#also you can like media made by bad ppl and like. separate the two.

[garden-of-seraphim]

fuck it im gonna be brave and share some of my secret blorbos. i (unfortunately) have fallen victim to h*zbin h*tel (censored so it won't show up in searches and shit) (also thats partly a lie i liked the pilot when it first came out then promptly forgot about its existence) and have like 10 goddamn f/os from it

now. to be clear. i do *not* support or like v*vziepop (censored again for the same reason). idk all the details but ive heard a handful of loose things and i want it to be known that i don't like *her*, just the shows she's made. i am capable of being critical of the art i consume, god knows HH isn't the only rough media im a fan of (rough both in terms of the show itself and of the creator(s)), so it's not like im ignoring the flaws of this show. im just a sucker for a lot of the tropes and a majority of the cast for this show and also the music fucks hard.

it's not like this show is much different from or worse than other kinda shitty media ive f/o'd from, but due to its current popularity its gotten a lot more hate than. like. r*d dw*rf or 3 bl*nd sa*nts (censored part 3 same reasons sorry) (also if you know those things holy shit hi).

anyways. yeah. not gonna be upset if anyone unfollows over this i get it i have media id do the same over. just like. don't be a dick and send me hate over it or accuse me of shit, it's a dumb but interesting show, there's not anything more to this. the only tag i have for any of my f/os from this show so far is ×deerly beloved so if you wanna avoid me talking abt or thinking abt this show that's the tag to block.

[sabrondabrainrot]

I forget I can just ramble and rant my thoughts!

I try to focus on sharing just my art but I also do writing and try to have a bit of a critical mind when it comes to media I consume.

Now that it has been a few months since I watched all of TMNT 12 I do have some thoughts and opinions and kind of want to just ramble about it before I forget, in an informal manner.

I at first really liked it, it was the second TMNT show I watched after Rise, now that I've been watching the 87 and 03 shows my opinions on 12 did change just a bit but I still do like it!

Literally all the turtles are my son's now. Especially Leonardo (he's blue coded so-). I just think they're so cute and neat!!!

I'm going to put thoughts to spoiler stuff of 12 so if you plan to watch the show then don't click beyond this point!

🐢💙🐢♥️🐢🧡🐢💜

So in the last season of TMNT 12 it kind of feels like all the scrapped ideas or random plots that couldn't be fit into the prior seasons were put in this one? I really like the new op it gives of Cowboy Bebop vibes. The op song change is really nice to because I never really looked the tmnt 12 op song before.

However, the plots feel all over the place? There's a mini ark where they're jumping through time meeting Halloween monsters and then another ark where Mikey defeats Satan? Then we get another really tiring ark that's this implied alternate madmax fury road parody that is honestly so depressing? Donnie is just dead.

Which btw, the show likes killing ppl off for dramatic effect. They killed Master Splinter three times and had Mikey and Donnie get scattered to atoms on two separate occasions. I should also mention Leo was in a coma for 3 months with no IV or anything and he woke up relatively fine.

Anyways, going into the last season and stuff leading up to it... They kind of ended with the 87 turtles and the 12 boys finding new passion and inspiration from teaching the 87 boys. I didn't really vibe with it because it just made the 87s the butt of the joke and made them out to be incompetent silly little guys.

They ARE silly little guys but the thing is they're not incompetent. The 87 boys have done some insanely incredible things even when unarmed. Especially when unarmed. I actually think the angle of finding a new way to help people as a means to end the series on an inspired note is fine, the 87 boys even carried on the will and told Bebop and Rocksteady they can be more than Shredder's mutant henchmen. It is very cute and wholesome. I just think they could have maybe done it differently?

Why not set up for them to teach Chi arts? The turtles of 87 don't have any mystical abilities and it would have been interesting to do a set up like that? There are ways to write the finale without just dumping on the original source.

Focusing back on the ending of 12, we also leave on a seriously alarming note. It's just a big mixed bag. After Master Splinter went to run on the hamster wheel in the sky, Leonardo was handed the reigns of the family. He was told "You're the teacher now Leonardo. You're the father. Look after your brothers" and Splinter then willingly walked into his own death. I think the writers maybe thought this was amazing and inspirational or something but I found it incredibly messed up? We start tmnt 12 on all 4 boys birthday. Meaning Splinter himself considers them all to be the same age. And since the series was running they haven't on screen celebrated a birthday and from the implied weather changes most of the seasons 1-4 seem to take place over just a year??? We don't get a definitive timeline (or I'm a bad audience and didn't notice).

So one can only assume Master Splinter was telling his...15 year old son to be the father to his other 15 year old children.

Why do I bring this up at all? After Leonardo takes over the family and he KILLS shredder they go into this rushed cult demon resurrection arc that culminates in the classic dead walk the earth and Mikey defeats Satan. In this arc we meet a ghost splinter who does not even go to see his kids, he just helps Casey and April. But throughout and the lead up to this we have moments of Leo having conversations with what we can perceive as Sensei's ghost in the dojo.

But the climax of the arc cements splinters ghost has not once visited his son's.

So Leonardo is quite literally having full on conversations, in the dojo for his brothers to hear, with a hallucination of his dead dad. He's coping this way. His family does nothing about this.

Tmnt 2012 has the worst Splinter. He ignored his son's and chose favorites. He told Leonardo to die (season 1 finale). He calls Mikey dumb and insights the others to do it too. He told Raph his anger makes him exactly like Shredder and never elaborates or teaches him how to better work through his issues. And he straight up calls Donnie useless.

None of that is even an exaggeration. Adding context just makes it worse.

Here's a list:

Do you know the turtles are the equivalent of helicopter raised homeschool boys? They've never stepped foot outside of the lair except at the start of ep 1.

They learn ALL of their lessons from old shows and cartoons. The show writers even sometimes use the cartoons to set up the theme of the episodes!

When Leonardo rescues Mikey he pats him on the head to comfort him.

Literally almost all of their ninja weapons have hidden weapons. I love it I wish I saw more of them using them.

Michelangelo is the family chef because somehow none of the rest have any life skills. Not even Splinter (explains so much).

They all have such cute shape language. I love bean pole Donnie, blocky buff Raph, perfect pear Leo, and round freckled Mikey.

They also now have unique eye colors. I love their eyes. Donnie with his big beautiful brown eyes (sometimes they look red). Raph with his acid green stare into your soul eyes, they look like they would glow like mako eyes in ff7. Mikey with bright blue eyes all big and round. And then Leo with the cunning dark blue eyes!

I just want to pinch their cheeks and kiss their foreheads and give them hugs.

Also, Leo is so affectionate to kids and his brothers??? My heart??? Couldn't take it??? He just randomly hugs them?? He had a tea party??? He wore a pink feather boa? The way he just immediately held baby Miwa??? Too good. Too good. He's such a good big bro.

Raph is also such a soft guy. Like yes he's a Butthead that beats up his brothers and takes every single violent urge out on Leo when he's even minorly inconvenienced but he does learn to do better. He helps Leo a lot and he even is there for the others a lot too.

Raphael also does art and seems to like fine arts.

Raph, like Leo, is a resident baby man. He loved tiny helpless creatures. He had a pet turtle he loved with his entire being and then later on adopted a space alien baby turtle that he also loved with his entire being.

I love Donnie in this, his cute little tooth gap, his gentle demeanor, the fact he'd rather be in the lab than training. I feel bad for him tho cause he clearly wants Splinter and Leo's approval with his inventions and efforts but very rarely gets it (Leo is the only one to really praise him and get what he does). He's also a good team player but he has so much stress and no confidence.

Donnie needs a big ol hug.

Mikey is so cute. But he is so weird. Why did they write girly pop collecting underwear. Why did they have him cannibalize a mutant pizza man? They do the most random things with Mikey. I like that he avidly tries cheering ppl up. He tries so hard for his bros. He's just a sweet little guy. I wish they did more with the baby bro.

Mikey should have kept his lightning powers.

They fight a lot but all the brothers love each other. I think they're just stressed and cooped up too much.

I like drama tho it's juicy when they argue.

I read on the wiki that Donnie is supposed to be canon OCD and Mikey canon ADHD and it makes so much sense in the show.

I really like all their voices. I miss Leo's first voice he was so dorky and sweet. The new voice is all sad and serious. Raph sounds perfect. I like Donnie's voice but instead of him always yelling why not have him do the low angry science rant because that's a good time. I like Mikey's voice he sounds like a high pitched beast boy.

But despite the occasionally baffling writing choices of the show I still like it. It's entertaining in the same way as a telenovela or kdrama. They literally have a plot where one of the turtles falls in love with his secret half sister. Something I've seen in telenovelas and kdramas.

2012 tmnt makes a great dogblooded drama.

I think the CGI art can get pretty bad at times but other times it looks great. The music is pretty good and I really like the voice cast. I actually totally see why so many people like this show but I definitely don't think it's the best one. From what I've seen thus far, I think the 2003 TMNT show might actually be a masterpiece. Better than Avatar the Last Airbender levels of masterpiece (not a competition just giving an example of another show I find monumental).

That's it, that's the rant, thanks for reading!

Btw if any one has any good 12 fic recs pls hand them over. I need 12 hurt comfort, or fem Leo, or transfem Leo, or anything introspective, or just anything with a fun plot. Pls I'm dying here send fics.

Thank you :)

[joculatrixster]

Gingerbright's description says that she was baked "with leftover dough from making Gingerbrave" which kinda says that yeah, the two are related. I don't blame you if you didn't know about that as personally I didn't for a good while

they r not. let me explain.

Canonly they r NEVER stated to be family or see each other as such(arguments for found family aside) and in the valentines day event devs paired them??? in the picture i had in my og post it was clearly meant to be brave and bright but thats not the only reason i dont see them as family

their chart also doesnt say family, and while for some cookies it makes sense why in ovenbreak it would say that even when canon(Princess and Tigerlily separated at birth so not KNOWING they r related to eachother) Gingerbrave and Gingerbright have interacted w/ each other in MANY forms of cr media being the 2 main mascots even if bright is less so and they have never referred to each other as siblings(to my knowledge, if someone has proof of that ill change my mind). Hell they came out of the oven together and don't call each other siblings. Brave called Dozer his brother in Ovenbreak yet ha called Bright nothing but a trusted friend.

Actually, do you want to know what their charts do say? Bright's chart "My bravest friend! He's so brave!" FRIEND not brother. His? "Shes the brightest Cookie I know!" nothing saying thats his sister, if anything it is actually implying they r close friends again.

And while Brave has said to have a canon family member(Dozer) in the YEARS Bright has been around they never said she's his sister, being baked from the same dough i get why ppl would see them as related...but imo that doesnt make them related.

Littleray no other family member has been said to share dough??? for Alchemist and Vampire they r both grape based(grapes and wine), Almond and Walnut r both nuts, the Cherry Trio r all related to cherries, cherry blossoms, and candy cherries...none of whom r said to be baked form the same dough iirc??? its clearly ingredient based??? even mustard and wasabi r both condiments...and yet there r many cookies who share ingredients who r NOT related as well, like Latte, Affogato, and Espresso all being from the coffee tribe yet sharing no canon relationship or Bluelily and Lilybell who r from the same village sharing flowers as an ingredient yet being implied as a ship in canon...

Hey, did u know in the og korean txt of line(and possibly ovenbreak I havent checked) Devil uses Angel Cookie batter w/ added bat extract? while many hc the 2 r family its never canonly stated they r. Actually, in the comics, there were multiple Angel Cookies who all shared ingredients but didnt share relation.

Can i also use her whole description here? bc i think it says something u kinda didn't see...

"Maybe the Witch thought GingerBrave seemed lonely all by himself, cause she baked GingerBright with the leftover dough from making GingerBrave. Sweet and bubbly GingerBright is full of life. But this smart Cookie clearly knows that it would be a bad idea to offer her lollipop to GingerBrave."

...to me this doesnt imply the witch made him a sister, it implies the witch made him a trap. bc he was lonely she sent him a cookie similar to him to let his guard down but to me that seems to imply something like a friend sent(or lover...) but she resisted doing something which could have hurt him. Honestly i could just argue she only used the left over dough bc they were the first or last cookies if i wanted to bc the witch has been said to bake multiple cookies in batches together btw. Strawberry was baked in the same batch, for all we know she has some of the same dough as those 2 as well.

The fun thing about headcanons is we all have our own interpretations w/out telling others theirs was wrong. The sad thing about headcanons is ppl do not understand that. So, anon, I do not blame you if you didn't know about that as personally I didn't for a good while.

