#(more of a deconstruction of it though)

[shy-raccoon]

The damsel in distress slowly starts getting more and more unstable from the unaddressed trauma of being frequently kidnapped. One day they completely snap and the villains start being found mysteriously murdered with increasing brutality.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

King the silly guys, Lupin III!

(for @dying-suffering-french-stalkers)

[chirpsythismorning]

Mike's character regression can be explained in large part by one emotion in particular: guilt

Just want to preface this by saying that, this is not Mike slander. I love this dude. In fact, I think what makes Mike such an interesting character is that a lot of his behavior throughout the series can be explained in part by previous moments, and after really looking at all these moments together, what you end up with is a pretty fucked up story.

So while some might want to take this as Mike slander, these points I'm making are a part of Mike and things he has done and said and whether they were intentionally harmful or not, it's Mike. It's all shaped him and his role in the story. The fact that we're seeing a visible shift in his behavior at all, with plenty of moments from the show to back up what brought us here, makes it compelling enough to talk about.

So, without further ado, back to our roots:

Ah yes, the infamous canon proof disputing Mike's I think my life started that day we found you in the woods, claim during his monologue. Not only that, but in this original scene from 1x02, it turns out Mike actually intended to send her away the next day (all of which El could hear Mike saying from the open bathroom door).

Mike outright calling El a weapon, again telling the others they need her because they stand no chance at getting Will back otherwise.

I wont elaborate on this now, because there is way too much to unpack that'll honestly be more worthwhile discussing further on.

For now, this is a secret tool that will help us later.

These next couple scenes right here though, are pretty painful if I'm being completely honest. The way its shot, specifically El's very visible exhaustion, accompanied by the varying priorities of others around her, leaves me feeling pretty unsettled upon rewatches.

I obviously can't remember how I felt when I watched these scenes for the first time, but I imagine I viewed them as this huge romantic moment for Mike and El (I was tricked by heteronormativity, okay?). But, again, upon rewatching them since then, I've realized I get this sort of sad feeling by the end. You'll see what I mean.

El obviously just went through something extremely traumatic. She tried to go find Will and Barb in the void, only to find Barb dead and Will presumably alive, but then slipping through her fingers at the last second (no, literally).

We then got a moment where Joyce held El while the others sat by quietly because she clearly needed a moment of comfort given what she just endured.

Then in this scene shortly after, everyone is leaving to get ready for their final attempt at saving Will.

Now, notice how not only Lucas, but also Dustin make the effort to reach out to El to comfort her affectionately after that traumatic event, with those twos' actions specifically being showcased in sequence?

Lucas, who spent the better part of the season being critical of El, is now ending the season rubbing El's shoulder to warm her up, literally soothing her to make her feel better.

Then there's Dustin, who right after Lucas' gesture makes a gesture of his own, putting his hand on her knee reassuringly, to show her he's there and he's happy she's okay.

And lastly there's Mike, who is so kindly allowing El to rest her head on his shoulder. This placement of Mike and El here is definitely a testament to the fact that Mike has vouched for El this whole time in contrast to the others and so, understandably, she put her head on his shoulder for reassurance, because out of the three of them, he's the one whose been looking out for her the most. (Right?)

Now you might be thinking that this sequence's only purpose was to show Lucas and Dustin's development with El, and that it wasn't intentional that they focused on Lucas and Dustins' priorities in this moment in contrast to Mikes'. And I raise you, this next scene.

Here we have a focus on Mike looking on to where everyone left, while the others beside him are presumably just processing what went down and taking a rest (and boy oh boy do they (El) need one).

Mike on the other-hand decides to take this moment of rest to display the most cliche and universal forms of distracted unrest known to man: he checks his watch.

Mike then stands up abruptly, causing El to fall without his shoulder there for her to rest on anymore, all while her and Dustin are looking on after him, sort of like... Okay?

It's small. It might seem insignificant. But if you actually pay attention to what this scene is trying to make you feel, after really looking at it for what it is, it's kind of sad.

In a moment that chooses to highlight the other boys' acknowledgment of El after what just happened, and not only that, but at the tale end of their final battle of the season, Mike is... distracted?

