#and when it won't happen in the show or be significantly different since even people working on the show don't always have full context

[bugsbenefit]

my annoyance with the current leaker isn't even with what they say. they're about as credible as any other "leaker", easily bullshit but sure maybe there is something behind it. nothing provable until we get serious leaks or more show teasers. my annoyance is just from how everyone is jumping at everything they say, even the vague nothing statements, and using it as "proof" for their hcs theories. and not in a, "this would work together nicely" or "this inspired me" way which i get but in the "since we now know this we can conclude theory xyz is happening" way

i'm already seeing people that take every self proclaimed leaker to heart and base their entire approach to s5 on them. every time i get a "since A is happening it would be so cute if B" approach i think i missed something new getting out but no, it's just the ripple effects of an alleged leak on twitter from two weeks ago

it's just frustrating, not new, happens in every fandom, but still, frustrating. because now you have people putting anonymous internet users on the same pedestal as actual in show canon which is the exact way you get a fandom to fixate on an idea that "needs" to happen. which will just make everyone unhappy when s5 drops and disappoints their expectations

we'll just have a "Will's painting is a swingset" (for some reason?) 2.0. i got back on ST tumblr in late July and i Still had to wade through people bitch about how disappointed they were with the painting. just because they were so set on the swingset idea. when, genuinely, a swingset would have been so corny, the dnd painting is infinitely better (to me)

[avelera]

Vibrating over Daniel’s ending.

I’d love your thoughts on what it means for next season?

(And any other thoughts you have about the finale are so welcome 🙏)

Heya! I actually wrote up my thoughts here.

But, short Daniel-specific version:

I think we'll get Louis-as-Lestat's-agent inviting Daniel to interview Rockstar Lestat for his next book and Daniel salivating at the chance to do so.

(Very different tonally from what I was expecting, btw. No joke, I thought the falling books were going to be Lestat crashing through the ceiling to kidnap Daniel for an interview so he could tell HIS version of the story lol, but I can see why they went for a tearful Loustat reunion instead and how kidnapping Daniel wouldn't have worked with that, funny as it is in my head).

The good news is that I believe we'll get Daniel's snark throughout Lestat's book since that's been the framing device of the show so far (though, there's less of a "mystery" to unravel in Lestat's narrative than in Louis's so... who knows, maybe they will break the format since you don't need an investigative reporter with Lestat to drag secrets out, Lestat literally can't shut up). Honestly, I am SALIVATING to hear Daniel tear Lestat's narrative limb from limb lol.

The bad news is that I think, sadly, that if we dive right into 1-2 seasons of The Vampire Lestat, we won't be getting the space to explore Armand/Daniel and why that happened and if Devil's Minion happened in the past until a theoretical Season 5, if we follow the books and leave the end of TVL to go into Queen of the Damned, where that beat takes place.

IF we do that, sadly, it means we'll have to wait on the full explanation of Daniel/Armand.

HOWEVER, I also wouldn't put it past the show to actually do more interweaving of past and present than that. Have some modern stuff like Daniel/Armand/Devil's Minion in the present day while we're ducking in and out of Lestat's trip down memory lane to 18th century France.

GENUINELY, even as a writer, I don't know how they'll tackle the order of events given that means it'll be a LONG time before we get an explanation for stuff they set up in this season like Daniel's turning and part of me thinks they won't wait THAT long because the eagerness to learn this info is here now, and might not be there in a couple years, people might have forgotten by then.

That said, they also introduced Raglan James, the villain of Vampire Chronicles Book 4, the Body Thief, so that actually signals that they're willing to seed things very early before the pay-off, UNLESS they remix the order of the books significantly and Akasha gets pushed back.

It actually would kinda make sense to push Akasha back she is an EXCELLENT final boss and Body Thief is a bit of a come-down after her so I wouldn't totally blame them for swapping those two books in terms of the order we see their events in. But maybe not! They've been surprisingly faithful in a lot of ways. Regardless, I trust their discretion.

And finally, my hope when we DO finally get Devil's Minion, we're going to have the modern Daniel/Armand juxtaposed with the 1970s one, ending in Armand refusing to turn him in the 1970s, wiping his memory (perhaps knowing that vampirism would drive young Daniel mad, as it canonically did in the books, but old Daniel is made of sterner stuff now) and then we flash forward to the present and old man vampire Daniel and Armand and whatever THEY'VE got going on (hopefully: Daniel domming the shit out of Armand the way he always wanted).

So ok, I lied, I had more thoughts, lol!

[halfagone]

I just reread Off With the Demon's Head and now I've gotta ask you a few things.

How does Talia feel now, knowing she gave birth to the person she's been competing with for her father's attention and affection with and losing? If I'm not misinterpreting how she thinks of her father based on that scene describing Ra's visiting Danny and Athanasia but not Damian.

With pending plans in mind for this, is Ra's going to get as creepy here as you have planned in Luthor's Ascent? Or is he too blinded by affection for Boy/Wild Child that he can't see the potential power that would be at his fingertips if he could get his claws back into Danny?

When Danny entered his core, you wrote that someone else noticed what had happened. With additional confirmation that the Cores can still communicate and Pariah has been Cored as well, is Pariah just sending off a whole bunch of alarm vibes from somewhere in Clockwork's junk drawer?

Hope you had a fun reread!

I obviously won't share this all with detail but since it might take some more time before I get to write and post that next update, I might as well share some of the fun. lol

[Possible Spoilers If You'd Like to Avoid <333]

Prior to this, Ra's has not once breathed a word about Danny to anyone. He is Ra's' most ardent secret and, quite possibly, glaring weakness. However, with this new tidbit of information Talia can probably start connecting the dots and realize just how significantly Danny's relationship and subsequent disappearance had on her entire life. She had been in a competition all this time and she didn't even know her true opponent.

One of the things I love about this fic is just how damn complicated everything is and Talia is no different. She wouldn't resent Danny or hate the fact she had birthed her competition. But she would resent that her father could only hold affection for one person at a time and would never share it. After all, before this she just thought Ra's was a hardass that had impossible standards. Which is still partially true but no matter how close she met or surpassed those standards she would never be Danny. It was never that she wasn't good enough, it's just that her father wanted someone else and that fucking sucks.

Are the Daddy Issues inherited in Off With [the Demon's] Head? Yes. Yes there are. Unintentionally!

So Ra's will be creepy but in a different sort of way. Ra's in LL's Ascent is more like objectification kinda creepy whereas Ra's in OWtD'sH is more like you are mine and we are one and you can never walk away from me- So like. Obsessive. Possessive. Maybe some mild abandonment issues. Definitely some lingering grief there. But turn it from 100 to 1000.

This Inspired By fic that I wrote as a gift shows a glimpse into what that can look like as well. I am also quite partial to this Danny & Ra's fic I wrote which shows how damn charismatic Ra's can be, allowing him to spin the narrative to his advantage.

you are mine and we are one and you can never walk away from me-

Pay careful attention to this line. Whereas in LL's Ascent Ra's views Danny as more of a tool to further his goals, in OWtD'sH Ra's sees Danny as an extension of himself and therefore should remained fixated at his side where he belongs. Any power Danny wields would naturally be used to his advantage, Danny's power -> his power.

(Can I just say I love and appreciate how many details you noticed? Because I do love and appreciate it <333)

I can't give too much away about Pariah just yet, despite how much it makes me giggle with unfiltered, evil author glee, but all the alarms are going off and people are gonna be running around like headless chickens.

I hope this has fed the brain worms until the next update. >:3 Thanks for the Ask!