[elysiuminfra]

Alright tell me your complaints about the Jekyll and Hyde fanbase, because if you don't my brain is going to subconsciously project mine on you since you mentioned you had them, and that's not very nice. I want to hear your actual thoughts

OH BOY i have a lot of them. i dont think they're necessarily controversial tbh but i do have quite a bit.

my biggest complaint is the woobification of hyde. he's a grown man. he's a grown man that murders someone, and feels good about it. he drinks and has sex (probably) and does all sorts of things. he's not a baby, he's not a chaotic gremlin, he's a grown ass man!!! i also dont like it when ppl liken him to a child/give him child-like characteristics/make him too short. its weird imo. i dont like it. i think ppl should treat hyde like an adult with agency who's responsible for his own terrible actions instead of going oh woe is hyde / he's just a baby or whatever (and tbh i blame tgs a lot for this. no hate towards sabrina i just dont like that hyde is seen as "cutesy" in canon. i think that man doesnt shave his [censored])

the insistence that jekyll and hyde is about good/evil, or that jekyll is secretly bad and hyde is good/vice versa. jekyll sucks, but hyde isn't any better, the end. i don't think jekyll is a good person but he's not like, irredeemable i guess. he just sucks. he just uses hyde as an excuse to kill a guy. fuck alot. do cocaine. i mean who doesn't wanna go nuts sometimes. he can be self destructive as a treat if he wants

that jekyll and hyde are completely separate people. once again i blame tgs for this (sorry sabrina) which is like. its not the point of the story i guess. im a strickler for keeping the original themes, though, so that's just me. but also what comes with that is ppl shipping the two which i just. nope. nope!! i cant do it. in my mind's eye jekyll and hyde, though there is a degree of separation at the end of the story, are the same person. its weird and i dont like it. its only made worse when ppl woobify hyde/make him much younger. it genuinely makes me gag like stop that!!! stop it!!! :(

i dont like the musical. i just dont. im sorry to musical fans everywhere but i dont like it. :( please dont get mad at me for this. i will give them this bring on the men does go hard as fuck though (also anthony warlow's voice. hot damn)

i also dont like tgs as much. i just have issues with the writing (bc once again i love the original book too much) and also utterson isnt even there :( this also brings me into my next point is that UTTERSON!!!! he's funny and lovable and not enough ppl like him and just ignore him in favor of jekyll/hyde or lanyon (once again tgs) and im like :( no.... please....... he's funny and i like him

i think tgs is a fine enough story on its own, putting it nicely at least, but i dont like that it's greatly influenced a lot of ppl's perception of the original story. and this is coming from a former fan. it's led a lot of ppl to woobify hyde/ignore utterson/act like jekyll and hyde are separate/etc etc. just a lot of stuff that goes against the original.

idk what else to put here tbh i probably have more but cant think of any rn. i just think that we need more nuance in our discussions of these characters, shouldn't ignore certain unfavorable facets, and be open to criticism of media we enjoy. and we should also treat grown men like grown men. and be nice to eachother i guess. peace and love.

[yakocchi]

Becoming a Family With Him, Part 3 // Shuichi, Hikaru, Rhion, Luke, Eisuke

so this came out, as further celebration for the anni. VERY GOOD, much more appreciated than the prior story set lol that one was kind of boring but i get it

they made the kids for all the... kid-less ones, and the eisuke one that used to be VIP-exclusive is now here for everyone to buy (rip those ppl who gacha for it)

my rambling behind the cut (spoilers!!)

shuichi // as ud expect, shuichi has a literal hime ass looking girl (kikyo) for a daughter. she’s only 6, but is pretty calm and ladylike. She even calls her parents with –sama so... ok luckily shuichi does not strip down all the way in the presence of her daughter and only takes off his suit coat. thanks dad

anyway since shuichi has a break coming up, he wants to have a family trip how nice. but then the dang girl wants to go over to see eisuke WHAT when soryu exists and lives a block away? unrelatable, im closing the app anyway eisuke is her first love, which wtf he’s like 20 yrs older than u. even worse, mc says she’s been in love since she was like 3.

shuichi is reconsidering the benefits of democracy in his mind but eventually relents. but then they’re still following the fucc-days rule they set years ago. well, as he says in the story, RULES ARE RULES

blah blah i don’t want to go over everything bc then it’ll be boring reading the story when it comes out in engl right? also im tired bc it’s 1 am and i just want to play toontown in bed but nothing really bad happens. they are a v cute family bc shuichi is a pleasant and mature dad. kikyo and mc even do a little surprise for him at the end and it is very sweet. i feel like out of all the families, this is the most ideal

mad hatter // so they have twin sons named Rui and Kai. Rui is the childlike one that resembles Rhion in personality, Kai is the more mature one that resembles Al. man i forget that boy’s name but u get me i know they only can use stock bgs but it’s killing me that these dang kids get to sleep in what looks like separate king sized beds.

even though rhion is now a father of two, he still acts like... 10. i mean he still horni but it makes me feel weird

later it’s revealed that Ota teaches them both as an art tutor bc they both showed an interest in art. this is cute bc ota is bad with kids in this universe LOL

the ending on this one was weird cuz the kids didn’t show up in the entirety of the last ep bc it was about WORK. so uh... interesting

hikaru // so their son is named akari. haha get it because it means light. like how hikaru also means light. can mc name her kids unrelated to their father or is that against the Geneva convention

this kid actually acts like an actual little boy. like what hikaru would’ve probably turned into if not for the whole sad backstory. the story starts with akari just bringing a dog randomly home one day. he actually saved the dog (it is very cute bc he did not want the dog to cry), and then after a talk they decide to keep the dog as long as akari knows the responsibility of taking care of an animal.

so next day, the bidders come over to their house and everyone’s like woaw a dog. lol they come into their house as guests and eisuke and mamo still demand for beverages, they all suck

akari names the dog... “Light” (Raito) and i want out of this nightmare. Naturally bc Light is an abandoned dog it’s still kind of bad with interacting with things. But then Light suddenly be giving the ( ╹ਊ╹) to soryu bc remember, animals love him. everyone clowns on soryu for being an unintentional dog whisperer and then akari is like “soryu san pls make me ur apprentice” and he gives some advice like approaching it slowly, and talking to it from the front instead of back.

blah blah there’s a situation where Light goes YEET after a Doberman gets all angry and then hides bc then another dog is scaring it. hikaru swoops in to the save the day as the Real Dog Whisperer. ok it’s cute when hikaru actually gets to look cool  for once LOL

luke // luke is cute on the bc “pre-story” scene he’s actually pretty open to the idea of having kids; he actually goes “well imo we should think abt it pretty soon, but i wanted to hear ur opinion on it” but then he gets horni. and then he’s like “our kids are going to have your collarbones. awesomeee im looking forward to that” ....ok

ok cut to the actual story and they’re in Japan. Luke’s kid looks... strange versus the others. why are his eyes so big? omg voltage his eyes arent going to be saucers just cuz he half white also the kid’s name is Yuri (Or Urey). They couldn’t think of any other Brit-styled names? Like Harry? Henry? William? Wilfred? hey stan be my princess btw he’s pretty cute, though he gives serious “timid kid that gets bullied in the children’s movie” vibes. He calls Luke “daddy” and mc “mammy/mommy”.

so luke talks about his relationship w/ soryu and eisuke and then yuri is like “i want friends like that” wow cute but also find less ethically-complicated friends

so luke lets yuri meet a young patient of his (haru) so they can be friends. they get along so it’s good. haru gets in critical condition later so luke zooms outta there to do the operation.

LOL but at the end yuri is like, “i want to make more friends. (...) can i go to the bidder’s room from now on?” this boy works fast

And then he’s like “Eisuke-san... please be my friend.” HIS POWER. even eisuke was like :O so then eisuke orders a whole bunch of food and books up to the penthouse. But then yuri’s like “...i like eisuke’s eyes” and everyone’s like oh man that’s gonna be his fetish

Baba: why have u started to have an interest in eyes Yuri: I read it from one of daddy’s medical books Hikaru: wtf u can read that at 4??? (...) Soryu: wat Yuri: um... i want soryu to be my friend too Yuri: bc soryu’s eyes are also powerfully cool...

eisuke // ok this gets an extended ramble bc the more annoying the story the longer i must complain

so you might be thinking, “oh so this is gonna be a flashback in some in media res styled story with your 2 kids, u know in the style of the others” and well, no you just go straight to white screen into the flashback, back when eito was smaller and thus a little more cute. well it’s not really false advertising bc they did say “reminisce” in the description. but i wanted to see eito be a good big brother for a moment! or... less good? man i wanted to see kaito go waaaah like a baby idk i wanted to see him exist

so back to the story they cut to small eito. even as a smaller punk he does fight with his dad a little, just w/ a more narrow vocabulary to work with. tho at this point he’s still pretty sweet so clearly eisuke clowning him day and night was a negative effect on his development. (doesn’t treat his child like a child) (child grows up to a punk that doesn’t respect him) (surprised pikachu) being the son of a billionaire means that this child has to go study at a very young age and listen to MOZART. no child of eisuke ichinomiya will be listening to degenerate bops like lee taemin’s criminal next day they all go to the very fancy school that eito will be attending. eisuke does a speech, but then eito is all like “why is papa over there all the time” in reference to how all the other parents in attendance are having fun with their children, but eisuke is busy talking to other people for business and connections etc. etc. mc kind of has a hard time trying to explain it to eito bc... it’s honestly poor parenting... eiji shows up after arriving late, and he’s like “gramps is gonna be with ya today! instead of papa” which is cute but then she’s like psst thanks for coming and im like oh... so grandpa just didn’t randomly come to the open house for fun he’s just gonna be surrogate dad while real dad is busy... aw... and then at the end eito’s like FUC THIS KINDERGARTEN. eisuke is like “(smh) don’t yell in public. (despite everything) you are still the eldest son of the Ichinomiya family”

and so afterwards it’s clear that eito does not want anything to do with this school. he just sits in the classroom until mc is there to pick him up instead of playing in the courtyard or w/e, wanting nothing to do with the other kids.

so later there’s a hiking trip for the students and both of their parents, and mc asks eisuke if he’ll be available for it. eisuke is like, “i have a business trip that day, so I’ll have to adjust my schedule” and he’s been very busy in the opening of a new business or w/e. mc tells him to not do so much for something like that and that it’s ok if she goes alone with eito on the trip.

it’s the day of the trip, and mc goes alone with eito. she notes that a lot of dads did indeed come along for the trip. she apologizes to eito and says that she did talk to eisuke about the trip before, but he’s simply busy for this day. and im like... but girl, you were the one who told him not to change his schedule for the trip. yes a trip may seem less important than business ventures, but don’t make it sound like you weren’t the one who stopped him. lol. idk why im pressed abt this single line of dialogue bc later she does realize she fucced up there well eito is just like w/e about it and has pretty much accepted that sort of thing

anyway eito goes missing later and one of the kids said that he told eito that his dad (eisuke) didn’t come bc his dad thinks that his work is more important than his son. so eito got mad and ran off somewhere

and then mc finally gets the lightbulb moment that eito... wants to see his dad!! he ran off to go try to see him somehow??? !! wow so sweet

it’s raining like a mf but then in her search for eito eisuke randomly pops out of nowhere. He’s like “ho i did not remember saying that i wasn’t coming” and she’s like “im sorrryyy” and both me and him are like “just find the dang kid”

ok yea they find eito, he starts being a good student, and u start to see where he starts being antagonistic towards his dad LOL etc. etc. lol this story annoyed me so i don’t feel like doing the rest of the play by play orz

anyway thanks for reading my garbage LOL

[catnippackets]

have you seen/would u recommend pacific rim 2? ive heard some things about newt and idk lol

I feel like Im in the minority that actually did think pru was fun but that being said it ended SO abruptly and with like three separate plotlines completely abandoned that I was really frustrated for days after watching it until I had processed everything and had time to think deeply about it lol it just seemed rly unfinished?? it feels like it was deliberately made as 1/2 of two sequels and there needs to be one more to tie everything up. actually I’m gonna ramble abt this bc I have a lot of thoughts (obvs spoilers under the cut)

the thing about the second one was that I genuinely was enjoying it right up until it ended because I swear to god the moment the end screen went up I yelled "what the fuck, that's it?" out loud into my bedroom bc I was so SHOCKED that THAT'S how it all ended, because it just seemed so incomplete?? Like it seemed like one half of a story, that will only be made whole if there's a third one to tie up all the plotlines that they didn't go through with in the second and if that's the case then I will be completely fine with it but if it doesn't or if they dont have a third one at all I will stay so frustrated lol. one silver lining to this is that the vibe of this movie was so different from the first that it almost feels easy to separate it and just imagine it as an AU if you prefer which is sort of nice; usually if a piece of media I like does something bad I feel all gutted and anxious and terrible that this is the canon I have to accept, but something abt this movie just made it feel like it was sort of a totally separate deal. maybe cuz only 3 of the original characters were in it idk

to start off: I felt like there were a couple of plotlines in it that were just sort of introduced and then never seen through which was very ????? Amara & Vik's weird hate-rivalry thing was one of them; Vik instantly has it out for Amara bc she’s jealous, which is a very interesting concept, and then this prompts Amara to become hostile right back at her, which is also a very interesting concept, and then it never got resolved at all? like they couldve done something really cool with those two but it just never went anywhere. and then there was sort of a weird love triangle thing happening between Jake and Nate and Jules that felt so weird bc it had no significance to the plot at all and it felt like it was only thrown in there for the sake of having ~romantic drama~ idk maybe I wasnt paying too much attention and there was more to it than that but it really just seemed like they wanted to put romance in there and didnt want to bother to put any work into it

