#druck s8

[anderwater]

#married couples

[thebvbbletea]

Kieu My and Fatou in Freitag 23:56

[dr-drea]

Seeing the recent development of season 8 finally enabled me to pinpoint what went/goes wrong with Druck season 7 and 8.

Both Isi and Mailin engage in multiple questionable and sometimes objectively bad actions. This is not the problem, since every SKAM main has done this so far. The problem is, that some actions do not get called out as bad, or do require an apology from the main, but do not get one.

For Isi we have for example: stealing at your friend’s workplace, irresponsible behavior with drugs and alcohol, lying, and letting your friends down (I’m also thinking about Zoe and Kieu My here).

For Mailin we have: destroying school property, kissing without consent, attacking someone for their values/beliefs in a passive-aggressive way.

These behaviors do not get resolved, because there is an escalating order of the characters problematic behaviors, which makes the older ones seem unimportant compared to a huge ‘main mistake’ the character makes (in Mailin’s case it is the nudes getting leaked and in Isi’s case it is not showing up to Sascha’s gig). In Isi’s season, this behavior ends up being the only one with a resolution and apologetic actions, and it would not surprise me if Mailin’s season is centered around the nudes from now on.

Also, in past seasons, the character’s behavior was somehow always linked to their struggle, therefore putting them in a dilemma situation and making us understand why they could possibly do such stuff, even though we objectively regard it as bad. It makes us feel empathy for the character, and in the end, when the character tries to make up for their mistakes, we root for them. To illustrate this, I have written down Matteos problematic behaviors with certain characters, how it is linked to his internal struggle, and how he makes up for it: 

Matteo and Amira: Matteo hides weed in Amiras backpack, gives an absolute shit about their biology exam and attacks her for being religious; reason: Matteo feels insecure about his sexuality and possible homophobic reactions and also is not able to concentrate on school at the moment resolution: Matteo invites Amira for a coffee, shows actual effort for studying, apologizes, and also has the talk with Amira about biology/Islam and homosexuality which puts him at ease about homophobia

Matteo and his friend group: is uninterested in engaging in activities with his friend group, and ends up yelling at them after his break up with Sarah reason: Matteo feels pressured by the heteronormative expectations of his friends, and feels like an outsider for not being straight, and feels like he cannot talk about his actual problems with his friends (David leaving him alone) resolution: Matteo comes out to Jonas and explains himself, thereby receiving support for his situation, later meets up with his friends and apologizes

Matteo and Sarah: Matteo is a horrible boyfriend to Sara, rejecting her when she wants physical intimacy without explanation, and cheats on her with David reason: Matteo is not ready to come out and wants to fit in into the heteronormative image of society resolution: Matteo visits Sarah at her home, explains his situation and apologizes

Matteo and Hans: Matteo is a horrible flatmate, very messy/dirty, and attacks Hans for being openly gay reason: Matteo struggles with internalized homophobia and being heartbroken, and with these struggles he is not really able to take care of himself and his surroundings resolution: Matteo has a whole cleaning session in one clip, and later asks Hans for his advice twice, acknowledging that he is his ‘Gay Guru’

I could list even more examples, but you get the idea. Matteo makes up for almost everything he does in his season. He properly apologizes. Multiple times. And we can link almost every behavior of Matteo to his internal dilemma situation (being a closeted gay teenager and falling in love with a boy for the first time).

In Isi’s season, their mistakes were almost never connected to their internal struggle (gender identity crisis), but to the affection they felt for Lou. And since the two of them do not even end up being lovers, it is hard to make that a believable reason for Isi to commit all these mistakes, and ultimately to ‘forgive’ them for their mistakes or feeling like we understand them.

In Mailin’s season I don’t even recognize one distinctive internal struggle (except for being unexperienced maybe, but that is not a good reason to do any of the stuff Mailin does??). Her behaviors lack a proper explanation for me which makes it hard for me to feel empathy towards her.

