#a bit of a truman show complex

[irrealisms]

if you can live your life without an audience, you should do it.

The Truman Show // MAG188 - Centre of Attention // Twitter: TubboLive // Can't Handle This (Kanye Rant) - Bo Burnham // Wilbur Soot VOD (Oct 17th 2020) - [DreamSMP] Speedy Stream Festival What festival // MAG117 - Testament // Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride // @elytrians // MAG188 - Centre of Attention // The Truman Show (edit by @parakeet) // Untitled #15 by @that-house // something about a truman show complex, greek heroes, and the illusion of free will. by @yuker // Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead // Bo Burnham - Inside // you're fairly certain there's a curtain somewhere by @irrealisms

[IDs under cut]

Images 1 and 2: Screenshots of the Truman Show. The Closed Captions read "Let me get you some help, Truman. You're not well."

Image 3: ARCHIVIST: Hm. You want a show so badly?  Fine.

Image 4: a twitter poll by @TubboLive. text of the tweet is "What do we do..." Options are "Exile Tommy", with 55.8% of the vote, and "Don't Exile Tommy", with 44.2% of the vote.

Image 5: The truth is, my biggest problem's you/I want to please you/But I want to stay true to myself/I want to give you the night out that you deserve/But I want to say what I think/And not care what you think about it/Part of me loves you/Part of me hates you/Part of me needs you/Part of me fears you/And I don't think that I can handle this right now"

Image 6: WILBUR: You're saying "do it", chat, but you're-- this isn't-- you aren't affected, you just want to see explosions, you guys aren't affected, I understand, I understand, I-- I've been hasty.

Image 7: TIM: All right. I don’t know what you are, I don’t even know if you’re listening. I don’t care. Just, if you’re there, I want you to know that I hate you. I hate you for, for witnessing what’s happened to us.

Image 8: “Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

Image 9: a tumblr post by @elytrians. text: *coughs up blood* how do i look? do i look good? was that hot?

Image 10: She had once counted how many times she could spot a camera watching her during her morning run: thirty-one in ten minutes. At least, it had been back then. Last time she had tried it there were hundreds. They tracked her movements, and made so much noise she could not have ignored them if she tried. It was halfway between the mechanical whir of a focusing lens and the low rattle of mean-spirited laughter. Carmen didn’t go running anymore.

Image 11: The last scene of the Truman Show, edited to add a twitch chat full of PogChamp emotes.

Image 12: a comic of two squares talking. RED: I realized something. BLUE: Yeah? RED: This comic could just end. Without warning. The Creator could just get bored. BLUE: No closure, no catharsis, nothing. RED: Our recent few strips would make for unsatisfying ends. Maybe we should give every comic a satisfying conclusion. BLUE: But that’s life. Life doesn’t always have a satisfying ending. RED: This isn’t life, this is a comic. We can control it. We can make sure there’s a happy ending. BLUE: We can’t control jack shit. The comic’s ending is up to the Creator.

Image 13: a comic of Technoblade. He is sitting amongst scattered papers with his hands on his face. The scattered papers have the titles of various Technoblade DSMP Youtube videos written on them. Text on the image reads: “It can hurt, knowing you’re just a character with predetermined lines instead of a person with feelings. The voices are the audience and they’re constantly critiquing your performance.”

Image 14: ROS: I wish I was dead. (Considers the drop.) I could jump over the side. That would put a spoke in their wheel. GUIL: Unless they're counting on it. ROS: I shall remain on board. That'll put a spoke in their wheel. (The futility of it, fury.) All right! We don't question, we don't doubt. We perform.

Images 15, 16: Bo Burnham stands outside a house on a stage; there is a spotlight on him. the caption is [disembodied applause] He tries to reenter the house. the caption is [disembodied laughter].

Image 17: WILBUR: It’s better to play along. Give them what they want. Put on a show. Who cares who it hurts, as long as it’s fucking—influential? God, I hate it so much sometimes, I want to scream. And then I think, would they like that? Would that be entertaining enough for them? Still have to give them their performance. Even when I was dead I was still—I rehearsed my resurrection.  TECHNO: Dude, you need therapy.

[mariacallous]

Your use of Reaction Images from the new Feid is inspired. Do you have any particular take on the new season? Personally I thought it was a bit melencholy and less campy that I would expect from a Ryan Murphy show (I know he didn’t write or direct this one).

I think it had some interesting things to say about the complex real life and media trope of the Gay Best Friend, and the resentments that build on both sides of that relationship but also the joys of it, but the structure and timeline of everything was kind of off putting.

Thanks for reading! Love your blog!

Aw, thank you!

My sister and I were talking about the series last night, and here's where we landed:

-The story or narrative was vague and/or undecided. At no point did Murphy and the others writing and directing ever decide, really, how they felt about the characters involved, and, by extension, where the audience is supposed to land or approach the characters. There's a difference between "these people are flawed and complex but ultimately we should be [sympathetic/unsympathetic] towards them" and "they're complicated and flawed!"

-The characterization, and indeed the writing in general, was very clunky and...not great. Lots of cliches, lots of stereotypes, lots of generalities, and at times the characters all had the same kind of voice.

-There was SO MUCH Telling as opposed to Showing. It was the only way viewers would be given any kind of indication what sort of stake or element was involved. It was lazy and detrimental.

-There were also what felt like Obligatory Virtue Signal Moments put in because it was expected or necessary and then things could progress. The sexism/misogyny element which kind of gets introduced in the first/second episode gets dropped very quickly and is almost never referenced again. The homophobia and Gay Best Friend element is mentioned sporadically throughout, with the heaviest concentration in the James Baldwin episode) but doesn't really come to any conclusions about how we're supposed to feel.

-The pacing and timeline *were definitely* off-putting - I think the jumping around was a detriment (especially because a lot of establishing moments for the friendship of the swans and Capote were scattered about). Starting with La Cote Basque 1965 was the wrong choice, because you have the explosion up front and then have to figure out how you're going to build up and progress from there. There's also, because of the Telling versus Showing, a lot of build up for certain events and moments, which don't pay off or get pulled off - the Black and White Ball is an example of that, I think.

-Additionally, the shifts in the kind of framing for the show hurt it - the first two episodes are a conventional set up, then you have the shift to the black and white documentary, then you're kind of back to the conventional set up, and then the last two episodes are weird dream sequences and kind of shoddy conjecture?

-As much as I like Molly Ringwald and Demi Moore, choosing to include/elevate Joanne Carson and Ann Woodward to this extent was a poor choice, as was not including what I feel are the more actual interesting swans (Pamela Harriman, my personal fave, as well as Gloria Guinness and Marella Agnelli) and making Babe the primary Swan wasn't necessarily the best choice.

-So much time was spent on Babe's cancer and Truman's alcoholism, to the detriment of fleshing out literally any and all of the other characters and stories, and both of those story elements were handled poorly.

-The James Baldwin episode was probably my least favorite because of how all-around bad it was, which is really unfortunate because there could have been potential there.

-Going into this series, Murphy and the others seemed to have made what my sister and I are calling the "Somehow, Palpatine returned" choice, aka the Marvelization Maneuver. In order to really follow along, you either had to be familiar with Truman Capote and the Swans and 1970s New York society, *and/or* have read Laurence Leamer's book, which the series was inspired by. So much was not explained or depicted, and so you have a higher bar to clear to engage with the material. And if you do have that background, because of the other choices, you would be disappointed because you *do* know the background and saw what was chosen to be used.

-I also think that an emphasis on the aesthetics versus the story was involved, which is also unfortunate.

