#all Canadian shows are either weird or just bad

[coockie8]

Does anybody out there remember Grossology? That weird ass cartoon that served the same fetish-awakening vibes that Totally Spies did but for more niche fetishes like farting?

I don't have anything specific to say about this show, just that it's literally always taking up at least 2% of my mental capacity.

In particular the episode where the male protagonist gets bastardized and spends an unnecessary amount of time in a fart egg. Like how is that not some writer's extremely specific fetish?

[sysmedsaresexist]

I spoke with Colin Ross again.

The original post, for those who missed it.

This is going to be really disjointed and rough. I've been put in a really weird position and I want to just... talk about it. This is okay to reblog, I'm sure there's pro/endos that have been waiting for this. Unfortunately, it's going to be attached to a vent.

Sadly, talking to him brought up a lot of bad feelings. I'm still so sad to see so many people turn on me. I'm disappointed that there was so much pushback. I'm disgusted by people's hypocrisy.

People wanted to know why I wasn't posting my side of the emails to Colin Ross, they tried to say he didn't believe those things anymore.

So I emailed him again, recapping our previous conversations, and asking him if he still believed in non traumagenic plurality.

And he responded that he does.

I thought I could post it, and that would be the end of it. Proving we had spoken before, confirming the topics discussed. But in my email to him, I shared what I've been doing since I last spoke with him, what prompted me to reach out to him again. The same thing that stopped me from posting my side of the emails originally. I wasn't entirely honest with him, either. I don't think I would have gotten a response if I had talked about tumblr.

And I'm simultaneously so excited and so scared.

This is a man that, in a very vague sense, formed a mentor/professional relationship with me. Our interaction overall was brief, but it was exciting to discuss his work with him, ask him questions that had been bothering me-- I told him about myself, my educational and work background. I used my real email and name. My real school. He's Canadian, we talked about it. I shared real details of my life, and while it wasn't necessarily in confidence, I don't think he would appreciate knowing that I've shared his personal thoughts and emails on tumblr, of all places. I'm not lying or hiding anything in my side of the conversation.

I'm scared.

I'm terrified to post anything that could be linked to me. Even posting this, I'm like, "can people like... reverse edit my picture and get my email?" I genuinely don't know.

I worry about posting the full screenshots with his email, knowing people won't believe me if I don't, but not wanting to have these ridiculously immature people in his inbox. I have encouraged people since day one to find his email themselves and reach out. I figure that the only people who would put in that work are the people who genuinely want to learn.

But then I realized that there are people that could ruin the relationship I made with him.

People that could make it so that I can never contact him in this way again.

People could use this to find me, if they get Colin Ross talking. (The rational part of my brain says he's smart enough not to give someone else my name, but goddamn, some of you people are actually dangerous)

There are people that want to do that to me. People that hate that I even brought a professional into this conversation. And I get it. I sat on the original conversation for almost three years, remember?

It's really scary to admit you're wrong, that you've been close-minded and hardheaded. It's scary to confront your bias and actions.

But having him respond to me... I feel so lucky? Not that Colin Ross is a saint, but how often do you get to meet someone like him? How often do you have a chance to take advantage of a professional contact that seems willing and happy to have these kinds of conversations with you? Three years later and he remembered me. He took the time to answer me, again.

I don't want to fuck that up.

So I thought about reaching out to certain people, showing them the entire set of emails without any blockout and having them vouch for the authenticity.

Then I realized that I wouldn't trust any of you anti endogenic systems with any of my information after how you've all behaved.

And I realized that none of you are going to change your minds, no matter what I show you, and I'd rather to maintain my professional relationships than put any more effort into any of you.

And I know if I wait too long to post this, people will call it fake, so I either need to go ahead and make this post or just kind of let it disappear into obscurity.

It's so important, though.

Isn't it?

I can't tell anymore.

[neptunescore]

k you asked for unpopular f1 opinions and idk if this even counts but i Do Not Like lando norris. i actively dislike him, actually. couldn't really tell you why, he's just really annoying. and that move with the fist pump during max's anthem at the canadian gp? not fucking cool. i also hate when people say shit like "omg he's so public school core" or "idk he just feels more authentic than the rest of them (drivers)" because most people didn't know he had money growing up. his dad is like a fucking billionaire (millionaire?) CEO like shut up. i just feel like he can't possibly be as nice as people think. also his win in miami had distinctly Weird Vibes. not necessarily bad, just Wrong. should not have happened. also that thing where he said "trump is someone you gotta have a lot of respect for" like no??? he's not??? he's a conservative right wing politician who was found guilty on all 34 counts in his hush money case. he's a white-collar criminal (the worst kind). he deserves no respect. shut up. it would be better to just not say anything at all. yeah.

I have had SO MANY asks on lando, but i shall keep responding😤.

No1. All the shit Lando has done. Ugh, dont even get me started on it, im just gonna link my old post bc im so done talking abt it.

No2. I don't hate lando, I'm not a lando 'hater', bc I feel like you can't really hate a person you have never met and don't know on a personal level. However, I do feel very strongly abt some of his actions, and I do think he should take accountability for shit he's done. Personally, I just don't like him that much, and so I stay away from his content and fans. If I see smthng funny he's done or see content abt him that I enjoy then I laugh and appreciate it, but recently he's just been irritating towards my beliefs and values, so I'm keeping my distance.

No3. I just wanna say, very gently, even if you dislike a driver, you shouldn't discredit their wins/ accomplishments bc in the end thats smthng they've earned, and it's literally their job, like for me, when I saw miami, I thought "good for him" and moved on. I did get really pissed abt his comments on trump tho, man really went and stained his first race win with all that shit.

No4. Ur point on the way ppl say, 'he's more authentic than the rest of the drivers'. Honestly, I've seen so many ppl have this opinion, and all I'm gonna say is: Every driver has a different pr strategy. Lando's whole strategy is being perceived as 'relateable' and 'quirky', and, by the looks of it, it's working really well. Obv we – as fans – will never know if he's genuinely like this in person or if it is just fully pr (same with all the other drivers), but from what's provided to us we're all free to make our own assumptions :]

I just feel like he can't possibly as nice as people think

I think, nonnie (and this is meant in the kindest way possible), assumptions like these are smthng we should avoid making. You don't know lando, and I don't know lando, so really we'll never know if he's truly as nice or not, and we shouldn't say stuff like this about ppl who've never actually done anything to be precieved that way. Like yes, we can talk abt how lando is ignorant and the type to either: 1. Not think bfr he speaks/ does smthng or 2. Has really bad political views and questionable morals (and if this option is fully confirmed, i will become a full hater, doesn't matter if hes nice or not). But what has he ever done that shows us he's not kind/ nice to his fans?

[crimeronan]

the fondest specific compliment i’ve gotten on my toh fic is that everyone swears in a way that’s very true to character. where it feels like they Definitely talk like this offscreen, like it flows naturally & isn’t jarring despite the G-rated source material

this delights me because i have spent SO MUCH time thinking about the owl house cast and how different people swear. limiting this post to POVs i’ve written but here’s a few headcanons

luz: almost never swears. if she does she’s either doing it for Maximum Emphasis or because it’s very funny in a very specific situation with very specific peers (hunter & willow. she can’t swear in front of amity or gus bc she feels like she’s tarnishing her Innocent Image). even when luz CAN say “fuck” in T-rated properties, she does in fact default to “jeez” and “crikey” and “wow” and “EAUGHHH NO OH NO EUGH NO” at all times. some people swear in their other main language around english speakers but luz is not one of these people. generally in situations where most reasonable individuals would yell “HEY ASSHOLE” or “DUDE??? WHAT THE FUCK????”...... she simply throws things and/or starts biting. That’s My Daughter

hunter: swears more than luz but still not Super Often. most common go-tos are ‘shit’ as a panicked exclamation & ‘bullshit’ as an unimpressed observation. he knows more curse words than anyone else in the show including eda because of How The Coven Scouts Are. several of the curse words are wholly made-up epithets shared by approximately ten trauma-bonded weirdo soldiers. that said, he.... legitimately does not know which muttered oaths are just weird idioms versus Actual Swears bc he’s never Needed to know. (formal speak with belos automatically removes all of these informal interjections in the first place, and no one else is gonna question how The Golden Guard talks, so.... no reason to learn.) if anyone tries to explain these nuances to him later in life he will get into an autistic shouting match about how that’s SO STUPID and UNNECESSARY and MAKES NO SENSE you DUMBSHIT MOTHERF-