Plus, both Isi and Mailin seemed to get the most perfect, ‘clean’ Love Interests. I’m sorry, but I never saw any major character flaws in both Sascha and Finn. This even exaggerates the contrast between the ‘bad’ actions of Isi and Mailin and their ‘innocent’ love interests. In combination, all of this leads me to think that neither Isi nor Mailin deserves someone like Finn/Sascha. The relationship seems ‘unbalanced’.

In conclusion, the new DRUCK writers do not seem to have understood how the show used to work. And how to portray a main as likeable. And this is sad, because it could have been fixed with a few more honest apologies, the characters internal struggle as the link between all of this, and a steady building up of conflicts instead of a tendency towards escalation.

[calliettes-posts]

Remember when the Druck team made BOSS BITCH by Doja Cat the anthem for none other than MAILIN RICHTER??

[justalexx-things]

Happy one year 💛

[alexcollix7]

I'm sorry, but zoe and yara didn't happen yet but it STEPS on isi/sascha and finn/mailin so hard, like you know the new writers are bad when the background couple is already 10000 times more interesting than their main ones

[thatdamalexevans]

looking at the comments under the latest clip rn and there are a lot that are really cool

but some are just... eh

there are people saying that every victim of SA should decide for themselves how to deal with it, whether they want to go to the police etc.

and yes, that's true, but it also misses the point

because most victims are scared of going to the police, of what the police might say to them, of having to go through the traumatising events again, and then not even knowing that the abuser will get any consequences

but that's exactly the reason why we should show characters successfully reporting their abusers to the police, especially characters that are praised for "being strong" by their friends

we need to show young victims that going to the police can work and that it doesn't make the situation more traumatising

if we show a charcater not going to the police, even though they are "strong" and have the help of a big friend group, then victims will feel even less like going to the police, because if this strong character with lots of support can't do it, how could they?

[drucktranslations]

S08E10 - Forever

https://mega.nz/folder/WFkS3SLa#H7Yp5mA5h7o1V84853ewfg https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jxWKOCpTUbfbgI6HrBWFKX4AnSC2OPeM?usp=sharing https://ok.ru/video/c9716705 (streaming) Thank you for following us all the years. Thank you for your support.  Alt er love. <3 

[druckort]

so ben showed finn the photo. and finn seriously didn’t lash out on him for circulating the picture and making zoe’s life miserable in consequence but fully went into bros before hoes mode instead and blamed mailin?

druck, ich dachte du wärst nicht so.

[place-for-my-bad-interests]

okay I hate to say this, and yes while I found the last clip very cringy and had to pause to take deep breaths multiple times (lol)-

I've been malin. And I understand where she's coming from. I think she thinks that she's not interesting enough in personality, and that her knowledge of activism is the only thing that she can contribute.

She also just seems so so stressed that whole clip- (and like this whole season so far) and is using that as a defense mechanism. 'Why even try to be chill when the world's so fucked up hah yeah' type thing.

I spent the majority of my early adolescence feeling like a wet blanket all the time especially around people I didn't know. Not knowing the right times to be serious. I felt like I always had to do "the right thing" and of course that was always what I thought was the right thing and never anyone else. I see that in Malin a ton.

Throughout the whole dinner, the only time she speaks is when she's reprimanding Finn. It seems like she quite literally has no idea what to say. And when Zoe comes in- and can imminently start chatting, saying the right things in the right tone. That makes her even more insecure.

[anderwater]

[thebvbbletea]

"My thought capsule is the feeling of not being alone with you. I'm very stuborn, but you don't mind that. And even when you did, you always honest and told me your opinion. You don't even know how grateful I am for that. That you were just there, even when I didn't ask you to, and that you didn't leave, even when I wasn't mentally there or make mistakes. You make me so much stronger, and only through you do I really get to know myself. I'm infinitely happy to have you as friends"

— DRUCK GENERATION 2 (Season 5 - Season 8 / 2020 - 2022)

[dr-drea]

This is a comment I left on YouTube under the last episode of Druck, trying to summarize my criticism of the season. It's nothing new actually, but I still wanted to post it here. I'm sorry this is in german, but I am too exhausted of translating this into English right now.