I was excited and there were moments I *did* like, but there was a lot to be disappointed about.

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Eleanor, the Channel 4 people tell me the day before we meet, is very keen I watch the third part of her new series, The Couple Next Door. The problem is that the audio on my preview copy of this episode is so wildly out of sync I can’t follow what’s going on. Anxious hours pass, but by nightfall the problem is sorted and I soon understand why Eleanor Tomlinson ― she who was Mrs Poldark ― wants me to see it. There is plenty to discuss. And the sex is wild.

Tomlinson is Evie in this compulsive six-parter. The daughter of strict religious parents, she has been together for ever with her first boyfriend, Pete, and they are now expecting a baby, which is why they are moving to a larger house in a quiet Leeds suburb. Their neighbours, the couple next door, are something else, a mesomorph cop and a vampy yoga instructor both temperamentally unsuited to the quiet Truman Show-like community in which they live. The old terms for them would be wife-swappers or swingers, but we would probably call them polyamorists these days. Anyhow, you know what I mean. By episode three of what you could call a complex relationship drama, but which is really a sex thriller, it looks likely that Evie and Pete will RSVP in the affirmative to their new friends’ approaches, which are about as subtle as a Bogof sign in a supermarket.

Plot-wise, The Couple Next Door is a slight departure for Tomlinson, not just because the role does not require a period corset but because while she has played many rule-breakers, they usually settle down. The most famous example, of course, is her Demelza in the BBC’s Poldark, a character who started off feral but ended up doing the dishes and giving birth to Captain Ross’s many progeny. After a bit of a scrap, she even accepted the pectorially blessed mine owner back into her bed after his seduction/rape of a childhood sweetheart (which is more than Tomlinson would have done, she told one interviewer). In this series we watch the butter melt in Evie’s ingenuous mouth, first slowly, then very quickly indeed.

We meet on the poop deck of a canalside café in Hoxton, east London, where we are having coffee.

It’s a dangerous game, I say, this extramarital sex thing. Copulation has consequences. Does she agree?

“Do I agree with adultery?”

Does she agree with me?

“Well, look, in terms of ― I don’t know what you call it ― couple-swapping, I guess, it’s not for me, but that doesn’t mean I would judge anyone who wants to do it. I think we’re now in a time where people are liberated and feel at home expressing themselves and who they are. They won’t be confined to certain boxes any more. So if it works for you, then terrific. It’s not a route I would explore.”

We discuss the series’s pristine under-populated precinct, actually a new-build housing estate in the Netherlands chosen by the show’s Belgian director, Dries Vos. “He’s kind of leant into the idea that suburbia is a bit creepy and a bit entrapping. I think everyone has the fear that their life is suddenly going to become scheduled. You leave for work at this time. You go about your day. You get home at this time. Eat your dinner, have your chat and go to bed. It’s that fear.”

Well, that’s the fear of marriage, I say, and she agrees. But she also means that now she is 31 she sees that her twenties flashed by, half of them consumed, professionally, by Poldark. “You just want to say, ‘Stop! Let me just go back to being 18 for five minutes.’”

Talking of marriage ― as I was at least ―Tomlinson last year wed Will Owen, a 28-year-old rugby player with Clifton Rugby Club in Bristol. I suggest The Couple Next Door might feel a strange project for someone who 15 months ago exchanged marriage vows.

“Actually not at all, no, because it’s just a character,” she says. “It’s just a character who is very different from me and I can get stuck into and enjoy playing. My personal life doesn’t really come into any of my work decisions.”

And this is where things with the sharp yet warm, canny yet open Tomlinson get interesting: her work decisions. I am not divulging with whom Evie ends up having the sex of her life in episode three, but it is epic lovemaking. On closer inspection, however, it does not count as TV nudity. My next sentence will sound prurient, but I promise it is relevant to showbusiness in the era that dawned when HBO turned up the lights at The Sopranos’ Bada Bing! club and upon which ― thanks, Netflix and you fellow streamers ― the sun has yet to set. In this sex scene there are no (female) nipples visible and certainly no genitalia. I ask whether this squared with what Tomlinson has previously said about her reluctance to do nude scenes.

“I have done nudity before but, for me, it’s based on each project and how necessary I feel it is. And I didn’t feel like it was for this. I mean, there was a conversation where they were pushing for it and the harder they pushed for it, the more I felt like saying, ‘No, you’re just not being creative here. There are

so many more interesting ways that you can show this.’ So much of it comes down to the chemistry between the actors and working with the intimacy coordinators. You find a balance. You don’t need to show everything, because ultimately that immediately pauses everyone’s concentration. They’ve just seen something and they’re actually not invested in the scene any more.

“I think because [the show] is so obviously about sexual exploration, it would have been such an obvious choice to have nudity in it. I actually think not having it makes it more interesting.”

So she had a conversation?

“I quite enjoy the conversations where someone tries to tell me why it’s necessary. And if, after they’ve been through my rigorous checklist of questions, I believe that it is necessary ― and I already know at the beginning whether it is or not ― then I would enter into another conversation about it.”

But they’ve never convinced her yet?

“Well, there was one project in which I was convinced and that was a film called Colette a couple of years ago, with Keira Knightley and Dominic West. And because of my character and who she was and what she meant to those two very real characters ― it’s all based on a true story ― and because it was so much from the female gaze, so much about the female exploration of sexuality, I felt like it was necessary for that particular role. But I’ve yet to find a role since.”

Or before?

“Yes. Also, there’s an element of self-preservation that comes into it because you’re opening yourself up to be screenshot and paused, and those pictures end up online and will for ever be there. So it’s a very serious thing that you have to decide. I think if you have the confidence to do it as an actor or actress, great. And it’s not that I don’t have the confidence; it’s just that for me it has to be character-driven.”

It must also take confidence to say no. Younger actors may not have it.

“And that’s the thing. Whenever I’m on a project that younger actors are involved in and they have to do sex scenes, I always make a point of speaking very openly to both parties or all parties about it and just make sure that everyone is comfortable and they don’t feel forced into anything or that they’re frightened of anything. At the end of doing it as well, if they want to talk to someone about what they’ve been through that day [I’m there]. Because it’s a pretty weird thing.”

It is pretty unusual to find on television investigations of female sexual appetites at all. Pete, Evie’s partner, and Danny, the police-biker neighbour, almost too obviously embody two contrasting varieties of adult male human. As Pete, Alfred Enoch (formerly of Harry Potter) is slight, cerebral, an investigative reporter on what is left of his local paper. As Danny, Sam Heughan (the Outlander star but here leather-trousered not kilted) is seriously built and seriously dim. His home features a very big television and little in the way of reading matter.

Does Tomlinson have a type?

“I’ve never had a type. For me it’s all about personality and a sense of connection and, you know, someone who can really make me laugh, someone I can be totally myself with. I always hate that saying ― what is that saying? ― that he or she is punching… I hate that.”

Punching? What does that mean?

“If a guy is dating a girl who is very good-looking, someone might say to him, sort of lad talk, ‘Oh, he’s punching above his weight.’ I hate that. I’ve always tried to steer clear of that and just get to know people for who they are. Particularly these days, with apps and phones, everything is so based around what you look like.”

Certainly her husband looks nothing like Harry Richardson, the actor whom she dated for a year after he was cast as Demelza’s brother, Drake, on Poldark in 2017. Richardson is neat and svelte; Owen, his Instagram account reveals, has biceps that could crack coconuts. Playing centre, Tomlinson explains, Owen is not involved in scrums, but there have been a couple of “bad scrapes” and “quite a few trips to A&E”. “It’s just one of those things where you go, ‘OK. And breathe.’ ”

They met through a friend who was married to Owen’s team captain at the time. “They dragged me along to a rugby game. I hadn’t ever really seen any rugby before but there he was and suddenly I was very keen to watch more rugby, let’s put it that way.”