[sereneabyyss]

An Actual Unbiased Review on Wuthering Waves

Tired of seeing either people absolutely bashing Wuthering Waves with refusal to actually talk about the good parts? Or exhausted of people calling Wuwa the Genshin Killer and refusing to accept that two games can exist and competition shouldn't kill each other completely? Well as a certified 'gacha is gacha' enthusiast who's actually played multiple gacha games and not just hoyo games and has gone through multiple games with maintenance and consistent updates, I'm here to give an actual unbiased review of Wuthering Waves and what it already excels at and what it needs work in. This won't go into any story details or anything that would be spoilers so don't worry about that

Instead of talking about the pros and cons individually I'm gonna talk about different aspects of the games and talk about the pros and cons of each thing. Because trust me everything has its pros and cons. I'm also going to do some comparisons for certain things and explanations for my thoughts on the individual topics.

For those who've played the game, let's start with the most obvious thing. Game optimization.

Cons:

The ping has been horrendous

Movement has been clunky and laggy because of bad ping

Some people had issues with npc faces looking blurry and weird skies? I didn't personally have these issues so I'm not sure

Some people have been having issues with crashing. Again, I have not, so I'm not sure if that's been fixed with the latest update

Pros:

Kuro has been pumping out update after update since launch to fix the known bugs and optimize everything

Since the update earlier ping has reduced significantly for me and I know it has been better for some of my friends

Now some of my thoughts on optimization and why the lack of optimization is actually fine and not proof that the game is crashing and burning: ahem.

EVERY SINGLE GAME UPON LAUNCH HAS BUGS AND OPTIMIZATION ISSUES

Betas are great and all, but they are NOT a representation of the strain a global launch has on servers and the game itself. Having the game in beta longer would NOT have prevented the optimization errors. These are so common in games it's genuinely astounding that there are people who think this is showing how bad the game is.

Let's do some comparisons: Tower of Fantasy literally flashed rainbow lights at players as a bug and it did not get fixed within the first week that I gave it a chance. Enstars' global release was an absolute disaster and was completely unplayable for a length of time. I didn't play Genshin when it first released but even when I started playing it had optimization issues. Genshin STILL has optimization issues that they fix with every update.

Games constantly have issues and bugs and need to be maintained 24/7. The thing to look at is NOT if it has bugs. It's to look at how the developers deal with those bugs. And like I said, Kuro has already done multiple emergency maintenance fixes and it fixed the ping spikes majorly for me.

I agree that bugs and optimization errors are frustrating, but they happen with every single game ever. What's important is how fast Kuro is working to fix those bugs!

Story/VA (Kuro lumped these together in their survey so I'm doing the same)

Cons:

The voice acting for Yangyang is so bland

They tried to do a mix of the characters trusting Rover and not trusting Rover to appease multiple audiences and it's just awkward

Dialogue boxes aren't entirely working properly so you just don't see the subtitles for half of a character's lines sometimes

Pros:

The story is interesting and intriguing (this is subjective but so is hating the voice acting)

They actually give the players real choices in certain instances of the story

Rover having actual voice lines is a breath of fresh air

Some of my thoughts: there's a lot of rumors surrounding the voice actor choices and that hoyo "sabotaged" Kuro by not letting voice actors for genshin voice wuwa characters. Whether that's true or not doesn't really matter in my books it doesn't matter if a name is big or not what matters is if they're good and while I think the voice fits Yangyang I don't like the acting part of it and it reads as bland and apathetic. It might improve in the future but otherwise I don't like it but I also don't like Paimon's voice in Genshin so I'm fine with not liking a voice actor. I won't bash an entire game for that.

I have been really enjoying the game so far and it's story is very intriguing. They use a lot of music terms for the lore and I enjoy that a lot. I'm interested in not only the Rover but what's going on with the world itself which is very important in a game. While I do have an opinion on how the story compares to other games I won't give it as that is purely subjective but just know I do think this is one of the better 1.0 stories I have played.

Gameplay/mechanics

Cons:

The Ding for the character switching perfect timing for a special attack is not always the easiest to hear. It's gotten better but the sound is very faint especially when listening to music while playing

Pros:

The tutorial/practice stages for the resonators and the dodging mechanics are a life saver

The combat is skill based yes but you can also button mash your way through

The world is very fun to explore and the chest puzzles actually had me thinking but were still very intuitive on how they actually worked

Echoes are genuinely one of the most unique "artifact" systems to come from gacha and it has been fun collecting them and using them

Comments: I genuinely don't have really any cons for the gameplay. I think it's phenomenal and a really unique and fun experience that while can make you think "oh this is similar to this game" still has a twist to it that makes it its own thing. I'm not sure how they could fix the dinging issue and not being able to hear it, but I do have to mention that it can be hard to get it because of that but honestly you can genuinely button mash through a fight. They aren't that hard in base game. And this is including bosses.

Overall: Like I said at the beginning. Gacha is Gacha. Enjoy whatever games you want to enjoy. I enjoy Gacha and I love open world. So I like both Genshin and Wuthering Waves. There are issues in both games and you have to recognize that but that doesn't mean you should use those issues to tear a game down to boost your favored game. Play what you want to play and recognize competition is good for video games. No I don't think Wuthering Waves will kill Genshin. And no I don't think Wuthering Waves is going to crash and burn. I enjoy playing both games and so this is my overall review for Wuthering Waves within the first few days and just how things have continued to develop after the initial launch.

[12thperigeeball]

Hi! I'm so sorry to bring this up but I have some questions/concerns about this year's voting process. I know that this is the first time we have tried this out in two brackets and the first time tumblr has had polls but I have 3 things to bring up.

1. We (currently) have 3 very clear leaders and no one even close to their votes in each category, why not let that stand if it remains like that until voting closes?

2. I'm worried not enough people will remember/see the second poll since they voted already and many aren't used to having two poles. I personally almost didn't even see that there were going to be two rounds until a while after I voted and won't be around much the rest of the weekend since the ball is over. I never would have know. (Also many don't know characters by name only so will there be accompanying pictures?)

3. If we are lengthening the voting can we maybe lengthen the Yule Ball itself to the whole weekend? That way it gives people more time to join in, especially weekend workers. Nominations can still end Sat at midnight, but maybe we could even have voting occur on the theoretical Sunday as an actualy event in the ball that people can react to.

Hi anon! No worries, we're happy to help clarify things.

So first and foremost, I do want to clarify that the voting process this year is a cumulation of different decisions that all three of us have discussed and agreed upon, based off of last year's voting concerns of the community and our experience with the ball theme voting process this year.

One major issue that I know concerned people last year was cheating - and our Google forms runs on an honor system. Doing a no sign in required voting form with no results showing has been the way the ball has worked for ten+ years now, but we can tell when the times have changed and the community asks for more accountability.

Secondly, one concern we heard from the ball them voting from earlier was the amount of options and the votes being more spread out. If you have 200+ votes but the 'winning' option only has 50, then that's an issue, isn't it? And when you toss in the option to see results without having to vote for a nominee, well, that skews things as well. A trade off for accountability, but one we can work with. We did feel like the second round of voting went much smoother than expected and still got an incredible amount of engagement from our user base! We were pretty worried it wouldn't, but it proved otherwise.

So, to answer your questions directly: 1) It has been two hours since voting began (from the time of receiving this ask + writing it. It is now 12 hours since receiving the ask as of posting). In previous years we've seen nominees come out strong out the gate and then fall behind as the process went ahead (in the past 10~ hours we can see that starting to happen now). Making a call about letting votes stand at this time would be putting the horse before the carriage, without factoring in our desire to reduce cheating as mentioned before. Our attempts to reduce vote fixing is our main priority. Also, as of 12PM 12/17/2023, our current queen and couturier winners are 'see votes', lol. Not logging names/emails and showing results have to have a trade off somewhere, and the trade off will require a round 2 of votes.

