#i think one of the most interesting things it did from a narrative standpoint was take away the rings 12 chapters in

[orcelito]

Guys I think the writing for fire emblem engage is somehow worse than fire emblem fates. Im a longtime fire emblem fan, I've played every recent game, and this... this is just Awful lmfao

Im still having plenty of fun & I have my handful of characters I love soooo much. But God fucking damn this writing is just some of the worst I've ever seen in a game

(Major spoilers in tags. Ran out of tags so I can't spoiler tag hfkshfj.

Final conclusion (since I ran out of tags): What Even Is This Fucking Game. Definitely my least favorite fire emblem game in many respects, but By God I'm going to finish this bitch and I'm gonna have plenty of fun as I do so. And I'm also going to make fun of every narrative choice it makes along the way bc the writing in this game is just SO fucking bad holy shit. I just need to finish this game and get on with my life already. God fuckin damn.)

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

No, Amazon’s Rings of Power is not “woke”

It annoys me so much when people complain about Rings of Power being “woke.” First of all, because of the way they overuse the word, woke has become a next-to-meaningless term that can be applied to anything conservatives don’t like. Second, Rings of Power is only progressive in the most surface-level way; underneath that it is in fact extremely regressive. People who whine about Rings of Power being woke are not only annoying, they’re also just plain wrong.

Ever since the casting was announced, right-wing idiots have been shrieking about Black actors being cast in Rings of Power. These trolls have made all kinds of dumb statements about how Middle-earth = Europe, but they seem willfully ignorant of the fact that Europe has never been exclusively white, and there is no reason to exclude people of color from the cast of any Tolkien adaptation. Still, this didn’t make the show progressive in its casting (which was tokenistic) or its writing (which ranges from bad to horrible).

For instance, the only storyline Amazon writers could apparently think of to introduce Arondir was literally him being enslaved. I mean, really? Is that really the best plotline to go with? To be clear, I’m not criticizing the actor, I’m criticizing the writing. In addition, Amazon cast actors of color overwhelmingly in parts invented for the show—rather than as actual Tolkien characters—which more easily allows them to be sidelined by the narrative, and the casting overall was in no way diverse enough. So I find it bizarre that people criticize the show for its so-called wokeness, when very little effort was made from a diversity and inclusion standpoint.

Right-wing nutjobs also threw a fit about Amazon portraying Galadriel as a warrior, to the point where they started calling her “Guyladriel.” They whined about Galadriel being too feminist and too masculine in the show, but that’s the opposite of what happened and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Galadriel as a character. First of all, she fought at Alqualondë in one version of the story, so no one should have a problem with her wielding a sword. What IS a problem is everything else about her portrayal.

Amazon’s writers took one of Tolkien’s most interesting characters and stripped her of her power, her authority, her gravitas, her wisdom, and her ambition. They had Gil-galad, her younger cousin, order her around. They had Elendil compare her to his children, even though she’s older than the sun and moon. And they made her a petty, naïve, incompetent brat whose entire first season involves being manipulated by Sauron, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, having a bizarre will-they-won’t-they relationship with him. In addition, Galadriel is canonically tall and strong, and one of her names means “man-maiden,” but they made her short and waif-like instead.

Galadriel in Amazon’s show doesn’t even resemble the character Tolkien wrote—the character named Nerwen, who never trusted Annatar, who certainly never had some creepy Reylo thing with him, who was powerful and wise and authoritative, who had a marvelous gift of insight into the minds of others—not a quippy, rude, annoying idiot who is constantly being controlled by the men around her. I don’t know why anyone would look at Rings of Power and think this portrayal is progressive. It’s actually a failure of imagination: Amazon’s writers literally cannot conceive of a powerful woman even when all of the work of imagining her has been done for them. In addition to the faux-feminist-and-actually-sexist portrayal of Galadriel, Rings of Power is also on the whole weirdly regressive from the standpoint of gender roles and gender expression. Tolkien’s Elves are canonically tall, beautiful, and long-haired, regardless of gender. Tolkien’s Dwarves all have beards. So what did Amazon do? They gave most of their male Elves short hair, while the female Elves still have long hair, and they did away with female Dwarves’ beards. They patted themselves on the back for “letting” Galadriel fight, but don’t show other female warriors—in battle scenes, for instance, why are all the soldiers male? In general, they made their characters adhere to conservative gender roles and gender expression, which is especially glaring because it contradicts what Tolkien actually wrote.

On top of all this, they decided to throw in some anti-Irish stereotypes with a side of classism, just for fun. They had the ragged, dirty, primitive Harfoots speaking in Irish accents, while the regal, ethereal, advanced Elves speak with English accents. None of the actors playing the Harfoots are Irish themselves, to my knowledge, which makes the choice to have them speak this way especially questionable. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

All in all, it makes absolutely no fucking sense to criticize Rings of Power for being woke. It may look progressive on the surface because there’s a Black Elf and a woman with a sword, but that’s as far as it goes. The show isn’t particularly diverse to begin with, and it treats its characters of color poorly. Galadriel’s portrayal is disgustingly regressive, as is the show’s overarching take on gender. This is to say nothing of the caliber of the writing in general, which is unsurprisingly low. There is so much to criticize—like the nonsense about mithril, or the fact that Celebrimbor of all people doesn’t understand alloys, or the fact that you can apparently swim across the Sundering Seas now—which makes complaining about the show’s supposed wokeness especially irrational.

I also have to wonder if the people still whining about wokeness know anything about Tolkien’s works. Do they know that the crown of Gondor was based on the crown of the Pharaohs of Egypt? Do they know that Tolkien considered Byzantium the basis for Minas Tirith? Do they know that female warriors already exist in Tolkien’s books? Do they know when they rant about how much they hate “Guyladriel” that Amazon’s portrayal is actually too feminine? Ultimately, people who complain about wokeness in Rings of Power—or any Tolkien adaptation—are just betraying their own idiocy. I honestly think if Tolkien’s books were published now conservatives would scream that they’re woke too.

[gayboysteve]

Genuinely why do people think Steve can't be a fully actualized person and a love interest at the same time? Do you guys just passively consume media without, like, paying attention? Steve has been his own fully developed person since season two. We don't need to know ever detail of his life to know who he is as a person. We know the moral fiber of his character and the strength of his will. We know he loves passionately and will do anything to help. We know he's a catty bitch that doesn't get along with his dad.