BUT the thing about romantic sub plots is that THERE ALREADY WAAAAS OOOOOOOOONE which brings me to the biggest frustration I have w this movie because--and DISCLAIMER, this was also my favourite plot point of the movie bc it was by far the most interesting, the biggest reason for me enjoying the movie at all, and the bit I feel like should have had WAY more attention--Newt and Hermann were like legitimately in love in this movie I swear to god I was watching it and thinking “this is GENUINELY the most blatantly gay thing I’ve ever seen in a feature film and I know that straight ppl are very talented at writing gay romances completely by accident so it’s possible that they just accidentally did it this way but also it is REALLY goddamn obvious oh my gooood?” (and then I did a lot of frantic googling and found out that I was right and Charlie Day & Burn Gorman knew what the fuck they were doing and I felt so validated lol), and yet despite this, the movie had them speak for the last time almost at the halfway point of the film and then spend the entire second half apart and not talking at all and even at the post-credits scene where Jake and Newt talked for a bit Hermann wasn't there?? not even behind Jake to give Newt any searching glances?? Nothing??

dude...Newt being possessed by the precursors is a HUGELY interesting concept that actually makes sense and I wish it had had more attention. I’ve seen a lot of ppl say that pru butchered Newt’s character and I don’t 100% agree bc like...being possessed will change you lmao so while yes I’m obviously sad that he wasn’t himself, I feel like it made sense that he had a slight personality change, because it...wasn’t him anymore. we don’t really see the Newt we all fell in love with in the first movie. we THINK we’re seeing him, but halfway through we find out we’re wrong.

my critiques with that plotline are basically that I wish the reveal had happened a little bit later on, and I wish that it had been a little more obvious I guess?? like, we definitely get hints of it (when Hermann excitedly asks Newt to help him with a dangerous unorthodox project and Newt says “dude why are you doing something so risky when we’ve already got a good plan in motion? just wait for that to be done, it’s fine” and Hermann IS us, he IS the audience when he reacts, because this is a completely insane thing for Newt to say. Newt, who, in the first movie, was so obsessed with finding knowledge that he went behind the marshall’s back to literally risk his life doing something incredibly dangerous just to see what would happen? being given the opportunity to do the same kind of dangerous frivolous act and refusing? this is blatantly out of character, and Hermann is all of us when he’s shocked, “what, you mean you...won’t help me??” which means it wasn’t bad writing on their part, it was purposefully supposed to stand out as something that was wrong and something that we needed to pay attention to. that was a really good scene to hint that something was Not Right with Newt), and I wish there had been a bunch more like it. I think the reveal should have been saved for the end of the second act; I think that should have been the moment that act 2 of a story usually has, that dreadful event that happens that leaves the main characters feeling completely hopeless and unsure what to do.

I also wish that he had managed to break through more than That One Scene, I think it would’ve been more dramatic if he’d had a few moments where he managed to take control for a second to remind us that he’s still in there and still fighting, and I’m sad they didn’t do that. I saw a fan comic that touched on this idea and I think it’s brilliant, even the idea of him suddenly getting a nosebleed and acting distracted to show that that’s the Real Him trying to fight through would have been sooooooooo good.

I also feel like it didn’t make any sense for Nate to be the one to subdue him in the end, I dont even think those two interact at all so like, why was it him?? it would have been so much more dramatic and heartbreaking if Hermann had been the one to confront him so they could’ve had a little conversation on the roof where Newt could once again break through for a second before getting taken over and then Hermann could like idk have a taser hidden behind him that he uses to subdue him and THAT wouldve been a way sadder and more interesting way to do it. I also think Hermann shouldve been the one to speak to him in the post credits scene, or to have him in the background behind Jake just watching him sadly so we can get a couple shots of intense eye contact like UGH I just wish there had been more interaction between the two of them after the reveal happened!! When the movie was over and I realized they never spoke again I felt so upset!!! they're soulmates!! they're literally in love!! this has been CONFIRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and segueing in from the soulmate thing, another thing that made me sad was that nobody came in pairs anymore :( aside from Newt and Hermann, they were the only ones gjdfk but in the first one every character had another character that they were paired up with, both for drifting reasons and just for plot reasons (except Chau and Tendo but I’m pretty sure there's actually significance to that too), and in the second one it just sort of felt like everyone was drifting with each other with no strong connection needed and that made it feel way less special. granted, the movie takes place ten years after the first one so in that time maybe technology advanced to the point where you didn't need a strong neural connection to drift anymore, but for the sake of the story it would have been way better if they'd kept the whole soulmates concept from the first one, it made it way stronger and more special

so yeah in conclusion I did think pru was enjoyable and I probably would watch it again some time but also it definitely pales in comparison to the first one and I’m desperately hoping we get one more so they can tie everything together and FIX THINGS KFGH it’s not too late!!!!! I wish I could write Pacific Rim 3 I genuinely think I would do a good job I love storytelling and I’m very passionate about these characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[daddy-ul]

1, 6 & 30 for the identity ask :9

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

to listen: all St. Anger songs (bc it told me “look, not all anger is bad, there are different type of anger, you can do it”, and it was v important for a person like me who thought that anger was my main feature and emotion) + The Unforgiven III (which is ‘my’ Metallica song, I spent so much time on the redemption road, and this song was with me. So fight me, I hope for a UN4, bc there is so much more to say.) 

to read: honestly? anything by Vonnegut (also Pirandello, but that’s more about how my mind works), Vonnegut is much more witty than me, but that’s the type of kindness that I want in this world. Kindness can be funny, witty, open, ironic and so damn strong.

to watch: Wings of Desire/Faraway so close (bc it’s poetic and deep and ‘intellectual-oidic’ as me. I love poetry, fight me2) + Star Trek TOS (same reasons for Vonnegut) and Supernatural (which is not about destiel or whatever. it’s about the ones who travel in an obstinate and adverse road, about the outcasts, about choosing, about DOUBT, about bonds, it’s about--

“[...] a story where everything goes wrong, where everyone has their back against the wall, where everyone is in pain and acting selfishly because if they don’t, they’ll die. Imagine a story, not of good against evil, but of need against need against need, where everyone is at cross-purposes and everyone is to blame.“ (cit. Richard Siken) 

6. are you religious/spiritual?

Long story short: absolutely NOT hsakjdfhjdhsk

Unnecessary oversharing: my parents are very religious ppl (christian and jewish) but nope, not me. I define myself as a “materialista dimmmmerda” in italian ( “materialist as shiiiiiiit” sdjsjahas) bc I feel really connected to my body, I dont like it, but doing karate since I was 4, taught me to live in my body to the fullest. It grounds me. When i was in middle school and I started to consume american media it always confounds me how the typical high school movie/series separates in two different categories nerds and jocks bc?????? I am both? I always was?

(Uh, obvs, I dont feel superior to someone who has faith, I dont care. I’m agnostic, god could be there or not, it wouldn’t change how i live my life)

30. pick one of your favorite quotes.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be” Mother Night, Vonnegut -> bc yeah, beware that if you do bad things saying to yourself “i’m just faking it”....... it will not end well. Damn, this book, chef kiss.

"The mistakes you've made in the past have nothing to do with the good you could do in the future, unless you let them." -> this is my mantra, I always try to keep it in mind, even if my brain tells me otherwise.

“When you bang on the wall you have to rememberyou’re on both sides of it already but go ahead,yell at yourself.” Richard Siken

[charmspoint]

One day I will stop disappearing. (1) the first ask about ships. Red Mars isn't lost yet, so what about Suwa and Takeuchi? (2) the second ask is about ships. 1,17,18, but maybe there is some question that you would like to answer, but no one asked it? (3) ask about mutual. I'm sorry, but I can't make sense of the question. Now I feel a little silly.

Please don’t worry about it! I do these for fun and when I need to get my mind off of things or just want something to talk about so don’t feel obliged to do them all hjbh this isnt your job, I won’t mind if you disappear and miss some. I appreciate it a lot that you do all of them I just don’t want you to feel like you have to you knowhgvhvvh <3<3<3<3<3<3<3

This got long so under the cut

Send me a ship to rate

Suwa x Takeuchi

vomit / don’t ship / okay / cute / adorable / perfect / beyond flawless / hot damn / screaming and crying / i will ship them in hell

I am the only one writing stuff in this fandom so I can do what I want uwu. I do ship them exclusively queerplatonically tho, I can’t imagine either of them having romantic or sexual feelings for each other. And I doubt we will get much more backstory on them then we already got (tho i am expecting we’ll get more from Suwa since his is more set up) but I’m just very interested in the time before the other vampires joined, the two of them would be all alone in a building full of humans. There is also the idea that Suwa was feral for a long time and we don’t know how he got out of it so I like to imagine Takeuchi figured smtng out, he’d be all over something like that. So I like to imagine the two of them simply finding home in each other as two things of same in the middle of a world they no longer belong to. It’s that feeling of home, acceptance and belonging I get when I think about them, rather than any romantic or sexual feelings.

Shipping asks

1. What was your first OTP?

HhHhhH The first one i remember is Soul X Maka from Soul Eater. Soul Eater was the first anime I watched when i was like ???? 11-12. And obviously since i was that age i consumed other media before that and probably saw other relationships but for life of me I can’t remember them. That’s probably because when I discovered Anime i discovered fanfiction too so Soul x Maki is the first ship i remember actually searching and reading fics for, sorta getting involved into  a fandom for the first time, tho i wouldn’t be actively involved until i started writing for Durarara. I still haven’t rewatched Soul Eater in its completion since i watched it that first time ;-; Every like 5 years or so my brother and i will start a rewatch and never get very far hjbhjhj we watched it together first so we wanna rewatch it together too but maybe at this point we should just watch it separately. We aren’t very good at watching shows we actually like together hvhjh

17. Are there any popular ships that you just don’t like? What are they?

As I said I think my shipping tastes run p vanilla so I usually like the popular ships or at least don’t mind them much. That being said I did think of few.

Endhawks – I used to be passionately against this because I passionately hated Endeavor but since my feelings for Endeavor simmered down my feelings for this ship also simmered down from ‘THIS WAS MADE IN HELL’ to ‘gross no’. While I do think it’s best for Enji and Rei to separate or at least distance themselves, I hate this idea of Enji immediately getting into another relationship with someone that much younger then him who idolizes him. Like my man, that’s just not what you do when you are recovering from being abusive towards ur last spouse, that’s just a recipe for disaster. I do like their relationship as friends tho but I don’t like the idea of Hawks healing Enji or being a relationship where he can finally really fall in love or something because that just makes me very uncomfy.

Gojohime – apparently this is??? Pretty popular??? I had no idea until Foxy told me ppl were legit considering it endgame. Like…I’m just really not into ships where the guy and girl obviously hate each other and don’t get along and the way Gojo acts around Utahime can classify as nothing but piggy tail pulling. I like ships in which Gojo is compelled to act more mature and responsible but not ships that make it seems like his partner would be his babysitter or his mom or something and that’s v much the vibe this ship is giving me.

Itadori x Nobara – this ship doesn’t have bad vibes I just HEAVILY prefer them as besties. I like that JJK has little to no romantic fumblings and that the main three can just be friends J it’s refreshing. It just wouldn’t feel right for me if they hooked up.

18. What is your favorite unpopular ship?

So this is kind of interesting thing to ask cuz most of my ships that aren’r popular come from me uhhhh roleplaying bnha for over 3 years I think now. Yeah so I used to be super involved into the bnha roleplay community and the thing is with roleplay that you start looking for popular ships (My first was Tododeku) and then it kind of….goes off all over the place with time. The thing is roleplay servers die out and you follow people elsewhere. Sometimes you stay with the entire group, sometimes you just follow 1-2 people you really like. You change servers, you change groups, you stick by the few ppl you really like roleplaying with and eventually you ship together whatever the fuck because at that point the partner is more important than the ship. With a good partner you can make everything work. I mained Hawks, Shouto, Shinsou and sometimes Tamaki and one of my fav rp partners (we mostly rp ocs now) mostly mained Sero so….we did a LOT of Seroroki. I very rarely this ship anywhere but it was very fun we did it in a lot of aus. Same goes for Izuku x Sero X Shouto which we did with another friend in such a nice domestic au it was great. Also Momo x Shinsou with another partner, we didn’t do this for long because the server shut down soon after but uhhh they did yandere Momo and it was such a fantastic performance it sold me on yanderes forever.

Some honorary mentions of other crack ships I did: Midnight x Hawks, Kurogiri x Hari x Kai, Tamaki x Camie, Shishikura x Shouto.

That’s just off the top of my head all of these were surprisingly very good and fun, as I said, the partner matters not the ship. I think this is why I’m like way more lax in shipping in bnha then like in jjk. In jjk I need a ship to have a chemistry I can consider at least somewhat romantic to consider it, in bnha just fuckin everything goes because I’m so used to it just being this sandbox I can do anything in.

Uhh as for bonus question uhhh

29. Do you like OCs (Original Characters)?

I like ocs a whole lot I have a metric shit tone of them and I’d like to talk about them but idk how to start in a way that would be interesting to anyone ;-; rip

[alatismeni-theitsa]

anti - LO anon asks/answers:

(1) Weird, I thought it sent my message, but here's the how the fandom hypersexualizes everything. 1) They thirst after any of the LO gods, in particular to them being shirtless, wear certain clothing (i.e Ares in a white tank top) or them being in a compromised state of pose (like Hades manspreading while being asleep at Demeter's place). 2) This thirst leads them to say things like "I want to bang [LO god]" or "I need to find a man like [LO god] (usually Hades)."  Even worse is if the person saying those things has a boyfriend or is already married. They will either call or even wish their man could be "Hades." IT IS LITERALLY SO DISGUSTING. Every time I see anybody make a comment about how badly they want to be with a fictional character, I always feel sorry for their significant other.