For ten years in London she lived alone but, when lockdown was declared in March 2020, the couple decided to hunker down with his parents, his two sisters and their partners. The younger sister was a little awestruck at first, as one of her go-to films growing up was Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, in which Tomlinson had starred aged 15. She quickly got over it.

“Covid just sped everything up, didn’t it? Suddenly, I was in their space and with them all the time. And it was quite an amazing thing, really. I just feel very lucky that they are who they are and that they accepted me in the ways that they did. We forged a bond, or I did, with all his family that would have taken us years otherwise.”

Tomlinson and Owen married in July 2022 at a country hotel in the Cotswolds. According to the Daily Mail, which is reliable on such things, she wore an off-the-shoulder Pronovias gown and Christian Louboutin heels (he was in a three-piece lounge suit, incidentally). Among the credits for the big day was her publicist, Victoria Raeburn-Wales. But there was no need to PR their happiness. “He’s a gentleman and I feel very lucky to have found my one,” she says when I offer my congratulations.

Had she planned to marry in her late twenties or early thirties? Her reply rather explains who she is.

“I think at some point I thought, ‘Yes, I’d love to get married,’ but I’ve always prioritised my career. I’ve never really thought, ‘This is what I want. This is when I want it.’ It’s always just been working as hard as I can, following the jobs, and trying to find someone who understands that is quite tricky.”

Yet marrying an actor would have been hard too?

“I love what I do, but I couldn’t think of anything worse ― well, obviously I could ― than to come home and have the same conversation as basically what happened in my day with someone else,” she says. “It would drive me crazy. Also, there’s an inherent competitiveness in my soul. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, if you’re working and I’m not, it’s not going to go well.”

Born to an actor, Malcolm Tomlinson, and a singer, Judith Hibbert, young Eleanor decided to become an actress aged ten on the set of The Bill, where her father was working. By 14 she was playing Jessica Biel’s younger self on the very profitable Hollywood romantic mystery The Illusionist. Back home she was in the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

A lot of her education was perforce conducted on sets with tutors, which made keeping up with her friends at Beverley High School back home in East Yorkshire hard. “There were a “couple of instances where I felt a little bit ostracised”, she admits, but in any case she was quite “insular”, lacked confidence socially and was not particularly academic (but always worked hard).

In 2013 Bryan Singer cast her for a main role in Jack the Giant Slayer but the $185-million movie flopped. She now knows never to predict how something will be received. The stars were aligned for Poldark, however. In 2014 I went to report on the making of the first series and arrived at the West Country shoot feeling sceptical. Having rewatched some of the original Seventies series, Poldark seemed faintly ridiculous and hardly worth reviving. Yet talking to the new version’s star, Aidan Turner, and its writer, Debbie Horsfield (Tomlinson was not around that day), I felt intimations of greatness. Its first season duly averaged more than eight million viewers and made Turner the hottest hunk on television, although not so distractingly that people failed to notice how seductively good Tomlinson was as his young wife.

I wonder whether she feared nothing in her future career would make the same impact but she says no, because she so enjoyed making Poldark. “I learnt so much. I mean, I was 21 when I got the part and 26 when it ended. I just did so much growing up. I learnt so much about myself as an actress.”

Since it finished in 2019 her career has known ratings triumph and ratings disaster. Stephen Merchant’s BBC1 comedy The Outlaws, about a gang of community service ne’er-do-wells in which she plays the troubled influencer Lady Gabby, is going to a third series and next year she will feature alongside Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) in Netflix’s adaptation of David Nicholls’s One Day. Her big break into American TV, The Nevers, however, was cancelled swiftly by HBO, despite having been created by Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Hunter fame, and Sky black-holed Intergalactic, a kind of female Blake’s Seven, after one season.

“I’ve had to grow a thick skin,” she says.“I wasn’t always thick-skinned. Every job that didn’t go my way used to break my heart, and every time a job finished I would just cry for weeks because I missed all my friends and I missed the role. I missed that thing of being away and being part of a company.”

Although she had been in the business for a decade even then, it was Demelza who migrated her from ingenue to leading lady. She made the role her own partly by insisting that the fiery peasant girl who lands Ross should be a redhead, although in Winston Graham’s Poldark books Demelza was dark-haired and Tomlinson is naturally dark blonde. (She wasn’t, by a long chalk, even born when Angharad Rees played Demelza redheaded in the Seventies series.)

“They fought back on it a bit. They wanted her to be blonde at some point, but I remember feeling this kind of drive. I was like a dog with a bone, and that role came up and I just wouldn’t let it go. It just consumed me for ages. I was put through the wringer with auditions and chemistry tests ― whatever they are ― with Aidan and then eventually the role was mine. But even going forward, it was like I inherently knew who I wanted her to be and her having this kind of fiery red hair. It just felt so right to me, and in the end they agreed.”

And red she has stayed?

“To be any other colour would feel really odd. You build a brand. I became known as Demelza and I suddenly thought, ‘Well, why would I change it now?’ Because something finally worked, you know?”

The other day, she says, she turned down a tempting part because it did not “feel” right. I say she is fortunate to be able to make such choices.

“I’m very fortunate,” she says. “I feel very, very lucky to do what I love doing. But, you know, it doesn’t always work out. It’s not always rosy.”

But when it does, it is clearly all-consuming.

“I can’t describe it. It just makes my heart beat faster. Finding a script, reading a script and getting into the character ― whether it’s an audition, whether it’s the offer of a role ― it just makes my heart beat faster. It drives me.”

There will, I promise, be many hearts beating faster when The Couple Next Door starts. It’s good. Just keep your cardiologist on speed dial come episode three.

The Couple Next Door begins on Monday, November 27, at 9pm on Channel 4. All episodes are then available to stream

Andrew Billen has been a journalist for 40 years, including two stints on The Times from 1984-89 and from 2002 to the present. He specialises in interviews with celebrities, politicians and writers as well as writing long-form features for the magazine. For ten years he was also The Times's television critic.

THETIMES.CO.UK #TheTimesMagazine #AndrewBillen #interview #EleanorTomlinson

[addictedtostorytelling]

i was tagged by @whovianacefan​ to list five comfort characters.

thanks for the tag!

sara sidle (csi): 20+ years and this girl still fascinates and inspires me. raw, messy, wickedly intelligent, a bleeding heart, a closet romantic, awkward, wry, and genuine, there is just so much to unpack with her; multivalence that invites exploration. at this point, i’m pretty certain that i’ll be writing fic about her until i die (and not just because i’m a chronically slow updater). her complexity, her grit, her rough edges, her commitment to being kind—everything about her interests me.

gil grissom (csi): i mean, lbr, grissom and sara are a package deal to me. he is every bit as well-drawn and engrossing as his wife. his arc was the arc of the show. despite his reputation for being aloof and “unfeeling,” his humanity is what really set csi apart from all of its competitors; helped it to transcend its genre. whoever would have thought that an early 00s procedural would offer up one of the most emotionally nuanced male leads since austen? this man contains multitudes. he will also always have a special place in my heart for being the first television character i ever recognized as being acespec while i was figuring out my own orientation.

juliet burke (lost): there are some characters who just tick all your boxes, and juliet is it for me. such a gorgeous study in contradictions. whether she is sassing jack about sandwiches, handcuffing herself to kate in the jungle, playing the long game to undermine ben and get off the island, or connecting with sawyer across universes, i can’t help but root for her. endlessly compelling in every possible timeline. the beating heart of some of my favorite scenes in all of television.