Not... everything has to be shown to us for Steve to be a real fleshed out character. There are definitely places where things fall flat (letting him even feel pain after his many beatings or torture of being eaten) but being a love interest is not one of the things where the Duffers have fucked up on him. Besides Nancy, he has the most character development out of the teens and he has an actual character arc that's been percolating since season one.

You don't need to ship Stancy or like it. That's not necessary. I personally wasn't a shipper until recently (though I never hated it like some people, I've just always focused more on the Steve and the kids or Steve and Robin) and I have to say it makes a lot of sense in the scheme of things for the love triangle to be reignited. Steve and Jonathan are not just contenders for Nancy's love, they both represent something for her journey and her picking one of them will be indicative of the path she's taking. Steve's speech about learning to crawl forward wasn't just about him, that was a display of what Steve's character can offer to Nancy's character as a romantic partner. The ability to learn to MOVE ON. TO CRAWL FORWARD.

Nancy as we know is still trapped in her grief from Barb and while Jonathan has helped her get justice from that tragedy he never helped her move PAST the pain of it. One represents moving forward, and Jonathan sadly this last season, represented regression.

Personally, I think it's Jonathan more than anyone that needs to not be in a relationship. It hasn't ever seemed to make him happy. I don't think Jonathan will ever be happy until he's allowed to get away from his family a little bit. The parentification Joyce did to him really fucked that boy up and he needs, in my opinion, to focus on himself more than anyone.

Nancy has expressly stated before that she doesn't want to be alone! Steve has expressly stated he wants love and romance and a family! They're still young they can work out their future later, why can't they find some happiness in coming back together stronger and more fully self actualized? More mature and developed? I think it actually makes for a very fitting end from a narrative standpoint which is, honestly, what convinced me to switch over to the ship in the first place.

Neither Steve nor Nancy have ever been reduced to just love interests. Even in season one when Steve is explicitly introduced as only a love interest, he actually has his own character arc going on. All following seasons Steve and Nancy (whether dating, broken up, or flirting) have all had plots not related to their romance. No one is being reduced to just a romantic interest. Unfortunately, poor Jonathan is the one that got that treatment. He's the one that needs to have something devoted to just him; something that isn't just being a brother or a boyfriend. Giving him a friend was a step in the right direction. Let's give him a dream now and not just something that we hear from Joyce. A real dream from Jonathan's mouth. Because all we've heard from him are the things he DOESN'T want for the future.

Also Stoncy supremacy anyway. Let all three fuck nasty.

(Let's not bring up the whole six nuggets things. I highly doubt Steve is actually going to expect six children from his future partner. It was a reference to the party. It was him lightening the mood and trying to bring some levity to a serious, and frankly, terrifying, situation. It was him trying to make Nancy laugh while laying his heart on the line. He's not expect six literal children.)

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

y’all. We need to have a talk about the union leaders’ keyblades

okay, so the first thing you have to know is that khx and khux’s keyblades are different. khux introduced new keyblades that weren’t included in khx originally, but! khux also made some changes to the keyblades that were originally in khx. Namely, it removed some of the in-between forms of each keyblade

(credit to this image via @appre-chi-ation)

As seen above, khx’s Starlight originally had these 5 forms in khx. The base form, plus its 4 upgrade forms.

But khux’s Starlight only has these forms, essentially having its upgrade line cut in half, and the addition of a new final form (sorta lol, it just glows)

This is the same for all the khx-khux keyblades. Starlight, Treasure Trove, Lady Luck, Three Wishes, Olympia, Divine Rose, and Moogle O’Glory all have their upgrade lines essentially compressed in khux.

Now, why does this matter? Ephemera, Skuld and Strelitzia wield this Starlight form in particular:

This is Starlight upgrade 3 / 4th form overall. It only exists in khx.

And Lauriam wields this:

Divine Rose upgrade 3 / 4th form overall. It also only exists in khx.

Since we know that the chi saga (and kh in general but chi specifically) is really great at tying gameplay mechanics and lore together, I think I actually understand the potential lore significance of this now.

These four were wielders before the war and were chosen to be union leaders. Putting Strelitzia aside for obvious reasons, Ephemera, Skuld and Lauriam escape to the new world wielding a form of their respective keyblades that actually doesn’t exist there. Now we don’t actually know why these forms don’t exist in this world from a narrative standpoint, but it might have to do with everyone’s memories being overwritten except theirs, or maybe it’s a glitch in the data that wasn’t taken into consideration (or maybe it was placed there on purpose? 👀 but this is just speculation).

Whatever the reason is, the fact that they wield non-existent keyblade forms from a forgotten reality could potentially explain why their keyblades never get upgraded past that, despite them being union leaders. You’d think that they would upgrade to the strongest form, right? Maybe going to the new world/reality stunted their keyblades’ evolution, and they’re just stuck with what they came with because they weren’t able to finish maxing out their keyblades before the war. (This is why you always do your materials quests, kids!)

Now, the reason they don’t just choose to wield a different, stronger keyblade instead is a whole other thing. Amongst the “new” keyblades brought into khux (Stroke of Midnight, Sleeping Lion, Counterpoint, Fenrir, Darkgnaw, Missing Ache, Fairy Stars, and Diamond Dust [Bad Guy Breaker is a special case]), they certainly have a lot to choose from.

My guess is either A. they simply can’t, as in, they’re physically unable to switch their particular keyblades in for a different one because of the circumstances of data Daybreak Town or because of something Ava did, or B. they chose not to, in order to just have a memento of the pre-war world, before their life changed drastically. I’m leaning towards the latter, since Blaine gives Ephemera Master’s Defender while they’re in data Daybreak Town and it wouldn’t make sense if there was even a possibility that Ephemera wouldn’t be able to use it there. This opens up a whole conversation about keyblade lore and how keyblades themselves change overtime and in different circumstances, along with how data worlds might affect keyblades. But that’s a whole other can of worms.

Anyways, here’s the most interesting part about all this…

Ven.

He wields Missing Ache upgrade 2 / 3rd form overall.

