit- Much like her husband Vision would! Also, Tommy and Billy having to dissipate when Vision at least understands and accepts IS messed up, so I can see why Wanda feels the need to rescue her children, who definitely don’t deserve this.

           I do have to wonder if that last scene is a hint that Wanda hasn’t fully moved on, or if she HAS, but of course Tommy and Billy don’t deserve to die just for her character development! Really that dilemma and sad ending was handled so well, I half-expected Wanda to isolate the Hex to just her house, or maybe focus all of the energy of the Hex into maintaining JUST Vision, Tommy, and Billy. Maybe she’s consulting her chapter in the Darkhold for info on that? Either way, I like how she’s prepared and kept all of her assets in place in case she ever needs them, such as Agatha, now Agnes! There’s a very spiteful and utilitarian way she handles herself now, reminiscent of a villain who keeps tabs on their friends and enemies; Wanda seems to be doing the typical steps of a villain, but hasn’t exactly committed to it; And maybe never will, again, it’ll be interesting how she exploits her role as Scarlet Witch. I love the callback to those runes, how a scene that could’ve been written off as magical world building foreshadowed and came back into play; Such a simple and obvious trick, but one I always fall for because I’m so invested and IN the world!

           Also, I think that lake Wanda lives by, might be the one where Sokovia’s remains landed? If so, then that’s incredibly fitting; A watery grave for her home and memories, huh? I wonder if Pietro, the real one, is buried here- It makes sense, Agatha alludes to Pietro not being buried in North America (nor South America if you want to get into technicalities), so of course their home country, or what’s left of it, is ideal! The site where he died, lowkey; Although that was arguably several miles above, but still. This third-world country that everyone dismissed and ignored has now had a major legacy that is felt across the world… It’s been heard, huh? I’m not sure why Wanda’s maintaining that illusion of herself, is she just practicing, maybe creating a front in case anyone notices activity, checks out, and then assumes it’s ‘just’ some random lady?

           I can only imagine how Doctor Strange will tie into this! Probably with the Nexus of All Realities and the Darkhold, and of course the Scarlet Witch’s role as a potential threat to the Sorcerer Supreme; And hopefully with what we’ve seen of Agatha making note of magic belonging to the ‘deserving’ and being able to take it from others… Baron Mordo, perhaps? Maybe he’ll make his return interrogating Agnes as he tries to track down the Scarlet Witch, seeing her as a threat… Dang, now Mordo’s reminding me of Emperor Belos from The Owl House, with the whole belief that after chaos and bloodshed, magic should instead be isolated to only the deserving who prove themselves, and whatnot! Now I’m even in MORE interested and hopeful for Mordo with this comparison!

           Likewise, the allusion to the Nexus in that commercial made me wonder if New Jersey would be the location for the Nexus of All Realities in the MCU, but now that Wanda’s left, it’s possible she’ll track down its location to Louisiana, just in the comics! Still hoping for Man-Thing in the MCU, maybe we’ll get a setup for him! I’m telling you Feige, this is your chance to make a Frankenstein/Iron Giant type of film, a misunderstood monster story to incorporate into the MCU, what with your exploration of new genres beginning particularly in Wandavision! Also iirc the Darkhold has a corrupting influence on those who read it… But the last people who did were regular humans, is Scarlet Witch above such things? Or will the Darkhold mess with her, too- An external force that disrupts her character development by corrupting her? I’m just in even more anticipation for Multiverse of Madness to be trippy and horrifying.

           Overall, what a WONDERFUL conclusion, and an incredibly satisfying finale to this series, while still paving the way for new stories! It seems Photon’s story has just begun, now that Nick Fury has sent a Skrull to invite her; Maybe for the Captain Marvel sequel? I’d assume the sequel deals with the fall of the Supreme Intelligence, which takes place before 2014; Nine years before Monica gets her powers! Something had to have happened to lead to the Kree’s peace treaties with everyone that angered Ronan…Well, we’ll see!

          And White Vision, we’ll see what happens with him, what existential crisis he’ll get into, poor dude; He’s arguably the original Vision, except traumatized and questioning himself! I’m surprised Wanda didn’t go after him, did she assume he was destroyed? Or has she just moved on, focusing on her sons? We’ll have to see… Vision did allude to him reuniting with Wanda, so perhaps Wanda can use her powers to gather the Mind Stone’s scattered atoms within the fragment she holds, and reform an Infinity Stone to truly resurrect Vision, from his white template! Perhaps that’s how the Nexus will come into play, as a place to draw together such cosmic power that was once scattered by the Mad Titan…

           Wish we got to see more of Darcy and Woo, as well as Fietro; Him being confirmed as Ralph was great, as was that little hilarious man-cave segment of his, fitting into what would’ve been his time period. I’m a bit disappointed he’s just some dude, but at least there’s the meta gag… I LOOOOVE Scarlet Witch’s new outfit, it’s such a stylish red dress/cape and crown, love how it’s repeatedly invoked as a symbol for her; Wanda finally gets to own her classic costume, her tiara! The bit where her ‘shirt’ meets the pants reminds me of fangs and the points on her tiara, I love that sharp and threatening visual cohesion! And with all that in mind, here’s hoping to The Falcon & Winter Soldier as our next installment into the MCU! And one day, we’ll finally get that Black Widow movie released… One day!