eda: tries hard to tone down her language around The Chillens but swears... sssSSSO MUCH. sailor tongue ahoy the woman was raised by wolves (ie: her mom who even in her old age will still shout “YEAH RUN YOU PUNK-ASS BITCH” at randos on the street). eda says “fuck” aloud an average of once or twice in any given fic chapter but should say it more. if i ever write her alone with raine it will become 200 times per chapter because with raine she casually flips back to her high school self and all her creative teen lingos. yknow, back before she learned to be all Mature and Professional. a class act. as she rifles through heaps of garbage and develops hives at any sign of emotional intimacy

darius: theoretically swears a lot and has nothing AGAINST a very verbose “motherfucker son of a bitch dick-for-brains are you fucking SHITTING me you INCOMPETENT-” however he USUALLY uses boiling isles swears. not because he’s being censored by the writers but because a muttered “mother of titans i’m begging you to come down and cast these fucking imbeciles into the boiling sea before i lose my fuckdamned SHI-” is just. Yeah. That’s Him. darius is the guy who WOULD be saying ‘jesus h christ’ and ‘christ on a stick shift’ and ‘mother mary of god PLEASE either end this meeting early or STRIKE ME DEAD BEFORE MASS’ except. yknow, he’s got other religious figures to invoke. sidenote he’s been dying to shout “KIIIIISS MYYYY ASSSSSS” at 98% of his coworkers for 30 straight years. to the point that he sometimes dreams about it

bonus

camila: swears exclusively in french (a language in which she is not fluent) bc she doesnt want luz picking up bad language. she learned these expressions from an old friend from montreal which means that luz now has a weirdly broad knowledge of extremely rude quebecois slang without knowing any specific definitions. she just knows that these are words you recite to french-canadians if you want to start a bar fight.

[silentreigns]

Canadian GP Post-Race Review

Was anyone else scared when Ferrari didn't pit under the safety car? Made them go half of the race on mediums? Turns out that was the best call because Charles finished 4th and Carlos finished 5th. I read on twitter that Carlos was having more pace than Charles at one point but he was given team orders not to pass. So I might look into that but idc they got points and stayed in a decent position. It's a win tbh, Ferrari had a successful strategy with both drivers

George going from 4th to 19th to 8th just to retire hurts but then you realize it was his own fault. Amazing he managed to drive for 40 more laps before dnfing

Lewis overtaking Fernando in the first lap was so cunty. Also Lewis staying within 3 seconds of Max while he was p2 was also cunty. Too bad he got overtaken eventually. But shout out to Lewis for breaking Lewis's record for the most podiums with 194 of them

Lando getting a penalty for "unsportsmanlike behavior" is so dumb and unfair. Like if it really was for going too slow under a safetycar I would call bullshit because the McLaren doesn't even work right. He can't even overtake on the straights, like most of his overtakes happened in corners. Too many things are wrong with that car and they need to fix it quickly

Lance getting a photo finish in the points had me gagged because I didn't see him for most of the race. Good for him, we love a happy ending to the home GP

The backmarker girls were FIGHTING. Nyck de Vries definitely caused that collision or whatever tf with KMag in that one lap, at least to me. The fact that he didn't get a penalty for that is kinda weird considering Lando got a penalty for like nothing. I'm gonna try and not drag de Vries anymore but it's like girl...

Alex made me so nervous this whole race I didn't think he would get p7 with George on his tail at that time. Esteban couldn't overtake either because his rear wing wass fucked up. Is that ground for a penalty? I have no idea because the FIA is inconsistent. But anyways I'm happy for Alex getting driver of the day like he deserved it the most

The cool down room for the podiums with Max and Lewis is always so awkward like they don't have any chemistry at all. But that's kinda expected. I needed Fernando to show up and show up quickly.

Overall the race was very fun and I'm glad I watched the whole thing. It's always nice to see overtakes happen in races

[3416]

i feel really similarly re: your answer to the ask about leafs fans. one thing that genuinely annoys me to no end is how people don’t seem to realize that a lot of the hate/negativity that surrounds the leafs is literally a direct byproduct of other fanbases seeing how awful “fans” of the leafs themselves talk about the team and its players 😭 like uncles will complain about all the disrespect the leafs get but if supposed fans of the team constantly broadcast themselves ripping into players then why wouldn’t fans of other teams think they have a free pass to repeat the same talking points lol. steve dangle making an entire career off exactly that and still being popular within the fan base speaks for itself. it’s just irritating that every single widely held (obviously baseless) criticism about the players like about mitch and his character or jt not being captain material or the core not caring etc etc etc literally began from fans themselves like that’s so sad to me lol

that's extremely well put and 100000% the case, lol. i totally agree. and it's why the divide in fans annoys me so fucking bad. all the neutral people who are like 'you can't tell people how to be a fan and ultimately we all want the same thing' are also obnoxious bc like. these people who are actually hateful and constantly negative use the length of their 'fandom' to explain why they're fed up and it DOES contribute to the way other teams fans view us and makes it hard to be a fan out loud and it EVEN impacts how players perceive toronto as a market (elliotte on a show last night admitting that the marner debacle has made players be like... ehh not there! abt toronto is so funny). anyway it's like........ once again, i fully believe engaging in sports and hobbies in general is a choice, whether it was something shown to you as a child or you discovered it yourself later. plenty of people who have been fans for the same lengths of time have managed not to become ugly and over the top about it so lol. i know some people manage to detach themselves from players but ultimately.... you're here to root for players as much as the team. you buy jerseys with their names on it and you spout facts about their individual play to other teams fans to defend your own. athletes are human beings, and i think that's a much more interesting and grounding way to interact with sports than the barbaric and annoying ass way so many men do. nothing's going to change about it, but i think toronto media in general needs more neutral to positive voices (fuck you steve dangle fr.) bc they get accused of having homer broadcasts and yet. every time i listen to either the american or the canadian ones during leaf games, the leafs are never getting the benefit of the doubt and they can never do anything right, lmfao. and maybe that's been shaped by their playoff failures of late but i don't care. we're here to have fun, and i want to be able to be positive and believe in this team and its core players (who are going to end up the best to ever do it in blue and white regardless of the playoffs btw) every offseason in a place without 49023492 idiotic comments telling me they can't win a certain way. like. you've lost the plot if part of your thing as a sports fan isn't blind belief. that is quite literally what it is... every year 31 teams lose and still have a fanbase at the end of it, lmfao.

i'm aware of how celeb culture and parasocial relationships impacts all of that too. i feel it in myself, the weird urge to be defensive over some of these guys i know that i don't know, but on the other hand, i fully think that the people who are overtly negative have their own little parasocial thing going on where they make up their own narratives and personalities for these guys they don't know either. i've fully seen a couple twitter users insinuate bc they, a toronto/ontario native themselves, have never heard about a positive interaction with mitch marner first hand that must mean he is actually the devil (they never say they've heard negative things either LMFAO.. like they don't know him or know people who know people who know him and say he's decent so he must be rotten bc hockey circles are small and blah blah blah). it's just so................ it's all bc toronto's a huge market and hockey is the thing to talk about 24/7.

[que3rduckling]

Guys I am very obsessed with xmen rn, I have watched 7 movies in the xmen universe in 3 days and I am currently watching my 8th 😭

Anyways I am going to give my opinions on them (I am doing this in the order i watched them)

Deadpool- amazing, 10/10, I would want to watch this again for the first time. It was so funny and yes Ik it is not a xmen movie but I did say xmen universe and there are xmens in the movie soooo- anyways everyone should watch it I love it sm the comedy is on point for the whole movie, the action os amazing and the plot was just *chefs kiss*

Deadpool 2- AMAZONG SEQUAL!!! Such a good movie, 10/10 I love that shit. This sequel slayed and everyone in it was a slay, Wade is my Canadian icon <- is Canadian xemself. I very much loved the plot, characters and just like everything. I also need to say it now, Wade does not look that bad in these movies 😭 like bro looks half decent why does everyone think he is so fugly??

Days of future past- absolute slay of a movie, Ngl everything in this movie bangs. It is either a 9-10/10 for me. I really enjoyed the characters in the plot, I for sure preferred the past bits over the future bits but that is neither here nor there. Peter slayed, Logan slayed, Hank slayed, Charles slayed, Erik slayed, everyone slayed. Idk if I can put into words how much I loved this movie, genuinely so so good. I always rewatch this one and it never fails to make me happy always a good and fun time and all the characters are just so skrunkly.

Apocalypse- dude. Dude listen- when it comes to the plot and apoc himself I uh I hate it a lot. Maybe hate is a strong word but it was one I said a lot watching it 😭 the plot is weird and iffy and not my thing. The characters on the other hand, the characters lowkey slayed. Liek some did (peter, Kurt, Scott, angel for some bits, raven, hank, etc) and other were uh not my thing (apocalypse. Mainly apocalypse but also Jean. (Side note, I think that is his name, the main Bady is who I am referring too by saying apocalypse)) idk my rating for the movie just if you ever watch it don’t watch it for the plot watch it for the characters pls you will drive yourself insane if you don’t. 5-6/10 characters really save it.