abby lockhart (er): there are lots of er characters i love and would count as favorites, but abby is just special. good on the writers for letting her be as messed-up and feral as she is at times, and good on them for letting her truly work to grow and heal and flourish (not always linearly but steadily over time). she is so incredibly real in a way that few television characters ever get the chance to be. her arc across nine seasons is an absolute masterpiece.

john truman carter iii (er): pretty much the original blorbo. when i first started watching er as a kid, i liked human disaster med student carter because he was the show’s comic relief. that boy can take a pratfall like nobody’s business. as i got older, i started to appreciate more and more his good-heartedness, his loneliness, how his deep survivor’s guilt—regarding too many people he has loved and lost in his life—motivates him to give so much of himself, how he matures over time; how his development isn’t always straightforward or upward. while i admit his storyline in the later seasons isn’t always to my tastes (and what they do to his love and family life is, imo, pretty unconscionable), i have always adored his core characterization. sweet-faced, do‐gooder baby doc, indeed. 

per usual, mine is the blog where tagging games go to die, but if you see this post and you want to play, go ahead and pretend i tagged you!    

[mybrokenlittletoy]

Movie Rating: Whump Edition

Movie: The Truman Show Rating: 7/10 Physical Whump: 6/10 Emotional/Pyschological Whump: 9/10 Main Whump Points: Gaslighting throughout the entire movie. A scene where a character is held at knifepoint due to fear. Creepy/Intimate Whumper with a god complex. Attempted drowning scene. Conditioning and created memories. The removal of people that try to interfere. The international viewing of a life.

Overall Review: I'm not a huge fan of Jim Carrey, but I think he did wonderfully in this role. He portrayed a man who came to realize that he was being manipulated by given a sense of false freedom, and how the effects of that can make one seem mad. It does have a bit of a strange pacing at first, but once you watch further it makes sense.

[er0tiqaexp0sed]

#1 | 🍵💬📱

Rumor has it that the queen bee of upper management is back in the spotlight, and this time it's all about paranoia, group chats, and a dictionary lesson that's long overdue.

You see, our beloved Queen Bee is allegedly losing her mind over some clandestine group chat where chatters supposedly spill the tea about their fellow co-workers. Now, before you start picturing her majesty clutching her pearls and gasping in horror, let's take a closer look. 👀

This isn't the first time a little group chat scandal has rocked the Erotiqa boat. But what's got everyone buzzing this time is the Queen Bee's intense paranoia over it. She's reportedly losing sleep over what her underlings say when they think nobody's watching.

But here's the tea, darlings: group chats are private conversations! As long as they're not happening on company-provided platforms, it's really none of her beeswax, now is it? It's almost as if she's auditioning for a reboot of "The Truman Show" where she's convinced the world revolves around her. 🙄

The real plot twist? People are starting to wonder why she's so obsessed with these private conversations. Could it be that our Queen Bee has a bit of a complex? You know the one: she's all about power, and in her world, liking her is directly proportional to the amount of power she can wield. You're either on Team Queen Bee or you're on the highway to career oblivion.

But the pièce de résistance, folks, is her habit of labeling these private group chats as "bullying and harassment." Oh, honey, someone needs to gift her a dictionary or show her how to use Google. It's embarrassing for someone in her highfalutin position to throw around words like that without knowing their meaning.

So, dear readers, the big question is: Will our Queen Bee continue to buzz around these private group chats like a paranoid bee in a rose garden? Or will she finally learn that not everything is about her?

XOXO,

Ero X 💅

[alynnthankyou]

Who's this guy on the internet. This is an archive.

I'm kind of happy sometimes, i like this music I'm listening to, I'll know what it is soon. I'm just empty without it, not the artist, music in general. I can't listen to music while at school, which i don't like and i don't get anything from because all the information from there is hyper-specific. People make the argument that school is meant to help you learn to learn rather than actually teaching you important things and that is not even the slightest bit rational to me. I'm dead already, the future is the present. Why should i put time into that. I love music though. Games aren't fun anymore sadly, it's becoming less and less. Time. I wake up at 5 PM, sometimes i get these seizures in my neck or sometimes i want to scream like I'm trapped in my skin meaning right now, my mouth is glued shut all day and my mind is also closed off from society forever which is a shame. I think the ideas i come up with are nice, am i important. Am i writing this to be important or in the effort to look important. I like writing, this is fun and interesting so I'll do it regardless but I'm really subconsciously yet consciously deluded. No deus ex machina for me and i know that but i don't agree subconsciously and i won't agree until I'm dead. I'll die as a person who isn't interesting to anyone. Although, that would mean i have to value other humans to an extent to want them to find you interesting, even after i die. I don't want to become important to a bunch of worms or centipedes. Now i don't want to be important to humans. But some of them, i want to be alive forever. I just know I'll decay so i have to die quickly before my bad choices catch up with me, teeth, grades, ambition. I'm reading books sometimes. It's psychosis for me to be like this I've heard. In my mind, people are watching me like on the Truman Show. Gods give me powers for thinking up complex thoughts. I'm in one of those shitty cultivation manhuas. Anything to be special somehow. I'm putting on a comedy show for myself. I realize this and I'm completely sane. I type what i feel, there is no start or finish to a thought, i can even reference a past thought i put down on this notepad. My heart matches the beats in the music. My ears are also. My thought journal dictates my existence to the future. But it doesn't because it's here and not there.

[volinare]

life feels like a tightrope walk. but its not bad. i need... a lawyer? when i include the truman show (its a bit bad today) then it gets complex.

[adrianvarelablog]

Track: ABU DHABI BLUES

The oil economy will only disappear when it goes bankrupt: when we are prepared to subsist without its advantages.

Reading time: 5' Notes: travel diary

A concert I once played in one of several oil-economy-based middle-Eastern countries I’ve visited, which here shall remain nameless, involved signing a confidentiality agreement whereby I am to this day not allowed to say where I performed, nor to whom. I saw the faces of the audience and recognised some of them, but neither the hosts nor the foreign guests wished it to be known that they were enjoying themselves cushily together in such a setting.

In order to get to the location, our group was driven in a coach down the motorway for a period of time. The coach then took a turn off the motorway, driving through working oil fields. At some point, the driver stopped, got out of the vehicle, and left us there in the middle of the desert. His authority to drive expired at that marker. Presently another vehicle came toward us from the direction we were driving towards, a new driver stepped into our coach, and we continued our journey further and into the destination complex, where we were greeted by military personnel clutching machine guns, and smiling catering personnel.

Outside this experience, the rest of the tour was streets better than what one usually experiences on tour. Normally tours seem glamorous experiences to the general public, but in reality, are hard graft of travel and work under difficult conditions. They are usually very tough, not just for the players and staff physically, but also for our families back home. But on this occasion, as with all tours I have done to oil-based countries without exception, we stayed at a pleasant holiday resort, the food was sensational, there was a swimming pool and a small private beach, and there was no more travel, as the other concerts were all close by.

Tours to territories such as Europe, Japan, and the USA have nowhere near the level of luxury (I’m including basics such as time and well-being as ‘luxury’ items here) as in the Middle East. The economies of the more regular touring destinations prohibit it. Our group loved staying in this resort, being well-fed, and being given the chance to be rested, all of which contributed to performing to the best of our ability in public and private concerts. No one wants global warming, and the secrecy around that private concert was a bit weird, but hey, everyone agreed, the goodies on that tour were fabulous, right?