2) This was also a concern of ours, but our previous ball theme voting rounds and the amount of participants on tumblr itself has assuaged our fears of it being missed. I know having two polls isn't the norm, but we feel confident that we will still get a great turnout as we did before. We try our best to spread the poll around by reblogging it multiple times so people can see it during different times of the day. As for the not knowing characters by name - that was one of my biggest concerns with tumblr polls too! I believe we should be able to attach pictures to poll posts above or below the poll to help as a visual guide, howeverrrr it will stretch the post out significantly. It's something we're still considering the best possible way to show this without clogging dashes from constant reblogging.

3) This is a pretty good idea and one I have already been considering recently! The two day format has been a holdover from the Taima days and while none of us have ever stopped people from continuing to post or rp past the ball dates and never require people to role play out the nominations, the dances, or any other aspect, it still does limit how much time people have. The logistics of it may mean some more thought of course, because we try very hard to be considerate of the holiday by having the ball happen the weekend before Christmas, so we may have to adjust the ball happening earlier in the month to give users a larger cushion to enjoy themselves. You know, convention logic for four days instead of two! We'll keep you guys updated on this for next year, so feel free to let us know how you guys feel about this idea.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Disclaimer: I'm about to discuss contrasting portrayals of CSA in Superboy 1994 and Titans 1999. I will not get graphic, and I will not include panels depicting such things (although I may briefly describe what happens), although there will be panels discussing it. But it is a weighty topic, and I will be primarily addressing portrayals of the victims' responses, the responses of the adults around them, and how the narrative treats the subject. You have been warned.

Kon-El and Grant Emerson are both victims of CSA. They are both subjects of unethical genetic experimentation who have had their rights to autonomy and a safe, normal childhood taken away. They were both created to be weapons in the hands of unscrupulous people. They have both been abused by people whom they trusted and looked to for guidance. The exact ways that they cope with these things differs, but they're both deeply hurt and frustrated by these circumstances. There are a lot of thematic similarities, but their stories play out in very different ways, specifically in how their narratives address the CSA. Buckle up, this is a long one.

There's a lot of CSA in Kon's solo, but I'm going to look specifically at his experiences with the villain Knockout, which is the one case of abuse in his life that does get sort of almost addressed as such. The supervillain Knockout is established early in the series as seeking to prey on Kon, who is physically about fifteen/sixteen and chronologically less than a year old. She sees him on TV and comments that he's "cute--in a jailbait sort of way," and she starts antagonizing him. Her fights with him are full of blatant innuendo and forcible kissing, which gets more extreme once she claims to have reformed and sets herself up as a mentor to him. Which begins a story arc titled (significantly) "Losin' It."

Kon is very young, affection-starved, hormonal, and ready to believe the best of everyone, so he's quick to excuse Knockout's behavior even as it becomes more questionable. The adults in his life don't do anything to protect him. His girlfriend Tana (who's also a predator, but that's another story) is suspicious out of jealousy and tries to interfere, but he won't listen. Knockout gradually puts him in more and more sexually charged situations until she gets him alone for "the final lesson." It's ambiguous how far she goes, but she definitely does at least try to assault him multiple times. He finally realizes what she is when he sees her commit murder and ask him to do the same. He's able to bring her to justice (for murder but not, apparently, for the assault), but the events leave him understandably shaken, and he goes off alone to process it.

(Superboy 1994 #30)

This would have been a helpful time for Superman to show up. Or even Dubbilex, the telepathic D.N.Alien from Cadmus who is the closest thing to a father figure Kon has at this point. But the one who comes and finds him is Roxy Leech, daughter of his exploitative manager, who is among the adult women who have shown romantic interest in Kon. He considers her a friend and tries to open up about his feelings. And here's where the title of the arc shows its multiple meanings.

"I lost somethin' I don't think I'll ever get back." He goes on to identify this "somethin'" as his faith in humanity, but that's not all he's lost. He's been abused, he's trying to process it, and he blames himself.

And how does Roxy respond to this boy's obliquely admitting to her that he's been abused?

She hits him. She intends it playfully, but look at his face. He does not appreciate this. Especially since Knockout was frequently "playfully" violent with him. Not only this, but Roxy proceeds to invalidate his feelings and basically inform him that he's not allowed to be "grim an' gritty," even if he's just been through the worst experience of his short life. He's supposed to be happy and positive!

She then follows it up with some very trite advice (the 90s was obsessed with "believing in yourself") that frames him as the one who did wrong but can be redeemed if he gets his act together. Kon accepts this and goes on his way seemingly happy again, but also having internalized that what happened to him was his fault. The narrative can recognize that Knockout was predatory, but it still blames Kon for his susceptibility to her.

Much, much later, he gets the chance to confront Knockout in prison. He calls her out for trying to kill him and get him to kill, but he makes no mention of the abuse. Nevertheless, he's still hoping to convince her to reform.

(Superboy 1994 #69)

She reuses her old manipulative tactics, but he is able to see through them and fight back.

His friend Serling tries to get involved. Knockout can't do anything to hurt either of them, but she's still screaming threats as they leave.

Serling is more understanding than Roxy when Kon opens up to her and has some insightful comments from her own experience. She assures him that it's not his job to change Knockout, but there's not much she can do to help him as a teenager herself, and still the abuse goes unacknowledged.

The issue is never directly addressed again, although Knockout does show up in a nightmare he has in #92. She appears alongside Serling and some other girls/women he knows, who are saying, "Let's do things to his body!" "Illegal things," Knockout adds. So there's an implication that on some level he comes to understand that what happened to him was wrong, but that's as far as it goes. And he never does seem to realize that Tana preyed on him either. The narrative can't accept that any of this was sexual abuse, so neither can Kon.

Meanwhile, Grant's abuse occurs in a different context.

We don't see a lot of Grant's relationship with the people he grew up believing were his parents. Rule #4 of his "Emerson System" strongly suggests that they are emotionally neglectful at the very least: "Never tell your parents what's really happening with you. If it's good, they won't get why. If it's bad, they can't handle it."

(Damage 1994 #1)

John Emerson tries to gaslight his foster son when Grant brings up his new powers, and when Grant lashes out at him in frustration (which, judging from the Emersons' reactions, isn't normal behavior for him), he is verbally severe. Afterward Grant berates himself for this "major mistake."

The Emersons, without the slightest remorse, report Grant to the lab that experimented on him, manipulate his concern for them to lure him there, and use a false promise of affection to try to put a device on him that will neutralize his powers. Having outlived their usefulness, they are then shot in front of him. A traumatized Grant will come to find out that they were not his real parents, and he questions whether they ever really loved him.

(Damage 1994 #9)

John Emerson's brother Neal, whom Grant calls uncle, can't tell him why his foster parents were like that, but he does reveal that he and John were physically abused by their father.

Neal also happens to be supervillain Dr. Polaris, so there's that too. Much later, during Grant's second stint with the Titans, he is called upon to testify at Neal Emerson's trial. He seems reluctant to go and makes some cryptic remarks.

(Titans 1999 #17)

He comes back distraught but unwilling to talk. His teammate Roy Harper, who has been trying to mentor him to make up for their clashes the last time they worked together, is concerned about him and insists on taking him on a camping trip with his daughter Lian.

Roy tells some stories about his father figure Oliver Queen, and when Grant expresses envy for such a family, Roy admits that it wasn't always great--but he doesn't have to tell Grant how that is, does he? Grant initially tries to stay distant but gradually opens up--and reveals that his foster father physically and sexually abused him.

Roy is of course horrified. The intense emotion sets off Grant's powers, and he comes dangerously close to exploding. Instead, he breaks down in tears.