Mike, who has been presumably looking out for El more than the others in the party this whole time, is conveniently out of commission? And right now when El is looking for his reassurance the most? Mike doesn't even have a moment to say, 'Hey I'll be right back, I just want to check something. Can one of you?--', asking Lucas or Dustin to sit next to her in his place. No. Dude just stands up without even acknowledging her.

If it was any other moment in the show, under less post-traumatic circumstances for El, then I wouldn't even think much of it. But it's at this point in the story when El is essentially at her most exhausted and quite literally seeking out support from others, specifically Mike, that makes his distractedness so eery.

Again, you might still be thinking that this isn't that deep. However, I think based on the events leading up to this, and what follows right here, could quite literally hold the answer to the guilt Mike is still keeping to himself to this day.

So... How are we feeling?

Are we feeling like Mike None of you are thinking about El's wellbeing right now! She could get brain damage from using her powers too much! She's not a weapon!* Wheeler is a little bit of a hypocrite? (I told you that tool would come in handy!)

It's actually quite terrifying how similar this scene is framed to the scene in Hopper's cabin in s3, where Mike pretty much says the exact opposite. In s1 Mike goes from being one of the first people to refer to El as a weapon within the context of them using her powers to find Will, with him being completely un-attuned to the fact that she is exhausted in this moment while the others are saying El's rest and safety is the most important, to then in s3 completely flipping script and saying El was using her powers for nothing, blaming the others for treating her like a weapon and not taking her wellbeing into consideration.

It would be one thing if Mike had a little arc where he acknowledged this script flip. Because that's what it is. It is them having Mike use a word in s1 to describe El, that being weapon, only to say the others are treating her like that with that same word being used. It is them having Mike not agknowledge El's well being after overusing her powers, only to say the others aren't taking her wellbeing into consideration for overusing her powers.

And it would be one thing if Mike had spoke to El or literally anyone about how he felt like he wronged El for planning on sending her away the next day after they found her so that they could go back to looking for Will, or how he said she was a weapon that they needed in order to find Will, essentially being no better than the people she just escaped from, who also used her for her powers. But we don't get that (actually we do.. but it's not acknowledged for what it is aka survivor's guilt. It's instead seen as romantic... another tool for later...)

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think any of Mike's behavior takes away from what Mike did do for El, because yes he was kind and accepting when the others weren't. But even despite all of that, at the end of the day, he was often at the forefront of expecting El to risk her life for them, even if he wasn't outright asking that of her.

Before you freak out, No. I don't think Mike, a literal child, was capable of fathoming that El was going into these situations risking her life. She's a superhero. El's alternative was literally going back to the lab, running, or staying with Mike. This was her safest option.

After a bunch of rewatches and putting together a lot of these moments as a whole, I've come to a point where I believe that Mike's behavior throughout s1 was him thinking that because of who El was, she's already in danger at all times. That is a constant reality for her. And so why not have her help them find Will, because she is able to, all while he can also help her. And El clearly wanted to help them, because she wanted to help good people and finally do something meaningful with her powers for a change. Unfortunately, she also had to endure PTSD flashbacks almost every single time Mike and the boys had her use her powers to help find Will.

Speaking of Will, he is currently missing and possibly dead. Will also, in contrast to El (for now...), does not have any sort of superpowers.

Mike's concern over the threat of Will's livelihood is much greater than Mike's acknowledgement to the true risks El is exposing herself to each time she uses her powers to help them. That is s1 canon.

Is there times when Mike is focused on El and her well being. Absolutely! But is there also times when Mike is not showing any display of concern to El's well being in the moment, in complete contrast to the other characters around him... Also yes.

And so the events happening the way they did, with Mike himself not fully comprehending the severity of what's been going on during these high stake situations going on around him, makes sense.

And that's what makes it all the more sad that when Mike finally does realize what he's truly been asking of El this whole time, which is to risk her life for them, it's too late.

This whole scene is obviously very emotional. All of the boys are crying, but the focus on Mike calling out for El painfully is heartbreaking.

But what's even more sad to me, is that El has been sort of used to mistreatment her whole life. She's used to having to find any comfort she could get from people in her life, all the while they were using her for her powers. I mean even despite Brenner being who he was and doing what he did, she still showed these signs of wanting to love him despite it. Which is very very fucked up. But knowing what she's gone through, makes sense.