Different tours, different oil-based countries. One common denominator is alcohol is either restricted or banned for locals. Not so, apparently. Hotel lobbies were never empty of men, supercars parked outside, who in the middle-Eastern equivalent of a pub crawl, would hop from hotel to hotel getting more and more drunk, diligently and discreetly served by staff.

Other restrictions were interesting. Some of us befriended a band at the local Irish pub. Our query about whether we could bring our instruments to play with them was met with horror by the band and the manager, who explained to us that they could all potentially lose their licenses if unlicensed (for a particular venue) musicians performed even one note.

Extreme as that seemed -Irish pubs welcome this kind of thing the world over- and acknowledging that each country has its own right to its own rules, the incident did make me pay more attention to other limitations: women were legally allowed to drive, yet hardly any did. Women were allowed to work, yet we only came across men working, except occasionally in catering. Women, never alone, were only ever seen in numbers in the shopping malls. These patterns repeated themselves in different places, on different tours.

It has always been very, very difficult, or impossible, to see ‘on the other side’ of the wall erected to ‘welcome’ the foreigner. Like a living Truman Show, I have really wanted to connect with the locals, to see how people live, shop for basic needs, and go to school. But this is totally out of bounds. I must stay in my resort and enjoy the fabulous food, alcohol, pool, and 200 channels on TV, and the obligatory tourist-facing trip to the mosque and market; who be stupid enough to ever wish for anything else when provided these riches? But, I ask myself, ‘where is the real country, the real people’s lives here?’ The society and space are constructed so that these people, these lives, remain perennially hidden, inaccessible, and invisible, becoming almost Morlocks to the Eloi, who are shown only the shop window, hermetically framed by glass and concrete.

This package is for me disturbing. I cannot isolate the fact that the luxuries and comforts enjoyed by myself and my colleagues come from the same source that drives the planet beyond the point of no return for the extinction of some animal and plant species, loss of livelihoods, poverty, and famine that are with no shadow of a doubt to come.

I cannot separate the fact that these societies where liberties are so strongly demarcated by resplendent shopping malls are run by men, men who promulgate an exploitative economy while their women, as fellow human beings their equals in every respect, are not treated as such. Their Western partners, because they’re partners, are equally guilty.

I am reminded of the ‘Tales of the 1,001 Nights’, a poorly written loose collection of stories, but of imagery that still captivates Western imagination, where the thousands-year-old mirage of monetary success equates to success in life and happiness. Criticism of this fallacy is answered with accusations of jealousy; surely the only reason why you think this is not the way to go, is because you have not achieved this level of ‘success’ and riches, which is everyone’s goal even if they don’t wish to admit it! Surely you must be trying to reduce the cognitive dissonance caused by wanting to, and not being, rich?

No. The planet is burning. Literally burning. All over the world, women’s spheres of action, rights, and voices continue to be constrained. Racism is alive and being fuelled further. The economy of continued human and natural resource exploitation isn’t working.

But look at that cool car!

 

The music:

Abu Dhabi Blues is actually a very authentic track. It illustrates perfectly the dichotomy described above.

There is plenty that is also musically and humanly authentic: the 12-bar blues sequence; the evocation of Middle-Eastern ‘otherness’ in a language that Western audiences can understand, without stepping all the way into actually authentic folk music; the fact that the opening improvisation and all violin lines are ‘Take 1’, as I wanted the ‘voice’ be actually true, with its warts-and-all imperfections in the opening improvisation, so that there is at least one thing in all of this which is not glossed over, like the character of ‘the native’ in Aldous Houxley’s ‘Brave New World’.

Aesthetically, the harpsichord seems to add to the cultural confusion but is a deliberate choice, a reflection that fusion does not necessarily have to mean the superficial East-meets-West preservation and interaction of separate boxes. Rather, a richer kind of fusion can be brought about by integrating into this type of crossed paths (blues, faux-Middle Eastern, virtuosic violin playing) an instrument that belongs to an altogether different environment, and in so doing, also referencing an even wider musical world containing Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ and ‘Handbags and Gladrags’ as performed by Stereophonics.

[irrealisms]

Aww, did you think you broke the cycle? 

Next to Normal // all i ever wanted was [Wilbur animatic] - WolfyTheWitch // tumblr post by @celestialkindliness // oh, how i want to be free - @aliveburs // Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave. - Will Wood // Sakizuke - NBC Hannibal // oh, how i want to be free - @aliveburs // I Am So Depressed I Feel Like Jumping in the River Behind My House but Won’t Because I’m Thirty-Eight and Not Eighteen - Sandra Cisneros // Breathe - In the Heights // Status Quo Is God - TV Tropes // tumblr post by @intactics

[IDs under cut]

Image 1: DOCTOR MADDEN: Well, let’s start by getting to know each other a bit. Psychotherapy and medication work best in tandem, but we can try the first alone, and see how far we get. Why don’t you tell me—

Image 2: A drawing using the YCGMA color palette of Wilbur silhouetted against a background of buildings and rubble. The closed captions read "Am I right back where I started fourteen years ago?"

Image 3: a tumblr post by @celestialkindliness : *guy who's trying to pretend he's not trapped* big fan of narratives. big fan of the ceaseless and repetitive flow of events given life by an audience and mutated by their perception

Image 4: Say the line, Tubbo! Say the line! You can’t leave, you’ll never leave, you can’t escape the narrative because you’ll have to continue it, you want to, and isn’t this easier? Isn’t this a life worth living? Family safe, country safe, everything’s safe, what else is there to want?

Image 5: How many years have you been on that couch?/They could’ve quilt’d you in the throws by now

Images 6+7: A screenshot from NBC Hannibal, focused on Will Graham. The closed captions read "I've lost the plot. I am the unreliable narrator of my own story."

Image 8: And relearn your lines. Dress rehearsal is coming up!

Image 9: I Am So Depressed I Feel Like Jumping in the River Behind My House but Won’t Because I’m Thirty-Eight and Not Eighteen

Image 10: [NINA] This is my street I smile at the faces I’ve known all my life They regard me with pride And everyone’s sweet They say, “You’re going places" So how can I say that, while I was away I had so much to hide? Hey guys, it’s me The biggest disappointment you know The kid couldn’t hack it She’s back and she’s walkin’ real slow Welcome home, just breathe

Image 11:

Status Quo Is God

"Looks like everything's back the way it was! Which is the only way it should ever be..." — Marge Simpson, The Simpsons

Within a work, particularly long-running series and franchises, almost nothing changes. If something does change, it's generally reset back to the way it was before very quickly.

This usually happens in a series with no overarching conflict or plot, although it is also the final stage of Exponential Plot Delay, the phenomenon in which the plot of a serial story has totally ground to a halt. In either case, each installment of the series will open under virtually identical circumstances to the installment that came before.

Why create a static situation? The creators want the audience to be familiar with the characters and situation, without having to bother with such things as "what happened last episode".

Image 12: me: [I am asking [You] [h][ow] to endure it.] god: On the strength of My having asked it of you. me: [I am asking [not] to endure it.] god: Scio, sweetheart.