Note the tag line on the cover of the following issue, in which this plotline continues. (The people pictured around him include his real father on the bottom right plus members of the JSA whose DNA he shares.)

Grant is repeatedly apologetic, but Roy tells him he doesn't need to be sorry, and he expresses sympathy and acknowledges the abuse for what it is. Lian follows her father's compassionate example.

(Titans 1999 #18)

But Grant is having a hard time processing that the abuse wasn't his fault and expresses mixed shame and anger.

Roy urges him to continue to express himself, and Grant yells out everything he wishes he could have told his foster father about how he treated the scared, trusting child in his care.

Lian doesn't fully understand what's going on because it's not on her age level, but she does know that someone treated Grant badly, and she has a significant question.

Grant and Roy together come to the decision that the best thing for Grant now will be to take a break from being Damage and stay for a while at the Navajo reservation where Roy grew up. He needs a secluded, peaceful place where he can concentrate on healing.

(Titans 1999 #19)

He remains there for the rest of the series, although he makes a few later appearances, in which it's evident that he's still struggling. But he's in a place where he has support, and the Titans do seem to still keep in contact with him.

Something like this is what should have happened for Kon. Grant's abuse is acknowledged, his emotions are validated and allowed to be expressed, the adults around him are sympathetic and supportive, and his healing is prioritized. Why does this not occur for Kon?

Well, Doylist reasons. Kon was the star of his own popular solo, and the readers expected rollicking adventures, not a hero who takes time off to address his mental health. Meanwhile, Grant was a supporting character in a team book that was more concentrated on his adult teammates, and sending him away was a way to free up a new slot on the team for variety.

But an in-universe reason? The boys are in different living situations. Grant is part of a team that includes at least one adult who is actively invested in his wellbeing and sees him as a person, not a commodity. But Kon is stuck in one exploitative situation after another, and the abuse has been so normalized that he can't even recognize it as wrong--unlike Grant, who knows how families should be even if he never had that experience.

How would things have gone if Kon had let anything about the Knockout situation slip to, say, Clark? Would he have reacted in shock and taken steps to protect Kon? Hard to say, unfortunately. He knows that Kon is dating an adult and doesn't seem at all concerned about that (although in the Sins of Youth storyline when he and Kon reverse ages, Clark freaks out when he realizes that he's now a teenager married to an adult and he tells Kon that he and Lois wouldn't be able to make that work like Kon and Tana...yikes).

Or what if Kon had told a friend around his own age? Tim, for instance, is aware that there are women who prey on Kon thanks to a run-in with Poison Ivy when the two boys first meet, but Tim's reaction to this is not concern but blaming Kon for the problem--despite the fact that in this case he was under mind control. Is that perhaps the real difference in how these cases of abuse are treated? Grant's abuse is portrayed as such because it's easy to recognize as wrong in a family setting. But Kon's abuse isn't seen as abuse because it occurs in a romantic relationship and thus, as a male, he allegedly "wanted it" and invited it.

Which, quite frankly, is pretty messed up and no way to respond to SA.

[raayllum]

i feel like people were expecting something as impactful as s3 felt, especially after the 3 year wait and just the hype in general for s4 – which, imo, it was more about the Saga returning and new plot points taking shape + ppl had a lot of personal opinions over the hiatus of how the story should go and which character should do what, so i guess this is making some reactions feel... biased, at least from my standpoint

I think what gets me is that structurally and pacing wise, the season isn't that different from basically any other in the show. A lot (not all of course, but some) of the S4 criticism just feels like people not giving S4 the slack and/or patience they gave every other season of the show. Which is a pet peeve of mine that I've talked about before specifically re: people's complaints at S3 Rayllum back in the day, when it was beat-for-beat very much the same amount of plot focus and importance they'd gotten in the previous seasons. If you're gonna complain about something show wise, I expect that complaint to be consistent (probably bc of my autism) not just when it occurs to someone that it is a Thing that is happening that they Suddenly don't like (as though again, it hadn't happened in every other season)

Eps 1-3 are typically set up (we see this in s1 and s2 first hand). The kiddos have a more specific goal than ever before (going to see someone somewhere specific, i.e. Rex Igneous at Umber Tor) and it's more detailed than just "seeing the Dragon Queen just somewhere in Xadia" and with very little reference in universe as to how close to the border the kids are at any given time up until 2x07, lmao.

Now that Claudia and Soren have been fully bumped up from side characters (S2, S3) to main cast members a lot of their previous screen time is allocated to Janai and Amaya's subplot. Viren's subplots were often disconnected entirely from the main plot (i.e. anything after 1x06 for Viren never affects the main characters in any significant way until approximately 3x04, and even then, only with Ezran) but nobody complained about that, because it was compelling and interesting to watch. And if the Sunfire elf stuff wasn't to someone, okay cool - but again, very subjective. Now Viren's plot line has been merged with Claudia's, so again, it's about the same amount of time allocation.

(And part of the reason I know that is because I once did the math to see literally how much screentime Rayla and Callum - and often including Ezran - get in previous seasons, averaging 50+ minutes in S1 and S3 and under half an hour in S2, due to the flashback episodes and no interaction in the first ep and minimal interaction in 2x08. I would expect S4 to be over half an hour simply because a scene like the end of 4x01 would count and once they're together, they're rarely apart / not talking about each other.)

Like 1x05 and 1x06 are some of my favourite eps in the whole show, and they are effectively filler, particularly 1x05. You could remove Viren and Amaya's plot line and remove very little (particularly because Gren's imprisonment didn't amount to anything in the first arc, and likely won't in the future since we already know Runaan is in the coin). 1x06 is plot relevant for Viren and Claudia but arguably only plot relevant for the trio at the very end. As expressed before, significantly more is established and discussed in 4x01 than almost any premiere except 1x01; very little substantially happens in 2x01 and 3x01 besides either 1) worldbuilding or 2) travelling. 2x04 is another one of my absolute favourite episodes, and it is entirely filler. The Amaya-Janai storyline doesn't come back all season and purely exists to set up their S3 storyline and Callum's struggles with magic. Of course all these filler eps do the work of furthering the trio's and particularly Callum and Rayla's bond, but outside of emotional stuff, they are filler in regards to the plot

But suddenly 4x05 and 4x06 are too filler-y? Episodes in which the kids determine their specific goal is to hunt down Claudia, go to Rex Igneous, stop Aaravos, the immediate fallout of the possession, starting to actually mend Callum and Rayla's relationship (they hadn't gotten a significant scene together since the beginning of 4x03, after all), demonstrate Soren's place in the group, etc etc? The purpose of these episodes and the plot beats are exceedingly similar to 1x05-1x07 smushed together (with 1x07 again being mostly filler, there to set up how Claudia does the tracking spell and how the kids find out about the 'miracle healer'). There is a shit ton going on amid setting the stage for emotional beats, giving room for some to happen, and getting the rest of the season's plot under way.

I've also seen some people saying that that indications we've gotten that Rayla has changed isn't enough bc it's only a couple of scenes, but 1) the girl who was once like "I don't have to explain anything to you" / "time for my least favourite course of action: reason" is now leaping up like "I love talking" because she wants to make things work and 2) her "We can't save everyone" scene in 4x05 hits so hard because it's her most basic core character trait that's been utterly decimated in a major way. Not completely, as we see in 4x09, but like, this is her Core Character Trait. Every season show us this. Forget a needle in a hay stack in terms of big flashing lights of This character has changed!! It's like smashing a sledge hammer into a wall. It does what it needs to because they know where to hit the hardest in the time they have

And once again, we see this pattern in earlier seasons. Rayla has one (1) scene expressing doubts regarding being an assassin in 2x06 before the immediate next episode is building on that to set the stage for the entire conflict of 2x07 and the rest of the season by extension. We get one (1) scene of Callum being interested in magic and Ezran sneaking around the castle before it's being utilized by the plot and Callum being a mage is his main drive for the first three seasons. If anything I like that we're give this sledge hammer moment, its immediate consequences, and a meta-narrative reflection that since the one person Rayla routinely opens up to doesn't want to talk to her, we're not privy to what she's going through either, and that it's given time to stew.