[luobingmeis]

I think Undyne's determination has less to do with like something that happened in the past and more like the overlap between determination as an actual physical thing VS a spiritual thing. Whereas the amalgamates were injected with determination by Alphys, Undyne makes her OWN. You've killed her best friend. You're going to kill the love of her life. You're going to kill her mentor. You're going to kill everyone. You've killed HER. But she still has to stop you. Everyone is counting on her 1/2

Undyne's whole motif is letting the monsters of the Underground achieve their hopes and dreams. Theres a reason she is the boss fight in Waterfall, the most backstory rich area in the game. Hope and dreams have just as much weight as determination does, its what helps you defeat Asriel. And Undyne the Undying's design mimics Asriel's because in Genocide SHE is the heroine, SHE is the determined hero that defies death in order to save everyone she loves via the hopes and dreams of everyone (2/2)

Sorry I just really fucking love Undyne Undertale fhfhfndkdk she willingly letting herself be used in an experiment to help her people is Very Good tho too hmmmm

!!!!

sorry ur abt to get a whole essay i love undertale so much.........

(also i use a lot of !!! for emphasis, not bc i’m yelling omg)

(also i’m letting you know this is an incoherent mess, it is 2am here akjsdkjsdjk)

but you can definitely be right!!!! tbh your idea seems much more par for the course than the spaghetti im throwing at the wall

even then, though, it’s stll so interesting bc like!!!! undyne’s courage is undeniable, and her fight to protect the underground plays Such a huge role in her whole waterfall arc. and, in the spiritual sense, she is absolutely determined!! that just makes me WONDER though bc, like, canonically, monsters Are Not determined! they don’t have that threshold!

and then, in looking at determination in the spiritual sense, what exactly makes undyne different? is it that her desire to live and protect the underground unlocks that threshold needed for determination? at one point, could monsters be determined, but then their millennia trapped underground biologically/psychologically stripped them of that? so then could any monster in the underground, when facing high enough stakes, have that determination? or is it just undyne?

bc then i think about the other bosses in either route, like papyrus, mettaton, asgore, sans. where undyne is the monster/boss capable of possessing determination, sans is probably the one least likely to have any threshold for determination (this is bc his entire boss fight is him realizing he can no longer be an observer, he is literally the last line of defense between chara and the annihilation of all monsters). mettaton is complicated bc as a napstablook turned corporeal, i dont even know where to BEGIN with him. but then there’s papyrus and!! it feels like he should be capable of feeling determined. in both the pacifist and genocide route, he is so assured that the human has some internal goodness. while, in the genocide route, that hope could be translated to fear, that still makes me wonder: under what circumstances could a monster’s determination be unlocked? is it not solely life or death? does it require some ulterior motives (aka undyne’s whole character being protecting the underground)? and like!!! it’s just so fun to think about bc, say it is undyne’s spiritual determination being unlocked, it’s so interesting that she’s the one differentiated!! that even papyrus, a character brimming with good and happiness and love, doesn’t have that determination, but undyne, who has a similar type of passion and goodness within her, does!!!

with experiment undyne, i will admit my theory is very much uhh wild! and unhinged! and, while my theory is much more playing in the “what if’s” of the science of artificial determination, it still makes me wonder! especially in the boss fight herself. ever since i first saw her genocide boss fight, i’ve always been a bit fixated on her eye, specifically the one w/ the eye-patch that eventually seems to have Some type of arrow power. while this definitely could have just been A Design Choice (and one i stand by!!), undertale is a game that reveals its complete lore when the pacifist and genocide route are put together. thus, in a hypothetical situation, i don’t think it would be out of the question that undyne’s eye could still Do that even in a pacifist route.

but even then, there are holes to poke! such as why doesn’t she use it? if undyne has been injected with artificial determination, why is she, frankly, normal until it’s a matter of life and death?