[cryptocism]

What do your Thads think of the OG (two? I guess? And Four?)? What about Bart himself?

theyve all got delightfully intense and ridiculous complexes about everything BUT with Thad ii and Bart specifically its a real can of worms

bc they've all got Barts entire history to draw on in terms of who theyre supposed to live their lives in contrast to, but then they've ALSO got the full failed discography of Thads' Two and Four

Three as the surviving middle child is deeply obsessed with his role in the aftermath of Two and Four. he needs to be better than them, and views their failures/deaths as proof of his superiority (so Thad ii's return from his speed force adventure is a bit of a rude awakening for Three lmao). he also wants love and acceptance as all Thads do, and feels like he can't achieve that so long as Bart is alive

all the clones that came after Three never knew Thad ii or Four, so Five and Six's ideas about them are informed largely by Three. for Five he knows that any mention of them (especially Four) hits Three on an extremely emotionally volatile level, and for Six theyre just his predecessors who were stupid enough to get got. Five is pretty neutral on Bart like he's got some negative feelings out of protectiveness for Three, but also Bart is probably the only one on earth who can relate to Five's experiences with his age so he's got a more holistic view of the situation. Six on the other hand hates Bart on a very personal level due to that one time Bart kicked the shit out of him but doesnt have a whole lot of existential baggage wrapped up in it.

Eight and Nine didnt view Bart's home videos through the lens of "this is the enemy", because CRAYDL treated the styroband files of Barts life like a tv show they could tune into. so they think hes awesome, theyre fans of Bart the way people in the movie the Truman Show were fans of Truman Burbank. (at least until eight and nine joined up with the other clones and sorta discovered the whole Project Inertia mission statement) They've also got some secondhand fondness for Thad ii purely because of CRAYDL. Thad to them is like a friend of their parent that they've only ever heard stories about. they know very little about Four but they know for sure that they dont want to end up like him

[citrus-cactus]

Finished the story of Psychonauts 2 last week! It was really good. Like, REALLY, really good. I don’t have anything profound to say, but here are my thoughts if you wanna read ‘em. Obviously there are SPOILERS BELOW, so click at your own risk if you haven’t played into post-game! (FWIW, I HIGHLY recommend playing this game as spoiler-free as possible. And play the original, while you’re at it!).

Here’s a pretty tame spoiler that I don’t think anyone will mind me sharing though: RAZ IS A CUTE. JUST LOOK AT HIM:

Things I appreciated:

Raz asking permission before entering almost every brain

PET THE GOATS

BOBBY DANCE

Getting to see Whispering Rock a couple of different ways! Actually, the theme of showing events from multiple perspectives (and the different forms of trauma resulting from certain events) was really good.

Raz helping the Psychic Seven help themselves. The game is so gentle with these old damaged hippies. SO GOOD.

QUEEPIE AND FRAZIE and just… all the Aquatos, man. What a group.

The family being given space to grieve together (important) before yeeting their middle boy into the whirlpool (badass). And them still having a lot to unpack/figure out post-game. It’s complicated, man! Of COURSE they wouldn’t have it all figured out yet!

Larry and Pam! LOL.

SAM BOOLE, WTH. Best dialogue tree in the game??? XDDDD

WHOMST in-universe put the graffiti on the back side of the funicular? Oleander?? :O

I have not finished the Scavenger Hunt yet, so idk if Raz gets his clothes back. I’m betting not *shakes psychic fist at Norma* XD

Powers and combat were all really cool!

ANIMATION! ALSO!! REALLY!!! GOOD!!!!!

I’M STILL LOSING MY DANG MIND OVER RAZ’S ARCHETYPE, good god. Double Fine, you mad geniuses, how DARE you stage a Zim/Gir reunion in the year 2021??? If anyone has ever equipped the pin that mutes that delightful little paper lad, I cannot emphasize enough how dead you are to me XD

I thought Cassie sounded a little like Mona Marshall?? The credits proved me wrong, but there were several moments I thought “…maybe??” (I have a much easier time ID’ing her when she’s playing a boyish character than a woman, whoops!)

So much symbolism in the brains! “Subtle” is maybe the wrong word to use, but between some of the throwaway dialogue, the different subsections in each, and the different set designs, most of the mental states just felt more… complex? nuanced? than the first game.

I don’t actually know if I could pick a favorite level! Compton’s Cookoff was definitely the most unique (I would have appreciated the option to try the food challenges again, but “getting the best time” is obviously NOT THE POINT, so kudos to the game making it about the story/character and not about the player here!), and I really enjoyed the paper-and-book-aesthetic of Cassie’s! Bob’s boss battle was one of the most poignant, but the 60’s psychedelic aesthetic and Nona’s different layers were really creative and fun. I also liked that we got a few different styles for Raz (especially in the 2D sections!) but I always could have used more!

On that note though, CENSORS! IN!! SEQUINS!!! XDDDDDDD

THE MUSIC!!! My husband and I JUST realized that Peter McConnell scored the Sly Cooper series as well, so we have newfound RESPECT and AWE for this guy’s ability to write absolutely fantastic music in so many distinct styles and genres. Both of the songs w/ lyrics also slap.

The return/spiritual successor of Goggalor (Pootie-lor???). Amazing. Incredible. Did not expect it, loved it for how narratively important it was. The ending in general just made me quite emotional.

The post-game conversation between Truman and Lilli. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it absolutely RADIATES Tim Schafer dad/real-life daughter energy.

The Grulovia level was a really interesting way to introduce a villain. Based on every level previous, I was actually prepared for the game to offer some sympathetic facet of Gristol (such as finding out the ride was something he had been conditioned to think from a lifetime of hearing an idealized version of the story from his parents, and it was somewhere he would go to rationalize his actions despite not really believing them… or something), but obviously the longer you spend there, the more you realize it’s something he constructed himself, and he is actually delusional (er, delugional) about Maligula and his family’s legacy. Really sets up an interesting parallel with Raz, in a way. Gristol’s mental state is essentially that of a child… but Raz is an ACTUAL child, and demonstrates more maturity, empathy and understanding than both Gristol the kid (see the Mental Vaults) and Gristol the adult. Kind of amazing he was able to fool a whole building full of psychics for as long as he did (and I guess he was a fine mail clerk too??), but tl;dr I like how the game’s “true” villain is the only one who is unable to change/experience any sort of remorse for his actions (maybe the jury’s still out on Dr. Loboto though XD)

A little concerned that Hollis said Gristol’s fate was to be “experimentation,” and only corrected to say “therapy” when questioned by Raz. UM. This game does make it part of its point showing us the flaws in the Psychonauts, both as an organization and as individuals, leaving them in a bit of a mortally grey area (who are clearly mismanaging their resources if they have a whole Motherlobe of agents doing who-knows-what and their primary source of funding is running summer camps for psychic children). I am… definitely concerned about what Hollis said (as well as Otto’s assertion that he would be picking up where the Seven left off!), but I guess I can accept it as part of the theme that no one and nothing is perfect. Maybe that’s sequel fodder though??? (hey, I can dream about Psychonauts 3, can’t I? XD)

Genuinely though, I’m just… SO PROUD OF RAZ. He’s going to be such a good agent someday!!!*cries forever over one begoggled psychic acrobat son boy*

[britishsass]

Oh, for the character ask game: Bob and/or Helmut :)

MY FAVES.... I adore these two so, so much. Let's do this.

Link to the template.

Bob first, of course:

First impression

My first real impression was from "My Bobby". I was joking about that being a little gay, and then his world broke my heart in two.

Impression now

He's literally my top character in Psychonauts. He's the most relatable character ever to me. I find him to be such a richly complex character who I can breathe my own life into. He's a lover, and a fighter, and he's hurt and broken and can't find the way back to being who he once was or even being enough for himself to feel happy. He's clawing at the ice and trying to get back on the surface for air but he's sinking and no one is there to reach out because they're just as hurt by what's going on, and he's just lashing out and yet it makes sense. He's so human and so alive and it breaks my heart to see him hurt and yet I realize that hurt is all he's known for so long-- He's lost everyone, everything, he's so tired and so done and yet it makes sense in the end.