And I'd be more willing to take structural criticism of the season seriously if there was one that acknowledged the structural similarities 1) virtually at all and 2) so much of S4 criticism wasn't couched in very subjective opinions. Like for me, S2 is the season with the slowest pacing in some ways for the first half of bc 1) 2x01 isn't my fave although I have grown to appreciate, 2) Viren and Aaravos' plot line isn't that engaging to me personally up until like 2x08, and 3) 2x04-2x06 is virtually all filler that just reaffirms things we knew or gives more context to events prior, but the flashback eps are absolutely crucial theme wise. And again, S4 is doing some major thematic heavy lifting that I want to explore further, so like - for me it just doesn't compute why that has to be so dissimilar in public opinion?

Like yes, the search for Soren leading to the path to Rex Igneous and N'than's existence is convenient. But so is Ellis' existence (we see the path the kids take on the Caldera and a 9 yr old child carrying a heavy wolf pup in her arms somehow took the same path completely by herself?) and the fact that Claudia and Soren somehow reached the 2x07 town a day behind the trio (who travelled by boat and flight) while not being able to even use their horses because they had Corvus with them, thereby having to travel on foot? Or Opeli and Corvus' one line mention of going to Duren (not even Aanya by name) and relying on people listening for her name when Opeli lists off who's attacked and noticing who's not there leading to the event that allows the heroes to win the Final Battle in the first place? That Janai's forces just happened to go to the Storm Spire at all?

None of this makes the previous seasons bad by any means, but the writing is as consistent as it's always been. But no, season four is the breaking point, Apparently, of suspension of disbelief or a willingness to give slack / time for things to play out

Again, I don't want to dismiss anyone's feelings about season four. People are allowed to feel how they wanna feel! I waited like four years for "Blood of Olympus" to come out and it was the last PJO book I ever read and it was ultimately disappointing to me like, I know it can suck. But the book wasn't bad because I'd waited so long and then it didn't progress enough or anything like that. My experience reading the book would've been completely the same in terms of my enjoyment whether I'd waited four years or four weeks.

One of my big worries going into S4 was that during the hiatus, I'd gotten too attached to what I thought had to happen that I wouldn't be able to enjoy whatever did happen. Things like Callum had to go after Rayla because she'd never come back of her own accord. Aaravos was going to get out by the end of the season. Big stuff like that. I found the Rayllum reunion anti-climatic on my first viewing. Now it's one of my favourite scenes of the season and I love how much it parallels their first meeting (Rayla pursuing) while also inverting (lovers rather than enemies, Callum not wanting to talk vs talking to stall/convince her) and giving so many emotional layers at once

All of this being a very long winded way of saying

4x01 is my favourite premiere after 1x01. I think S4 did the best job at incorporating bouts of flashbacks without bringing the plot to a stand still in order to do so. 4x07 is probably my favourite ep7 after 2x07, and I adore 2x07. S4 does some of the most interesting thematic and character work in the whole show, mostly because we have three seasons of context to draw comparisons and correlations from, and it knows how to draw on those things exceedingly well. The most filler eps of the season is before Rayla even shows up, so how could time before her home coming be even effectively re-allocated to after?

Season Four is not what I expected in almost any way. It surprised me, did some of what I expected, plenty I didn't, and then so much more in a lot of ways.

I love(d) it, and I think my opinion and affection for the season is only going to grow as time goes on, tbh

[honshew]

thoughts on bg3

overall, i had a lot of fun and would recommend to anyone interested! very ambitious game, and i'm amazed it exists tbh. there are so many really, really great aspects of it. however, i'm also glad to be done with it, bc i started to have less and less fun with it at the last part. which is an unfortunate place to have the worst part of the game. i really wish it wrapped up in a more satisfying way, because i became really attached to the characters and the incredibly detailed world. a shame it had to be rushed toward the end of development. it's incredible, though could have been more still.

i'm spending some time trying to figure out what i liked about the game, so this may or may not be updated as thoughts come to me. there will be spoilers all the way thru the end of the game so here's your spoiler warning

i think while people unfamiliar with dnd can play and still have a good time, it probably will feel overwhelming and there will likely be things you won't understand unless someone explains it to you. i can't even really call the tutorial a bad one as much as it's barely there. but i do know plenty of people with zero dnd experience still having fun and simply enjoying learning on the go!

on the other hand, being someone who plays dnd, once you figure out the interface it's a pretty smooth experience. there are some things that are a little different to accommodate how the game works (e.g. second-story work reduces your fall dmg rather than increasing your climbing speed, since the game doesn't really count climbing as distance), but those are pretty quick to learn. seems to me that the devs thought people who didn't play dnd wouldn't be all that intersted in bg3, but a ci'd be curious to see how many bg3 players will look for a dnd group to join from here.

act 1 was solid and was paced well. i really liked how many characters ended up showing up later in the game, as opposed to characters you save once and never see again. i think what was most fun was getting to know what i could get away with LOL not just an exploration of the world, but an exploration of the game itself. i have video of me talking to auntie ethel while my friends set up and set off a circle of flame barrels, so i got a front row seat of her being blown to smithereens.

act 2, also solid. i really enjoy quests that involve impacting a place in a really tangible way, like in okami, so the shadow-cursed lands were pretty cool. unfortunately, the game doesn't really show you this happening except a liiiiittle bit at the end, so it doesn't feel as good as it could. still, i liked exploring the area a lot. all of the mini-bosses of the area were unsettling, but we got past literally all of them via high charisma rolls. actually aside from the exploring, a lot of the fun was seeing how we could cheese boss fights, which carried into act 3

act 3 felt way more all over the place and buggy, which significantly lowered my enjoyment. ofc a game this massive will have issues, but i'm still sad that the last part of the game where everything crescendos is where i enjoyed the game the least. small things not working the way they're supposed to (e.g. certain npcs not running or climbing up a ladder when they are fleeing I'M TALKING TO YOU ZUMBO PUMBO AND FEATHERWEIGHT FALSON, astarion falling sleep to a spell even tho he's an elf during his end-of-quest fight). what sucks about things being so frustrating too was that the main quests had really great setups or concepts, but the execution was messy. still, we had a lot of fun messing with bosses. cazador couldn't do anything bc he was forced to dance while we killed him, orin was disintegrated, gortash turned to stone. kinda wild having a bard with 100% spell hit rate....!

i do wish we got to explore baldur's gate more. i totally get that would be a huge undertaking tho. i had a thought that maybe act 3 should've been its own game, but then i guess you couldn't call it baldur's gate 3 if you never get to baldur's gate. i didn't play the previous bg games, but i liked how they wove in the story from the previous installments and ttrpg modules without leaving newcomers to the series out of the loop too much.

i liked shadowheart's, astarion's, and wyll's quests a lot. the ansur part of wyll's was really cool. i adore trials to test character as a setup, especially ones administrated by some major figure. but also? fuck balduran for what he did to ansur and later to me. he's the city's hero, but he only really looks out for himself. which is cool for me as a viewer, not cool for the character i play as LOL

i have more thoughts but i will type them up here later maybe this has gotten long enoguh

[edvinception]

The question about Edvin's international followers has been asked so many times. Do casual viewers that hear it for the first time find it interesting? //

Same, lol. Although I guess I do get why the question gets asked all the time. I mean, the University of Stockholm apparently provided courses analysing Young Royals and its reason for global success. And to answer your question, no. Watched the segment with my grandma yesterday and all she cared about was "the poor guy" (she felt bad for Edvin during the whole childhood thing). I wish that for future interviews there will be far more interesting questions like, come on, the possibilities are endless!