Already right from the get-go, you can see that this is different from the “formula” the other leaders are following (except Blaine, who’s the exception here, as he is to many things). Unlike the other leaders, Ven wields a keyblade that wasn’t in khx, but is included in khux as a “new” keyblade. He’s wielding a keyblade that was only put into use in the new world where everyone had their memories wiped in some capacity, including him. His keyblade is an anomaly. It may have very well been a big hint about him being an anomaly amongst the other union leaders!

tl;dr the union leaders were nerfed, the hints about Ven being a fake leader were there all along, and we need more keyblade lore. Thanks for coming to my ted talk ✌️

(an additional P.S.: Eph and Skuld were introduced in khx, so it’s possible that the main reason they were given their particular Starlight form was so they could be relative to Player’s hypothetical strength level at the time they’re introduced. But I still like to believe that there’s this additional significance to it)

[maximusmaximillian]

Why Namor x Shuri doesn’t work from a storytelling standpoint

Before I went and watched Wakanda Forever for the first time last Christmas, I saw so many people talking about how Shuri and Namor should’ve been a romantic couple. So I walked into the movie and for the first half, I could kinda see why some people could come to that conclusion. And then the second half happened and I was genuinely wondering if we saw the same movie. 💀 And while I didn’t (and still don’t) ship them, personally, and was (and still am) very confused as to why some people did (and still do), I wasn’t really bothered by it. Initially. But the more I think about it, the ship makes even less sense when you think about from a story writing perspective.

I will (begrudgingly) give Namor x Shuri shippers one point, Namor and Shuri do have good chemistry. Letitia Wright and Tenoch Huerta do play off each other well. But I would argue that it takes just as much chemistry to play enemies/rivals/antagonistic relationships as it does to play romantic/platonic/positive relationships. Any two characters on screen (on on paper or on stage or any other narrative art form) must have chemistry. Compelling character dynamics are important to tell a good story. Imma call it negative and positive chemistry.

Positive chemistry

Let’s look at Shuri as an example cause she has no canon love interest in the comics or in the movies, so most of this is fan theory.

Shuri and Peter Parker would likely have good chemistry because

- they’re both intelligent so will likely have the same interests

- they’re around the same age so they would likely be able to relate to each other

- they have the same dry sense of humor

- they have the same goal of wanting to defeat the bad guys -eg- Thanos

Whether platonic or romantic, they would make sense as a pairing.

Another pairing post WF we can look at is Riri and Shuri, and they work because

- they’re also both very smart but are often undermined because of their ages

- they have shared trauma and as a result are fiercely protective of one another

- they also have a similar sense of humor

- they both have the same goal of wanting to defeat the Talokanil and especially Namor (He does try to kill both of them. Several times. 💀)

- they literally finish each other’s sentences

Once again, platonic, romantic or even sisterly, it makes sense.

What makes both these pairings work to a degree is the idea of them being equal in some regard. Whether equal in intellect, or age, or race, or any other metric, they clearly both see each other as equal, even with Shuri being “the Crown Princess of an international superpower” and Peter and Riri being “average” civilians. They more or less agree on a common enemy and how to deal with said enemy, with morals and values that more or less align. (Within the context of the world they inhabit.)

Negative chemistry

But Namor and Shuri have what I would call negative chemistry. They do have some things in common which can be where their chemistry stems from, such as

- they are both rulers of powerful kingdoms who love their people and will do anything to protect them

- they both experience great personal loss and therefore are motivated by grief

- the surface world poses a great threat to them and may be exploited for their resources

- they admire each other’s kingdoms (the physical spaces that their people inhabit)

However even with these similarities we see that there are some glaring differences.

- Namor does not view Shuri as an equal, despite their similarities. His line of “you are queen now” showed that he was never willing to conduct to business with Ramonda, likely because she was the only person on the surface world who bested him when she lured him out of Talokan to facilitate Shuri and Riri’s rescue mission. He was simply looking for an excuse to get her out of the picture. Also, Namor’s love only goes as far as his people. Shuri’s love of people goes far beyond Wakanda’s boarders.

- He is reckless with his grief. He is correct in hating the surface world, and in particular white people for the pain they caused his people. But wanting to wage war with the whole world is extreme. Shuri on the other hand, has a better handle on how she externalizes her grief. She recognizes that even though she is angry at T’Challa’s death, the rest of the world doesn’t deserve to feel the extent of her wrath. Even when Namor does kill her mother, she rightfully directs her anger at him. She doesn’t become antagonistic with anyone else or try to take vengeance from anyone else. Sure, she has some outbursts at Nakia and M’baku, but she never really alienates them.

- Namor and the Talokanil, immediately resort to violence and war when they feel a threat from the surface world. But since no one knows they exist, this threat is hypothetical for now. (We know it’s going to happen when they do find out, given the track record of some countries in the world, but not yet.) A direct contrast to Ramonda and Shuri, who in the face of real eminent threats, resorted to peace and showed their aggressors mercy.

- Namor, despite wanting Wakanda’s help with his mission, ultimately doesn’t view Wakanda with anymore sympathy than he does the rest of the world. He has made it clear that he hates the surface world and everyone in it, which includes the Wakandans. I mean, “no love” is literally his name. Wanting to destroy the whole world, funny enough, including other Mayan descendants who were enslaved or colonized, is no different from wanting to wage war on his so called ally, killing half of them and then killing their queen. He never liked or respected them as people. That was not going to change with Shuri.

It’s also another reason why he killed Ramonda with no hesitation despite knowing what he knew about Shuri. It would be easy to forgive him if he had never met Shuri. Then Ramonda would simply remain as the nameless, faceless monarch of a powerful country. But the fact that Shuri opened up to him about the grief she was already carrying, only to inflict more pain, makes his crimes way more egregious. He knew Shuri on a somewhat personal level and still chose to kill the queen. Knowing she was her mother. It goes back to the point of him never seeing Shuri as human or recognizing her feelings as valid. All he wanted to do was push her to the extremes of grief so she would become reckless like he was. It’s clear that Namor doesn’t see Shuri as an equal. Which means that any positive development that would happen between the two would take a long time to properly write.