Mike on the other-hand does greatly contrast Brenner because he was one of the first people to actually treat her with genuine kindness right from the start (before he even knew she had powers), making it a lot easier for her to care for him even despite that pesky trait of using her for her powers being almost synonymous with Brenner's very similar trait.

So when she looks back at Mike, and points him out specifically before sacrificing herself, it feels like a few things at once.

It feels like her acknowledging the fact that she appreciated him specifically for taking her in and supporting her more genuinely than anyone has in her entire life.

And yet it also feels like her, either intentionally or unintentionally, acknowledging the unfortunate side affect caused by days of Mike leading the efforts to find Will, with the expectation of her to do things to achieve that, which could have all lead to her demise technically. And so now when it all comes down to it and the stakes are at their highest yet, same as the risk, she's got to a point where she believes there is no other choice but to do just that, risk her life, especially if it means saving them.

While this is happening, Mike is backtracking in real time. He is trying to get El to stop and it's because he doesn't want her to die. Obviously.

But that's the fucked up part isn't it? When he finally realized what he's been asking of her this whole time, it's too late.

Which takes us to S2 Mike Wheeler, known by many for being a boy whose been calling his true love everyday for almost a year now because he's just so in love, but is actually in fact a boy suffering the most intense form of survivors guilt, one that involves a person who genuinely feels responsible for the persons death...

But that will probably take at least another 2,000 words so I'm thinking maybe I better split this into multiple parts.

I will tease that the next part involves one specific detail in particular that I never see anyone talk about, a detail that I think, in combination with what's discussed in this post, is so important to understanding Mike's breakdown for what it truly was at the end of season 2. I will also probably do more posts beyond that for s3-4, to delve into the impacts these moments from the first two seasons have basically put in place a perfect recipe for what is currently going down.

So feel free to stay tuned for those nonsense updates.

Continued

[itsthenovelteafactor]

lucy & holly in the show

contains spoilers for season one of lockwood and co and the hollow boy

i’m curious how a second season of lockwood and co would develop lucy and holly’s dynamic given the differences in lucy’s character in the show and how she interacts with other women - a bunch of musings/rambling incoming.

(i adore both versions with my whole heart)

in the books a lot of lucy’s arc is unlearning her internalized misogyny (specifically the idea that girls cannot be both feminine and strong and her nlog tendencies). it’s done in a way i think is very thoughtful - her judgement of other woman is clearly born from an insecurity in her own femininity brought on by starting work very young and constantly being told being an effective agent is the only thing that should matter to her (i believe it’s her mother that tells her “pretty is not your profession”). she has a knee jerk resentment of holly and kat because of this, because if they *can* succeed in both being effective agents and traditionally feminine, that means that it is possible and she, lucy, is in some way lacking. all this coupled with a burgeoning attraction to lockwood and she’s suddenly hyper aware of and sensitive about all the ways she isn’t elegant or refined or graceful (and completely unaware of that fact that lockwood likes her because she’s lucy, and because she’s brave and kind and challenges him). it’s a really well done arc, and if i hadn’t known going in, i would’ve assumed the series was written by a woman based on how nuanced and empathetically its written (honestly major props and kudos to j stroud for that one).

this isn’t, however, an aspect of lucy’s personality in the show. she’s still judgmental, prickly, and very much *lucy*, but it isn’t pointed specifically at the other female characters in the same way (she snipes at flo, but not in a way that is different from how she snipes at kipps or george, and doesn’t single kat out at all). this change actually makes sense to me, largely because lucy in the show is supposed to be 16, as opposed to her book counterpart, who is 13/14 at the beginning of the series. the same arc would be harder to pull off, because so much of it is tied to the particular moment we meet her in the books, and would have made show lucy look immature in a way that is less understandable (not to mention that while lucy as a narrator only really describes herself through the lens of her insecurities, the shows audience can see that ruby stokes is quite conventionally attractive). they also spend more time in the beginning establishing a meaningful friendship between her and norrie, and her having an important female friend prior to holly would change their dynamic. however, for the plot of the hollow boy to work properly, we still need that conflict between holly and lucy, and while it could just be a case of there being resentment about lucy feeling replaced, i had a few thoughts of other ways it could be developed that might be interesting to explore with these versions of the characters.