One thing that I noticed that concerns me though is Edvin's pattern of lightheartedly expressing details that are concerning. Maybe so as to not alarm the people he's talking to. Like that time when he casually talks about people popping up in front of his house (but his face says otherwise), people sending him pornographic dms, and the like. I hope he knows that he won't be judged for not liking this kind of fan behaviour. It's probably his coping mechanism but it doesn't make it any better to notice this pattern from him.

I feel like since journalists always asks the same questions I expect that to continue even in the future which is very sad. Like you say the possibilities are endless!

The one with his childhood was a bit sad not gonna lie but I think things turned out alright for him.

But yeah he does, I guess is to not make the interview too depressing but I also don't think he gets too traumatised by dick pics etc so that could definitely be him just making fun of a very bizarre situation.

The situation with people showing up at his house is a different story but I think things has calmed down significantly since then and I don't think it's still happening.

[nathank77]

6/3/24

2:46 Significantly Added to/Edited

Believe it or not my personality has changed a lot since getting psychosis and quiting weed. Not having drinking parties anymore.

I don't talk like I used to. I talk a lot still but not like I used to, a boring life of sobriety and no medication for mental illnesses bc you can't smoke pot anymore changes who you are. You lose a part of yourself.

I used to be a motor mouth. You can get me talking but you'd be shocked how much weed influenced the way I talked, how often, what I talked about, my mood, my general affect.

At this point, yea my affect is normal. However I'm not super silly. I don't talk as often as used to. I'm more dull. Why? Everything I have to talk about is pain. And no one cares to hear about it. And then unless you show an interest in what I like, like gaming I'm not going to bore you.

When Katie said, "it annoys me when you talk about gaming." You know what it sounded like, "you annoy me when you talk about one of the only things that makes you happy and feel passion." I don't talk to anyone about it but john and other gamers but I realized my words weren't really valued. And not having pot has made me more serious and less fun.

I can't drink, why? Cause then I can't take Xanax to sleep. I'm afraid of weed. And my personality although the same is different.

I love all the things I always loved. I still have affect and personality. I'm just kinda like, they don't care what I have to say about what I love and they don't want to hear a sob story so why talk 🤷

I think people who knew me before this happened will be surprised in how little I talk. Do you want me to talk about microsleep? Or hallucinations? Or how alone I am? Nope. Do you want me to talk about guns and video games or characters from games? Nope.

Do you want me to talk about movies I love? Nope. People don't want to hear my words. So I write them here. I have a lot to share but no one who would care to listen.

You can watch my videos and you'll see I'm still the same guy. I just realized no one cares and I'm boring to 99% of people.

"It annoys me when you talk about video games."

Once you take weed away from someone who smoked it since they were 14, their personality changes. The things weed helped with such as mood, anxiety etc are no longer being helped. And then you realize people don't give a fuck about what you got to share.

It annoys me when I hang out with friends who talk my ear off about their trauma, cause they wouldn't listen if I shared. And it's a therapist/client thing anyways... beyond that even if they talk my ear off about something normal if I have no room to speak I won't speak. If I'm not engaged. They don't care.

At this point you got to show an interest in me and what I like otherwise why would I share? I think about this a lot with dating at this point. What am I supposed to talk to these girls about if I find someone? They don't give a fuck about call of duty or far cry or silent hill. And they certainly don't want to hear my life story. Small talk only get you so far and eventually you become a therapist to people cause you don't talk anymore.

Weed really Influenced my personality and how much I talked, how I perceived people's interest in me and it made me feel like people might care about this show and this character's story in this game or whatever.

At this point, it's like small talk about the weather and whatever they like so I don't bore them.

Cecile and I had problems and she said some horrible things to me. I was worse. Way worse. I abused her verbally bc I was young and stupid. She said, "how can I love a mental illness?"

Katie said, "I shouldn't say this but It annoys me when you talk about video games, remember that time you talked to Anthony about black ops 4 for 45 minutes. Despite the fact me and your sister were there and no one else cared. It was like you were oblivious to how annoying you were being." I said well Anthony was into the conversation...

But yea I'm different now. You dont want to know my story. You don't want to know what inspires me or what I'm passionate about. No one does.

I can be someone's sounding board at this point. My therapists get a ear full. Tumblr gets an ear full. My mom if she let's me talks gets an ear full but I know she isn't listening. And my videos get an ear full.

Otherwise I'm a sounding board. I know I'll bore you. And I miss being silly with pot. Yea I'm still silly but not like I used to be.

I'd describe my personality/affect before psychosis as happy/silly/pessimistic or really a realist.

I'd describe my personality/affect now as realist/cynical/bored/lonely/ and I mean yes the silly is still there but I mean no one is here to laugh with me and bring it out. I make myself laugh but I know no one else cares enough to engage with me.

I'm sure If I was surrounded by kids I'd make them laugh. Kids still love me. Brianna said to me last time I saw her, "I like that you're always laughing and smiling. You're always so funny. Why do you laugh and smile so much?" And I said, "well I'm always happy when I'm with you guys bc I love you so much. And i always miss you when I'm not here." This was in February.

I'm sure if I had a gf who actually liked what I liked she'd bring out the silly person I am. At least I make myself laugh and I make kids laugh. My siblings still adore me. I haven't lost it.

I just lost any adults who want to talk to me and who want normal relationships.

I miss having drinking parties and playing manhunt at 2 a.m. I miss smoking pot with my friend and doing weird dances and laughing with them about a normal word like fork.

I could still be that guy but that's not what adult friendships are like. Katelyn would be like that but I mean- she doesn't want to be real friends who hangs out...

I could be happy and silly. Without pot. But I have no people. And someone like marcy I need to get paid a hourly rate to hang out with her. And Charlie doesn't like what I like so I either talk about my shitty life or I bore her talking about videos games.

I've realized along this awful journey of sobriety and no medication for my mental Illnesses how much pot influenced who I was. And how much it brought out silly fun relationships. I've also realized that in a way I was oblivious to how much I bored people talking their ear off.

I even remember when I'd talk about neuroscience to Cecile she was bored. I mean we had a fun time with weed and alcohol. It brought me together with people. Now I don't have this medium and I don't interest people.

I've learned through this the importance of having similar interests. Like gaming. Me and John can talk about guns or stories in video games bc he actually cares about it. So where is that girl who likes gaming or likes horror and I can share my interests with?

Who wants to make a silly dance and song and record it even if we are sober? Who wants to play manhunt with me? Who wants to talk about the ins and outs of a video game and the subtle differences in the remastered versus the original? Cause I can keep my trauma to myself but if you don't like what I like I'll just annoy you.

Who wants to laugh with me about the word fork or spoon even if we are sober? And who wants to play dress up and have a fake fashion show?

I'm still the same guy, I just know that 99% of people couldn't give a shit about my interests. And I get I shouldn't overshare about my trauma cause for one it's too much for someone to hear and for two i just relive it anyways.

Girls think I'm such a good listener and I give such good advice. It comes from experience and I don't want to hear your story not if you don't have time for mine. And tbh I just want to put on a wig and dance to, "last dance" by Donna summer. I don't want to hear about your trauma unless you're going to date me.

I've had too much pain for one lifetime and I do care about your pain I just don't have room for it unless you're going to be my girl and then I'll be there at 4 a.m to pick up the phone. I don't have room for it if its just friendship.