I’m sure someone out there has come up with better terms than “positive and negative chemistry” in a screenwriting book somewhere, but I was just thinking about different character dynamics and how they work. Many compelling relationships have that element of chemistry. For example, in the first Black Panther, T’Challa and Shuri bounce well off of each other. Positive chemistry. It’s also why Killmonger makes the perfect antagonist to T’Challa. Negative chemistry. It’s all chemistry that translates differently. Batman and Joker. Superman and Lex Luthor. Thanos and the Avengers. Team Dynamics within the Avengers. Thor and Loki. The Guardians of the Galaxy. And so many more. It’s all different types of chemistry. So yes, Namor and Shuri are arguably both great characters with complex motivations, and together, do have stellar chemistry, but is it chemistry that produces romance? I don’t think so.

In conclusion, yes, ship who you want (even when it makes no sense), these are fictional characters (who represent real world dynamics), it’s just for fun (how?), etc. but looking at it from the perspective of a storyteller, the character dynamics would not make it work. If you write a story with two such characters and they end up in love, it wouldn’t make sense.

(These are just the 3 am thoughts of a sleep deprived college student 😀)

[coldninjaruins-blog]

Confession, I think Stranger things is a decent show with decent writing and that's why I think byler is endgame.

To be honest I'm very critical of the show's writing. I think ST is a good show but with quite a few flaws yet I'm still pretty confident in byler endgame because I genuinely believe it's what makes the most narrative sense (yes, even still with the existence of the monologue). That's not to say I'm immune to byler doubt but it's usually more related to external factors like "they'll really go for it?" than what we see in the show. If the plan was to have Mike accept in Will as gay and portray positive male friendships with their relationship, they shouldn't have changed Mike and Will's dynamic in season 3 and 4 and not have Will be in love with Mike.

Like can you guys imagine Will coming out to Mike with the same dynamic they had in season 2? That would have been fucking adorable, it would have been a wonderful representation of a friendship of a gay boy and a straight boy having a close relationship.

But they didn't, they had to give us dramatic fights like the rain fight, the rink o mania fight, lines like "we're friends, we're friends" that awful half hug, portray Will's love for Mike so beautifully while showing that Mike and El's relationship doesn't really work.

Like I love season 2 and I think the writers already had byler in mind when they wrote it (that's why they had so many parallels with miIeven, and the miIeven scenes were mean to be view as romantic) but if they really wanted to keep their platonic relationship after that season they could do it, or even after season 3! I know many say Mike and Will's friendship becoming more distant after season 3 was the natural course of things but while I agree, I think the scene "what if you want to join another party? " "Not possible" was an opportunity for the writers, they could make their friendship the same as before, it was the "olive branch" I think most people wouldn't find it weird if there was no drama between Mike and Will in season 4 (I repeat I still agree it was also natural course but I think the writers had 2 choices on which way to go) take for example to Mike and Max's relationship, they spent season 3 beefing but even though we don't have a scene with them like the "not possible" in season 4 and though we know Max disappeared or pushed way everyone, there really doesn't seem to be any problem between Max and Mike, we have the scene of the two of them talking in episode 1, Mike mentioning Max with Lucas and Dustin (Max, Lucas, Dustin. ..they're great) and Max making a letter to Mike as well. (Also, let's be honest it's a common thing for ST writers to introduce certain things and never touch them again, or leave them in oblivion, like Mike being really mean to Max in s2 and never apologizing to her or mentioning it on screen, my point is that it wouldn't be weird for the writers to do something like that).

But nooo, they had to have Mike act weird, give Mike and Will communication problems (a usually romantic trope) and make Will's love for Mike much more obvious instead of giving him a new love interest.

They made Will basically a third party to Mike and El's relationship in s4, and that's weird from a narrative standpoint. They put more emphasis on Will's feelings than they did on Mike and El's romance and that's just not normal. They didn't do this with Steve and Jancy or Dustin and Lumax. Will appeared so often in Mike and El scenes that it became predictable for viewers.

They wanted you to empathize with him, to feel bad for him, to rotate for his happiness.

I'm just saying in a very long-winded way that decisions were made and if they really don't plan on making byler endgame it wasn't just one mistake they made but MANY, MANY bad decisions, not just around Mike and Will's relationship but Mike and El's as well. For example I would worry more about the monologue if it had been something that was Mike's idea at the moment he sees El is having problems something like "She's dying and I never told her how I feel, I need her to fight" but not only did they do the van scene but they reminded us of the van scene with Will saying "Mike, don't stop, you are the heart, remember that" which people must accept regardless of whether they are bylers or not that it did have an influence on Mike starting his monologue because if it was really that unnecessary the writers just wouldn't write it, even the track for the monologue scene is called "you're the heart."

In conclusion, in my personal case what gives me hope the most about byler endgame is that even though ST's writing is not perfect at all I think the writers are really trying in the case of Mike and Will's relationship because like I've said it before and I'll say it again, their relationship is one of the best written of the entire show, you can tell the diligence and care that was put into their scenes, into their bond...

And again, it was a thousand times easier to give Will a new love interest in season 4 but they didn't and I'd like to think there's a reason for that also the fact that Will was planned to be gay even before stranger things was stranger things and it was just a pitch called Montauk, at least to me shows that they care.

If Byler isn't endgame they really messed up a lot of things.

[joons]

As someone who knows very little about the Beach Boys but is curious, I would love to know all the tea on Mike Love.

"Mike Love isn’t just not rock … he’s actually in the red, like the anti-rock. He’s in rock debt and should spend his next life wearing golf pants and selling hairpieces." — Tony Hicks, Riff Magazine

A real article.

Let me take you on a journey.

Every Beach Boys fan starts to hate Mike Love as a joke, and then it gradually becomes real. (Mike Love defenders, I am truly sorry; you are the devil's strongest soldiers.) The traditional narrative is that when Brian Wilson (the eldest Wilson brother and de facto leader) stopped touring and began spending all his time writing music for the band, Mike Love (Brian's cousin, lead singer, lyricist) became worried that Brian would go off on his own and leave them behind. Mike had good reasons to worry; when the band came back from an extensive tour in Japan, Brian excitedly showed them what he had been working on: Pet Sounds. Widely considered their best album, and one of the best albums of all time, Pet Sounds is chamber pop music, with a wall of orchestral instruments and complex vocal harmonies, interspersed with really off-the-wall sounds, like bicycle horns and theremins, all in service of a "concept album" (the first ever such thing) about a young man entering adulthood and struggling to manage a relationship. Oh, and Brian had already recorded all of this with the Wrecking Crew (professional session musicians, who adored him), written all the lyrics with a new guy, Tony Asher, and then ushered the Beach Boys in to record the final vocals.