(2) I guess this is gonna be an unpopular opinion but—I don’t see why fans sexualizing LO is bad?...what did that anon mean by that exactly? As in like nsfw art and headcannons? Why is that bad? Rachel herself draws porn of her own characters. EVERY fandom hypersexualizes their fave characters, that’s why we have rule 34. If ppl are sexualizing LO Hebe or Aphrodite’s other children, then yes, that’s creepy and sick, but everyone else in LO is an adult so I guess I say...let ppl be horny XD

(3) Adding on to the previous anons, just go to the author’s twitter. It’s a mess I tell ya. Through my experience. I feel like they’re sexualizing Persephone and Hades(Mostly Hades because he is “Perfect Husbando Daddy” to them 💀. (And yes I do understand that Hades in the media has been romanticize a lot throughout the years)Anyways, they keeping talking his “body parts”, what Persephone is gonna do to him,vice versa.If you want me to send some screenshots I can(Patreon too). I haven’t seen it happen to any other character as much as H+P. (Ares,just a little) That’s from Twitter alone,I just wanna enjoy the characters without someone telling me how hot they are every second.😒 It’s almost as if the Author want these types of people. Then again.....

(4) I don't care if these are spoilers, the early LO release (April 19th) has Hades yelling at Persephone like a child after he saved her from a riot (because she was paying the ferry) then they make out after he yells that he "WANTS HER" and she proceeds to run away from him afterwards. It's unearned and creepy bc he yelled such a possessive line (not that he LOVES her or anything, only that he WANTS her). That's supposed to be a big moment but it comes off as rushed and even more imbalanced.

(5) I have to vent a bit; I really love L*re Olympus bc it's just cheesy and I love cheesy dramas and those cutesy neon colours, but what angers me most about is (after how it has nothing with Greek culture), how characters are so... inconsistent. Minthe, a character that was abusive /vocally/, not physically. Making her hit Hades was so ooc- and my GOD, how could a nymph hit a god and get away with it?

(6) Time for your daily dose of LO complaining, LO spoilers so read/publish at own risk - Today's top story: the latest fastpass episode brings us a very special first kiss between two main characters that will remain nameless. Needless to say (imo) it was executed poorly due to poor pacing and lack of build up in the chapter! People rightfully critiqued and diehard fans attacked, claws out. The shocking updates will continue as ~6 episodes separate us between now and the finale. Stay tuned.

(7) Holy shit so this isn't technically related to the anti-Greek prejudice in Lore Olympus, but in the latest update it's revealed that Hades runs all of the banks -- you know, Hades, the big-nosed leader, and he shames tiny innocent Persephone for 1 Not having a bank account 2 For the fact that the her mother thinks all bankers are greedy. So not only does Rachel Smythe hold ignorance towards Greek people,but also she enjoys Antisemitic tropes.

______________________________________________________________

(1+2) I can understand the thirst for fictional characters... but not when they are the Greek gods, ya know? As anon (2) said, it’s not bad when people are horny. However... it’s at least a little weird when your fetish is old gods from another culture but dressed in a tank top or who knows what else :P And the fact that they reduce the almighty Hades to “UWU hot daddy” makes it even cringier. I am sure that, if the author posts such content, she wants her characters to be sexualized. 

I mean, they are free to do it and we are free to comment on it - without limiting their ability to create and enjoy the hypersexualized content. Because, as much as we don’t like it, fans should be free to do whatever they like.

To add something for anon (2): if hypersexualizaion would be more natural if the comic had sex in it or dealt with sexual themes more frequently. I think the only sexual encounter we had so far was r*pe and nothing else. The storyline of the comic is almost irrelevant to the huge thirst fans have for the characters. If the focus is only on their sexuality and not on the plot or characters then it’s cringey. And I think it’s annoying when they sexualize the characters to such a degree. For example, anon (3) wrote “I just wanna enjoy the characters without someone telling me how hot they are every second”.

(3) “Perfect Husbando Daddy” UUUUGHHH.. It’s so funny the HxP in the comic are so boring and vanilla but the fans desperatelly want to turn them into a super sexualized couple? ALSO, SEND SCREENSHOTS! Patreon, comments you think are cringey, everything xD 

(4) I am happy this changed because I don’t like the scene at all, for the reasons you mentioned. “I want you” can be translated as “I desire you” so it’s not problematic to me. But the circumstances in which he said that were creepy.

(5) Hmmm interesting point! Of course emotional abuse can happen at the same time as physical abuse, but you are kinda right for Minthe’s character. It felt a little ooc for me too. She wasn’t that type of abuser and it was a weird choice. Also, there is a hierarchy and it is indeed very weird that a nymph could get away with abusing a god. The only case she wouldn’t be punished you be if Hades insisted on it. (Something we didn’t see).

(6) OOOOOH I AM INTRIGUED! Not that I care at this point about the characters, I just want to see the drama 😂 I might search a little more!

(7) Of course she holds ignorance towards Greek people; she thinks we are rich! (muahahahaha that was a bad joke, I will stop now :P ) Generally the comic doesn’t take into account the Greek culture which is offensive but in the characters I didn’t see anti-Greek prejudice. (I might be missing something, idk). In order to have prejudice against something, you need to aknowledge it first. Bold of you to assume she knows we exist 😂 

Maybe she made him super rich because he has the richest realm in Greek mythology. And, I mean, Greek noses are not limited to Jewish people, we also have them (my big pointy nose says hi!). I am sure there are Greek bankers with big noses. In fact, I would be surprise if they didn’t have a big nose 😂 

I understand that it can also be interpreted as anti-Semitism. But for the reasons I mentioned, I don’t think she aimed to do that. Plus, the character is supposed to be Greek, so I don’t see how Jewish people would be offended by this. Is not possible for every wealthy fictional non-Jewish character with a big nose to reflect Jewish negative stereotypes. It kinda seems that people want to take a bad depiction of one group (Greeks) and make it about another group (Jewish).

Maybe for Americans the stereotype “big nose + wealth” means Jewish but for Greeks... I don’t think we see it that way. For us a banker with a big nose is just a banker with a big nose. For example, look at the big and pointy nose of Aristoteles Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate who amassed the world's largest privately owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest and most famous men:

I read the scene with the bank account and... yeah it bad for the things you mentioned. Hades should not be making the decision of Persephone having a bank account. He should at least let her discuss it with her mother first. Plus, the story presents Demeter as a stupid uknowing peasant who thinks money grows on trees and banks are evil. 

[alphonseelriic]

3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 17, 20, 21, 26, 31 :)

3. rant. just do it

Ok, maybe this will be a little mean but can someone....tell native english speakers that no one cares about jap sub vs eng dub discourse except themselves? Like, they are sooo tiring and at the end of the day it's just a matter of personal preference... The people who feel superior for watching subs are dumb/pretentious and I won't defend them, but also some of the arguments in favor of dubs kinda make me salty bc they come from a place of such privilege, like "some people don't like reading subtitles" or "some people prefer consuming media in their own language", and yeah i'm not saying they aren't valid but it's obvious those things only apply to english speakers bc the rest of the world does not have the freedom to choose most of the time. This is speacially bad outside of anime, like what happened with Parasite. So many entitled americans bitching about having to see a foreign film.....s h u t u p

4. do you think its ok to separate the artist from the art?

Oh, this is a complex one. I think it depends on the situation. You always have to think critically of the media you consume, specially if the person who created it ended up being an asshole. Mostly because their ideology could be inside that media in a subliminal way, or you could end up supporting them without wanting to. I also think it's important to look at time periods. Personally I don't believe it's bad to, for example, read a book from a problematic author who has been dead for 200 years, it's not like your purchase will give them any money lol and at the end of the day pretty much all authors from other centuries have been some kind of -ist or -phobic 🤷🏻‍♀️ If the author is alive then that's a different story. Supporting artists who are well known for being horrible or, even worse, excusing their actions is not something I condone. You can always find a way of consuming their media without giving them money if you really want to (pirating is a good option :p). So yeah, I'm not gonna be policing ppl and telling them what they can or cannot like, but all of this is somethins I take into consideration while consuming media myself (for example, JK Rowling's stupidity and hatefulness these recent years have killed the little love I had left for HP...)

10. name a dog

So...any dog? How could I choose between so many good boys? Well, i'll say Black Hayate for fictional dog, and Maya (mayapolarbear on IG) for irl dog bc I love her.

11. what unusual talent do you have?

Well, my friends used to say I could "speak whale" like in Finding Nemo bc I can deepen my voice a lot. I also can bend my fingers in a really weird way (my fingers are the only flexible part of my body). I think my most useful talent is being able to "drag" my writing while making papers/essays/etc in a believable way, so I can say something in 20 words while other people say it in 5, it comes in handy.

12. what's the most interesting schools gossip you've ever heard?

Oh boy, there were some wild rumors at my school. I think the one that caugh my attention the most was one about some girl a year older than me being pregnant. The thing is, whe didn't know who it was bc people were just saying "they say a girl from senior year is pregnant", so everyone was desperate to know lmao I don't know how that ended up....now that I think about it that was fucked up, if it was true then poor girl.

Also, we had a literature teacher who was really strict and had a pretty peculiar personality. People used to say she was going to get married but her fiancee abandoned her (like, her tragic backstory and reason for being like that), it was probably false 🤣

Also in elementary school there were a lot of rumors about the statues in our church "crying blood" while no one was watching. This became so widespread that the director made a speech confirming it was false and said we should not be spreading such blasphemous things.....catholic schools really are something else.

17. google the top song from the year you were born

I searched top song from 1999 and the first two results are Livin' la vida loca and I want it that way. Sounds like a good year for music hah

20. describe your blog in 3-5 words

Young adult who likes procrastinating.

21. what's a conspiracy you believe in?

Already answered in my last ask!

26. crowds or small groups?

Small groups. I hate crowds, always have and always will. Also, I don't know if this is normal or not but if I spend too much time in a crowded place I start to feel dizzy/light headed.

31. you can change one thing about your life right now. what are you changing?

This horrible situation we are all in, honestly. I just want things to go back to normal but that won’t happen if people keep being selfish and governments keep caring more about economy than people’s lifes :/ Apart from that, i’m pretty ok with my life? I still haven’t achieved much but I don’t want to rush things, I have time.

Thanks so much for asking, this was a lot of fun 💕

[makistar2018]

Taylor Swift’s Feud With Scooter Braun Spotlights Musicians’ Struggles to Own Their Work

Prince, Janet Jackson and Jay-Z all fought to control their master recordings. In a blog post about the sale of her former record label, Swift put her personal spin on the issue.

By Ben Sisario and Joe Coscarelli July 1, 2019

It is one of the oldest and hardest lessons of the music industry: No matter how successful artists may be, chances are someone else owns their work.

Prince, protesting how his label, Warner Bros., had control over his master recordings, quipped in 1996: “If you don’t own your masters, your master owns you.” That same year, when Janet Jackson negotiated a landmark contract with Virgin Records, ownership of her original recordings was a major deal point.

Now we can add Taylor Swift to the chorus of artists who have bemoaned that their creative work is someone else’s property, as she once again used her social-media megaphone to stir debate about the inner workings of the music industry.

In a Tumblr post on Sunday, Swift responded bitterly to the news that her former label, Big Machine, had been sold for more than $300 million to a company run by Scooter Braun, the manager of pop stars including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

Swift had strong personal objections to the deal, which included the rights to her first six albums, blaming Braun for orchestrating “incessant, manipulative bullying” against her by Kanye West, an on-and-off client.

But the episode also highlighted the fraught and little-understood industry politics of master recordings — the original copies of an artist’s work — and the copyrights associated with them.

The owner of a master controls all rights to exploit it, including selling albums or licensing songs for movies or video games. The artist still earns royalties from those recordings once associated costs are fulfilled, but controlling the master could bring greater income, as well as a level of protection over how the work is used in the future. (These rights are separate from copyrights for songwriting.) 

The deep significance that musicians attach to their masters was highlighted last month, when a group of artists sued the Universal Music Group over a fire in 2008 that destroyed many original recordings, after an exposé was published in The New York Times Magazine.

Historically, record companies have retained rights to masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in backing an artist over the course of their contract.

“Fundamentally, the business model that most record companies operate under is not unlike the venture capital business,” said Larry Miller, the director of the music business program at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

“They make investments in unproven talent,” he added. “The trade is that, traditionally, the masters stay with the record company.”

Swift, despite appearing to have an almost unrivaled level of self-determination as a star — like single-handedly getting Apple to change a royalties policy in 2015 — signed such a deal with Big Machine in 2005, at the beginning of her career. Her post on Sunday was partly an admonishment to young artists to avoid those kinds of contracts.

“This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept,” Swift wrote, in a jab at Big Machine’s founder, Scott Borchetta.

Hours later, Borchetta posted a rejoinder, including a snippet of a deal proposal, that suggested that Swift could have earned her recording rights back had she renewed with Big Machine last year. Instead, she signed with Universal. (Her next album, “Lover,” is due in August.)

Borchetta also called into question Swift’s claim that she only learned of the deal once the news broke — he said he texted her the night before — and noted that her father, Scott Swift, was a minority shareholder in Big Machine.

The barbs between Swift and Borchetta, a rare example of such contractual dirty laundry being aired outside of litigation, captivated the industry and raised questions about the age-old power dynamic between artist and label.