When you can't be bothered to give a fuck about the character in my game or how awesome the swordfish is in bo4. I mean I didn't lose myself but I changed.

And I'm wondering if there are people out there for me.

[danielleverboski3c]

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[danielleverboski3d]

Danielle Verboski

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[youre-a-total--poser]

I Miss Her (Part One)

Warning: You might cry whilst reading this.

Age: 16

Word Count: 777

Requests: Open

Summary: You visit your moms grave.

A/N: Stay tuned for the next part.

---------⧗---------

You went to visit your mother's grave that was in one of New York's cemeteries. Pepper helped pay for it. There was also one for Steve and Tony nearby. Steve's was the only one that contained a body. The other two were empty.

It had been just over three months since her passing you knew that she wasn't there but maybe it would help.

You kneeled beside the headstone and traced her name with your finger.

"Hey, mama, it's me, it's Y/N," You started.

"I know you can't answer but I really need someone to talk too and you were always the one I could speak to about anything so I thought why not."

"I really miss you mom, everyone is gone and I'm all alone. You're gone, Tony's gone, Steve passed away last week. Wanda has disappeared. Uncle Clint is back with his family. I wish that you didn't have to die for that to happen. I can't stay them, Clint always tells me how much I remind him of you and I know it would be much too hard for him especially if I was around."

"Oh but guess what mom I've got some good news. I finally went back to school and the first day I went back we had a maths quiz, I didn't have to take it but I wanted to try and I got 85% how brilliant is that and that was with no studying or anything." A big smile grew on your face as you told her that.

"I have been training every day, mainly to keep myself busy, I'm getting really good. One day, the Avengers will team up once again and I'll be an official member and I'll help save the world just like you. I'm going to do everything I can possibly do to make you proud. I know that you told me all the time that you were proud of me but this time it will be for something significantly different than passing a test."

"I keep on forgetting that you're gone. I call out for you every time I walk through the door, it takes me a second to remember that you're not there."

"I know this is selfish but I sometimes wish that it was someone else other you and uncle Clint who went to get that stone that way you would still be here with me."

"A lot of people have told me that even though you are gone that you are still here with me but it's not the same. Just once I wish that I could see you once more and hug you one last time and actually get to say goodbye to you."

"We should have just left New York like we always talked about. There is the whole world that we could've seen together. I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon all of the memories I have of you are here. I'll walk through Central Park and remember that time when we had a picnic and I was feeding the squirrels this one squirrel started climbing up me and I named him Frank. I really wanted to keep him so bad but you said that it wasn't the best idea to keep a squirrel in the apartment." That memory made you smile.

"Is it ever going to get easier Mom? You would want me to move on and get on with my life but I don't think I can. You're all that I've ever known. I-I can't do it without, I need you here, I need you to show me the right way to go. Nothing is ever going to be the same again, I'm not going to be the same, I want you to come back and just hold me and tell me that it's all going to be okay. I won't believe it unless I hear it from you." The tears were streaming down your face.

"it's getting quite late so I best be heading home, but mom, I just wanted to let you know that you're my best friend and that you're the best mom ever. I will forever be grateful that you chose me to be your child. I love you so much mommy, goodbye,"

You leaned over and pressed your head against the stone and did your part of the secret whistle that your mom taught you.

After you finished your part of the whistle you heard something that you didn't expect to hear... it was your mom's part of the whistle. No one else apart from you and your mom knew that or so you thought.

"Mom!" You shouted out.

[antialiasis]

The Last Five Years

Time for some rambling about a musical! God, it has been a while.

The Last Five Years... is a show that I had never heard of prior to learning it was referenced in Hamilton, and had more or less forgotten existed until it was brought up briefly in a video essay I watched several months ago, and then at some point there as I was looking for new music to listen to at work I looked up the soundtrack on Spotify. I've been listening to it on and off since.

This musical is told in a format that would only really work as a musical, which I enjoy. It chronicles a relationship between two young artists: Jamie Wellerstein, a Jewish writer seeing quick success with his first novel, and Cathy Hiatt, an aspiring actress seeing rather less success. The gimmick is that instead of telling this story conventionally, with the two characters interacting with each other on the stage, it is almost completely sung-through and almost all the songs are solos, alternating between the two characters - with his songs playing out in chronological order while hers are in reverse chronological order. The first song is Cathy reading the letter Jamie wrote her to break up with her; the second is Jamie lovestruck and bursting at the seams with excitement at the beginning of their relationship. There is one song in the middle where their timelines cross and they're both actually present in the same moment to sing a duet together, and the very last song is a counterpoint duet between Cathy saying goodbye to Jamie after their first date and Jamie saying goodbye to Cathy for good as he leaves; the rest is all alternating chunks of each character's raw POV while the other actor is offstage or sits silently out of the spotlight as the other monologues.

This entire setup could only work properly as two actors on a stage singing. There was a movie adaptation of this musical, but that was just a terrible idea from the start; it's a whole different effect when they're actually acting at each other and not just spewing alternating raw one-sided monologues directly at the audience. It really requires the heightened, non-literal nature of the musical theater format to deliver what it's doing, and that definitely tickles me.

The video essay said something along the lines of how the opposite chronology and alternating monologues symbolize the way the couple fail to understand and communicate with each other, which was part of what piqued my interest - romance isn't usually my thing but I do enjoy me some drama involving people with issues talking past each other.

What I found when I listened to it was not quite that, I think. The impression that gave me was that it was a pretty ambiguous situation, where they're both bad for each other, and in the comments of the YouTube videos I eventually checked out of the original stage performance and the movie, there's a lot of discussion about who was at fault to what extent for their relationship problems, even some "Team Jamie" vs "Team Cathy". To me, though, the answer to that question felt extremely straightforward: it's Jamie, all the way through. I like his songs significantly more than Cathy's, as songs - "Shiksa Goddess", "Moving Too Fast", "The Schmuel Song" and "A Miracle Would Happen" are all just bangers, "Nobody Needs to Know" is really raw and twisted and heartwrenching in the way I like (way more so than I'd expected, knowing only from Hamilton that this was a line about cheating), and only "Climbing Uphill" really stands out for me on Cathy's end - but man, he's just a dick.

In Jamie's songs, sure, he seems pretty convinced this relationship is going south because of Cathy. That she lashes out because she's jealous that he's successful and she isn't, that she expects him to rescue her from her nonexistent self-esteem but he can't, that she doesn't support him, that she expects him to fail so she can be comfortable, that she thinks he doesn't believe in her, that she won't give him privacy. But when we hear Cathy's raw inner monologue, none of these things actually seem to be true. Never at any point does Cathy actually express jealousy or frustration with Jamie's success. She's frustrated with her own difficulties with it, yes - but she's consistently thrilled and excited about his. She multiple times expresses how she refuses to need a man to get by or be dependent on him - nowhere does it sound like she wants him to "rescue" her. She apparently keeps going with him to publishing parties she despises with the same twenty people until she finally finds it in her to refuse (at which Jamie throws a fit about how jealous she is and how he can't rescue her and then demands she come with him to the party anyway). She keeps obligingly leaving him alone when he says he needs space to write, and spends entire summers in Ohio doing community theater, during which one would think Jamie has plenty of privacy. The one charge Jamie levels at her that might be true is that she doesn't talk to him or communicate about her feelings - God knows Jamie seems wildly off-base about her feelings all the time - but after the degree of bizarre gaslighting in the rest of the accusations he levels at her, it's kind of hard not to be skeptical of the idea she hasn't tried - I wonder if Jamie would even have counted it if she’d told him about her actual feelings and not the feelings he’s decided she’s secretly harboring. But regardless of that, in "See I'm Smiling", Cathy admits to having done things wrong and wants to own up to them and make things better. She seems to have at least the intent of being self-aware.