Mike Love was probably justifiably a bit peeved that Brian had just like ... done the thing without him and without the band, but that was Brian's job; that was the deal they had worked out when Brian decided he couldn't handle the pressure of touring anymore. Brian was already considered a savant composer at the time and the key to the Beach Boys' success; the Beatles adored his work, and he was in a constant battle to do something as spectacular as the Beatles were doing with albums like Rubber Soul. But when the band came back and got to hear the full thing (Mike was consulted on some of the lyrics beforehand), Mike was like, "This isn't us, this won't sell." (Other members had similar concerns, especially about having to recreate these elaborate orchestrations with a few guitars and drumkits on tour, but they trusted Brian.) The stressors between Mike and Brian continued when Brian started doing an even more ambitious album, Smile, using a really avant-garde lyricist who dealt in poetic imagery rather than concrete stories. Mike once again spent all the recording sessions whining about it and resisting any push toward psychedelic imagery. Legend has it he said something like, "Don't fuck with the formula" (of cars and girls and surfing), and basically shat all over what would have been the most innovative pop album of all time (purely from a production standpoint, it was a beast, needing to be constructed in tiny segments and then edited back together using analog recording equipment). It would have been, as Brian described it, "a teenage symphony to God."

Brian, being mentally fragile, did not do well with conflict like this, (he had already, with great struggle, gotten his father, Murry Wilson, fired as their manager, after Murry's abusive, controlling behavior made it impossible for them to record) and the disappointing reactions from the band and from the public toward Pet Sounds and Smile essentially killed his confidence, meaning that he soon retreated from being the band's leader and took less and less of an interest in writing. (He was more involved than popular imagination might think, but it was certainly a turning point in his creative output.) The pressure quickly became too much, and Brian, who was struggling severely with his mental health, shelved the entire Smile project. It was not released in any complete form until 2004, when Brian had the support around him (hint: not the Beach Boys) to let him put it into an acceptable shape and release a legendary lost piece of media. And it was incredible.

Now, at this point, most fans are like, "Aw, that Mike! Always sticking to the formula!" while acknowledging that he was right about how big of a risk these albums were. Points were made, and Pet Sounds didn't actually sell as well as their other stuff! Smile was very weird! Pet Sounds was so influential among rock musicians at the time (the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a direct response to it), but it wasn't a commercial smash. And music does need to be somewhat concerned about the business side. So maybe some fans are like, "Well. We give Mike too much grief for this, Brian had to be responsible for his own confidence, this stuff happens, whatever."

But there's never really a moment where Mike Love is vindicated. He is never satisfied to be "right" about one thing; he must be right in all things. As you keep learning about him, you're like, "Mike is just an asshole."

Very famous picture of Mike and Brian. You can see the whole relationship here.

The main reason the clashes in '66-'67 are still a sore spot is because they're a microcosm of the decadeslong war for the soul of the band. In the 1990s, Mike wrested control of the Beach Boys name from the other surviving band members after the death of Carl Wilson, Brian's brother (a saint, a diplomatic soul who kept the band together when they would otherwise be at each others' throats). This gets into complicated legal weeds, but basically Mike won the rights to tour as "the Beach Boys" even though he only toured with one other member. All of the members share in the profits but are not allowed to do their own tours with the name. Brian had no interest in touring with him at the time, and neither did Al Jardine, another surviving member, but Mike went after Al for touring as "Beach Boys Family & Friends" and successfully sued to prevent any of the other boys from doing anything similar. At the same time, he excluded them from working with him on the official tour. He has kept the band in stasis, rarely playing songs beyond the 1962-1966 eras, and keeping the band's image as a good-time surfing group, when they are so much more, and it grates that they are not more known for how musically significant and groundbreaking they were (I count the entire band's contributions in this, not just Brian, as many of them are great songwriters in their own right and did wonderful production work in the late '60s and early '70s). Mike stands athwart that deserved legacy because he finds it difficult to share the spotlight, and his contributions in the later years were simply not good. Mike isn't solely responsible for the Beach Boys being classified as a nostalgia act; that impression began when Capitol Records, their first label, put out a greatest hits album that sold far more than anything new the band was making in the early '70s. But Mike leaned into that, and instead of capitalizing on renewed interest by showing how the band had grown, Mike wanted to show that the band was exactly how you remembered them.

He is also known for being bizarrely abrasive at times, to the detriment of the band's reputation. When they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, Mike interrupted Brian's sweet statement and wound up going on a ramble lambasting other Hall of Fame members for suing each other (THIS IS DRAMATIC IRONY) or for not "showing up" for that year's event because they've "always been chickenshit to get onstage with the Beach Boys." I have never been able to get through this video in one sitting, I have to stop because the secondhand embarrassment is too much.

ELTON JOHN: Thank FUCK he didn't mention me!

He later blamed his tirade on not meditating that day.

In the 1990s, Mike began to sue the other members for damn near everything. While Mike was somewhat justified in regaining songwriting credits from the Beach Boys' early work (Murry Wilson had something to do with wanting to keep the credits for the Wilson brothers), he went on to claim that Brian including a picture of the Beach Boys in the album sheets for his version of Smile "damaged" the image of the band. Jesus wept. He also sued Brian for how he was portrayed in a (to be fair, mostly ghostwritten and bad) memoir without having read it.

The surviving members of the Beach Boys reunited in 2012 for the band's 50th anniversary. They put out a new album (it was great!) and toured together for the first time since the 1990s. David Marks, an early member who left during the first year, was invited back to play with them. It was healing to see them together and genuinely enjoying performing. Audiences were thrilled. Brian Wilson and Al Jardine both expressed how excited they were to keep it going, not just as a one-time anniversary tour but something they could conceivably do year after year, healing the split between Mike's band (with Beach Boy Bruce Johnston) and the tours that Brian and Al did together. But before any of that could be worked out, Mike just ghosted them, along with David. He announced that the tour was going to go on without them without doing a joint release. Brian and Al wrote a freaking letter to the editor stating they hadn't been told. So it's definitely another "Mike is why we can't have nice things" moment. He has described his exclusive ability to tour as "my nourishment and my revenge," framing it as a way of recovering lost royalties after being cheated out of songwriting credits for a long time, even though he was already awarded monetary compensation for that. In actual fact, he just cannot handle being upstaged.