First class- Ngl I enjoyed this one. Charles did piss me off for like the whole movie (I began to rage at that man Ngl 😭😭) but everyone slayed!! They were all super silly Billy’s, though idk how I feel about how they portrayed Darwin in the movies knowing that his physical appearance did play a big part in his backstory in the comics (this is as kn he looks like an alien in the comics and he looks normal in the movies). OTHER THAN THAT! It was pretty fun! Raven was super cool in it and so was Erik. I really like how they went a bit in-depth on his backstory. 8-9/10

X-men- ABSOLUTE SLAY OF A MOVIE !! Dude dude dudes I love rogue and Logan’s relationship sm it is so cute, fr father-daughter moments right there. I really enjoyed Logan (wolverine) in this, he was very fun and everyone slayed. I love Bobby too, Ngl I can see how in these movies they don’t have the overplot plot sorted out bc there are some gaps between what we know about what happened in future past and apoc and what the characters show (I.e not knowing who Logan is even if they should.) but that is okay! I genuinely really enjoyed this movie and I craveeeee more rogue and Logan moments. Also everyone slayed here and Charles didn’t annoy me as much! 9/10

X-men origins: Wolverine: … so uh that is a movie that exists. I give it like 0 maybe 2 if I am being generous out of 10 (0-2/10) bc this movies is bad. Like really bad. Don’t watch it, pls don’t. I do not subject yourself to that 😭 it is Not cannon to any of the other movies and how do I know that without looking it up? BC THE WHOLE THJNG GIVES DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE AND SCOTT A VERY DIFFERENT BACKSTORY!! It is so fucking bad, like I got half way through and considered quitting but I didn’t and it just got worse 😭 don’t even get me started on gambit, BRO DOES NOT LOOK LIKE GAMBIT WDYMMMM THERE ISNT EVEN HIS ICONIC EYES NEVERMIND THE OUTFIT IS FUCKEDD. Also deadpool in this.. holy fuck. I was so excited at the beginning to see Wade but at the end I wanted to die 😭 /nsrs. Why does he look like that??? Did not enjoy at all, Logan did have one funny line that I can remember so I will give him that but that was all like it. Did not enjoy do not make yourself ever watch that unless it is for torture reason. I didn’t even finish it, I still got 9 minutes left but I gave up

X2- this is the one I am currently watching and it SLAPS! More rogue and Logan moments, more Bobby, WE GET NIGHTCRAWLER IN UR!!! KURT MY CHILD!! Charles is okay, Jean, Scott and storm all slay in their own ways no my favs by any means though, lack of hank which is sad lol. Only thing I don’t like so far, and dudes I like most things in this, is just the over all story plot holes. In apocalypse Kurt goes to the school and knows about it and apocalypse is set before x2, whilst in this movie he hadn’t even heard of the school and didn’t know any of the peeps he had met before and they didn’t know him. Minor issue, not that big of a deal but annoyed me a bit lol. Can’t give my rating yet bc I am not done but I will reblog this post when I am and give you my final thoughts! Or I’ll just edit this and reblog for other movies idk

Anyways hope y’all enjoyed my little rambles, more will be out in the future bc I am insane over these silly little ppl hehehehe

[storiesofsvu]

Happy Thursday! It’s a very big day pascal!!!

(hint… that has nothing to do with l&o… im sorry for what im about to become…)

Okay, mothership. Let’s see how this starts out.

Okay… so… hear me out… our vic is recently out of jail, sure they were exonerated, BUT I guarantee you the parents/family of that little girl don’t fully believe it and they just became your prime suspects. (and if they don’t even question them in this ep I will be disappointed in them…)

Yeah I really like this new DA.

“ONLY TWO TRIALS IVE EVER LOST” ???!! JESUS FUCK he’s *good*

Ooooo and now there’s $10 million dollars involved. The plot thickens…

I think I say it every week, but I LOVE KATE

I know this bald guy from somewhere but I can’t remember where. OH!! IS IT NURSE JACKIE?! I think it’s from there.

That blue suit shaw’s got on is FIIINE.

You know… I think what I disliked the most about the OG l&o was cosgrove, mccoy and Nolan. Now two of those are gone and I’m actually enjoying the show more LOL.

Why is the courtroom backwards?

Very likely unpopular opinion: I think carisi would fit in really well on this show. We should replace Nolan with him, actually get him some screen time and court room scenes considering svu never lets him be a lawyer anymore (I know we’re getting some tonight but still. I’m salty with how few court scenes we’ve gotten since covid)

SAM IN THE GREEN PANT SUIT!!!! YES!! GIRL!!

Ooooo what a plot twist!! Yaass!

Okay… I might skip TO, we’ll see if it hooks me in the intro or not

It did not suck me in. the end.

SVU here we go!

Ooooooooo a JURY deliberating?!?! We’ve never gotten to see this before!! I think this would be a super neat thing to see more often!

Ohhhh fuuuuuccckkk me. Velasco in the leather jacket and on his bike. FUCK. I literally let out an audible groan and dropped the apple slice I was eating. FUCK. I am down bad for him rn.

Who’s kid is that with fin?

TERRY NAKED IN BED WITH A LADY!!! TERRY NAKED IN BED!!

Listen this like, 10 seconds of personal life is all I need on a regular basis.

Okay he’s found guilt but im assuming that the girl they “peer pressured” into it is gonna come back to bite them in the ass

There’s gotta be some weird ass connection here, OR it’s a Bronwyn 2.0 situation. The way she looked at him? Ugh.

Im over the two new girls on the squad. Over it. I don’t like either of them.

Ah.. yes.. here we go. fuck this shit.

“you’re the one who wrote the bau profile” ….they’re literally trying to be criminal minds now. They DO realize that criminal minds is currently airing right? And that they’re not directly competing with each other, right? Like…cm is on streaming, they’re on cable, and they’re on different days/time slots. Stop with all this profiling shit and stick to just the nypd detective shit. That’s WHY we watch the show and what we come for…

Welp. Adding new charges is certainly a way to go rn. BUT now the defence can come back and say that they’re making shit up just to bring a new case to convict.

I know (assume lol) that it’s the same actress but the three “versions” of Maddie look nothing alike to me. Like, that is not the same girl lol.

I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHO TERRY WAS IN BED WITH. One night stand? Gf? Casual dating? Fwb? WHOOOMST

“why didn’t you tell anyone this before?” coming from CURRY is EXACTLY why it should’ve been another SVU detective in that room, they know how to act, how to encourage victims to open up. (I get that maybe the thought behind it was that she’s a woman vs the rest of the men, but still).

HAHAH not carisi calling out the other boys for being divorced when they’re giving him shit about marriage troubles. I love him.

Ohhhh gooodddddddd no. not repping himself… fuck.

Okay…either this guy is dumb AF, or he’s playing dumb. Like the comment in chambers all “where do I sit? I’m Canada, I don’t know how the law works down here” and now he’s getting cocky and repping himself? Like yeah, I lowkey get it, Im Canadian and know more about laws in nyc than up here but I’m sure this man wasn’t out writing fanfic while kidnapping girls lol. Like, does he ACTUALLY know enough to accurately rep himself? Probs not. Like that’s fucking dumb. Carisi should be able to get him on so many technicalities and make him look like an idiot/rile him up enough to explode.

Also highkey worried about benson on the stand. She’s already so wound up it might not take long for her to burst. AND considering the jump scare that was William lewis last week, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still on her mind and a perp grilling her on the stand is gonna give her flashbacks of that trial and we all know how that went….

How tf  did he get a MILLION dollars?!

“carisi’s right, that monster needs eyes on him” YEAH DUH. THAT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB OLIVIA! Get yourself/your team on it!

What do you mean you’ve NEVER BEEN ON A STAKEOUT BEFORE?!? Curr’s an iab captain, I’m SURE she had to start as a beat cop… cmon.. that’s lazy writing.

Okay, but madi’s mom isn’t texting the perp to actually sleep with him, she’s doing it to get under his skin, right? Or like, to seduce him and she’s going haywire to kill him, right?

This guy is SO gross.

How is he SO good in a courtroom???

I thought amanda was in this episode?

Yup. Called it.

Velasco could shoot me any day. Sir. Please. I am begging.

“and now fin I want you to leave” girl. What. You’re going so fucking rogue and im so here for it LOL.

Okay, im just now remembering the description of the ep that amanda’s in, I was confused lol

Okay, that ep was good. Lets see how OC does next

Wait… I wasn’t paying attention, was that the MIA cop? Sam? Cause if so… fuck…

Ok, judging by these flashbacks, yes.. god his poor wife.