(to cut to the punchline before i get into my bullshit: i think it’s bc, at first, it seemed as if the artificial determination just Didn’t Work and had no affect, when in reality it needed to be met with spiritual determination as well)

and, again, i know i’m playing with a lot of hypotheticals right now, and mostly this is me just kinda fun bullshit theorizing, but i think it could have something to do with the fact that she has the threshold for spiritual determination! the reason i even think that she would offer herself up to determination experimentation is bc of the loyalty and love she has for asgore and the underground. i would argue that she is just as invested in asgore’s plan as asgore himself is, and she obviously sees him as some type of father-figure. so that alone gives her this Drive to do whatever it takes for the underground to survive.

so, therefore, i think in regards to this hypothetical experiment undyne, i think it quite literally is that spiritual determination threshold combined with artificial determination

and for that, i quickly want to talk abt the amalgamates and why they tie into this:

the timeline: corpses/souls injected with determination --> no reaction --> corpses wake up and act normal --> ??? happens  --> (quickly leads to) amalgamates

and so then that once again raises the question: what differentiates undyne? 

i think, for that, we then have to consider another question: if most monsters do not have the physical determination to continue living after death, can that determination be given when they’re already dead? monsters in general already have no threshold for determination, so can that be artificially made if it never existed in the first place? 

bc while alphys’s experiment, iirc, was to see what happened when a soul was injected with determination, i think the other much needed question is if monster souls could even Handle determination

and, while we do not know specifically what went wrong with the amalgamates (aka like How did they melt together), we do know that their physical forms really were not able to handle the artificial determination, imo most likely bc they do not even have a threshold for spiritual determination

but undyne is, as you have noted, different!

so, frankly, i think you’re right! i think undyne does have an inherent spiritual determination. it’s uncommon in monsters, but her want to save the world is enough to leave her determined

however, i think That would have just been enough to keep her alive

i think it’s artificial determination that gave her that final form! to reference  back to the amalgamates, they were all creatures whose powers we had seen before, but different now and, specifically, more powerful. that very same thing could be said for undyne! her powers are, essentially, things we have seen before, but fucking to Max Intensity 

AND THEN!! AND THEN!!!!!

when you do kill heroine undyne, she doesn’t turn to dust first

she melts first, and then turns to dust!!!!!

and, honestly, it’s that small detail that sent me down this rabbit hole, bc the only ever time we’ve seen monsters melted together are the amalgamates!

i think the main difference between heroine undyne and the amalgamates is the fact that undyne, at first, had No Reaction to the determination at first bc, since she most likely already had this secret threshold for spiritual determination, it wasn’t the Biggest of changes. it wouldn’t have had such a drastic reaction on her physical form bc, even if she didn’t know it yet, it wasn’t an entirely foreign substance

the amalgamates, however, aka monsters who had no spiritual determination, could only handle the artificial determination for an unknown amount of time before their bodies began rejecting the chemicals and becoming..... that

of course, then, this leaves me with even more questions, such as could undyne sustain this final form? would her body eventually give out, overcome by determination? was this form only meant for life or death situations?

and uhhh i think this is the end!! if you made it this far and are thinking to urself “damn you’re really an english major when you write like this?? this isn’t even comprehensible” do not fret!! i know this theory is kinda a shitshow, and it’s one of those things where i can keep myself up all night thinking abt this and talking myself in circles bc there are some points that i think have strengths and other points that are probably pretty weak

basically though!! i see the connection between artificial determination and undyne through the fact that her form actually changes, the reveal of her legit power eye, the way her attacks have been altered, and the fact that she melts at the end (akin to the amalgamates’ appearances) before poofing into dust

this has been,,,, a shitshow i am so sorry i hope this was at least somewhat understandable ajkdsjkdsjk

[jamesbi-canonbarnes]

Going mad ok so I understand Bucky is not the white wolf in the comics and has nothing to do with the person who goes by that moniker in the comics. If I thought we were going to get the actual white wolf story from the comics in the mcu it might make me feel Bucky can’t be called white wolf, but the thing is they have already been calling him white wolf, which leads me to conclude already either 1) they will never introduce comics white wolf anyway, whether they keep it a shallow nickname or possibly let Bucky take more of the story of white wolf and subsume/replace that character (thinking about Arnie Roth hours) or 2) they will treat it as a mantle that can be shared and passed on like the cap mantle and others. I find option 1 much more likely as I don’t see room for the comics white wolf in the mcu. If either, I have no problem with them expanding Bucky’s identity as white wolf, as this is a completely different universe than the comics, and they have ALREADY NAMED HIM SO. (Not that we can’t judge the mcu for choices we think are bad, we can. But divergence alone is not my problem).