Some other things that Mike gets flak for: getting obsessed with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Transcendental Meditation movement, writing songs exclusively about the concept and trying to turn the Beach Boys into an official Maharishi touring group; overclaiming writing credits for his small contributions to certain songs; playing for Trump's campaign events; playing for a trophy hunter guild (these last two in spite of public disavowals from Brian and Al). There are probably other, more private things that I don't think are necessary to get into. None of the band members have completely clean hands in how they've treated one another. What sets Mike apart is that he makes it public and cannot move on.

Everyone has a different breaking point with him, I think. For me, it's his continued digs at Brian, particularly relating to Brian's mental illnesses. Even extending some grace to him for dealing with difficult working conditions as some of the band members spiraled, I cannot excuse how disgusting his language is and how much he clearly wants to erase the empathy and love people have for Brian, with whatever tool he has at hand.

For context, Brian Wilson was locked into an unspeakably abusive conservatorship with his psychologist, Eugene Landy, for a decade, up until 1991. The abuse involved improper prescription treatment that continues to affect Brian to this day. (He is lucky it did not kill him.) I don't even like to think about it much because it's so dark, but Landy controlled what Brian could eat, what he sang, and who he could talk to. He sold off Brian's publishing rights and represented him in public and corporate matters. Thanks to a longtime fan and music journalist, David Leaf; Brian's future wife; and intervention by the family (who had been cut off from communicating with Brian), he was given control of his own life again and eventually properly diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He has gotten to lead his own life again, making music that helps him deal with auditory hallucinations and depression, and working with who he wants to.

With that background, it's absolutely fucked for Mike to say this:

"He’s not in charge of his life, like I am in mine. His every move is orchestrated and a lot of things he’s purported to say, there’s not tape of it. But, I don’t like to put undue pressure on him, either, because I know he has a lot of issues. Out of compassion, I don’t respond to everything that is purportedly said by him. I’ve noticed where he says he really regards me as his greatest writing partner and that he loves my voice. Even on the 50th (anniversary tour), he made it quite clear he really liked watching me do my thing while he was at the piano. So, there’s a lot of positivity there.” (X)

So many layers there. He's so comically up his own ass, but the things he says about Brian upset me so much. He's so vile for no reason. Even if this were a criticism of Brian's PR or legal team, he could say so, instead of using Brian's past abuse to brush aside his opinions. He always does this thing where the Wilsons' addictions and illnesses are the result of bad choices, while he's never done anything wrong and was victimized by them. It's so infuriating, but it's also hard to get too upset with him because he's genuinely blind.

The thing about Mike is that he's so ... bad that he's fun to hate. Is he truly the worst person in the world? No. But is he actually the worst person in the world? Yes. His terribleness makes me laugh. That might have more to do with the cerebral way Beach Boys fans cut Mike Love clips, but goddamn, it gets me. (Beach Boys fans have had to deal with an awful lot of kitsch against their will, and I think this is their way of coping.)

LISTEN TO THIS MANIAC, I AM WHEEZING AT WORK.

(It's so crazy, he even added in that psychedelic riff at the end of the video! That's not in the song! It's just to emphasize how weird he thinks "Good Vibrations" is and how much he has to "apologize" for it. What is happening. Even when he is "joking," there's such a dark energy about it.)

In conclusion:

A real article. "His memoir leaves him neither vindicated nor convincingly tolerable as a human being."

[byronicbi]

For those of you who've been following me for a while now, there's a good chance you got to experience my journey reading the Remembrance of Earth's Past series last year. I loved Three-Body Problem, but The Dark Forest and Death's End were like pulling teeth. Both books had their very very good moments, but getting through them was a tedious experience I considered giving up on on multiple occasions. I will give it to Cixin Liu tho, I needed to know how the series ended and that alone was the sole reason I pushed towards the finish line. Any author that can make me tough out bad writing for the sake of seeing the end deserves some kind of award (and he won a ton anyway, so).

I approached the Netflix series with zero expectations given their propensity for shitty adaptations (One Piece notwithstanding), but after watching the first episode I was left cautiously optimistic.

Having watched all 8 episode I'm still unsure how to feel about it. I spent most of the series hitting pause to rant at my roommate about it, both positively and negatively.

I had many issues with the books, but some of the more obvious ones came from a writing standpoint. I love hard sci-fi. I could not excuse the sheer length of those final two books. The atrocious treatment of women as objects to romance and use as bartering for the main character. The abysmal MCs (specifically Luo Ji) that made me want to yell to the high heavens due to annoying they were. The lack of human connection between characters.

For books so steeped in sociopolitical and ethical commentaries, the flagrant misogyny and homophobia was eye-rolling. And not even in a "This is Bad" sort of way, just in a "This is So Fucking Boring" kind of way. I cannot speak for the author's biases, because the contents of a book in no way reflects the views of an author or their character.

Where the books shone the brightest were during the battle scenes, the looming dread, genuinely horrific thought experiments.

And, surprisingly? It feels like the people at Netflix thought the same.

I've never watched Game of Thrones but I understood why people were against it from the get-go. That, along with the whole "whitewashing" thing which I consider to be interesting. For starters, you're using whitewashed wrong. Yes, they moved the central story from China to England which was... a fascinating choice, but of the core five (that quickly became the core four), only two of them are white. I'm not saying it was okay for a western adaptation to take a cast and further diversify it, I'm just saying that that's not whitewashing.

That aside, I did like some of the choices that were made from a narrative standpoint. Reshuffling and streamlining events, for one. Removing the whole plot line about Luo Ji hunting down a woman who he invented in his head in order to marry her? I'm not entirely sold on the idea of taking core events and divvying them up between four different people, but I do understand what they're trying to do.

The book series failed at crafting believable and impactful relationships between its human characters, which made the narrative feel hollow and one-dimensional. This adaptation aimed to change this by slapping a band-aid over the issue. Like I said, I'm still unsure of how I feel about this.