Elliot.. youre talking like a cop. How long have you been doing this? You know better.

The pacing of these episodes is too slow, it’s getting boring. It’s too much of stabler UC and not enough of actual police work/in the office. Its losing my attention FAST.

Like.. I watch this show for the cast as a whole and when we get arcs like this it turns into the Elliot stabler show and im not here for that. Throwing Ayanna UC for the meeting was a great addition but now we’re back to the stabler show and I’m scrolling my phone not paying attention.

Also… OC always fucks up and doesn’t have subtitles on it and that makes me lose interest cause I just simply cant watch shit without subtitles lol

Man I really fucking feel for sam’s(?) wife. This is heartbreaking. Ayanna & jet both with the single fucking tear? PLEASE. I’m literally crying.

Okay, stabler’s older(?) brother? Was he once a cop too? Or is he just playing cop rn? Is he gonna get himself killed??

This man needs therapy. Period.

“im no cop…”

“relax. I’m atf.” YAS lol.

“youd be surprised” “maybe I wouldn’t” yeah…none of us would. Stabler’s always in trouble.

Well THAT’S SUSPICIOUS

Man, we all knew this was coming, like the foreshadowing (for us as viewers) was SO obvious, but this still suuuuper complicates everything, ESP with joe being MIA.

Okay. That’s all. law and order day is officially over and the rest of the weekend is all about taylor swift. I’m not sorry. T-minus one hour!!!

[exvangelicalrage]

Apocalypse Anxiety

6/30/23

When I was a kid, one of the excellent decisions my parents made was not letting us read the Left Behind books, even though everyone at church swore the books were the best thing they'd ever read (after the bible, of course). 

If you're unfamiliar, the whole series revolves around a futuristic interpretation of christian eschatology, particularly the rapture and the tribulation. The series starts with a good chunk of the world population getting "raptured" suddenly, or taken to heaven by god, and then follows a group of people who didn't disappear. These folks try to figure out what happened and navigate the wild post-rapture world, and everything wraps up with the second coming of christ. The characters that survived the tribulation witness the millennial kingdom, where christ reigns for a thousand years, and then the final judgment day, and eventually, a new heaven and a new earth are created.

Obviously it's complete bullshit. It's not even biblical, as 11-year-old me wrote extensively about in her journal (I even included citations!). But the thing is, a lot of christians still believed it. And I think it formed a lot of mental images about what the "end times" would look like for people, which, as a result, meant there was a lot of conversation about prepping.

If you got left behind, what would you do? How would you survive? People talked about learning to grow stuff and sew. They bought generators and came up with secondary heat sources for their house. They talked about how prepared they already were compared to everyone else. 

Keep in mind, we lived in a rural area where people already had to be quite self-sufficient. So it was more of a bragging contest than anything, with a few people beefing up the systems they already had in place. 

The year 2000 brought with it a lot of apocalypse panic, fueled in part by that stupid book series (though I'm sure the Cold War, recent in so many memories, didn't help either). The Y2K bug was going to take down systems all over the world! We could be without power, without computers, without clean water!!! Our local morning show guys even did a parody of the YMCK song, where they sang, "Yyyy-2-K! What's the big deal about Yyyy-2-K! It's a real big deal / no it's not even real—" etc. Luckily for me I do not remember most of the lyrics.

Fast forward to 2016. By then, I was well and truly Exited from christianity. I'd made it through Y2K, 9/11, the recession, and college. I had a full time job and friends who weren't christian. I hardly ever thought about apocalypses, other than admitting that I occasionally enjoyed reading a good post-apocalyptic book series. 

But the day after the 2016 election, I found myself crying under a tree in the cemetery near my condo. I was terrified that trump would bring about the apocalypse, even though I didn't even believe in the fucking apocalypse anymore! At least, not the christian version of it.

Someone made a meme that said "the end comes with trump-pence (instead of 'trumpets')" and it was all I could think of. Like a giant neon sign to my trauma-bent brain.

Fast forward again to 2020. You probably remember that fucked-up year. 

It started with fires in Australia. And murder hornets. Remember those? Weird "signs and omens" of an impending apocalypse. Then came the plague and pestilence. 

Truth be told, it feels like we've basically been mid-apocalypse my entire life. Y2K. 9/11. The recession. trump being elected. fires. famine. plague. pestilence. war. death. 

And now, there are more fires. So many fires. I'm in an area with bad air. The canadian wildfires are filling the atmosphere with smoke and it's drifted down into my region of the northeast USA. Again. A couple weeks ago, we had air that had me and my spouse coughing and with sore throats, even indoors. Today, the outside is hazy and smells, and the new outlets are warning us all to stay indoors. 

I know it's just smoke. I know it'll blow away. I understand what's happening. Not to mention, we're fine. We are safe indoors. We have an air purifier. We don't have to work outside or even leave the house if we don't want to. Though the dog might get annoyed if he doesn't get his daily adventure.

We have enough food to last us weeks, if we're careful. We have a tank full of gas. I have a boatload of back-up plans for what to do in a variety of catastrophic scenarios. 

But I still feel the overwhelming desire to curl up in a hole and hide. My anxiety is sky high. It's a visceral reaction—not to the smoke itself, or to the knowledge of climate change, or even to a rational fear that one day, the fires might reach us. 

No. It's fear of the christian apocalypse. Fear of the rapture. Fear of getting left behind.

I know it's all fake. I just can't quite shake it.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Last night I went to a comedy pub night, my brother didn’t perform but he was there to watch, so afterwards I hung around the bar talking to him, and he knows all the comedians so sometimes they were talking to us too. My brother said he sometimes enjoys British comedy but doesn’t like it as much as what we have here, and I asked him what British comedy he’s seen/heard to base that on.

He said Michael McIntyre, and I said you can’t decide you dislike British comedy based on Michael McIntyre, that’s like deciding you dislike American comedy based on Dane Cook. Also, if you hate Michael McIntrye then you already have lots in common with British comedians, from watching enough Britcom TV from a certain time period (2009-ish to 2015-ish), I actually started feeling bad for him, even though he is a shit comedian, because he became everyone’s target when they wanted to make a joke about shit comedians.

Then my brother mentioned Jimmy Carr, and I said fuck that guy, you can’t base your opinion on him either. He said Jimmy Carr is probably the most popular British comedian in Canada, which is true, he performs here quite a lot. He’s at the Montreal Just For Laughs festival every year and tours here often; he’s just finished a big tour of our country in which he sold out arenas in multiple cities. Actually, last month I was coaching a tournament in an arena, and the big boards with rotating advertisements occasionally showed Jimmy Carr’s giant face because he was performing there soon, and it was very weird. Extremely weird cognitive dissonance to be coaching my sport and seeing Jimmy Carr at the same time, I had to stop looking at them. Incidentally, I’ve always assumed Jimmy Carr’s frequent touring of Canada is because his wife’s Canadian, but I don’t know that for sure. I just know he’s the British comedian who comes here the most often.

Anyway, I told my brother that I know Jimmy Carr is very famous, but he can’t be the representative for all British comedy, especially not among comedians who should know more. My brother then asked his friend, who was standing nearby, is also a comedian, and runs the comedy night we’d just attended, who’s the “face” of British comedy at the moment. The guy said, “Carr or Gervais”, and my heart sunk into my feet over how shitty that fact is. Then he said, “But also that guy, James Acaster.” He pronounced the A at the beginning of “Acaster” the way you’d pronounce it in “apple”, so he clearly didn’t know a lot about that guy. But still.

I’ve said before that I think James Acaster is very, very good, but maybe slightly overrated just because he’s so incredibly highly rated that it would be hard not to be. I’ve said that before at times, but then any time I actually listen to his stand-up, especially anything recent, I think, “Oh, right, I forgot that he really is that fucking good.” Anyway, I have noticed his increasing popularity in North America lately – not because I live in North America and hear people talk about him (until last night, that is), but just because he’s been visiting the States and doing projects there, and I see Americans talk about him on the internet, even Americans who don’t seem to be very into Britcom generally. I’ve wondered before if he’s setting up a track to “break America” so hard that he ends up living there at some point.

As sad as it would be to think of British comedy without James Acaster in it, I’ve decided that needs to happen. He needs to fully break America, move there like Gervais if necessary, just to make “Carr or Gervais” no longer people’s first answer when asked who’s the face of British comedy to a North American audience.

Anyway, I’ve sent my brother the Rhod Gilbert DVDs, and if he doesn’t like that then I guess there’s no selling him on Britcom, but also no respecting his tastes in anything ever again.