“This kind of deal is neither unusual or controversial,” the media mogul David Geffen said. “She didn’t want to put up $300 million. Someone else did. They offered her a deal that she rejected to get ownership of her masters. Only time will tell who made the wise decision.”

Geffen, whom Braun has frequently described as a mentor, added: “I’m betting that Scooter will build an important company with the addition of this asset.”

Steve Stoute, a music and advertising executive whose new company, UnitedMasters, allows artists to keep their rights, saw the Swift episode as a painful illustration of what he called “the fundamental problem with the record industry.”

“The record business historically runs the same business model as sharecropping,” Stoute said. “You build it; we make you think that you own it; you act like you own it; but at the end of the day, we own it.”

The battle between Swift and Braun also divided celebrities on social media, as accusations of exploitation intermingled with personal loyalties.

Some of Braun’s clients, like Bieber and Demi Lovato, defended his personal character. “I have dealt with bad people in this industry and Scooter is not one of them,” Lovato wrote on Instagram.

But other female artists took Swift’s lead as an opportunity to discuss their own experiences in a business that has long faced criticism for its treatment of many creators, especially young women and people of color.

“I signed contracts when I was 15 & I’m still paying the consequences for it,” the singer Sky Ferreira, now 26, wrote on Instagram after pointing people to Swift’s blog post. “Insisting on your rights, value & ownership doesn’t make you difficult.” She added: “Just because this system has been the same for decades doesn’t mean it’s okay or you need to bow down to it.”

In a statement expressing support for Swift, the pop singer Halsey wrote: “it turns my guts that no matter how much power or success a woman has in this life, you are still susceptible to someone coming along and making you feel powerless out of spite.” Alessia Cara chimed in: “stop stealing from women who work hard!!!”

And the rapper Iggy Azalea, while interacting with fans on Twitter, added: “this is why I’m so happy to own my master for this new album, they really do ppl crazy dirty on ownership of their intellectual property in the biz.” After years of limbo on major labels, Azalea recently announced a deal with the distributor Empire that gave her ownership of her recordings.

Tension over the ownership of recordings is nearly as old as the industry, but it has gained momentum as superstar artists have exerted greater control — typically after years of work. Prince rebelled against Warner Bros. in the mid-1990s, after nearly two decades of hits. And when Jay-Z became president and chief executive of the Def Jam label in 2004, he insisted on earning back control of his masters on that label.

The industry’s shift to streaming has begun to change the dynamic between artists and labels, which once held exceptional leverage through their ability to market albums and promote songs to radio stations. Given this change, some younger artists have leaned toward autonomy.

The singer and rapper XXXTentacion, for example, who was killed in a shooting last year, rejected traditional long-term label deals in favor of one-off contracts for each of his releases that offered lower payment upfront, but gave him full ownership and a higher royalty rate.

Swift’s talent for fueling debate continued on Tumblr — the platform where she frequently communes with her most faithful fans — well after she published her account of the deal. “taylor will not be silenced,” wrote one fan who earned acknowledgment from Swift.

Elsewhere, some questioned whether Swift, with her enormous wealth and reputation for careful self-mythologizing, was the best messenger for this ongoing battle, especially after Borchetta pushed back, sharing deal points and private text messages between the two parties.

But the power of Swift’s fame made her message about the importance of ownership a vital lesson, Stoute said.

“If you’re an artist today, you must go into the record deal owning your master,” he said. “If not, then you are basically building an asset that you will not own.”

The New York Times

[thecodewordis-snail413]

hhhh revelation

another megamedia thing that started in 2009, that is the perfect way to explain homestuck!

the MCU.

for one thing, at this point if youre not into them youre probably too overwhelmed by the sheer amount of different content and the insanely complex timelines of events.

but so, the mcu is based off comics, but its a series of movies, and there are some tv shows that add into it.

homestuck started as a webcomic, but it took reader suggestions for commands that would influence the characters minor decisions, originally it was single frame drawings and short animations, but moved onto longer animations and "ended" with the longest animation yet, then went onto adding plot via snapchat stories.

both hs and the mcu have books to bring the movies/comics into a different level of comprehensibility (not necessarily better), which also have behind the scenes/commentary, or like dvd commentary.

they also both have videogames and merchandise and other comics that are not canon but add to the richness of the universe (for hs, thats paradoxspace.com)

but more than the medium, theyre similar in their timeline and plot!!

which is what really made me excited about this.

right so we start out kind of en media res in both.

iron man is the first mcu movie, and im pretty sure it does literally take place in 2009 (just like homestuck), and a TON of stuff that will be shown to us later actually takes place before that moment and will have obviously been essential to this moment (captain america & captain marvel= the creation of the avengers & the first appearance of an infinity stone, the alpha (beforus) and beta (alternia, vriskas gen) trolls= the original sburb/sgrub sessions, origins of the main villains).

Then it moves around and slowly introduces more characters in the same time (jade, rose, dave, & thor, hulk, modern captain america) while hinting at characters before them that will come up later (the trolls, bucky barnes, villains in both) and events driving the plot, developing the characters, and shaping the story (act 1 of homestuck is mostly john trying to get his god damn mail, but it ends up revealing a lot of plot and character relationships, and the pre-avengers MCU movies developed the characters as individuals and set up story elements for later, but is mostly about smaller scale things than once it gets to avengers).

then the team up happens, the avengers/the kids entering sburb, and it changes everything on supermassive scales forever, but also its just a symptom of the way that things are already set to go on much more cosmic scales.

then of course in homestuck its like one whole day hasnt even passed yet, while in the mcu its been three years, BUT after the one day in hs three years pass before they get to the next thing they need to do.

but anyway then we meet the next group thats going to be part of this, in hs its maybe a much closer relationship but still.

so we get the guardians of the galaxy movies and hivebent, where we meet the beta trolls (vriska gen), a group of people who also have a big impact on the plot, either in that they also have infinity stone business or in that they literally created the first group we met and also all of their problems but also all of their problems were predestined to happen anyway so its like a whole thing.

anyway, they seem kinda separate at first but then its revealed that the villain/s have major stakes with both groups, and then its revealed that there are more people also (like the dancestors, cherubs, carapacians, and roxy & her gen of bros in hs and the kree, ravagers, and tons of alien planets) who are all relying on both groups to team up and save all of literal reality.

in meeting the dancestors in openbound, and the skrulls and kree in captain marvel, a little more lore is divulged to really complete the picture of what is going on, whos been doing what, whos been controlling/ed manipulating/ed by whom and what did they do, what are the cosmic repercussions, are our friends going to be okay...

(also, yeah, avengers age of ultron and civil war are great parallels to when the hs ppl had to fight the condesce and jack/bec noir and the period of planning to fight lord english where everyone had completely different ideas and there were major divisions in everyone, or civil war could also be like when the beta trolls all had that crazy ass time on the meteor kind of while the beta kids (john and rose and co) were doing their game but also kind of after that because timelines but anyway when eridan and gamzee and vriska all go apeshit for different reasons and everyone except karkat terezi and gamzee die in at least some way)

so yeah but now everyones done a bunch of stuff together and finally you see that most bad guys theyve dealt with before were actually working for, knowingly or otherwise, the MAIN VILLAIN (thanos/lord english), and so they become aware of the main threat and start preparing and maybe theres some shenanigans involved (john gets reality changing powers and changes the past few years so so much dunno really what happened and what was fake anymore but also a lot of things are a hella lot better so everyone gets shit done and is better prepared for the FIGHT, earths secret weapons all over the world get revealed/cultivated/come back like Black Panther, Vision& Wanda, dr strange &the time stone, Spiderman, thor, hulk &captain marvel.)

and now its time to fight the big all-powerful alien dumb jackass, be it the purple murderer with the infinity gauntlet or the Lord of Time snake skull billiards guy, with EVERYONE vs him (,billions of dead ghosts or just everyone alive).

in homestuck, yeah billions die and they create a black hole but they succeed in making a new universe that finally doesnt have any problems like earth (johns, the one we started out with) did, and everyone whos left alive can enjoy it, and they can make a bunch of people to populate it (then travel forward in the new planet {Earth c}s time 5000 years to give the population time to take root and develop, then they take over and are greeted as the gods they are (the inhabitants could always kinda see them outside the bubble of time travel, so they never stopped knowing about them) and then they took over and made their kingdoms and just lived the hell outta brand new Good Life™.

in the mcu, we dont know yet but i geniunely hope its okay.

anyway thats two of the ways that the mcu is homestuck and im sure ill think of more throughout my lifetime but i hope this was comprehensible.

[csykora]

hey! i’ve heard u mention sasha’s media reputation a cpl times... me being a new caps fan, i’m curious—what’s the scoop regarding sasha and why he doesn’t play in the nhl anymore? & why ppl didn’t “like” him or whatever... sry if this is confusing!

Hello!

Not a confusing question at all.

Part of how I made things confusing is that I often jump back and forth between Russia and North America. Semin has a different reputation for different reasons in Russia than in North America, and neither are directly the reason he doesn’t play in the NHL anymore.

There are three fairly separate things here, so I’m going to trying to pull them apart more than I have before.

Prolonged Intro

There are players in the NHL who shouldn’t be there, and players who aren’t  who “should”.

Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard are not in the NHL. No one is really arguing that Curtis McElhinney is a meaningfully better goalie than they are: if things happened to be different, one of them would be dressing for the Leafs. But it happens to be better for the franchise as a whole to have Backuphinney do his ‘80s thing behind Freddie and give Sparks and Pickard more experience in the minors.

There are a lot of plugs and guys here because their contracts just happen to work out or coaches just happen to have certain tastes or someone else happened to have an inconvenient injury.

The geek squad were saying Michal Kempný was an NHL-level player years ago. It just happened that no NHL team wanted to play him.

Japer’s Rink recently said André Burakovsky shouldn’t be “in the same breath as Semin.” They didn’t mean Burakovsky shouldn’t be in the NHL, necessarily, but it struck me that many fans would just think, “Well, he happens to be in the NHL now, so he must deserve to be there. He must be a better player than anyone who isn’t.”

Burakovsky is beloved as a person, and that colors how his fans see him as a player.Brooks Orpik is despised as a player, so that colors how people see him as a person.

I’m not arguing for Complete Objectivity. For one thing it’s not possible, and I don’t think it would be fun. But my point is that I’m pretty much against the idea that athlete’s careers are about what people deserve, positively or negatively. It’s a way we make sense of complex, coincidental arcs of events. It makes a satisfying, sexy story, as sports media would put it.

But when we think that way, we logically have to think that way about everybody—if something happens to one person because They Deserved It, what about everyone it didn’t happen to? If something good happens because someone is a good person, what about the many very bad people who good things happen to?

So this is not going to be an especially sexy answer.

It is in fact a stupid answer, about a bunch of soul-wrenchingly stupid things that happened to happen to Sasha Semin and not some other guy. Strap in.

1. Russian Reputation

I wouldn’t say Semin has a bad reputation among Russian hockey fans, but the Russian Hockey Federation broke up with him pretty brutally in 2014.  

Semin took the fall for Malkin and Ovechkin after the national disaster of the Sochi Olympics. By national disaster I mean disaster for the Russian State. The State wanted to use Sochi to show their power to the world, and instead they got shamed for months on NBC. And then they lost, too.

Russian media sold the story that the Russian team lost because the players didn’t love their country that much. It wasn’t about skill or talent or style of play—Russia was still the best at all of those! Real patriots would have proven that Russia was the best. The team just didn’t care enough.

So it was really convenient to have this photograph:

Semin has probably been semi-addicted to tobacco through secondhand smoke his entire life. I’ve talked before about why I kinda hate anybody getting mad about athletes using, and that’s one reason. Tobacco is massively common in Russia, with over 60% of Russian men using cigarettes and 51.1% smoking daily. Like most countries, the highest rates are in lower-income, rural Eastern Russia than in the Western cities.

This is kinda embarrassing for the State. The State would like to not look like they’re behind Kazakhstan in any measure of development. And they especially don’t like smoking, because it looks bad.

You know how Nicklas Bäckström got Ovechkin into chewing tobacco? (If you didn’t, sorry, now you do. They both use a fair bunch.) The State does not care about athletes using tobacco. They care a lot about athletes smoking, because someone might see. So Russian athletes are ordered not to smoke, and so any Russian athlete who does is violating orders.

Three of Semin’s teammates are also in that photo—they just happened to be boring, so nobody cared so much. Russian hockey fans in general didn’t care that much. They got to have their initial wave of outrage, reassured themselves that the national team could totally have won if only…. 

Statistically speaking then they had a soothing cigarette, and then they forgot about it. It helps that Sasha has a gently dreamy face and immediately won a Gagarin Cup.

The Russian Hockey Federation still cares a whole bunch. Semin was guaranteed to play at Worlds the next year, and then suddenly he wasn’t on the roster. He hasn’t played for Russia since.

2. In North America

There are a couple threads here.

The reason many Caps fans didn’t like Semin is they fuckin loved the guy. It’s not just me saying Semin was the Caps best player when they traded him, that’s from RMNB. Work your way back through any Caps blog, and there’s so much love there.

The reason many casual fans didn’t like Semin is that, frankly, they didn’t understand the hockey they were watching.

Semin’s pretty much the halfway point between Bäckström and Ovechkin: he has spectacular aim, a canon of a shot, chronic wrist injuries, a tendency to go on hot and cold scoring streaks, and rock-steady top-of-the-league possession metrics. He’s the best skater on any team Evgeny Kuznetsov isn’t on, so once he has the puck, you’re not gonna catch him to get the puck back.