A lot of unnecessary stuffing was removed to make a suitable run time, and I say unnecessary because there's really no scenes that are making me go "oh, I wish this had been included". Was some stuff rushed? Yes. The passage of time could have been outlined a little better, but that's a small nitpick on my end.

The scale of things was toned down, and I don't think Netflix has the capability (or budget) to tackle space battles.

Honestly? I don't really see this getting a second season for a variety of reasons, and I'd be okay with that.

It was an "okay" watch, in the end.

Tho, I'm still flabbergasted by the random "gory scary jumpscare" scenes????? Where did those come from??? I don't remember anything like that being in the books but, you know. I've read a lot more books since finishing these, so.

[maya-matlin]

Pick your most unpopular opinion about each of these shows (only if you want to!!): Degrassi, OTH, Gilmore Girls, Friends, Riverdale, That 70s Show, and Dawson's Creek :)

Degrassi:

This is so difficult because I feel like I've stated so many opinions in the past. Okay. I think the Degrassi nudes arc was theoretically really interesting from a psychological standpoint as well as how a survivor would cope after going through a very public sexual assault trial with the details of what happened to them being well known. Because it feels like something so human and yet so misguided, I don't view Zoe's role in it as harshly as others do. To be fair, the writers lost the plot. Literally. It got really sensationalized with blackmailing and cheerleader dolls and fake hostage situations. I also really hate how it turned into a Zoe vs Frankie situation with zero nuance. Their past involving Frankie being an unsupportive friend who victim blamed Zoe multiple times was never brought up once in lieu of Frankie being turned into Zoe's victim. So while I wouldn't say I like the arc itself, I feel like it had potential. The writers just weren't committed to seeing it through and let Zoe down as a character. The aftermath was really underwhelming and made the whole story line irrelevant.

OTH:

Even though I like the shooting episode for what it is, it's a pretty mediocre depiction of characterizing a school shooter. Following Jimmy's suicide, the writing consistently expects the audience to feel sympathy for him and remember him as a good guy who did one bad thing. It's to the point where the entire school ends up signing his high school yearbook. To be fair, a lot of the Jimmy romanticism came from Mouth, who had weird morals himself considering he was the show's resident incel. But beyond that, Jimmy quickly stops being the villain of the episode to orchestrate a scenario where Dan just happens to stumble upon Keith and a gun, giving him the opportunity to murder him. Also, every other scene features monologues given by the characters that are blatantly trying WAY too hard to be deep and profound. Not to mention this episode marked the official return of romantic Lucas/Peyton, but because Peyton was bleeding and supposedly didn't know any better she can't possibly be held responsible for selfishly making a move on her best friend's boyfriend in what she believed to be her last moments. Sorry, fuck that. Your last moments shouldn't include complicating things for two people you claim to care about. Especially not when you were the one who helped ruin their relationship the first time around, and you know for a fact that your best friend still has trust issues over what happened.

Also, Brooke was the love of Lucas's life. I'll die on this hill. Blame Chad Michael Murray's inability to stop giving his ex-wife heart eyes even during scenes post-Brucas, but it is what it is.

Gilmore Girls:

It's difficult to know what is or isn't popular in the Gilmore Girls fandom. I guess I'll say that Rory dropping out of Yale was the right decision? The way I see it, nothing bad was ever going to come out of that. Rory was in a transitional place where she was questioning a lot of her life decisions. She didn't currently feel up to attending school, so she took some time off. It was completely understandable, yet the narrative insists that this was indicative of Rory going down a bad path. I can understand Lorelai wanting Rory to take some time to make sure this was what she wanted but if anything, Lorelai's overreaction probably made Rory take even more time off from school. Had Rory had her mother and best friend in her corner, maybe she would have realized by the beginning of the next semester that she was emotionally ready to return to Yale. Just.. everything with Lorelai, Richard and Emily feeling as though they could force Rory to go back to school as though she was suddenly going to lose her place and never be able to return was stupid. Out of the two of them, Lorelai was the pettiest and most in the wrong during their estrangement. Lorelai was the parent. Lorelai chose not to tell her daughter she was engaged. Rory shouldn't have ever felt as though she couldn't come home until she basically did everything her mother wanted her to do. Considering Lorelai's own history with Emily, you'd think she'd realize that. But again, the writers made sure we knew how badly Rory was ruining her life and making bad decisions for committing the crime of taking a leave of absence from school and daring to try other things in the meantime.

Friends:

My opinions on the Ross/Rachel infamous "break" are all over the place. Technically, I think Ross is right that their relationship was no longer intact when he slept with another woman. Their communication absolutely sucked during this story line. No attempts at clarification were ever made. Ross just walked out when Rachel said she wanted a break, and Rachel let him. Honestly, I don't even think Ross sleeping with someone else so soon after splitting up from Rachel, in whatever form you consider that to be, makes him an asshole. In an ideal world where everyone makes rational decisions all the time, Ross wouldn't have coped with intense heartbreak by immediately sleeping with someone else. But it was a human reaction, and I don't fault him for that. What I do fault him for is hiding it the next day, running around town trying to stop other people from telling Rachel. It's all but admitting that Ross and Rachel were still emotionally connected and in the mindset of being in a monogamous relationship. Even if they technically weren't. What I also fault him for is being so stubborn and adamant on being right that he never admits fault or owns up to causing Rachel pain for several years after that. So what if he didn't technically betray Rachel? To Rachel, it felt like one. Sometimes, when you love someone, you have to be understanding of the complexities of emotions and just take the fucking L, even if you're technically faultless by definition. And honestly, Rachel was part of the problem, too. What kind of relationship or connection do you really have if you're having the same, obnoxious argument for eight years, never able to get on the same page? Like, I know it's a comedy, but Friends wasn't playing up the comedy angle during this arc. Anyways, they definitely shouldn't have ended up together if they were going to keep getting tripped up over one argument for eight years.

Riverdale:

I don't know how unpopular this actually is, but Veronica is extremely underrated and never gets the love and appreciation she deserves. Looking across the entire series, including time jumps, different universes, and eras where the characters literally had powers, Veronica was consistently the most selfless and considerate character on the show. Half the time, she was the mean girl in name only. There were countless occasions where Veronica forgave even when she shouldn't have and/or should have held out for more remorse and effort from the person that wronged her. The attempt to compare Veronica kissing Ginger Judas in the pilot after knowing Archie and Betty for two seconds to Betty doing it three years into Varchie's relationship is.. it has some nerve. Anyways, Veronica was wonderful, ambitious, and everyone on that show was better for having known her. Sadly, she was underappreciated more often than not, rarely ever getting her due. I really wish anyone but Archie had been the love of her life, because he really didn't deserve her by the end.