[blazehedgehog]

re: "this mf sounds like…" i get all sorts of mean youtube comments about my voice too. I got one that was like "this guy sounds like how south park thinks canadians sound".

Honestly though it's all pretty toothless and it doesn't bother me so much as I wish they'd stop calling me "this guy" and instead say "you sound like the canadians from south park". 'cause i do read and respond to comments lol (or did before my hiatus anyway). some people just aren't used to interacting with smaller solo creators I suppose.

I mean a lot of people have a lot of situations they get raised in. More than just dealing with smaller solo creators, some people just have different standards for social interactions entirely. Some people just have punchy personalities.

And with my upbringing, I was sometimes around people who were well-versed in the "friendly jab," right? Dunks being a sign of love or respect or whatever. And I remember specific scenarios when I was a very young child where that would make me cry because I thought they hated me. That was just their weird way of showing affection.

And you can say it's toxic or whatever, and maybe it is, but when it's practically baked in to their souls, what are you gonna do about it? Ask them to reconfigure their entire personality for you? There's a lot of reasons that wouldn't work. And, at least when it comes to family, you sort of get used to it. You learn where the lines are. When it comes from certain aunts or cousins you develop a way to tolerate it, I guess.

That can create a quagmire of not knowing what to do with which people when they say certain things, but people come in all different shapes, sizes, and flavors. A lot of the time this stuff isn't said as an insult, just an innocent, childlike observation, and it's not worth time or energy devoted to figuring it out. Saying anything could start an argument neither side wants to be a part of, or at worst, I could end up making them feel bad about something that wasn't malicious or even really harmful.

Would my life be better if they didn't say it? Sure, I guess. But my life would be better from a lot of things I can't control. No reason to die on this particular hill. People are allowed to think things of me that I don't necessarily approve of, and shouldn't necessarily feel self-conscious of the fact they are unintentionally saying them directly to my face.

Humankind is everybody saying all kinds of weird stuff when they don't think anybody is paying attention to them. I only break that unspoken trust if it's either funny for me or if they truly go too far.

[fuckyeahelijahwoodfan]

Elijah Wood Thinks You’re Right Not to Trust Walter

By James Grebey

It would be reductive to break Elijah Wood’s vast filmography down into just two different types of roles, but he does frequently find himself playing either an innocent — an impossibly bright-eyed and good soul like Frodo Baggins or any number of his childhood roles — or, well, a weird little freak. Wood agrees that Walter, his character in season two of Yellowjackets, is of the latter category, though the self-proclaimed citizen detective who finds himself investigating a mystery alongside Christina Ricci’s Misty has a certain … odd sense of innocence to him as well.

Walter made his proper debut in last week’s episode of Yellowjackets when the man better known as PuttingTheSickInForensics dropped by Misty’s place of work and offered to help solve the mystery of Natalie’s disappearance. (Never mind that Walter also — correctly — suspects there was something more to Adam Martin’s disappearance despite Misty’s attempts to get him to stop snooping into the murder that she helped cover up.) In episode three, Walter and Misty meet on a boat to interrogate the dim-witted Randy Walsh about what he knows, with Misty feeding Walter questions and Walter pretending to be an FBI agent who slaps the ever-living shit out of Randy. (“It was a camera angle and swiping a hand across the face in the right way to make it look real,” Wood clarifies. “I didn’t hit him.”)

Walter is something of a wild card, seemingly unrelated to whatever force the survivors might not have left behind in the Canadian wilderness, who disrupts Misty’s present-day existence. Yellowjackets’s creators, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, reached out to Wood for the role, which the actor says was “unprecedented” for him because he already loved Yellowjackets and Ricci’s work as Misty. “I’ve never seen a season of a show as a viewer and as a fan and then subsequently been asked to participate in a follow-up season,” he says, explaining that he was all-in on the idea of “this eccentric oddball called Walter.”

What has it been like joining the Yellowjackets cast when you’re playing an outsider who is decidedly not a Yellowjacket?

So much of the storytelling in Yellowjackets is the young cast in the past and what happened to them in the forest and how that past trauma informs the characters as adults. Walter doesn’t have any of that. I got to come into this as a completely stand-alone character that has an adjacent interest that sort of feeds into Misty’s journey but doesn’t have the narrative weight or the darkness of what everyone else has experienced. So much of what I got to do with Christina was almost comic relief. It’s this kind of funny investigation story that ultimately dovetails into the true heart of the narrative of the show but initially is kind of on the side. Walter doesn’t have to bear a lot of that weight, at least initially.

Were you familiar at all with citizen detectives before this? There’s a certain unease about whether they’re trying to actually solve crimes and bring bad guys to justice or just amateurs getting their rocks off with no accountability. What’s Walter’s motivation?

I think both are true: It’s people who truly want to help, maybe, but it’s probably more the thrill of being involved in something and feeling like they’re participating in a larger narrative, fed by a community of similarly like-minded individuals. That’s very true of Walter. My feeling is that Walter probably does not have a lot of field experience, that, heretofore, a lot of what Walter has experienced in the world of the citizen detective is to just contribute ideas to cases. There’s a lot of fun to be had there, but it’s low-level investigative work that gets fed back into this Reddit thread. But with this, Misty presents him with a real opportunity to get out there.

Do you have an idea of who the Yellowjackets survivors are to the general public? Are they thought of as celebrities, and, if so, does Walter have any specific reverence for Misty’s past outside of her citizen-detective work?

It does come up. He makes it very clear that he’s not interested in her for that reason, but it’s baked into the narrative that everyone is aware of these women and what has happened to them. There’s no way he’s not fascinated about the past. In the world of Yellowjackets, that would be a part of pop culture that everybody would know about. Even if it’s not the driving force behind his motivation, there has to be some thrill about being associated with a person who had mysterious things happen to her in the past. It doesn’t really factor into a lot of what they experience on this journey together. But as a background element, it’s undeniable.

Toward the end of episode three, Walter says maybe he’s “a bored Moriarty looking for his Sherlock.” Are we supposed to think of him as a villain, like Sherlock’s most infamous foe?

There are obviously narrative hints that are dropped: She listens to bird songs to fall asleep; he listens to cat noises. There’s all sorts of funny little hints that they could be adversaries. But I don’t believe that’s the motivating factor. It certainly isn’t present — yet — in their relationship. Over the course of the season, that might change.

Look, I’ll say this: We’re not entirely sure of who Walter really is. Both Walter and Misty present a version of who they are to the world who is not entirely their true self or their whole self. Walter presents a version of who he is, but there are still so many things that, over the course of their journey together, start to be revealed. I don’t even know that I’ve learned everything about the character yet. We can rightfully feel a degree of un-trustiness toward him because he’s giving us enough reason to not fully believe his motivation and where he’s coming from. But there’s a version of him that is also true, which is that he’s this dude who came across a fair amount of money, so he doesn’t need to work and can just dive into his passion, which is true crime. I think there is a version of him that is that simple, but there might be something underneath all of that as well.

Even not knowing yet if there’s more to Walter than meets the eye, is it possible he’s in over his head now that he’s with Misty?

He has spent all of his time on the citizen-detective message board, and this opportunity that she has given him is the first to get out into the field and flex what he feels are his skills and everything he’s maybe read about. I don’t know that he’s as savvy on the field as he would like to think he is. What we will see over the course of the season is him kind of jumping headfirst into something that is a lot bigger than him and goes beyond his skill set, maybe, at least in practice. But we will definitely see him do these things for the first time.

You’d worked with Christina Ricci before, on The Ice Storm, which, despite having “a character dying in the snow” in common with Yellowjackets, is pretty different in tone. What was that reunion like? We hadn’t worked together since we were teenagers. There was a lot of life in between. But it was great. It was joyful. She is so excellent. She is like a finely tuned instrument of an actress. I really admired what she crafted with Misty in the first season. And, I mean, we’ve both been doing this for a really long time. She also started very young. I think there’s a connection just because we’ve both been doing this for a long time. We certainly have worked together, but also there was just a comfort and ease to it.

With that sense of comfort and ease, was any of the interrogation improvised?

That was all scripted, and it was wild, too, because her part of it, in the bathroom at the bottom of the boat, that initially was supposed to be shot at a separate location. We were going to do all of my stuff, then all of her stuff, with me coming into the bathroom on a separate day. But for time considerations — and also just because the location with the boat worked — we decided to do it all at once. She was in the bathroom, and I had an earpiece in, and she was telling me what to do as I was doing it. So we were playing it almost like a play. It was happening in real time. Everything she was saying in my ear, I could hear it and repeat it and she could hear me. It was so fun and so thrilling. There was no real time for improvisation because we had a lot of material to get through in a short amount of time, but it felt improvised because there was a sort of electricity because of the fact that it was all really happening in real time.