Favorite moment

Where do I begin? The vows. The way he tries to help his mother. His memory vaults. Helmut would never say that. Him removing the mask. One at a time. Inch by inch. The whole way he reacts to seeing Helmut again. His little laugh when Helmut pokes fun at him.

I think that my favorite moment though? It has to be removing the mask. It's the one scene that stuck with me so, so much.

Idea for a story

I have dozens. Let's just say a few.

-Otto and Bob mind meld fic-- Which is most likely going to instead be the au we talked about last night, wink wink.

-Helmut seeing him returning from a fishing trip and realizing how much he's in love with the soft-spoken garden guy.

-Or just. Bob and Lucy fishing trip.

-The Godmom squad and the husbands go out for a meal. Embarrassing stories ensue.

-More of him and Otto interacting!!! I love their vibes.

Unpopular opinion

I feel like the scene with Truman is a bit out of character? Like, I get him being so broken at that point that he's yelling, but the line "Recruited by Ford Cruller himself" always stuck out to me as wrong. It's not like him, in my opinion.

Favorite relationship

Romantic? Bob/Helmut. I don't even need to keep going. Platonic? I like anything with him and the rest of the Psychic 7, but I find his interactions with Lucy, Cassie, and Otto to be the best.

Favorite headcanon

He used to be a sailor! Specifically, he'd go on fishing trips with his dad, and later on with Lucy. He's not sailed since Helmut's "drowning", since it's painful for him to think about the water. This boat shows up in the bottle for the Motherlobe.

~

Helmut,,, my man, he's so beautiful.

First impression

For the longest time, I thought the mote of light was actually Bob, since I didn't pay enough attention to the story. I kept joking about "Wow, Lili, you're related to Jack Black?" and at the reveal of "You're Helmut?" I said "Nevermind." Only for her to be related to Jack Black by marriage.

Impression now

I adore this man. I look at him and I get all giggly and blushy because he's so pretty and he makes me smile so much. I'm basically Bob when it comes to how much I love him. He gives me life and he would give the best hugs because he's got so much love to give.

Favorite moment

"It's me, Bobby. It's your psi-king." I literally started screaming over that line again last night, it floors me so much...

Idea for a story

Him and Truman bonding over the weirdness of not having a body for a while there!

Unpopular opinion

He's not just his relationship with Bob, and he's not just joy and laughter. He's got something behind his persona, and I think the only person to really know him is Bob. He's got a big heart and he's lying to himself to keep going sometimes, but it's all he can really do.

Favorite relationship

Romantic, Bob/Helmut. Platonic, I love his dynamic with Compton!! It's so sweet and good.

Favorite headcanon

I love the idea that he's got a big family and ran off. I don't think too much about his past, though. So another one I have? In Jarswap, he'd always run away from anything that reminds him too much of the bad times.

[strangertheory]

The fictive alter theory holds a lot of weight for me particularly when we consider instances where El did not have powers (s3), or did not use powers when they would've been useful (I'd guess this would be a 'fronting' scenario). The scene that jumps to mind for me is when Dustin asks if she can open the AV room door in s1 and she just seems stunned. One might on the first interpretative layer assume she is struggling to understand, but she seemed quite astute in other scenarios.

Yes, absolutely. [For anyone looking for context, this Ask is regarding this post]

(As a sidenote: I think that El’s ability to open and close the gate as well as certain doors might be relevant to her role as a gatekeeper in the DID System, too.)

This is one of those moments that I feel like it was a good idea to share my incomplete ideas and theories on my blog even though I’m still piecing together the details and will surely have new thoughts and observations a few months from now when I actually take the time to write up this “second layer” theory. Thank you for submitting this Ask and sharing your thoughts about this!

There are always these little things that once I start to notice them I keep second-guessing myself and wondering if it’s all just a case of apophenia or if I’ve found something worth making note of for future reference and deeper understanding of this complex (and mysterious) fictional world that appears to operate by hidden rules that are just out of sight and yet oddly familiar and seem to work very similarly to other concepts that I’ve become familiar with.

Some circumstances might not always have (or need) an explanation. It is ultimately a fictional story. But the attention to detail that the Duffer Brothers have put into the Stranger Things universe is so very evident in not only their discussion of their own work but also simply as evidenced by their work itself: this series has so much carefully planned detail in each part of its construction, and I am very eager to continue to learn more about the series’ internal logic and what may (or may not) explain important things about this story and its characters.

Many films that are on the Stranger Things 4 Video Store Friday List have me contemplating what sort of meta layers exist in the series and how they plan to artistically represent them visually, metaphorically, and perhaps literally in seasons 4 and 5. Inception, The Cell, The Matrix, Inside Out, Welcome to Marwen, and The Truman Show (among others.)

I do strongly suspect that all evidence points towards Stranger Things being about a DID System and alters and internal worlds. The way in which they’re exploring this artistically so far, however, has me considering a number of hypotheticals. I do wonder at times whether we are always seeing events taking place in the external world or if certain locations are internal worlds or whether certain events are fantastical or dream-like representation of memories or feelings rather than taking place in a literal sense. The Upside Down is the most obvious contender for being an “internal world” but the runner ups in my mind are Hopper’s Cabin and the mall basement with the intimidatingly deep elevator shaft and the very long hallway and the “evil Russians.” (And who knows, perhaps Hawkins itself is an internal world? It certainly doesn’t exist on a real map in the same way that other series locations such as Chicago do.)

I can’t wait to see what they reveal to us in season 4. I hope that the creators begin to pull back the curtain just a tiny bit as we near the conclusion of the series. I expect a certain degree of revelation to be necessary to the resolution of a lot of the main conflicts in the story itself. I believe that pulling back the curtain on their own lives will be an important part of these characters’ journeys.

[dr-vblschrf]

Disney Review: Bolt (#48, 2008)

"That one."

People who, like me, enjoy obsessively categorizing things and have way too much time on their hands I mean, uh, review Disney, like to categorize Disney's animated film output into eras. Makes sense, as they've had a lot of influence on animation for a very long time. Critics, of course, have occasionally argued about what movies act as the beginnings of an era, and sometimes the line gets messy. Most people agree that the late 2000s-early 2010s saw a rebirth of creativity and artistry, but if you asked any random critic I'd think it's a safe bet to say they'd argue it began with The Princess and the Frog, especially given that Princess represented a return to form, rejecting the Mouse's misguided attitudes of the time in regards to traditional animation vs. CGI. Which I think is unfair to Bolt, a film with a unique premise and a lot of heart that I think should be considered the start of one of the studio's best eras, not the end of one of its worst.

So let's just...judge the movie on its own for a bit - no comparisons, no worrying about the controversial lives of two of its lead actors - then put it in context. Take a deep breath, relax, and I'll tell you why I really liked this film. Review under the cut, with a mild spoiler involving the character of Mittens.

The story goes like this: Bolt is the main character in a hit TV show, where he plays Bolt the superdog, ever-vigilant protector of his teenage master Penny as they do secret-agent-style battle with the Green Eyed Man. The production team creates all of the effects live, essentially Truman Show-ing Bolt into believing that he actually has superpowers. So you can imagine his reaction to not having them anymore when he bust out of the set after believing that his owner has been kidnapped for real. Shenanigans ensue, he ends up in NYC, and employs Mittens the cat - who figured out the truth pretty quickly - to take him back to Hollywood to "save" Penny. It's a more complex premise than the usual Disney film, and a strong part of the movie's charm.