Meanwhile, Cathy's issues with Jamie appear starkly factual within the text, given we can assume their individual monologues don't like, straight-up make up specific events that didn't actually happen - and Jamie never admits to doing anything wrong. He claims he supports her, but when she's regularly doing shows in Ohio during the summer, not only does he not find time to visit her there until the last possible moment, he chooses to pop in for like a day and then leave to go to another one of his tedious publisher parties rather than, you know, see his wife in her show that she’s been doing, on her goddamn birthday? Really? And she believes he's cheating on her, which he is, because eventually we learn that from his end in "Nobody Needs to Know". In general, he seems super not emotionally present for her or supportive of her at all after “The Schmuel Song”, constantly busy doing whatever promoting his book, or saying he needs space to write, or staying in New York while she goes to Ohio. And given all that, it's pretty hard to dispute the notion that he can't spend a single day that's not about himself, isn't it. Her perceptions of his faults all seem accurate and indisputable; his perceptions of hers just seem like baseless inaccurate mansplaining of her own feelings where I can only scratch my head as to where on earth he's getting any of that from.

And... even aside from what Cathy herself voices, other parts of Jamie's own POV are decidedly toxic and insidious. His very first song, "Shiksa Goddess", is all about how the reason he's head over heels for her is: she isn't Jewish. That's it. He's been with a dozen different Jewish women and he's sick of it and wants something different, any Gentile woman will do. He says he could be in love with someone like you, rather than that he loves anything particular about her. After the one duet, where they get married, here's the very next song:

Everyone tells you that the minute you get married, every other woman in the world suddenly finds you attractive - well, that's not true It only affects the kind of women you always wanted to sleep with, but they wouldn't give you the time of day before And now they're banging down your door and falling to their knees At least that's what it feels like, because you can not touch them [...] And all of a sudden, this pair of breasts walks by and smiles at you, and you're like, "That's not fair!" [...] And I have to say that what exacerbates the problem is I'm at these parties I'm the center of attention, I'm the grand fromage And here she comes: "Let's get a cup of coffee! Will you look at my manuscript?" [...] And there's that really awkward moment where I try to show I wasn't encouraging this (Though of course I sort of was) And I don't want to look whipped in front of this woman, which is dumb, I shouldn't care what she thinks, since I can't fuck her anyway!

And, I mean, can't fault a guy for being horny, sexual attraction to other people does not magically disappear when you get married, I enjoy what delightfully raw unfiltered inner monologue this is, but his whole framing of this is just so revealingly misogynistic. Sure, this is all about how he'd love it if he just stopped being attracted to other women, he wants to be faithful to his wife, but apparently while he is attracted to them he just thinks of women in the most dehumanizing possible terms.

And then, of course, he does go on to cheat on her in the end, annnnd he tells the new one, "Maybe I could be in love with someone like you." Just like Cathy. He also tells her that I promise I won't lie to you but that seems laughable given he seems to be about to start the same cycle with this other woman.

I find it kind of hard to tell whether this is all entirely intentional. The creator, Jason Robert Brown, was sued by his ex-wife for basing this musical too closely on their relationship (and this definitely isn't a genderswapped version of it, since the lawsuit resulted in the removal of a song making Cathy explicitly Irish, like the ex-wife, in favor of "Shiksa Goddess"). Either Jason Robert Brown did a whole lot of self-reflection and deliberately wrote himself as a total dickweed and his ex-wife who sued him as entirely innocent, or he meant for all this to be a lot more two-sided and ambiguous than it seems to be to me. Parts of it feel super deliberate - the callback about being in love with someone like you in "Nobody Needs to Know" in particular - but others maybe not, and it sure seems like a lot of people on the internet perceive it more ambiguously.

Aside from this Team Cathy manifesto, though, I don't have too many feelings on this musical. I had hoped for it to be very issuey and very humans being humans tragically at cross-purposes, but from my perspective it's mostly just a girl who's generally insecure and really hates doing community theater in Ohio, likable enough but not super interesting, and a sort of interesting but terrible narcissistic ass who, yeah, does think he loves her, at the start, and probably genuinely intended to be supportive of her, but then just gets wrapped up in himself and his own success and ego and then utterly fails to comprehend why his wife is actually pissed at him.

There are some excellent bits of lyrics here and there, and some songs I enjoy listening to, but the characters ultimately don't really grab me enough for me to consider it a favorite. Still, I do appreciate the interesting use of the format a lot, and I do enjoy the soundtrack (but mostly Jamie's songs, I'm sorry Cathy, you did nothing wrong but apart from "Climbing Uphill" your songs are just not as catchy or fun). If it sounds interesting to you, check it out.

[shippertrash37]

hii what do u think about all the weird theories on why rina won't and shouldn't happen? it's become quite rampant since 301 so i'm curious to know ur thoughts on the "interesting" (straight up bullshit) theories that have been flying around

heyyy!!! thank you so much for the ask!!!

~••~

i’ve been in the hsmtmts fandom since the beginning, so i’ve seen a fair share of theories in this fandom. some are fun/carefree, some are delusional, and some just make you scratch your head a bit. i’ve seen the countless arguments made by antis why rina shouldn’t and couldn’t possibly be together since season 1, yet here we all are. rina is still very much a possibility and still being explored narratively after years of people thinking otherwise.

i’m all for reading other people’s theories and opinions that may oppose mine, but when some of them have no basis or ignore actual canon/confirmed things, it’s hard for me to take some things seriously.

in regards to “weird/interesting” theories, i’ve seen a few. there’s the “ricky is ryan and is only going to serve as a plot device for pw” one that makes zero sense to me. ricky is THE main character of the series and he’s not going to be reduced as a plot device for a pairing that involves a character that is more than likely going to have a significantly reduced role in future seasons (and that isn’t ej slander, it’s just pure logic. the show follows high school drama kids that attend east high. ej has graduated). they wouldn’t have rina’s story continue from 1x05 onwards to just be used as a way to make another character jealous AGAIN and have the conclusion be that they’re better as platonic buddies without giving them a fair shot at a romantic relationship. that’s why the door has never been fully closed between the two of them romantically. lastly, tim has always talked about the characters not being direct adaptations of the hsm characters. there were similarities drawn here and there in season 1, but they’ve fleshed out these characters and their storylines to be independent from the ones in the movies. just because they’re doing some hsm2/camp rock songs, doesn’t mean they’re following their plots down to assigning each hsmtmts character a dcom character to parallel in s3.

adding onto that quickly, i’ve also seen the “pw is shane/mitchie in cr2 and troyella in hsm2 and will prevail just like those two couples did respectively.” there are some major differences in all 3 of those couples dynamics that i don’t feel like i need to get into, but some things i’ll highlight are: 1. those are dcom ships, pw is a tv series ship. 2. the foundations of each couple are completely different. 3. they all don’t share all the same problems. they vary in magnitude and the way one couple/charcter deals with something isn’t the same as how others would. 4. shane/mitchie and troyella didn’t have a ricky in their situation.

last theory i’ve seen is ricky/jet or ricky/val becoming a thing. i love a good, harmless crackship or non canon ship, so i don’t mind people shipping either of those pairings. shipping should be fun and get you excited about new content. i do look at people sideways though when i see them being a huge advocate for single!ricky and/or ricky x therapy (cue MAJOR eye roll) in response to being anti rina and then proceeding to ship ricky with other characters. like you don’t have to like rina, but don’t be hypocritical. i can’t take you seriously when you can’t even take your own takes seriously.

~•~

anywho, sorry for the length of this and i hope i actually answered your questions. i do get a bit rambly at times 😬. if there’s a specific theory you wanted my opinion on that i may not have touched upon, please feel free to lmk.