Walter’s cargo shorts are a great character detail. Were there lots of costume options? Did you have to try on a lot of pairs before finding the perfect cargo shorts?

Amy Parris, our costume designer, brought so many wonderful ideas to the table, and it was very easy to identify Walter pretty fast. We were looking for semi-eccentric pieces of clothing that would allow a read on who he was, without it being too extreme but weird enough to make you go, Who the fuck is this guy? [Laughs.] Just slightly heightened or slightly odd. A lot of it was that he’s wearing these sorts of outdoorsy, functional clothes that aren’t cool and aren’t quite being worn as fashion. That was the big guiding principle.

The cargo shorts came about very early — they were baked into the script, actually. When you first see Walter, when he’s walking through the convalescent home that she works at, it’s in the script that she sees his legs. So shorts became a part of his vibe early on.

Between The Lord of the Rings and Over the Garden Wall, you certainly have experience being lost in the woods. Was it at all odd to join a show about being stranded in the wilderness and have your character not be out in the brush?

Those particular elements didn’t occur to me until you just mentioned it, but yeah, you’re right. [Laughs.] But no — I wasn’t really thinking about it in that context. For me, I was just drawn to the fact that I got to play this character who gets to sort of explore this world that had been previously created but who doesn’t have the narrative weight of dealing with the past in the way that all the other characters had to deal with it. Obviously, it all comes to a head toward the end of the season, but the joy for me about this was that I got to play a character who was adjacent to the primary narrative but didn’t really need to engage with the past in that way. This character is kind of his own thing and not at all informed by what happened in the woods.

While we’re on the subject, do you have any feelings about Warner Bros. plans for a possible Lord of the Rings remake? 

I’ve done a little bit of digging, and no one knows what it’s going to be. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens are being consulted. There’s no plan yet for what the stories will be and what the narrative will be, and there are no filmmakers attached, and there are no scripts. So it’s the earliest, earliest stages. But my understanding is that nobody is making any moves to remake The Lord of the Rings but rather continue telling stories within Middle-earth, of which there are many stories to mine. I don’t think they’re going to remake Lord of the Rings. If that news were true, I feel like all of us would know about it and there would be a lot of strong feelings.

Is there anything more about Walter you want to tease?

His love of musicals may be meaningful. That’s about all I can say about that. But there’s a tease there.

[bambi-kinos]

do you hate it? weird joke to make

Mmm...ramblings ahead.

I don't "hate" it per se. I don't want it bleached off ao3 or anything. If people want to read it then whatever I guess, there's a whole novel about a Canadian woman who fucks a bear so it's not like there isn't precedent. I was on tumblr when it became a thing, I e-dated someone who was on the first wave of omegaverse fanfiction after the initial Supernatural kinkmeme post. Quite literally there when the deep magic was written. I saw it all happen and kick off, I thought it was a hoot at the time.

What annoys me about it is that it's invaded fandom in general. As usual fandom will say one thing "don't push sexual content on people without their consent" and then do another, which is putting omegaverse shit on your dash without asking. Tumblr Savior doesn't work on mobile either so there's no filtering it. It reminds me of how choking has become a pervasive porn thing that has invaded real life, if you don't want to be choked during sex then you get a lot of shitty attitude, and if you don't want to see omega garbage on your dash then you can also get shitty attitude. I was in a persona 5 server where a moderator put a user in a timeout chair for posting it outside the designated channel (there was a special channel for triggering sex stuff) and it resulted in an internet brawl. (Whatever you can imagine insert it here, the details aren't important. Everyone felt oppressed and was arguing over who was more oppressed.) It was very tedious to sit through and it all stemmed from the fact that people just push this stuff on you and get mad when you say "I don't want to see this."

I actually didn't used to have a firm opinion on this stuff UNTIL it started invading fandom spaces. I was once called "queerphobic and a bad feminist ally" for pointing out that omegaverse stuff was very disturbing for many people and should come with tags and warnings attached. They shut up fast when I replied I was bisexual but yeah.... I think it radicalized me in a way lmao. It's an attitude that's been there since the beginning, there have been entire essays written about how getting railed by a dog dick is the most feminist and gender affirming shit ever. But there are internet users who genuinely believe they are fighting for gay rights by writing/reading omegaverse and that's blatantly not the case. It feels like stolen valor, there's real gay oppression happening in the world and then there's first worlders who think it's "queerphobic" to not eroticize anal leakage and dog dicks? Come on. So that's something I dislike intensely these days. 10 years ago when it first popped off I just wrote it off as something I could ignore. And then fandom made it something that is impossible to ignore.

And for the record, yes, I do know most enthusiasts aren't like this. My own partner is into it and we just don't bring it up, been together for almost 4 years now, etc.

What I don't like (not even hate, just dislike) is how pervasive it is and it's just assumed that everyone loves it and that it's okay to push it everywhere into everything. I catalog books for a living and there are romance novels now where omegaverse is the theme and I'm like "jesus christ" lmao, content where the Assigned Bottom at Birth defecates to show his affection for the Assigned Top at Birth is now mainstream, I have to see it irl too. There's no escaping it. That upset me a lot unironically, I found it incredibly threatening that dog dicks is what's associated with "queer activism" in the real world. The authors that write this stuff are often the kind of people who are convinced they're tragic heroes fighting the good fight, it's awful.

Though interestingly when I mentioned it to friends who read it, they unanimously agreed that they wished it hadn't made the jump to irl. The lawsuit thing seems to have really embarrassed everybody. There's a big divide between the authors who have mainstreamed it and users who read it where not-pushy users desperately don't want a spotlight but the self pub authors are convinced that they are activists. It's interesting, I could probably write a whole essay examining the divide.

Overall I wish I could go back to when it was easy to ignore and super missable but that isn't the world we live in anymore, so if people are going to push this content everywhere I'm going to make some jokes at the expense of them. I think everyone can live with that.

[ideal-girl]

Rhe Links are like this because I accidentally deleted this several times over and I got tired of linking them correctly. 

Now about the topics of retributive and restorative Justice. Well more like, more EXACTLY rambling.

On the original (I guess the now private) post, I believe you mentioned your disdain for someone suggesting that Israel should face restorative Justice instead of retributive Justice. Instead of leaving the response there, I decided to make a separate one because that post was too long and I’m mixed about retributive Justice in by itself and I rather Israel not be the focus on this post.

Now I think I can get why “Retributive Justice” is a favored concept. I mean for the past years there’s been a surge of politicians who’s trying to make life a living hell for LGBT people; such as forbidding talk in school about sexual orientation, trying to ban drag shows, even trying to get To Kill a Mockingbird banned from libraries, and making stupid “educational videos” where they basically say “Slavery wasn’t a terrible thing kids!” So of course it would be hugely entertaining so watch those kind of people get their just desserts.

The problem is that “retributive Justice” can very easily be a pipeline into some either misaimed, toxic, or even wicked beliefs. For starters well basically it’s punishment. And punishment can in many instances, be equivalent to suffering. And it’s believed in society that suffering is a good thing, that one could only be greater better through suffering, that it teaches one how to be a good person. Which is not always true.

I’ve seen this already with fictional characters, as more than a handful of people believe that Catra and Azula, both victims of abuse since childhood, should have suffered more than they already had by their respective series, despite the fact that Catra’s whole arc was that she kept putting herself in a cycle of self-punishment and suffering due to her bad actions and the latter gets locked up in a mental institution by the end. Not to mention wishing they could have suffered more contradicts some of the themes in those shows. I’ve seen a “funny” RWBY fan skit where the villain Adam Taurus gets one of his eyes branded using the logo of a mining factory company in what was supposed to be a “badass” moment. The same mining company which forced him to slavery since childhood and already branded one of his eyes, which is implied to be a strong reason why he ended up a terrible person.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/jkzgxe/some_thoughts_on_catras_redemption_for_the_all/

It’s something that affects real life. There’s this weird incident that’s not really about punishment but it is about suffering sorta. Sydney Sweeney recounted working a brief stint as a tour guide for that tram ride in Universal Studios Hollywood to make ends meet for her struggling family as they were poor and some weird entitled Tiktoker tried to claim she was lying because apparently becoming a Universal tour guide was this “notoriously difficult” position that “not everybody could get into”, and apparently a bandwagon of people hopped up trying to say that she actually had a cushy life as if struggling and suffering is the key to being a good person.