I think the thing certain tfatws viewers are hitting on is that the show seems like it’s setting him up to take on a new name. In the first ep he literally says “I’m no longer the winter soldier.” Just from that and the strong subtext surrounding it, in order for him to properly hit his development/arc he would *have* to either *himself* choose a new “alias” name or explicitly/verbally accept that name again as his in healing but he does NOT, he’s called only “Bucky” and “Sergeant Barnes” in the last episode, and throughout the show he calls himself and is called “white wolf” (in the context of healing-restitution-reconciliation/invoking peace and rehabilitation/acknowledging his own goals) plus being called Bucky/buck/James/barnes etc. in varied but mostly neutral or at least averaged out to be neutral context. He is only called Soldat/ws by zemo and by strangers in madripoor iirc, and certainly not in the context of healing. And while I believe he either does call himself the winter soldier or strongly implies that at least in ep 5, it is again not in a context of healing but of self hate and fear, showing how he sees himself and how he has NOT reclaimed the name. His last statement on the fact is to Yori, where he says “he was murdered by the winter soldier.. and that was me... I didn’t have a choice.” *was* and “I didn’t have a choice.” But now that he does have a choice, what is the choice???? Closing the chapter on that era??? Seems like (sunset, right?). But it never textually hits either of the conclusions earlier laid out (choosing to reclaim the name or choosing a new name). This makes it feel like his development is unfinished, and IMO it feels like it doesn’t really make sense to leave it unfinished if he was going to continue using that name because he would only have to say like one sentence to tie it up, whereas any other name would take more than that. So it only makes sense narratively to leave it unfinished if he still requires further development, like a second season or a movie worth, to figure out his name (we know his name is very important to him- “it’s Bucky” “my name is Bucky” “my name is James Bucky barnes” “you don’t get to call me that” etc.) he has his chosen (reclaimed) person name, now he needs to choose (and/or reclaim) his hero name. We just saw him realize that saving ppl is what he wants to do (“[free] to do what?”->”be of service” -> “thank you for saving us”) (he now NEEDS a hero name/hero identity) and on the other side we saw him retraumatized when he stepped back under the winter soldier name in ep 3. The show frames his completing his amends as putting his past behind him (literally getting rid of it in the form of leaving the book and not returning to therapy) but it does not answer the question of what’s in front of him (besides Sam). We have seen him subtextually reclaim his prosthetic arm(using it for good in the last two eps and finding joy from it) AND his “white wolf” nickname(verbal reinstatement from Ayo and a happy physical response from Bucky), but NOT the “winter soldier” name. Even the arm is not the same prosthetic he used as Soldat but one that is inextricably wakandan, and therefore is not enough for me to be a symbolic stand in for the name.

Yes I agree that him reclaiming the name in the comics is healing and meaningful and could be the same in the mcu if they actually put in the work to draw that explicitly (which IMO they have not, and I don’t trust that they will) but it is not the only way to heal and move on, the same can be done by choosing his own new name, his own moral grounding, his own chosen family. (Ayo’s “you chose us. Chose me.”) there is not one right way to heal.

The thing is, the show did not address the name, and the arc feels unclosed due to that. It is annoying that they have him say he is not the winter soldier at both beginning and end (and middle w zemo in ep 3) and yet the title calls him that throughout. If he had specifically reclaimed that name in the show I would be perfectly happy with that, but he did not. The fact that they changed Sam’s name but not bucky’s when their journeys of healing through choosing heroism and finding a new identity are purposely paralleled feels off. It feels off because of the way they framed the show, and not bc I personally have an independent desire for him to change his name. (Although I do think a lot about chosen names from the perspective of trans healing, and I think that’s something to consider here). White Wolf is the option presented, and I can certainly see why people are hitting on it based on the text of the show.

If he eventually takes the name “White wolf” as his hero name I do agree it should have more build up/development and for me personally to accept it I would require a much deeper connection with wakanda than Bucky now has. Possibly we will get it in cap 4, possibly there are not plans to give Bucky real further development, only to keep him on as a sidekick. I don’t personally see him “earning” that name as IMO it would require a major shift away from being cap’s sidekick and into his own separate (distinctly not America-centered) storyline which is what I don’t see happening. But at the same time, mcu has already demonstrated a willingness to give shallow development for its choices, and this could be another example of that being telegraphed. Or who knows, maybe the above points that make his arc feel unfinished are just due to sloppy writing. I won’t rule that out, but I will appreciate if comics readers stop trying to gatekeep mcu fans excited about the possibilities of a universe that is literally not the same universe! It’s an au! The creators can and will change whatever they want. While we can of course judge those changes, I’m much less comfortable judging viewers for reading possibilities presented by the canon text just because the possibility represents a change from the comics.

TLDR MCU-only fans are not stupid for reading what was given to them in the text of the show they’re analyzing and coming up with a desire to have Bucky choose the name White Wolf as an alias. The choice to incorporate comics in your reading of an mcu property is a *choice* that is value-neutral and not a necessary step for either consumption or commentary.