Imagine evaluating Bäckström according to what you expect Ovi to produce, or grading Ovi against Bäckström’s skillset. That’s kind of what would happen with Sasha, because fans would see him shoot and score and then grade him more harshly for not scoring consistently all the time. A lot of the time he wasn’t scoring, because he wasn’t shooting, because he was playing for possession. (Or he was shooting and sometimes he was missing, you know, like shooters do.)

A lot of those fans called to trade him after every playoffs. They also wanted to trade Ovi, so that’s why I don’t listen to hockey fans.

The reason the Capitals management didn’t like Sasha was that they liked him fine, actually, they just wanted to feed his agent to an alligator.

Let’s establish that some people are good at negotiating complex financial agreements, and some people, let’s even say most people, are not. Most athletes are not, and that shouldn’t count against them. That’s why agents exist.

A lot of people like telling Malkin’s story of escape from Magnitigorsk as a daring one-man adventure. That’s understandable, but it forgets that Malkin had someone to buy him a plane ticket, someone making calls and someone expecting him on the other side.

Ovechkin’s agent is his own mother. Arguably, Ovi’s here today because during the ’04-’05 lockout, Tatyana Ovechkina told her son not to resign in Russia. She made a bet, and it paid off when the lockout ended three days later.

Most Russian athletes don’t have that somebody.

Keep this picture in mind. Picture this next bit happening to some kid who might’ve sat next to you in Statistics, and if he passed it was only because tween Evgeny Kuznetsov was loyally making him flashcards. Imagine that kid’s suddenly the main source of income for several generations of his family, too.

When anyone talks about something Semin decided, they’re talking about what his agent decided for him. Semin did not speak English and does not do math; he was honest with the media that he had no fucking clue what his agent was saying in negotiations.

If you google Mark Gandler, you get top results in English like, “Mark Gandler is nothing less than the Prince of Darkness.” He has a long history of making deals that North Americans do not like. I can actually see the case that that’s not his job, his job is to get his mostly-Russian clients and himself paid by one team or another, and NHL teams aren’t as sacred as they like to act. I’m kind of not on board with the idea that players should take NHL teams’ offers as an honor and put the franchise first. But a lot of NHL teams have gotten pissed at Gandler over the years, and the consequences of that land on his clients when deals fall through, not on him.

First, Semin happened to be playing in the city of Tolyatti when he turned 18, so the Russian Armed Forces in Tolyatti drafted him. Tolyatti insisted that Semin had to complete his two years of service in the same district where he was drafted. Very conveniently, they had a very bad hockey team right there for him to play for! So Semin returned to the KHL during the ’04-05 lockout, instead of playing in the AHL like the Caps wanted him to.

Lots of English coverage calls this ‘confusion’ over his military service, since other NHLers were waived. It’s actually simple: HC Lada sucks. Semin was worth more money than the team.

When the lockout ended, Capitals filed a complaint against Gandler, attempting “to compel Alexander Semin’s agent and the Russian hockey team Lada Togliatti to return Alex.” The judge issued a restraining order against Gandler to stop him shopping Sasha to teams that weren’t the Caps.

Things stalled when HC Lada ran out of money and dropped Sasha, along with 15 other players’ contracts. Gandler…promptly shopped him to another team that wasn’t the Caps.

The Caps filed again and at this point the same judge told them to shush, presumably because at this point Semin only had three months of service left anyway and it wasn’t like the NHL had a leg to stand on contracts-wise. Everyone agreed that Semin would return to the NHL for the 2006 season, which he did.

In DC, Sasha and Ovi and then Nicky stole the show and dragged it up and down the ice. They were real real good.

But while Tatyana Ovechkina negotiated Ovi’s lifetime deal right off, the Capitals never signed Sasha for more than a year or two at a time. Every year was a contract year, so every year had to be a career year to justify his value. I don’t know who was asking for what, but as the Caps’ cap problems grew, constantly haggling over one of their stars didn’t seem worth it to them.

In 2012, Semin led the Capitals—yes, including Bäckström—in possession metrics. He was arguably the best player on the team. His penalty minutes, which had been a problem at the start of the season, trended down and were pretty fine by the end, showing that he was adapting to the radically new game play of then-new Coach Hunter.

You know who struggled under with the coaching change? Alex Ovechkin did. Coach Hunter thought Ovi was a spoiled defensive liability, told him to play right wing instead of left, and took away his favorite snugglebuddy. Ovi resentfully on the top RW bumped Sasha down to play with rather less dynamic Swedish centre Marcus Johansson. He scored less goals there.

RMNB jokingly-not-really-joking credited Johansson with axing Semin’s career.

But setting aside scoring, other measures of Sasha’s play like his stable possession and lower PIMS show he was one of the few players who adapted to the new coaching style at all. You might notice Dale is no longer with us.

The Capitals management didn’t not resign Sasha because of his play.

They made an offer, and Gandler made and offer, and both parties finally told the other to go fuck themselves, and Semin dazedly signed with Carolina instead.

By the way, Mark Gandler is now represents Dmitry Orlov.

You’ve probably never felt that level of existential dread while looking at a picture of Dmitry Orlov before. He has a couple years left on his current contract, don’t worry about it.

Why don’t non-Caps fans like Sasha?

The Scene:

It’s 2008. Sidney Crosby is twenty years old. He has not yet done any of the things he’s accomplished in the decade since then.

Ethically speaking, he is on TV too much for him. He’s been on-camera since he was a child. He has to plan escape routes and take back hallways wherever he went and couldn’t stay with his teammates. His fans are starting to try to out him to the media and wreck his life.

Saying he should have bee on TV as much as he is comes off like parents on Toddlers & Tiaras who say their daughter loves competing.

Dialogue:

Semin says Sidney Crosby is a very impressive athlete and very dull human person. So does every honest Canadian.

Semin thinks traditional Canadian men’s hockey with its obsession with shooting is boring and small, smart, play-making skaters are interesting. So does every other Evgeny Kuznetsov fan.

Semin also thinks that even “dead wood” would look like a star if the NHL propped it up in front of a camera as much as they did Crosby, and that’s the line that ticked Mike Milbury off.  

Guys, my soul is seeping out of me in protest against the idea of giving a fuck.   I adore Alexander Semin. I do not give a fuck whether he enjoys watching Sidney Crosby play hockey.

It affects:

the hockey game that Semin watches at home for fun on his evenings off

end of list

This is a league where Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin said live on-air that the Sedin twins might be fucking each other. The bar for Mean Comments about your competition is so, so much higher. It’s an opinion, and one you would kind of expect from someone whose job was to stop Sidney Crosby winning all the hockey.

Sidney Crosby is exactly as Sidney Crosby as he ever was. If you love his hockey, his hockey is the same hockey.

The only thing that is hurt by someone not enjoying Sidney Crosby’s hockey is the NHL’s Sidney Crosby brand.

The only thing hurt by someone saying Sidney Crosby is on TV a whole bunch is the NHL’s Sidney Crosby brand. 

NHL media getting upset over that…kind of supports the observation that the NHL has invested a lot of time and money in Sidney Crosby’s brand.

It’s also inescapable that NHL media had created the Crosby-Ovechkin rivalry to begin with. They made a simple dichotomy. Anything one got was going to be framed as something the other couldn’t. And since Crosby was getting the attention, he must deserve it, and Ovechkin must not.

That’s what this was. Try telling Canes broadcaster Tripp Tracy that Semin was jealous of Crosby’s spotlight for himself: the man deserves a good laugh. I’m sure Semin sincerely does find Crosby’s hockey dull, because many people outside North America do. 

But his basic state of being is probably “recklessly in love,” so he got pissed, and he said something that, yes, would have been better to keep as an inside thought out loud.

And NHL media fluttered into a tizzy of, ‘HWHaaat? Hwyyy would Alexander Ovechkin’s best friend not love Sidny Crosby? A scandal.’

People said dumb shit and wrote dumber headlines and pestered Crosby until he said something about showing Sasha exactly how special he was. I can’t muster the energy to comment on how sweetly gay that sounds because my heart is curdling because that’s not how enjoying hockey works.

Women’s hockey fans, European fans, and now Leafs fans all think that playmaking super-skating is as-or-more fun as traditional men’s Canadian hockey, and it’s fine. You can force them to sit and watch as many of Crosby’s goals as you want and yes they will see the goal on screen and say, “gosh, yes, that was indeed a goal, my dude,” and no they will not suddenly stop liking what they like.

Anyway half a decade passed and Milbury and McGuirre and other talking heads continued to call Semin a failure and “a cancer” and suggest the Capitals never won because those Russians just don’t care enough.

 I’ve posted some of the milder excerpts before but I genuinely just do not want to type the keywords I would need to pull them up right now. RMNB has a fair few in their archive, and over the years it was enough of a known Thing in the League that other commentators would bring it up.

3. Why’s he not playing in the NHL?

Because Montréal management fucked up, pretty major.

That’s not me: take it from Matt Drake over at SB Nation, and also math:

“His case is one of failed asset management by the Canadiens at its finest.”

Montréal acquired Semin in 2015 to complete their hopeful high-scoring line of Alex Galchenyuk and Lars Eller.

You know how Lars Eller did a great impression of Lars Nicklas this year? Yeah, that’s straight-up what he does. The Canadiens designed a pirated version of DC’s top line, a Lars in the middle, Alex G to race and shoot, and Semin to counterbalance them. And it was a pretty good bootleg!

…for the 15 games the Habs let Semin play.

“They posted a Corsi-for percentage of 59.3%, launched 55.9% of the shots while on the ice, and had a superb 73.7 shot attempts per 60 minutes played. It seems that the coaching staff expected them to be better though, and I can’t account for exactly how that could be.

I assume it had something to do with the lack of goal production. They only had 50% of goals for at even strength, contributing five goals and having the same number scored against them. The thing is, they were only shooting at 7.8%, so there was definitely room for that to improve, and for the goals to come. Had they kept putting up the other numbers the way they were, simple logic dictates that those goals would indeed come.

Individually, Semin was perfectly solid. He stood at 55.5% Corsi for, 54.8% shots for, 51% scoring chances for, and had a woeful shooting percentage of 5.9%. … It may interest fans to know that his 55.5% even-strength possession mark was good for first on the team, tied with Max Pacioretty.

…

Once back in Russia, he had no problem producing. With Metallurg Magnitogorsk, he put up 14 points in 20 games, and added another 15 points in 23 playoff games on the way to a Gagarin Cup. 

Habs management missed a trick.

You mighta noticed my good good boys Galchenyuk and Lars Eller don’t play for the Habs anymore, either. Habs management has missed a lotta tricks whenever they’ve gotten ahold of a non white-North American (I am including the ones they still have. Pour one out for poor Price and Patches.) All love in the world to my former-fellow fans, but the management is fucked.

Not playing Semin wasn’t their worst fuck up, but it cost them a chance (not a promise, but at least a damn chance) at the championship in 2015. And also cost them my heart. Whatever.

[janiedean]

Hi Janie! So, I admit to a bit of ignorance pertaining the whole “anti”-debacle. I’ve seen anti and anti-anti posts that say the same thing, sometimes it’s about morally offensive things, sometimes about completely unrelated stuff and I can’t make heads nor tails of it, especially since there isn’t really a wealth of actual information? Just rants... *sigh* If it’s possible, do you think you could explain what the problem is? (Does that need to be in plural?) and the „sides“? Thank you! ❤️

anon you asked the question of the century I’m afraid X°D THAT SAID let’s... see if I can make this understandable.