The characters are also a strength of the film, including the rare comic relief sidekick (a hamster with an even worse grasp of reality than Bolt) who's actually funny. The standout characters for me are Bolt (naturally), Mittens, and Penny, all of whom are played with genuinely touching care by John Travolta (as much as I dislike his personal choices he's a genuinely good actor most of the time), Susie Essman, and Miley Cyrus respectively. The agent, played by Greg Germann, is the closest thing the film has to an antagonist, and was so uttely loathsome that I was overcome with the urge to fast forward through his scenes. There is a visceral disgust in watching this character, and it's so effective.

The main reason I liked this film? It explores what happens when everything you thought was true comes crashing down around you, and how different people (or, uh, animals) react to having to keep living after leaving the cave. Bolt's emotional journey is handled well, but it was Mittens - whose slightly predictable reveal regarding a former family's abandonment comes with the utterly heartbreaking reveal that she'd been declawed and was living a bit of a lie herself in NYC - whose character arc got me. It's a rare Disney movie that'll turn on my waterworks (it's more Pixar's wheelhouse now...), but this got awfully close.

I didn't know what to expect with Bolt, other than knowing its premise. I think the film has aged better than its three immediate predecessors, being more consistent in tone that Robinsons and by virtue of not being an affront to common decency like Chicken Little and Home on the Range. It's not the instant pop culture classic that Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia, Moana, etc. gave the Mouse. But blaming it for not being that would be unfair to Bolt. It's a good film that I think deserves more recognition. Next time, Disney digs a little deeper...and oversells its diversity/representation promises. When will you ever learn, Mouse? (The answer, sadly, is never.)

"There is no home like the one you've got cause that home belongs to you."

[natasharomanoffismywife]

I Never Forgot You- Chapter 4 (Natasha x Y/n)

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Word Count: 1,483

Natasha Pov

“Black Widow, agent Romanoff reporting to Ivan” I State into the phone to the operator of the Red room, I take off my high heels kicking them across the floor as I crick my neck waiting to be connected to the man in question.

“Widow, status?” The gruff voice orders me across the phone, his voice always sounding like he is swallowing glass.

“Made first contact with target, target still unknown of my identity” I lie through my teeth, knowing I have signed my own death warrant if Ivan finds out. If I had told him the truth then he would’ve ordered me to kill L/n right here and now, I believe I can gain more information and data from her. I will not have him take that possibility away from me, I hear him hum as if he was mulling over my statement in his head.

“OK good, what is your plan of action?” He asks, he knows that I am capable of following his orders but he enjoys it when I come up with better plans, he has a tendency to take those plans and run with them as if he had came up with them all along, not that I can say anything unless I want a bullet put between my eyes.

“Plan is to get close to her, make her drop her guard so I can get information on her team. Then once I am done with her I will terminate the target” I recite emotionless, as if I was talking about the weather rather than killing someone. That is the first thing they hit into you at the Red Room, emotion is weakness and weakness will be dealt with by death, after many years of going through the training and dealing with my targets I have lost all my emotion. I am like a killing machine but more efficient, machines require updates to work, I just need a gun and my body to the job.

“You have a week to kill her Widow, she isn’t the main mission after all. If you get compromised tell me, we must find what Dreykov requests for your target.” He sternly tells me, General Dreykov, the high up of the organisation is the person who will send me my instructions if I become compromised.

“Understood, Widow out” I sign out of the talk, shutting my phone off before walking over to my bed. I let out a soft sigh as I relax in the soft mattress, I’ve got a week to break one of the best Shield agents around, this will be one hell of a week.

Y/n Pov

“She knows who I am Clint, she knows I won’t back down either” I inform Clint, he is back home with his family so we are safe to video chat with each other. Seeing Laura and little baby Cooper instantly putting a smile on my face, the little chubby boy instantly calming my nerves and worries.

“Shit Y/n that’s not good at all, what the hell are you going to do?” The archer asks concerned, a worried look spread across his face. I can tell that he doesn’t like the fact that I am so far away without any backup, he always has been the protective type.

“I’m going to stay and complete my mission, if she get’s in my way well… I’ll be showing the famous Black Widow just how mean I can get” I tell him darkly, knowing that she most definitely will cross my path again, after all it looks like I am her mission.

“You do know how incredibly stupid that is right?” Clint spits out, a strong look of annoyance crosses his face as he looks at me through the webcam. I shrug my shoulders before sending him a cheeky grin and wink, I had just told Romanoff how un idiotic I am, guess I’m a good liar too.

“Well I’ve always been a bit on the stupid side” I joke out to my dear friend, he laughs out before he get’s pulled away from the call by the crying of Cooper.

“I need to go and help Laura with Coop, just be safe please” Clint tenderly informs me, I nod to him and bid him farewell before the room is plunged into silence. I take a few moments to think of my next move, deciding to try to do some digging on ‘Natalie’ I strip out of my dress opting for a more comfortable jeans and leather jacket, before making my way down into the hotel foyer. I look around the grand space, taking note of the people who are entering the establishment, all looking normal and checking in at the front desk.

I walk around the big open planned space, trying to see if there was anything out of the place that could lead me to the whereabouts of one Natalie Rushman. As I hover around the magazines I can see that the lady who checked me in is walking over to me, I turn around to give her my attention.

“Miss Truman, a message was left for you today. Here you go” The lady says handing me a small note, sending me her trademark grin before walking away from me and back to the front desk. I look down at the note, unfolding the piece of paper to be met with cursive handwriting, it read:

Don’t be a stranger

26A Old Church Road Budapest

N.R

I stick the address into my pocket before making my way out of the hotel and out into the raining street, I put my head down and start to walk towards the address that I was given. It takes me about half an hour to walk in the heavy rain, feeling my nerves ice over with each hit of the cold droplets. I finally arrive to a large building complex, I walk up and make my way up the stairs to number 26A.

I knock on the door loudly but no answer came, after a few more loud knocks I decide it was time to bust my way in. I grab my pistol out of the waistband of my jeans before testing the door, finding it unlocked. I push open the door before slowly making my way into the apartment, holding my gun in front of me in case I need to shoot my way out of the place.

I move around only seeing dull, plain rooms, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. I make my room into the last room seeing nothing but a desk with a laptop screen illuminating the small office space, I walk towards the laptop seeing that it is playing my conversation I had with Clint playing on repeat.

My ear picks up a small noise behind me making me turn around hurriedly coming face to face with a young woman who punches my gun out of my hands. She pounces on me, trapping me on the floor as she whips out a knife trying to stab it into me. I press my head up, head-butting the girl hard in her face effectively releasing me from her hold. As she is stunned I punch her hard in the face, throwing her off balance.

I go to punch her again but this time she counters it before kicking me hard in the chest, winded I full back into the desk hard, wincing as the corner of the furniture breaks the skin of my back. She charges at me but I manage to pick myself up off the floor so I can meet each hit with my own hand, countering each blow with precision. I finally see an opening in her stance so after I counter one of her punches I jab my elbow hard into her ribs, making her recoil in pain I grab the gun off the floor, aiming it at her head.

“Who the hell are you?” I gasp out sternly, trying to catch my breath. The woman, who’s face is all bloodied, spits some blood at my feet before sending me a sadistic grin.

“You will fall to the Widow, the Red Room will rule superior” The woman spits out as she starts to laugh at me, Natasha set this up, she wanted to send a message.

Knowing that was all I was going to get from the woman I empty two shots in between her eyes, leaving her to lay in her own puddle of blood. I shoot the laptop before limping out of the apartment, wincing as the hard rain hits my cuts. Natasha wanted to send me a message, well two can play at that game. The dead assassin will be my message to her, it shows that I don’t die easily.