Okay, das hier ist ein echt emotionaler Abschied von einer Serie die mir einmal sehr viel bedeutet hat. Und weil sie mir immer noch etwas bedeutet, muss ich hier auch leider einmal meine Kritik an der Staffel rauslassen.

Es gibt so viele große und kleine Dinge, die mich die letzten zehn Wochen gestört, geärgert und manchmal sogar echt wütend und traurig gemacht haben. Ich will das jetzt nicht alles aufzählen, weil das komplett den Rahmen eines Youtube-Kommentars sprengen würde und weil vieles auch eine Wiederholung dessen ist, was die meisten schon unter den letzten Clips/Episoden kommentiert haben. Aber wenn ich alles zusammenfassen müsste, dann wirkt diese Staffel irgendwie konservativ, oder "aus der Zeit gekommen".

Das fängt an mit der Wahl Mailins als Main, anstelle von z.B. Ava oder Finn. Ihr Charakter ist einer, der so häufig schon Repräsentation in den Medien gefunden hat, während queere und/oder POC-Charaktere immer noch unterrepräsentiert sind. Hier hat man die Chance vertan, einem dieser liebevoll entwickelten Charaktere eine Bühne und eine Hintergrundgeschichte zu geben. Dazu kommt, dass die Charaktere (gerade bei Ava ist es mir am meisten aufgefallen) in dieser Staffel viel von ihren Charakterzügen und ihrer Backgroundstory sogar verloren haben. Gefühlt haben sie nichts anderes gemacht, als Mailin zu bestätigen und ihr zu sagen wie "stark" sie ist. Und das, obwohl Mailin der mit Abstand privilegierteste Charakter der neuen Generation ist (heißt, ihre Art von Aktivismus muss man sich erst mal leisten können; das kommt nicht von ihrer eigenen Stärke sondern von den unfassbar vielen Chancen, die Mailin im Vergleich zu anderen Charakteren aus der Show zur Verfügung stehen).

Die neue Generation ist mit einem unfassbar diversen Cast gestartet, die Serie hat dafür sogar einen Preis bekommen. Das bringt eine Verantwortung mit sich, denn hier wurden viele Charaktere erschaffen, deren Geschichten so oft in der Medienwelt ignoriert werden. Staffel 5 und 6 haben es geschafft, dieser Verantwortung gerecht zu werden, in Staffel 7 haben sich bereits deutliche Lücken aufgetan, weil Isis Gender-Identität so in den Hintergrund gerückt wurde. Diese neue Staffel hat aber nochmal ganz andere Dimensionen gehabt, weil alle Charaktere quasi nur noch über Liebe und Sex, und über Mailin geredet haben. Es ging ja wirklich nur (!) um Mailin. Dabei gab es viele Chancen, die Charaktere anders einzubinden, und ihre Perspektiven und Weltsichten zu verdeutlichen.

Gerade bei der Form von Aktivismus, die sie in der Staffel verfolgt hat, wäre es mehr als angebracht gewesen, von ihrer diversen Freundesgruppe kritisiert zu werden.

Und da wären wir beim nächsten Punkt. Die Aktivismus-Story, wie sie hier erzählt wurde, ist nicht nur absolut realitätsfern, sondern es ist auch unangebracht, gerade gegenüber Deutschlands geschichtlichem Hintergrund, eine Bücherzerstörung so zu inszenieren. Ich hatte außerdem immer das Gefühl, Mailins Aktivismus wird unnötig übertrieben oder ins Lächerliche gezogen. Gerade in Zeiten wie diesen, wo wir von Idealen wie Frieden, Gendergerechtigkeit und einer Welt ohne Rassismus/Diskriminierung nur noch träumen können, wäre es besser gewesen, sinnvollen, nuancierten und produktiven Aktivismus darzustellen. Was auch immer mit der Bücher-Aktion bezweckt werden sollte, es erfüllt keine dieser Kriterien.