so: the anti debate is... pretty much tied to the whole ‘politics in fandom discourse’ and you can’t separate the two of them sadly. of course I come from the not anti side of fandom so what do I know. anyway, premise:

what happened is that in the last two/three years, whether we liked it or not, the debate in fandom has moved from ‘my ship is better than yours’ to ‘my ship is better than yours because it’s more progressive/woke’, which has gone hand in hand with the political fandom views of any media product, ie ‘you can’t watch that because it lacks representation’ or ‘that show is crap because it’s not woke enough or doesn’t treat that topic well’ and so on, and with a tendency to think that if you ship anything you want it to be canon because it only is worth anything if it becomes such (which imo is bullshit but never mind);

this has moved on to also judging people based on their ships, as in: ‘ship X is wrong because it’s problematic for X reason therefore if you ship it you support X irl and you’re problematic and you need to be stopped’. such as ‘thor/loki is wrong because it’s incest so if you ship thor/loki you’re okay with incest irl and you want to bang your siblings if you have any’, which is a ridiculous notion but this goes also hand in hand with the fact that people have suddenly decided to trash all the psychology that confirmed how violent videogames don’t influence reality and now think that liking something problematic influences you irl because they don’t grasp the difference between fandom and mass-media consumption of a mass-media product;

they also don’t grasp the concept of catharsis through media nor of the really basic concept that most normal people who see themselves in fiction don’t take the entire package but relate to specific things;

keeping THAT in mind:

the whole ‘anti’ thing, as ‘people being opposed to a ship or a trend’ is basically people saying that you cannot ship a thing or be into a problematic character or kink because it says something about you and not about your fictional preferences and actively go around being assholes to people who ship the thing while at the same time gatekeeping/policing their own ships which are of course Purer Than The Others and bringing politics into it, too;

this also goes with a frankly problematic (AND I’M USING THE WORD NON-IRONICALLY) attitude that those people have of equating age gaps with pedophilia always and considering children people older than thirteen/fourteen, which automatically makes them think of people who ship age gaps even in between adults pedophiles (I kid you not a friend who’s over thirty in a rship with a person fifteen years older got told that their rship was pedophilia because their partner was an adult when they were a child at some point in their lives. I mean, IMAGINE THAT.);

to give the to-go example these days because it’s sadly the worst: sw sequel trilogy fandom. rey/kylo has been targeted by antis as the to-go Most Problematic Ship because in order:a) enemies to lovers as a trope which is of course abusive if the good side is a woman (more on that later) b) both are white (so it’s racist to not ship her with the non-white people in the light side *roll eyes*)c) they have a ten years age gap (so it’s pedophilia even if rey’s of age and she kicked his ass more than once)d) he’s not technically good looking so it sets people’s worst instincts offe) these people don’t buy into the fact that people can be redeemed so they decided he’s absolutely Not Redeemable and so onf) it’s an m/f couplenow, rey/lo is admittedly a fairly tame ship as far as problematic goes - it’s honestly your typical enemies to friends to lovers trope that’s been in media since the beginning of time, but according to these ppl it’s The Worst and if you dare being into it you must be a pedophile, racist, misogynist (or internalized misogynist), straight person (because of course only straight ppl ship m/f) - and yes, being straight is a problem but more on that later. but since you can ship her with finn (black) or you could ship finn and poe (black and latino actors) if you’re not into either you’re problematic. too bad that if you ship finn and poe (WHICH I DO) these days it’s... let’s just say I’ve seen a list of ‘problematic f/p writers’ where the reasons for the PROBLEMATIC was that they took a fluff ship and wrote it dubcon. oKAY. also pre tlj fandom was full of block lists for r/eylo shippers where you’d get the name plus ALL REASONS WHY THEY HAD TO BE HARASSED OUT OF FANDOM which you will imagine does not sit well with me since that’s... like... the most fascist thing you could do (NO REALLY BAN LISTS OF PERSONE NON GRATAE WITH REASONS WHY THEY WERE IS A THING THAT HAPPENS IN DICTATORSHIPS AND SOCIETY WHERE EVERYTHING IS CENSORED LIKE BANNED BOOKS) in this circumstance, but hey, if you’re anti-reylo and you’re doing the above you’re just doing the work of the lord because you’re saving people from the Horrible Problematic Ship, and meanwhile I don’t want anything to do with a fandom where people do block lists for how you write your fanfic IN GENERAL. like, concrit is more than welcome but lists? please don’t fucking kid me;

I used r/eylo as an example because it’s the epitome of what anti-shipping ends at, but there’s also sh/eith from voltron which is two guys, with a seven years age gap but both are adults now and were older than 15 when they met, who have the sweetest less problematic relationship ever and people who ship.. the other rival ship decided that it’s pedophilia, SUPPORTS INCEST on the grounds of one of the two tell the other ‘you’re like a brother to me’ SERIOUSLY and that it’s abusive and by shipping it you’re a pedophile. k;

also, this entire thing ties with the fact that these people seem to think that having sex when older than fourteen is somehow bad, which means that if you write someone under the age of 18 (and sometimes NOT EVEN THAT see voltron above) you’re automatically a *pedophile* even if teenagers aren’t children and fictional characters are fictional and never hurt anyone, and that goes hand in hand with the fact that these people seem to largely be against kink;

specifically: ‘bdsm is abusive’ (???), ‘you can’t be a feminist if you like kink’ (OKAY???), ‘if you read/write noncon fanfic you have a problem and you’re terrible’ etc, with a specific subset being against specific kinks that play on a certain angle ie daddy kink and so on which are PEDOPHILIA now, which is again an extremely puritanical way to see the world, not progressive;

at this point we have a situation where a bunch of *antis* specifically target people who are into *problematic* things whether it’s ships, characters, kinks and so on and are going like THINK OF THE CHILDREN half of the time. the children being them, of course.

at this point we have the other discourse we need to have ie about the age and sexuality of the people involved in fandom and why it matters:

now: a lot of fandom is made up of women. it’s statistics. a significant statistical part of the old guard (25+-30+ people ie my generation plus the previous 40+ older generation) is cis women (who can be straight or bi but are attracted to men) who went into fandom writing m/m slash. a significant part of this group is into either problematic ships or kink and such on. but in our understanding of fandom, the key terms were ship and let ship + your kink is not my kink + don’t like don’t read. as in: outside your usual MY SHIP IS BETTER THAN YOURS wank was generally understood that people liked things different than yours and that you had no business being an ass over it, and back in the day warnings were at the beginning - when I went into fandom warnings were not a thing. now there’s warnings everywhere which is GOOD and guess why ao3 was made by... the old guard/old fans, which of course are not very pleased with being told they’re pedophiles or perverts for shipping a thing or, *drum rolls*, that they fetishize gay men by shipping m/m or writing m/m porn, and are fairly vocal about it;

on the other side, this new wave of younger fans who thinks is progressive along with older fans who are assholes/most likely grooming the youngers (because this anti shipping thing is seriously cult-like at this point) calling the old generation all the stuff above and pushing the idea that they want ‘old straight ciswomen out of fandom’ because ‘they have gross ideas and THEY DON’T WANT TO READ OUR GROSS FIC’ and such things. we can also talk for ten years about how the new wave has decided that straight = insult but again, tumblr politics. all goes hand in hand;

so basically the sides are ‘younger fans who thinks they are progressive but are actually being puritan af’ vs ‘older fans who want to do their damned thing’ with some people obviously crossing into the others’s territory;

(and mind that not counting SW, most of the anti drama happens in fandoms for... animated cartoons and the likes - vo/ltron, ste/ven universe and so on, which says a lot about the age discourse, but nvm that);

now, the problem is that by telling some woman older than you that she can’t safely explore her sexual fantasies/kinks in fiction about fake characters you’re basically doing the same thing as policing women’s sexual fantasies that has been going on since the dawn of time, so it’s actually hella misogynist, and the fact that it goes with people saying that you can’t be a feminist who likes kink and that kink is abuse/misogynist... is still policing women’s sexualities, irl and fictionally, and that’s what they’re doing at the end of it;

on top of that, they’re also policing what non-straight, non-female fans who ship problematic stuff do and most of all, there’s the shipping to cope bush of thorns.

about shipping to cope:

now, this entire system had to, at some point, deal with the very true fact that a lot of people who are into problematic stuff/kinks/noncon (not all of them of course) engage with that material to work out their issues - a lot of the time it’s abuse victims writing it to elaborate on their abuse and take control of it and so on and usually... a lot of them aren’t even straight (honestly, almost everyone I know who ships th/ramsay ie noncon torture ship that I personally don’t like myself is... not straight, and a lot of them do ship to cope) and telling them you cannot handle your recovery with whichever system they see fit is... RUDE at best. which is why there’s antis who are like ‘shipping to cope is fine but JUST IF IT’S TO COPE’ which means that in order to be given the green light you have to out yourself and tell people you were abused and other antis who are like ‘SHIPPING TO COPE IS WRONG BECAUSE YOU JUST MAKE IT WORSE’ which is... not a thing that happens to everyone and actually every psychologist worth their salt in the world disagrees (or better: for some people it’s bad to do but for others it’s cathartic, and the latter shouldn’t be not able to do it because the former can’t blacklist or because kids on the internet decided that shipping to cope is bad);

so a lot of antis are actually crossing into the territory of wanting to police how people handle their own experience of abuse (honestly once someone told a friend who explained them from a professional pov the valid of problematic/violent art as a cathartic, healthy way to deal with you shit, and who told them that they were an abuse victim who dealt with it in different ways, to GO ON GOOGLE AND LOOK UP HOW IT WORKS and that person knew shit about it period just to say one) and telling people they can’t process their abuse in THAT way but just in THIS way, feeding into the idea that there’s a right way to process abuse and a wrong way to react to it which in turns becomes good victim vs bad victim;

(and then you wonder why they hate kylo ren... who’s a Bad Victim under the definition of the word but hey whatever)

and this is all thrown under the rug of ‘we need to police problematic attitudes in fandoms’ which is 100% bullshit because if you run into someone specifically problematic you should explain them on a one-on-one basis, not do the witch hunt, and you should never presume to police how people handle their own shit, never mind that 90% of the time the so-called problematic material is consumed by a small percentage of people and you can choose to like, not read it;

and by the way, 90% of the actually problematic fandom trends don’t get called out because it wouldn’t be progressive (I can talk for ages about how it’s really worrying that ppl headcanon characters as X following stereotypes that are actually hurtful for the category in question but since the hc = a minority then it’s always okay) but that’s an entire other problem;

tldr: the anti side, as much as they want to think they’re not doing it, are actively policing the content that other people put online based on supposed ‘moral’ standards which 90% of the time aren’t even true (a 16yo in a relationship with a 20yo is NOT pedophilia period) and even going as far as ‘I’ll press charges to the FBI because X wrote underage fic’ when according to the US law if it’s fictional characters it doesn’t count as such and it only does if real recognizable minors are involved (and in that case it shouldn’t be happening in the first place) and those people might be whoever, and for all they support feminism they also end up being incredibly misogynist.

or, just because I like to use my own experiences as an example: this year I had the horrid idea of replying to a post made obviously by anti people where I told them that straight women writing m/m ie what they’re attracted to of course have more in common with a guy into guys in that sense and not with a lesbian since they’re not attracted to women and that writing m/m wasn’t inherently fetishizing shit. since then I’ve had people:

informing me I MUST have internalized homophobia

assuming shit about my sex life that wasn’t even true including which positions I like in bed (because of course straight women only identify with the gay bottom so they’re capitalizing off that experience when some of us don’t)

assuming I was disgusted at the idea of writing lesbian sex (false, I wrote it when I was in the mood)

informing me that writing fanfic about canonical m/m characters wasn’t activism and I shouldn’t presume I was one for that (I never said I considered it such) but at the same time these people think reporting incest fic to ao3 is... activism, but nvm that

telling me that I was a sad old bitch who needed to find a husband and grow up (I MEAN NOT EVEN IN THE FIFTIES) (I’m 29 btw hardly old) because it was the only way my life could have had sense

informing me that of course I was that horrible since I’m italian and all italians beat their wives (NOT XENOPHOBIC AT ALL)

accusing me of writing torture porn with gay characters to get off (never wrote torture porn once in my life, not with gay characters nor any character)

(most ppl I know into torture porn aren’t straight btw)

telling me that I didn’t understand my own attraction to men

assuming that my parents must have thrown me out of the house at some point, that I had no friends and that I never got laid

and in another occasion I got sent fanart of a ship that I said upset me because I had the gall to tell people to leave the shippers alone but hey what do I know

and a bunch of other stuff I won’t bother you with but that to me sounds hella misogynist (I mean, GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN AND FIND A HUSBAND, srsly?). spoilers: I never write noncon, I’m into a few kinks but most are literally harmless, the wildest thing I’m into writing is... 100% consensual d/s sex, the most problematic thing I’m into is thor/loki and I hadn’t shipped it until I realized that... it was cathartic (ps: no, I don’t think irl incest is okay as a general thing) and for the rest I’m famous for... being the person who almost never kills people in fandom X°D I mean, I got that shit and I laughed about it, but what if they sent it to an abuse victim or someone who actually got kicked out of the house? who knows, but sure af they only seem to care about victims when it’s convenient to them and when the victims agree. *shrug* but the above is absolutely okay if you tell that to a straight cis woman who doesn’t particularly feel like writing f/f sex (which is ANOTHER plot point but never mind that I can’t possibly go into how tumblr has decided that f/f relationships without sex are the Thing Everyone Should Aspire To and everything else is a problem including lesbians having kinky sex). anyway, that was all antis. heck, a round of the shit above was started because an anti-ship blog found an oldass ask related to that wank, so.

tldr: the point is that we’re always talking about the same old dumb fandom war ie my ship is better than yours and my fave is better than yours, but now the arguments aren’t just about ships, are about which one is most moral or pure or non-problematic and if you dare being into anything else for your own reasons in your own life (I forgot friends who’ve been told they abuse their partners because they’re into kink, WHAT A DAY) when the *else* is fictional (ie doesn’t exist) and you don’t even do the thing irl or would want to but just want to explore it fictionally, then you are that problematic thing and so *you* are problematic and guess what, there’s a nice witch hunt starting and -

ops.

HOW SURPRISED I AM.