lucy is hostile to holly because she is still dealing with what happened to norrie and on some level feels like making another female friend would be disloyal or replacing her in some way. in this scenario, they could tie in those voice recordings she’s been sending to norrie, and use the moment at the end when holly and lucy realize they had similar trauma to resolve the conflict. holly’s been in a similar situation and she can finally talk about norrie in a way she hasn’t been able to with lockwood and george. you could have moments where lucy and holly are getting along and lucy is somehow reminded of norrie and instantly shuts down/goes back to being very businesslike. i think this would make sense and feel true to lucy of the show while also fitting into the hollow boy really well.

lucy’s mother in the show is more explicitly abusive than in the books, and she could be hostile to holly because she thinks she’s trying to “mother” her in some way. book lucy has a decent if strained relationship with her family, and sisters she’s close to. show lucy, however, was both verbally and physically abused and forced to run away (side note: i can’t see show lucy visiting her family like in the book, but think it’d be really touching to have her go visit norrie in the hospital, which could also make her a lot more vulnerable emotionally when she and holly first meet). this one could play out in a similar way to the books, with the final resolution being a moment of lucy realizing holly is just a scared kid like her (maybe a nice callback to her line in season one about being scared all the time). i also like this one because it could get more into the trauma of the kids who are forced into leadership/parentified positions too young, and maybe also echo some of kipps’ arc as well.

the show’s characterization of joplin is a bit different than in the books, and given the guilt lucy harbors for how everything with george went down at the end of season one, she could be very touchy about anyone new joining the group and knowing anything about what they are doing. i could totally see her watching holly and george get along and getting very protective, in the process unintentionally making george feel like she doesn’t trust his judgement anymore (which could set up some of the same protective feelings that lead her to leave at the end of the hollow boy).

anyway these are just my ideas and i’d be curious to hear other people’s thoughts!

[hadesoftheladies]

the greatest social contagion of our time (other than misogyny ofc) is capitalism. human “progress” is dictated and regulated by capital. “why are we going to war?” capital. “why are women’s rights regressing?” capital. “why are gay people suddenly in every tv show despite homophobia being rampant?” capital. “why is there a push for men to wear makeup and transpeople to get surgery?” it’s not progress, it’s capital. BBLs, “shave with this feminist razor,” boy clothes or girl clothes, for him/for her, “you deserve the perfect wedding,” girl dinner, “celebrate your melanin skin with this bronzer for $199,” “here’s a funny ad making fun of vegans from a meat factory, isn’t it funny?” “take our free quiz to find out your aesthetic/if you’re neurodivergent,” “10 signs you could have psycho personality disorder” . . . it’s been marketing from the start.

it doesn’t matter if it’s crazy, untrue or evil—it makes bank. human rights don’t matter if they don’t make capital. human lives don’t matter if they don’t have capital. you are not an agent in your life or country without capital. merchant class and consumer class is how the world is sliced. 99.9% of every piece of entertainment is marketing. it is marketing beliefs and ideas for the sake of capital with no regard to human quality of life. that’s why you can have an influx of movies and songs about, idk, black lives mattering, but if the exploitation of black people makes more bank than their liberation, the oligarchs and emperors will do whatever they need to do to get the extra buck. they’ll find a charity, and starve sweatshop workers. maybe even fund a dictator’s army to keep the nation destabilized.

like literally every facet of human life has become capitalistic. be it religion, academia, clothing, etc. it’s everywhere in everything. we used to be able to just like what we liked, but now every like of ours is a data point that is used to market and constrain our own natural, evolving self-expression into a strict niche. companies offer more products than services. like who would we be if we allowed ourselves to be contradicted? if we stopped reading tabloid experts? if we just IGNORED social media campaigns or trends? if we just stopped trying to keep up in a race that never finishes?

most people don’t even realize how much their identities are shaped by what they consume. how the doctrine of consumption has ruined their relationships. there is no loneliness bug or depression virus going around. we just talk and behave and see ourselves and each other as assets because we’re used to being treated as customers or products. that’s why we’re so sick and isolated! humanity is so so sick because of this thing like from the skin to the roots! none of it is sustainable!

it’s also not immutable. companies are effective in telling us what we want, but we have always been able to make demands. is this how you want the world to run? no? it’s time to switch up then. I’m talking unsubscribing, deleting apps, buying a house with friends instead of marrying, creating demand for services. consumers are literally the driving force of economy. being mindful of this matters.