ever heard of Jasmine Richardson? She’s a Canadian killer who murdered her own parents and younger brother along with a boyfriend accomplice. She was incarcerated for 10 years, and then afterward once she served her time, the legal system cleared her criminal history and she walks free now. By all means, this sounds like a real life pure evil character and a misjudgment… except if you know that Jasmine was 12 years old when she did this. And the boyfriend character was a 23 year old man. Medical professionals confirmed that she did appear to be truly rehabilitated upon her release. The comments don’t care, they say that this person who was a manipulated child groomed by a older man is a utter monster who does not deserve a chance and should instead be locked up for life in prison or at least publicly shamed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2hfMn2maU8o&pp=ygUSSmFzbWluZSByaWNoYXJkc29u

Speaking of prisons actually, have you ever heard about the prison system in Norway? Originally they built prisons similar to that of the US however due to the fact that prisoners released kept recommitting crimes two years of their release Norway decided to take a new approach. They focused on “Restorative Justice”, treating their prisoners (even the crueler ones) like ordinary people with more humane conditions to make it so they can reintegrate into society easier, some have even got a better chance of getting employed afterwards. It seems to be working pretty well for them, as their recidivism rate is one of the lowest in the world. Compare that to the more “retributive” US prison system where often prisoners are treated subhuman and it’s nigh impossible for anyone to hire them afterwards, and of course the high recidivism. And the US may not be the worst in that regards! What do you think about the Norway prison system?

https://ultranos.tumblr.com/post/645435392662929408/sits-down-and-brews-chrysanthemum-tea-atla

Here’s a choice quote from this blog post that got me thinking: “This has told me that the very basis of the US justice system is flawed. That people are focused on the “retribution” part of retributive justice, they’re focused on vengeance. Not mercy. Not the humanity of the victim and perpetrator.”

Another post I’ve recently found that got me thinking is this which points out that the thing is, people like Qanon, racists, anti-abortionists, corrupt governments like America, Israel and North Korea do believe that they are the good guys and that their acts of violence or whatever are their form of Justice. Sure those are more obviously evil motives, but the fact is those still function on the same motive on “retribution” which can turn into a pipeline to more reckless thoughts.

(I was toying with the idea of doing a Mandy story with this theme; but the problem is that it would be a big Author tract and I usually design the stories to be open to interpretation so I don’t know if I should send it)

There’s this great story of the George Perez Wonder Woman comic series that dealt with this matter, better than a mediocre episode of Justice League which tried to deal with a similar theme. The story was that there was this island much like Themyscira, except that its inhabitants came to be through a violent revolution where most of the men died. Despite banning men from coming to the island, the argonaut Jason and his crew came into the island, seducing the women which resulted in many offspring. However Jason and the crew abandoned them, and the islanders took ”justice” by slaughtering all the remaining men (mostly infants) including the Queen’s own father and son and banishing her and her daughter. In the end, it was revealed that because it was a ”paradise” brought by prejudice and violence, and with no one left to fight now that all the men were dead, the women turned their anger towards and slaughtered each other, the society collapsed. Maybe you can use it as an allegory for something in real life, IDK. But the Themyscira shown in that same series as ruled by Hippolyta and Diana did not suffer from this problem as they chose a more peaceful approach (in fact, any instances of writers portraying a more flawed version of Wonder Woman’s homeworld usually go use Amazon stereotypes, and those tend to be poorly written)

https://unbidden-yidden.tumblr.com/post/733640314679689216/there-are-two-related-things-ive-noticed-coming

[revenge-of-the-shit]

Writing Chinese characters set within Western worlds

If you don’t want to read it on tumblr, go check this out on medium or go follow me on instagram at @annessarose_writes!

Alright. You know what. I’ve seen plenty of stereotypes in fiction (and in social media) that are so incredibly pervasive I’ve seen many Chinese people within the western world internalize it themselves. So here’s a rough guide on writing Chinese characters in an English-speaking Western setting, written by me, a Chinese Canadian woman.

If you’re here to say something racist fuck off. Otherwise, welcome! This is not a comprehensive guide by any means. This is merely a brief overview based on my own experiences. My experience (as someone in North America) will differ from someone living in, say, Europe or South America. I’m not representative of every Chinese person because everyone’s experience is unique. So here were are.

1. Our names

Chinese names are usually written as follows: [family name] [name]. Let’s take a Canadian historical figure as an example: 黃寬先. In Chinese, it’s pronounced “Wong Foon Sien.” On Canadian documents — which are written [First name] [Last name], he’d be called “Foon Sien Wong.” He went by “Foon Sien” for most of his life. That’s his full “first name.” Nobody would call him Foon because that’s just half of his name (unless given permission). It’d be like meeting a stranger called Alex and calling them “Al” right off the bat. Sure, they could go by Al, but you don’t know that.

For those of us living in the Western world, some of us have both a Chinese name and an English name. In these cases, our Chinese name becomes our middle name in English (e.g. a character could be called John Heen-Gwong Lee).

For some people who immigrated to the Western world but were born in China, their legal name would be their Chinese name. Some choose to keep that name. Some choose an English name as their “preferred” name but keep their Chinese name on legal documents. It varies.

2. Parents & Stereotypes

There’s two stereotypes which are so pervasive I see it being used over and over in jokes even within Chinese (and, to a larger extent, asian) communities:

The [abusive] tiger mom and the meek/absent dad

Both parents are unreasonably strict/abusive and they suck

I have yet to see any fiction stories with Chinese parents where they’re depicted as kind/loving/supportive/understanding (if you have recommendations — please do send them my way). Not all Chinese parents are tiger parents. Chinese parents — like all parents — are human. Good god. YES, they’re human! YES, they have flaws! YES, they are influenced by the culture they grew up in!

That isn’t to say there aren’t parents like those tropes. There are. I know this because I grew up in a predominantly Chinese community where I had many a friend’s parent who was like this. Parents who compare their kids to the best kid in class. Parents who force kids into private lessons and competitions that the kid despises because the parents think it’s for the best. Parents who have literally called their kid a disappointment because they didn’t get 100%.

But please, also consider: there’s parents who support their child’s goals and who listen. Not all parents force their kid into the stereotypical trifecta of lawyer/doctor/engineer — I know of a good number who support their child in choosing the path they want. There’s parents who make mistakes and learn and try their best to support their child. So please, for the love of god, if you write a Chinese character, don’t reduce their parents to stereotypes.

3. Language & Learning

When I first read The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, I was so excited to see a Chinese Canadian character in Frank Zhang. Finally, there was someone like me. Finally, there was representation in well-known western media.

While I do appreciate that RR added in Frank Zhang, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t really know how to write a Chinese Canadian character. One of the most glaring examples: in The Son of Neptune, Frank reveals he can’t really read Chinese. In like, the next book (I think — it’s been a while since I read it), Frank is suddenly able to read Chinese because he “learned” it in two week’s time.

Nope. Nuh-uh. Learning Chinese is a pain, let me tell you. There’s thousands of different characters and it is something you need to devote a lot of time to learning (especially if you’re progressed past the best childhood years for learning a language). So if you’re writing about a Chinese character living in the western world, here’s what you need to know:

A character who was born and raised in the western world does not necessarily know how to read/write in Chinese.

If they were raised by their own family, the character would very likely know how to speak their own dialect. They’d be able to understand the language used in movies/TV and they sound like a native speaker, but they may not know how to use language outside of certain contexts (the term for this is heritage speaker).

They probably went to Chinese school. They probably hated it. Chinese school is usually universally hated and does not teach you jack shit other than a hatred for the place and a vague memory of learning how to read the language without actually retaining knowledge of what you learned.

Most of my friends who know how to read/write in Chinese learned from tutors, parents, or were born in China.

There’s two main types of written Chinese: Traditional (used by Cantonese speakers) and Simplified (used by Mandarin speakers).

There are MANY other dialects (which I don’t know much about). The most common ones are Mandarin (usually spoken by people from the mainland), then Cantonese (usually spoken by people from Hong Kong).

4. Fitting into the community

Usually, the story is one of two things: they’re the only Asian kid in the entire school, or they grew up in a predominantly East Asian community. Things to consider for both of these when you’re writing:

Growing up the only Asian kid

They’re “that Asian kid.” They’re different. They walk into a class and feel weird and out of place.

They bring food from home (usually ethnic cuisine) to school. Other classmates stare at it, make fun of it, demand what that strange food is.

“Where are you from?” “Here.” “No, like, where are you really from?”

“Your name is funny.”

People literally never getting the character’s name right.

And that horrible, horrible feeling: wishing that they were white so they could avoid all of this.

Growing up in a predominantly East Asian community

It’s not uncommon for Chinese cuisine to mix with other east Asian cuisines. For special occasions (or just for a casual night out), your character could very well go out to get some sushi, or go for some KBBQ, or get some Vietnamese noodles.

Screaming “AIYAA” at/with their friends unironically if they’re annoyed (I’ve done this a lot with Cantonese friends. Less so with Mandarin friends).