I mean, it’s 90% wanting to censor people and all of that time it’s useless that they dress it as ‘FIGHTING PEDOPHILES’ because thing is, now that everyone rolls their eyes at it because you think ‘right, real pedophiles or people who ship the wrong voltron ship,’ actual pedophiles have free reign and actually whenever I see a post to report a real one it has very little notes in comparison to OMG REY/LO IS PROBLEMATIC and stuff, and the one time I got linked one I checked because I didn’t trust tumblr and let me tell you I wish I didn’t. anti shipping or being anti kink is just... 90% wanting to be puritans without knowing that you’re a puritan and you’re still policing women’s sexualities and abuse victims’s reactions and you’re not helping anyone.

and you sound like those soccer moms from the 90s who thought playing tekken made their kids violent or that marilyn manson’s music caused the columbine shootings which is a thing that has been disproved since two weeks after it happened. and these people have no idea that media influences you to the point you let it and that fiction is not reality. *shrug* and that was my offer to this contribution, I know I’ll get roasted at this point but I’m beyond giving two fucks at this point. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[freckliedan]

gravel to temple, what i need, and wanna be missed :)

gravel to tempo: have you come out to anyone? if yes, who was the first person you told? if no, do you want to? who would you tell first? yes i have! i’ve been out as varying-labels of not straight since 2013 to pretty much everyone, and i think teh first person i told was my best friend at the time? but i had really really supportive parents even before i came out so i knew they’d be chill and was able to just offhandedly mention in conversation that i was bi, and they were like “cool” & that was pretty much it as far as when i first came out?

i’m not out in most spaces as nb, just to friends and on this blog, but i think that my dad has kind of picked up on the fact that i’m like “MMMM gender? stinky” because he knows i have nonbinary friends and that i use the name den a lot and he’s been super affirming abt me being more androgynous lately. the first person i actually said anything about gender to was my best friend keerthi, bc they were talking about it and i was like.. me too shh and after that the first ppl i came out to were my gf & best friend & i kind of just quietly changed my pronouns on social media (except for facebook bc that’s so dead to me that i’m still bi on it & i haven’t id’d as bi for years).

also im like aggressively out as a queer lesbian in all of my classes and i WILL raise my hand to bring up relevant lgbt topics. multiple times. in one day

what i need: who are your favourite gay artists? what are your favourite gay songs?i fucking, love gay music and art, the indigo girls are my mothers who raised me so i feel like i’ve got to list them and as far as i’m aware there’s no lgbt ppl in the band the mountain goats but a lot of their music is something i relate intensely to as a queer person? 

but like re: music i listen to a Lot by queer artists? i fucking love janelle monae, i love mika, i love adult mom bc the singer is nb and it’s like. god its some moods and it’s like a genre of music i really love?, my best friend miles has a queer is holy playlist, i love harry styles w my entire heart, i don’t know very much of laura jane grace (of the band against me)’s music but sometimes i just need to scream-sing about pissing on the walls of shitty people’s houses, this is me & my gf & best friend’s playlist from pride this year, i love ben j pierce and hayley kiyoko and king princess,  this is a playlist by piper @asterlark that i believe is entirely lgbt artists?, piper’s pride playlist, my spotify playlist that’s just called GIRLS  i heard of them, and also my best friend keerthi makes music too and id die for them soo (sorry if this bit got long and off topic)

if i had to pick one (1) favorite gay song it would be hymn by kesha bc Fuck dude thats the mood

wanna be missed: how dependent or independent are you in a relationship? do you like a lot of space, or a lot of intimacy? how do you feel about electronic (vs face to face) communication?here’s the thing..the thing is i’ve been dating my gf for over 4 years now and had feelings for her for nearly a year before that and we were best friends before that and i mean we were nemeses  before that but we’ve known eachother since we were both 7?

so like idk it’s like.. we’re like dan and phil. the two of us have been together since we were 18 and so like! we can be on our own we’re our own people and we have parts of our lives that are separate from eachother but we always choose eachother? they’re my partner we’re a team and i’d always rather do something with her than without them and like. yeah. we still don’t live together bc of money so a lot of the time we’re in communication thru phonecalls and texting and snapchat and Everything bc even though we see eachother nearly daily we still miss eachother? so i guess i like a lot of intimacy but this is the only way i’ve ever known, you know? she’s the first person i ever dated and i’m the first person they ever dated & its just like! yeah. idk.  not to be that bitch but the reason i love dnp is bc their relationship feels exactly, exactly the same as me & my gf’s relationship & like! yeah! idk! i run out of words cos i’m so filled w love. idk.

it’s a unique n special kind of love when you get the chance to become an adult, like, grow into a person, alongside your best friend, the person who made you believe in love, maybe even the person who made you believe in soulmates even though you don’t really necessarily believe in souls.. like, i’m talking about me there but im definitely also talking about dan & thats why i love dan and phil so much n thats why i can’t really answer this question good! idk how to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it? bc it’s the only thing i know i don’t know how to relate my experiences to other experiences bc of that. idk!!!!!!! i love love. i’m going to stop talking now fsdjklfjsdkl

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly(/Monthly) Update #52: I’m Gonna Jumpsuit Out a Window (6/30/18)

When all the cryptic weirdness surrounding dmaorg.info sprung up nearly two months ago, everyone was extremely hyped. So much content! So many theories! It really felt like hiatus was over.

There was just one problem: there were no new songs licensed or registered under the band’s name, which meant nothing was coming out. Rabid music fans have known for years that there is truly no such thing as a “surprise” music release: for legal reasons, almost all song titles show up on online registries several days, if not weeks, before they are made available to the public. And, indeed, after the initial wave of teases wrapped up, the Clique returned to a quasi-hiatus state, punctuated only by the occasional addition to the Dema lore.

This Thursday, June 28, that all changed. Let’s talk about it. 

This Week’s TØPics:

Finally, Some Good F*cking Food: Two New Song Titles Registered

Dema Recap: Cheetahs and Trenches and Cryptic Nonsense, Oh My!

One Year Later: What Do We Really Know About This Hiatus?

Editorial: When the Discourse Gets Too Much (and When It’s Just What We Need)

Major News and Announcements:

In the biggest piece of real news that we’ve received since the hiatus, two new song titles have been registered on the PPL music licensing database: “Nico and the Niners” and “Jumpsuit”. This is a highly reputable source, and not even truly a “leak” as so many have called it. The pages are managed directly by labels’ legal teams to ensure that anyone who wishes to play music in their media, advertisements, or establishments knows what songs are licensed to which artists and what steps to take to legally license them. “Heathens” was first spotted here over two years ago, not to mention countless other songs from various other artists. The two songs were just removed from the day after they were found listing, but Reddit detectives have already discovered untitled tracks with the same registration codes listed under an unknown Warner artist (ya’ll ain’t slick).

The fact that this posting was accompanied by further activity from the band only confirms that there’s some real nonsense going on. Not only did we get new Dema content (which we’ll get to) but, perhaps even more wild, Tyler Robert Joseph liked something on Instagram. Dude’s alive.

In all seriousness, Tyler Joseph’s social media habits do little to help us understand just what the hell “Nico and the Niners” is. The bigger story (and the one I’ve been slacking on reporting the last two months, my bad) is the sporadic updates to dmaorg.info. Back in early May, we got our first bit of content after the initial reveal in the form of a new letter from Clancy. The letter itself is a pretty well-written YA protagonist internal monologue, with Clancy yearning to find a place that truly feels like home outside the walls of Dema. But, Tyler being Tyler, there’s more to it than that: the date attached to the paragraph matches that of the band’s last social media post, and missing letters from throughout the note together spell out the coded message “You are still sleeping.”

The second update, posted in late May, is this lovely gif of a cheetah running under letters moving in a quick sequence. After slowing it down, the letters spell out the message “U still don’t know his real name do u?” Again, there’s much more to the post when you take the time to dig in. The listed date matches Josh’s appearance at the APMAs, the first mention of Dema. The file name for the gif is “3lurr” meaning the “he” in the question may in fact be Blurryface. Most significantly, the spaces between this message’s words were filled with letters that, when taken out separately and placed in sequence, repeatedly spell out “Nico,” perhaps answering the gif’s own rhetorical question.

So who is Nico? Well, it matches the names of one of the nine bishops in the “Compass” picture from April, which would seem to make him one of the ‘niners” who rule Dema. It’s increasingly looking like this album is really going to double down on covering a weird and fleshed out concept rife with metaphors, and I. Am. Here for it (as long as the music’s, ya know, good).

The final (for now) Dema post was released just yesterday in the wake of all of the sudden new activity. It is the first photo that seems to be wholly original, with no one as yet having tracked down where it’s from. It’s a pretty badass image, with twenty-one (goddammit) figures standing at the edge of some cliff or pit. Some have speculated that this could be album artwork, and it would certainly make for a very good cover. But that’s just the surface.

The image’s jpg name is an assortment of letters that, when deciphered using a basic alphabet sequence code, translates into “Trench”- possibly another new song? BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! Typing that jpg number sequence or “trench” into the “violation code” section of the dmaorg.info url reveals a heavily-distorted audio clip. Sound engineers on Twitter and Reddit have tried reversing and pitch correcting the snippet, but have not truly succeeded in deriving anything from it beyond that it seems to be Tyler singing “So did they obey/bury you?” But what he’s saying honestly doesn’t matter to me half as much as this fact: after over a year, we finally got to hear Tyler Joseph’s voice. That’s got me on Cloud Nine, baby. 

Pictured: The Clique (I know I used this joke last time, sue me)

So what does all of this cryptic nonsense and Reddit deciphering ultimately tell us? Frankly, it’ll be hard to say until we actually have our hands and ears on new music. The Clique has compiled so many different theories about what these little snippets of photos and garbled words mean that there’s no way they can all be true. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that there was an actual plan for this roll-out stretching back at least a year and that Tyler is not (as some salty fans have suggested) just throwing out a bunch of “fake deep trash.” Each piece of the Dema content has matched up in some way with the lyrics from the shutting eyes last year:

“You’ll have to come and find me.” -> The original discovery of the website.

“My pretty sleeper.” -> The “You are still sleeping” hidden message.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could just lay down...” -> “...and wake up in Slowtown” (and slow down the cheetah gif).

“I will fear the night again...” -> “[I hope I’m] not my only friend.” (the caption for the cliff picture)

Beyond all of that, the revelation of “Nico and the Niners” being part of the actual album should be taken as a real source of validation for all of those Reddit warriors out there: At least some of this stuff means something. (Now wtf is “Jumpsuit” about...)

Other Shenanigans:

Potential leaks from radio stations and some common sense theories have pegged a single release for the band as coming in the next two weeks, either July 6th or 13th. With all that in mind, I thought we’d look back on the weird conspiracy chart I’ve been keeping in my closet and recap what exactly we know about the band’s activities over the last year. 

The short answer is: not much. After Josh’s performance at the APMAs, there have been no interviews, no public appearances, no social media posts. Josh has certainly been much more active than Tyler, which just makes sense for his much-less introverted personality. He contributed drums to Lights’ last album (though those recordings were done well before the hiatus). He apparently hopped into the studio with Drake Bell, (though I have no idea if any of that music has seen the light of day). He’s been fine taking group photos with Fueled by Ramen colleagues, other friends from the music industry, and, of course, Debby, who he almost definitely is back with. As for Tyler... well, beyond a few Jenna photos from a few months back and the odd fan encounter, there’s been nothing, which is why that eight second audio clip hit me like a Mack truck. 

There are a few other things the truly obsessed have been able to find that I don’t necessarily want to reward by reposting here- I really want to try to keep it about the art. But we can pretty safely guess from Jenna and Jordan’s social media that the duo have been in Columbus, LA, and New York together a few times the last few months, likely for studio sessions and label meetings. Perhaps we’ll find out more about what transpired during the “hiatus” in the weeks and months to come, perhaps not. One thing’s for sure: it’s finally, finally (almost) over. 

Editorial:

The last note I wanted to leave everyone on is something a little different for this blog, but still something I still think is worth talking about. Anyone who has been visiting the Twenty One Pilots tags on any site over the last several months can tell that the fanbase has not been taking the band’s absence well. And I’m not just talking the usual overblown crying for new music or young kids worshiping their idols a little too much. That’s always been there. This is different.

A whole host of the old crowd- the update accounts, the podcast hosts, the quasi-groupies who got barricade every night- have turned pretty hard from the band, particularly from Tyler. Some just have no interest in the music of Twenty One Pilots in the year 2018 AD; they’ve discovered other topics, other genres, other artists that speak more personally to where they are in life, and have just moved on. Others have expressed deeply personal distaste for the band itself for a whole host of political and social reasons that I’m not going to get into here- that’s a debate for another time, and probably for another account.

The point is, digging through social media to try to find updates and memes has been difficult when the most dependable sources also pepper in jab at whether Tyler’s learned to carry burdens yet every few posts. And while those folks are certainly more than entitled to their opinions and feelings (I even agree with many of them), it’s hard to deny that there are large swathes of the Twenty One Pilots’ fandom that just aren’t much fun to be in right now, just like there’s large swathes of the world in general where it feels like we’re not permitted to assume the best in people and just be happy with the things that used to make us happy. For a few weeks, I’ve honestly been wondering if I wanted to keep running this account in the next era. I just wanted to go back to the time before I had to share Twenty One Pilots with the world, when this was just my band, the one that made me feel understood and valid and worthy at a time where nothing else really did

Sasha Geffen’s insightful and deeply personal piece on the band’s music for AV Club, which focuses on how Tyler Joseph depicts and discusses suicidal depression, helped bring me back to that time. Music journalists have frequently gotten everything wrong about Tyler Joseph’s songwriting, to the point where I have often felt like they were listening to different music than me. But Geffen gets it. She sees that Tyler does not talk down to his audience about the problems they’re dealing with; he’s always been right there with us, and always offering concrete and practical ways of getting through depression one day at a time. He’s an insightful and compassionate dude, way more than people give him credit for, and it shows in his art. I had almost forgotten that. I needed that reminder right now, before everything ramps up again. I hope that article offers some comfort for any of you who also want to remember why this band is still so special, all these years later.

See you all (hopefully) next week. Power to the local dreamer.

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