[getsemantic]

Penumbra podcast junoverse finale………

[lokiinmediasideblog]

I find my taste in characters funny. It's definitely not based in appearance as some are grotesque looking while others are hot. It's based on a certain kind of personality, but it makes me seem like a very fucked up person that finds issue with harmless things and tolerates far more fucked up shit if interpreted in the "fiction affects reality on a 1:1 ratio" way.

[bucephaly]

Fuck whatever terfs and transphobes are treating the term 'socialization' as if it's evidence for bioessentialism or whatever as if it isn't literally the exact opposite, fuck them for taking a useful term we should be aware of and poisoning it so now people think whoever uses it is a piece of shit.

[lord-squiggletits]

Salty Ask List: 1, 5, 14, 22 ?

1.What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Dr/atc/het 100000%... I just don't understand what their chemistry is supposed to be together. It's partially ruined for me by Drift in MTMTE being an absolute mess of a character who got most of his planned plotlines cut or changed, and partially ruined by the fact Drift spends most of MTMTE straight up absent from the story, and then he and Ratchet meet up in Empire of Stone and come back during Dying of the Light and are just...together romantically now? I don't understand how they have any chemistry at all much less romantic lskdjflkds

I know a big one people talk about is "Ratchet saved Drift's life and then told him he believed in him" but... the way their meeting was written didn't come off as particularly romantic to me? Ratchet saved Drift the same way he's saved countless other addicts in the Dead End and then his parting words to Drift were to tell him to go to the Functionists so they could get him a job. Very "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kind of advice that clearly didn't work since Drift stayed impoverished, his friend got killed by police brutality, he went into the underworld to be a hitman, etc etc. Like yeah in theory it's very romantic for an OTP's first meeting to be one of them saving the other's life and treating the impoverished person kindly for possibly the first time in their life. It's just that that moment in canon doesn't have romantic vibes to me at all, it's just a doctor-patient encounter in which Ratchet is nice to Drift like he's nice to everyone, except it's also kind of condescending/ignorant bc Ratchet basically tells Drift "oh just get a job and get clean and you'll be fine" as if it's that easy to stop being a homeless/jobless drug addict?? If an ER doctor did that shit to me I'd be more likely to see him as an asshole than to admire or like him at all sdklfjsd.

Then Drift was a Decepticon for millions of years, then he joined the Autobots on Earth and like... he and Ratchet sure existed on the same team together dlkfjldsjlkds there were zero interactions of worth b/t them in phase 1, their ship dynamic came entirely from JRO's writing and even then I feel like it's an informed romance more than an organic and believable one.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I actually used to like O/Pli/ta when I first came here, but as I stayed longer it became evident that the overwhelming majority of the fan content of it reeks of "we are very sorry for having a heterosexual ship, let us compensate for it by making the woman a Girlboss Xtreme and the man a weak simp so that you can be sure the woman isn't being Oppressed and Stereotyped by being in a heterosexual romantic relationship" which is one of my most detested types of fan content, so now I have the ship tag blocked sldkfjlsdkdskl. Literally it's just the same "the woman is a TOTALLY COMPETENT AND COOL ACTION HERO and her man is a TOTAL SIMP FOR HER" that's interchangeable with most het ships in other fandoms, where there's no actual personality or chemistry for them and instead it's just the same Fandom Approved Heterosexual Relationship Dynamic.

That and a significant amount of content I see for it is just like blatantly ripped off from Me/go/p dslkfjsdfsjl or like, taking the main MOP dynamic and just swapping OP and Elita's places so now Elita is the cool action hero who's rival to Megatron and OP just Exists as an emotional support husband I guess. Or like Elita is made into a daring action hero while Optimus is reduced to a meek little wallflower who's no one of any real importance and just follows in her wake. It reeks of insecurity and unoriginality, as if the fanbase is cripplingly aware that Elita was made to be the Token Girlfriend and instead of just making her a better character and making the romance she's a part of more equal and compelling for both characters, they have to violently overcompensate by having Elita steal OP's role and everything interesting about him. 😂Like I'm begging people to just be normal about hetero ships. You can ship a man and a woman together without having to diminish the man and girlbossify the woman to prove you're a Real Feminist.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Continuity soup is boring and for the most parts creates purely fanon plots/ideas/characterizations that have tenuous relationships to actual canon. It's nice that people have the creativity to make their own AUs, but I also want to read about the actual continuity in question and not someone's mishmash of it.