Slipping into Chinese for like, two words, during a mostly-English conversation to talk about food or some other topic that can’t be adequately conveyed in English.

Reading books by white authors and learning about white history and growing up thinking white names, white books, and white history is the norm and standard even though the community is surrounded by East Asian people.

When the character leaves this community, there’s a brief culture shock when they realize how sheltered they’ve been.

Things in common for both of these:

The character has grown up on ethnic cuisine. Yes, Chinese people do eat rice with many of our meals. Yes, boba (bubble) tea is extremely popular. No, rice isn’t the only thing we eat. No, not all Chinese people love boba (though as a Chinese person I admit this sounds sacrilegious to say…)

The character likely grew up watching film/TVthat originates from East Asia. It’s not uncommon to watch Studio Ghibli films. It’s not uncommon to watch Japanese or Korean shows with canto/mando dub (examples: Ultraman, Kamen Rider). If you want to see a classic Chinese film from Hong Kong that’s fucking hilarious, watch Kung Fu Hustle.

The character has felt or been told that they’re “too westernized to be Chinese, but too Chinese to fit into the western world.” They’re torn between the two.

5. General portrayal

It’s quite simple, really. We’re human. We’re regular people. We have regular hobbies like all people do. We’re good at some subjects and bad at others. We have likes and dislikes like all people do. So here’s a list of stereotypes you can avoid.

STEREOTYPES TO AVOID BECAUSE WE’RE REGULAR HUMANS AND WE DON’T FIT INTO A SINGLE COOKIE CUTTER SHAPE, DAMMIT.

The character is a maths whiz and perfect at all things STEM.

The character is a straight-A+ gifted/IB/AP student.

The character is the next coming of Mozart and is amazing at piano/violin.

The character’s free time is spent only studying.

The character is insanely good at martial arts.

The character is either meek and submissive or an explosive, dangerous force.

I’m not going to mention the other stereotypes. You know, those ones. The really obvious ones that make fun of and demonize (sometimes through multiple untruths) how we look and how we live our lives. You should know.

Of course, there are people who fit into one or more of these. That’s not the point. The point is: molding all Chinese characters to these stereotypes (which white media tends to do) is harmful and reductionist. We’re more than stereotypes.

—

6. Conclusion

We need more diversity in portrayal of Chinese characters. Reducing us into one-dimensional caricatures has done nothing but harm us — look at what’s happening now. This guide is by no means comprehensive, but I hope it has helped you by providing a quick overview.

If you want to accurately portray Chinese characters, do your research. Read Chinese fiction. Watch Chinese films/TV. Initiate a conversation with the community. Portray us accurately. Quit turning us into caricatures.

[cooloddball]

I woke up to see a lot of people saying that they no longer believe in cockles because of the Gish zoom reunion and a very long ask on the same. I was skeptical to watch it at first but some very nice people @green-blue-heller and @thegandy told me it was an amazing panel. Well, ladies, the peer pressure worked and I watched it. I have to say, that panel was the most adorable zoom panel they've had together. It was 20 minutes of pure joy and serotonin boost on my pant. So thank you.

Now back to the panel. I watched this video from the official Gish YouTube account so that's what I'll be referring to. I don't know if there are any other videos but well, let's go.

Let me be honest, waiting for the ceremony to begin, I was nervous. These two are total chaos together so I was already suffering from second-hand embarrassment way before it began.

Jensen being an old man who doesn’t understand technology will never not be funny to me because this guy has been in Hollywood since he was 18 and you would think he would know how to operate a camera.

What’s happening with your face, ‘I can’t.” who taught you that lingo, Jensen? It’s very hip.

Misha pretending not to know that he had that filter on, yeah sure Jan.

Jensen’s excitement when he saw Misha’s face. Can someone please look at me like that? I mean I don’t have big beautiful blue eyes like Misha but still—c’mon.

Is it just me or was it more like they were flirting while talking about the whole "how’s filming going?"

Mish saying, “Early on you were worried that you gonna have to act professional.” Is it just me or does this sound like pillow talk?

They look so happy to be together again even if it's not in person.

Misha knows Jensen won’t go back to the States until June. How do you know Misha?

Misha calling Jensen Buddy?Man?Dude? Is it just me or is Misha trying way too hard to call Jensen all the dude-bro names that he can come up with?

The look Jensen has on his face when talking about JJ’s birthday

Jensen is so handsome.

Why was the conversation about Jensen technically being a Canadian so funny? is it an inside joke that we missed or? Misha is literally just saying that Jensen is technically a Canadian having lived there for almost 20 years.

Their conversation flows very naturally. It’s not forced or anything.

Jensen hulking out. Yum. I'm looking respectively, please.

"It's like hat head on your face."

The hat head comment is followed by Misha saying, "jensen, I miss you so much, man"

And Jensen saying, "you too brother" then immediately segues to talking about texting Jared and how they all can’t all wait to be together. Not weird at all. Also, is it just me or does Misha look kinda ‘not happy about that? Not in a bad way but maybe he wanted Jensen to say he misses him too?

Misha knows Jensen stoic about showing emotion. Yeah, they know each other well. Misha calling out Jensen for not showing emotion- performing masculinity and Jensen agreeing.

The silent disco moment was lit.

Are they moving closer to the camera?

Also, Misha showing a sliver of skin. Yes show your man your titties on main Misha why don’t you?

Also, Jensen pretending not to know who Jewel is when they clearly know each other. He was even and has even been on her show with Dee. See, this is how he acts. This is to all the people who say he and Misha are not friends because he doesn't know anything about his organizations. That's just how he is. He likes playing coy and grumpy.

Why did Misha specifically ask if his [Jensen's] family was still Colorado?

In regard to Jewel? He could’ve just said “she’s from Colorado too” It’s either,

he wanted people to know where Jensen’s family was which doesn’t make sense, or

he wanted us to know that he didn’t know where they are which is also weird like guys you don't have to try so hard to prove you don't know each other's whereabouts.

They are so in sync even on a zoom call. What do they say about old habits? Keep moving closer why don't you?

That hand sign Jensen did. Did Misha teach him that? Misha does that sign a lot.

Beard grooming regimen. Yes, Jensen come through for the beard growers. Thank you Misha for that question btw.

When Charlie said Jensen uses a horse brush on his beard.

Misha is so cute guys. Wtf? Also his eyes. Misha’s nose crinkles when he laughs and Jensen’s eye crinkles when he laughs.

Jensen talking about his beard was freaking hilarious.

When Misha is showing his greys Jensen keeps moving closer to the screen as if he will see better or touch it the closer he gets to the screen.

"See this is what happens when I don't see you for the better part of the year." So it means you have seen him between May last year and May this year, right? Tell us more.

What does for the better part of a year mean?

It means more than half. The better part of a year could be used to describe a period of seven to eleven months. It's typically used to give emphasis to how long something took. Like many idioms (keep an eye on something, face me, smell a rat) it isn't literal.

Misha saying he’s going grey because he is incredibly stressed out for not seeing Jensen for a while. That laugh and the awkward pause after Misha said that. And Jensen agreeing

Misha, you know about the album. This is just marketing for your husband’s album. We saw you liked that post of the album post so don't play coy now.

Jensen asking Misha where he is? Okay, hear me out. This is weird because when they organized the zoom, they had to talk about Time zones, right? So, why wouldn’t he know where Misha is?- performing masculinity, again.

Jensen camped in Ojai and calls it a special place. Reminds me of how they talked about the Vatican being magical when a priest conducted a mass for just the two of them under the Lucifer and Micahel mural.

Misha wants to go to Marfa really badly. Did your husband share those gorgeous photos with you? Jensen please put them up. We wanna see. And take your husband to Marfa once you are back home.

Love you, my friend. Misha finally said he loves him back, live on video.

Wait, Misha is trying to end the conversation but Jensen keeps on interrupting so he can linger on. Hmm..

I swear Jensen said okay babe. The way his lips moved to form the /b/ sound. He said it people.

Jensen stop lingering.

Why did Jensen say he’s going to sit on the couch for the rest of the day? Did he want Misha to tell him to join them for the hunt?

Misha is texting Jensen right? Because his whole demeanor changed when Jensen left and got this serious look on his face. You can clearly see it's like he received a text right after Jensen logged off and he had to respond.

Charlie is so cute.

Overall, I think this panel was sweet and flirty, and fun. Jensen calling Misha brother had the same effect as Misha calling him man/dude/my friend. Did people expect Jensen to call him sweetheart throughout the panel when clearly this was an event that people who are not even in the spn fandom are watching from all over the world? C'mon. But in the end, he called him babe so there's that.

I'm also happy that they didn't talk about the show because it shows their friendship is more than just about that shit show (affectionate) that was spn.