Dann bin ich echt traurig, dass Finn, der Love Interest dieser Staffel, auch keine wirkliche Hintergrundgeschichte bekommen hat. Ich hätte gern mehr über ihn gelernt, auch seine kulturellen Hintergründe, aber in dieser Staffel hat man komplett darauf verzichtet dem Love Interest eine anständige Charakterisierung zu verpassen. Das macht mich traurig, weil Druck sonst immer einen wirklich guten Job gemacht hat, wenn es um Interkulturalität ging. Außerdem habe ich das Gefühl, dass gerade Finn erst in Staffel 7 als Charakter in den Vordergrund gerückt ist.

Und ein letzter Punkt: Ich finde es wirklich schlecht, wenn nicht sogar gefährlich, wie die Nudes-Storyline erzählt wurde. Dieser Teil der Staffel war vielleicht noch der realistischste von allen, und es wurde hier die Chance verpasst einem jungen Publikum aufzuzeigen, wie man am besten mit einer solchen Situation umgeht. Nämlich zur Polizei gehen und Ben anzeigen. Das, und nicht weniger, wäre das richtige Signal gewesen. Stattdessen wurde statt Ben häufig Mailin für den Nudes-Leak verantwortlich gemacht, und das ist falsch. Dafür kann sie überhaupt gar nichts. Außerdem wurde fast künstlich Drama zwischen Zoe und Mailin erzeugt, und ich kann es echt nicht mehr sehen, dass statt sich auf die eigentlichen Täter zu konzentrieren, der Konflikt zwischen zwei Frauen im Fokus steht, bei dem es um einen Mann geht (Finn). Das sind sexistische Narrative, bei denen Männer im Fokus stehen und immer wieder für ihre Aktionen davonkommen.

Ich hoffe man versteht jetzt, was ich mit "aus der Zeit gekommen" meine. Es ist wirklich und wörtlich genommen nicht mehr an der Zeit solche Geschichten zu erzählen, wie sie uns in den letzten 10 Wochen erzählt wurde. Es ist Zeit für diverse Charaktere, deren Geschichten nuanciert erzählt werden; es ist Zeit für sinnvollen Aktivismus; es ist Zeit um Sexismus hervorzuheben und zu diskutieren.

An dieser Stelle möchte ich all den Leuten, die irgendwie in Staffel 5 -7 involviert waren, von Herzen danken (auch wenn das wahrscheinlich kaum einer von ihnen lesen wird). Ihr habt euch wirklich Mühe gegeben, für diverse Repräsentation in den Medien zu sorgen, und sogar trotz massiven Gegenwinds für diese Charaktere und ihre Geschichten gekämpft. Das hat mir viel bedeutet.

[calliettes-posts]

Who wants to bet that if Mailin was real, she'd be an insane Taylor Swift stan who'd defend her hanging around and working with VERY questionable/racist/abusive people, and blame the fact that everyone is always focusing on the men/people she surrounds herself with rather than her actual work, all while Ava, Fatou and Nora just stare at her in bewilderment and try to resist the urge to bitchslap her (especially Ava)

Meanwhile Kieu My is observing from afar, shaking her head and wondering how someone sweet and non-confrontational like Fatou could be friends with someone as explosive and impulsive and hypocritical as Mailin, Zoe is regretting ever trying to kindle up a friendship with her and Mailin and is admiring Avas restraint, Yara is just thinking about the future mess Mailin will create that she will have to once again save her from (honestly give her a rest), and Finn is thanking the stars for never actually starting a serious relationship with her (#ripfailin)

Inspired by @mostlyiwant-tobekind

[justalexx-things]

Druck: Season 8 Authors: No one gets rid of potential as much as we do

Schloss Einstein Season 26 Authors: Challenge accepted, we make it worse

[alexcollix7]

Wasn't sascha whole personality not really liking Isi's friends and thinking they were fancy + not liking to go partying/drinking, and talking about not wanting to go to parties bc Isi would just get drunk??? And weren't people all over Lou last season because she drinked and somehow"influenced" Isi to do so?? Now suddently that s7 is over Sascha is all hanging out with KM and Finn, going to all the parties, and drinking/doing shots.... And no one is saying a thing about it. I guess he never had real personality in the first place, and drinking it's just bad when plus sized girls do it huh