Like UGH when I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to see cop Orion not archivist or dockworker Orion. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to read about the Senate led by Proteus and the reigns of Nova/Nominus/Sentinel/Zeta, not about the Council from TFP. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 MegOP I want Orion being a simp for Megatron after reading his stuff/meeting him one (1) time sdkflsdkf not yet another iteration of the tired "one day an archivist and a gladiator became great friends! then they broke up."

It's not hate for other continuities, I'm just tired of the fact that continuity soup is so prevalent that even when I'm specifically filtering for content of the one continuity I want to read about, the fics I find keep having random shit from other continuities interjected into it. I think each continuity has really interesting takes on lore that have potential to be wholly unique for each one, so it's really frustrating when the average fic I can find is just a random mishmash of continuity elements, or more often than not just an IDW knockoff taking place in a separate continuity. Like guys, I'm an IDW stan myself, but wouldn't it be cool if we got more fics that explored ideas that only happen in G1, or only happen in Animated, or Aligned, etc?

Doesn't help that when I AM looking specifically for IDW stuff, most of the content I look at (MOP) does continuity soup for the sake of replacing IDW OP with some sort of aligned/g1 lite OP which makes me salty as hell

22. Popular character you hate?

Drift for sure sdklfsdlk. I mean when I first read about him in the comics (the Drift miniseries) I was like, he's fine I guess he's an action hero whatever. But then literally the more of the comics I read the more his personality and story were just incredibly corny, stereotypical, or boring as hell no matter what writer was controlling him. And he got bounced around between writers a lot, and then even the "main author" people know Drift from (JRO) kept changing his plans for what Drift was supposed to be (and cutting plots related to him) so any hints towards a storyline went nowhere. And then Drift spent basically all of MTMTE gone elsewhere on some exile-adventure, and then during LL he just kind of. Is there, existing.

So like, honestly Drift is a victim of getting bounced back and forth and having his writing changed so often he doesn't reach his full potential, which isn't really "his fault" as a character. It just so happens that I also think the bits of his character that exist are either boring or overhyped or in one case (portrayal of his religion/religious worldbuilding in general) outright offensive. He's basically written like some hippie stereotype with vaguely Asian/Japanese flavoring (the extent of which is basically his name + fighting style) and then he barely like... does anything in the plot? I think he's supposed to be like, ~mysterious and shifty~ but then all of the plotlines that involved him being a secret traitor got cut, so Drift basically just became Weirdly Suspicious For No Reason and his genuine personality/motivations felt indistinguishable from what he was faking and what plots got cut from him. Absolute mess of a character that got almost no payoff for any of the things planned for him, and all that's left is some kooky hippie personality of "hee hoo I believe in auras and mystical vibes and magical colors, also I'm dating an atheist who's openly dismissive of most of my religious beliefs (that I do or don't actually believe in depending on what part of the story I'm in) and this somehow doesn't get in the way of our personal/romantic chemistry

But then the fanbase are basically making him some kind of Gary Stue, obsessed with making headcanons like "Deadlock wrote/edited Megatron's speeches for him too!" and "Drift defected from the Decepticons to try and make a point to Megatron!" and generally trying to make him the Decepticons' Specialest Boy Ever and it's just. Ugh I get that he was under-written in canon, but every bit of fanon I've encountered doesn't make him interesting either. They just kind of make Drift the center of the world where he's actually the coolest, most talented and interesting person ever where other characters owe their accomplishments partially to his influence and I'm just. I don't get it, I don't understand the appeal of fanon and I don't even understand the appeal of canon either. I think part of it is for representation reasons (e.g. Asian, lower class, former drug addict) and it's nice that people can pull something meaningful out of the mess that is canon. It's just for me, canon Drift is so mediocre I don't get why anyone would even WANT him as representation sdlkfjsdlkf. I guess fixing what the writers failed to explore the potential of is an understandable motivation though.

[femmeleatherface]

fully convinced that the only reason the opening lawyer's office scene in big trouble in little china exists is to establish that the film is secretly part of the x files universe

[bibiana112]

I like this happiness can be found in any world speech putting the focus on the fact that being able to compare between a hypothetical less tragic version of events is in itself what causes unhappiness and dissatisfaction sure for the characters it's literal timeloops but real things like anxiety and ptsd often trick you into losing focus of the good things in the now and to lose yourself in the what could have been

[raiseupyourbat]

Y'know, when I really think about it I don't think there's a single male character I ship w kris :o

[letmesleepy]

Watched perfect blue. I loved it except that twist at the end really ruined it for me tbh... Was truly hoping for a story of confusion and not ever knowing where or when you are. It basically turns it from "being a celebrity can ruin yer mind" to "actually it was all this fat woman with a stigmatized mental illness' fault everything bad happened to this beautiful thin girl". Really sucks :/

[ghirahimbo]

okay, I've been hearing that the instagram algorithm is screwed up for artists for ages, but posting to my literal three followers on tiktok and getting quadruple engagement compared to my almost 500 followers on instagram is really driving that home 🤔

[dandyshucks]

BASE FINISHED !!!!! :D

[psychronia]

As an isekai fan, there are two ways to approach this. The first one is very much the same bleak interpretation put forth here.

We could say that modern isekai is in large part a genre made for a generation of people in despair. This can manifest in a greed for power because they feel powerless, a craving for a rebirth because they feel like they've messed up their current lives, or a desire to abandon everything because they feel like their surroundings don't accept them. There's a reason so many isekai protagonists are friendless high school losers or victims of companies so exploitative that they died. Do they have loved ones? Most of the time, of course. But they're also cut off and distanced from them in a way that makes the pain of separation already a moot point.

If we go specifically into Japan's society, there is an industry in itself for people who can't take the pressure or shame of their role in society anymore; these companies essentially make people disappear and set them up with new identities elsewhere, effectively turning them into ghosts. And many of their families don't even report them missing because that they left is a point of shame. That is the sort of society that birthed the modern Isekai genre.

But that's only one of the ways to approach it. There is also the reconstruction.

There are people-writers-who see these problems in society and try to use isekai as a more productive tool to explore them. Perhaps it's an escape, but it can also be rehabilitation or a new source of encouragement.

There's one Isekai story about a shut-in who interacts with another world as a petty god through a game. And in seeing the villagers he's responsible for try so hard, he pushes himself out of his comfort zone to talk to his family again-to even get a job so he can afford in-game purchases to help these little "NPCs" he's grown to care for.

There's also Mushoku Tensei, who has a protagonist that's just the worst at the start and is forced to go on a journey to build himself up into a whole and functioning person.

There are isekai about older salarymen guiding younger characters in the new world with their life experiences, or trying to do right by them with working conditions everyone wishes they had. Throughout history, mythical heroes like Heracles, King Arthur, or Fairy Tale Protagonists all embodied various popular virtues or ideals.

As the needs of our society have changed, so do our idealized heroes to adapt to the challenge. Captain America was made because some Americans wished they could go fight in the war for what they believed was right. Spider-Man was made as the natural inhabitant of an urban city who deals with all the problems we do but always remembers to care. Superman is the guy who's meant to remind us all to care. When viewed through these lens, isekai protagonists can be similar. They're people with similar values being thrown into a world that still doesn't understand nor cares for them, but this time they have the power to resist and overcome that world. For the freedom to live a life they choose for themselves, they'll develop the courage to fight the whole world. They'll tirelessly build up their own proficiency and skills to improve themselves until they finally like themselves.

And maybe they'll start a close relationship that big tiddy elf, as a treat. Maybe if they can find the boldness to interact with this caricature of a beautiful myth, a royal princess, or an isolated witch-some sort of unapproachable person, then maybe reconnecting with the friends and family they feel worlds apart from isn't so impossible after all.

Isekai just seems like a profoundly sad genre of fantasy by design. Yes you have rad JRPG powers now and you get to hang out with big tiddy elves who love you but do you not have like. Friends that you mourn. Family that you miss. Habits that you can’t practice now without tripping. Familiar sounds and smells you’ll never know again

Either you did and you don’t care in the face of JRPG powers and elf tiddies, or you didn’t, and both options are profoundly sad in their own ways