That '70s Show:

Sometimes, Hyde gets way too much of a pass for his treatment of Jackie. I feel like he's overall the most popular character on the show with his relationship with Jackie being the most popular, resulting in a lot of his questionable behavior getting swept under the rug. Obviously Hyde had issues he needed to work through stemming from his childhood and struggled to let other people in. But Jackie was consistently a pretty great girlfriend for him, going out of her way to show love and affection, only for him to not 100% reciprocate. Fuck Danny Masterson (and honestly Mila at this point too), but a lot of what made that relationship what it was is the chemistry between Danny and Mila and how they chose to demonstrate the love between those two characters. Hyde was still miles ahead of Kelso and Fez and had great moments with Jackie. But it still needs to be said. Hyde put Jackie through a lot.

Dawson's Creek:

While not perfectly written, most of Andie's fall from grace during season 3 makes a lot of sense. I even think Andie cheating on Pacey was in character. It's a controversial take because no one wants to believe that season 2 Andie would have ever done such a thing. But the reality is, Andie had a literal mental breakdown. She says it herself. When Andie went to get mental health help, she was no longer the same girl Pacey fell in love with. Andie was in a dark, lonely, vulnerable place, and she met someone else. This guy understood parts of Andie's mental health struggles that Pacey couldn't, and it led to a friendship that became an emotional affair. They made their own world together, and then had one, impulsive slip up. It doesn't cheapen Andie's love for Pacey, but it's still understandable that Andie crossed a boundary of Pacey's that couldn't be uncrossed. After this, Andie's attempts to recuperate post-breakup, including her treatment of Pacey and even stealing the test were pretty consistent based on how desperately Andie wanted to appear normal and as though everything was under control. However, I also think early season 3 stacked the deck too far against Andie, resulting in her character leaving the show early. The supposed "false accusation" meant to make Andie look bad from a misogynistic, ableist showrunner took it too far. I personally think even during that episode, there are enough hints, including Rob's desperation to shut Andie's story down when she hadn't even gone to the authorities, indicates she told the truth. Seriously, his happy ass was all cocky when Pacey confronted him, but once he sobered up he practically sprinted to Joey's house to use Andie's mental health against her, even manhandling Joey multiple times to force her to listen. But whatever. The intent was obvious, and I still hated it. Anyways, Andie McPhee was great, and I wish people would still appreciate her at her worst. After all, it's what led to season 4 Andie, probably the strongest iteration of her character even though she sadly wasn't around for long.

[solarwynd]

https://www.tumblr.com/solarwynd/736542748902080512/this-still-interests-me-a-lot-because-he-said

if its not as ballad-ish as the “cover art”* suggests its most likely hip-hop or r&b based on the producer’s previous work. I would LOVE for it to be r&b (check out lucky daye’s f**kin sound and teyana taylor’s shoot it up both by the same prod) but its probably more likely to be hip-hop based on jimin’s taste and his work on face. i know this is a divisive statement in the pjm community lol but i really hope he’s not rapping in it 🥶

i just don’t think it favors him at all. with SMF, from a production standpoint its a masterpiece, but i never really got into the rap verses bc of both the lyrics and the vocal production. i get the use of the autotune both technically and narratively, but its just not a good fit for his voice imo.

*i say “cover art” bc smth about it is off, its not clapped in the typical hybe way lol as a graphic design enthusiast, it does look like someone put very different elements together in picsart in under 5 mins. still better than the average tacky hybe artwork though 🤷🏽‍♀️

Jimin’s very versatile in his music. Each song on face was a different genre and even with smf2 it wasn’t rigid hip hop. He still put his own flair on it and that’s what I like about his art. Your view on smf2 is fair I mean listening to it the first time the rap part with the auto tune portion did throw me off at first. I just wasn’t expecting it, but it doesn’t bother me. So i’m in the “fine with it” camp. It’s okay to not vibe with it, it’s okay to think it’s good. They’re all opinions. Only thing that annoys me are the people who do the most with pointing out how much they hate it cause it’s just not that deep.

Also I think jimin favors smf2 as a song and what it stands for, not so much that his taste lies with hip hop. Don’t think we should judge the next single or any other rap forward song he might do based on smf2 because that single nor the others will sound like that. They’ll all have their own style. But like you said, the producer’s repertoire is rnb and rap so chances are it could be that because you go to who specializes in something if you want something similar. He could also just be utilizing highlights of the producer’s production skills to lend it to a song that’s a hybrid like pop/rnb or ballad/rnb for example. Which leads me into the topic of jimin being great at melodic rapping. You see it scattered throughout bts’ discography and even that one part in face-off. I’d honestly be interested to see him tackle that more.

A direction I could see him possibly going in is dominic fike. The dance cover he did to his song “phone numbers.” And I think one of the producers he got pinged to work with worked on that and my favorite song of his “mona lisa.” too. Tbh we’ll never be able to pinpoint exactly what the songs jimin puts out will sound like cause he doesn’t have a fixed sound.

As for the cover art, haven’t seen it so I can’t form an opinion on it. It sounds like the cover for “come back home” from what you described though and that one was a choice that cost energy lol. But I mean as long as the song hits the cover art isn’t really a concern to me.

[kitkat404]

I’ve seen a lot of Percy Jackson fanfics where they go to high school and Annabeth is in all AP classes, and I want to point some things out.

Annabeth is extremely intelligent, there’s no debating that. She’s a fast learner who soaks up information like a sponge. I might give her the math because she’s an architect and canonically very good at fast calculations, but that’s about it. If Annabeth were to go to school after HoO, she would be at the worst disadvantage.

Think about it; she dropped out of school when she was 7 years old, has ADHD and dyslexia, and canonically has both anxiety and PTSD. American school systems are super ableist, combine that with 2 learning disabilities, psychological trauma, and an almost 10-year absence, and Annabeth would probably be taking classes BELOW her grade level.

I might even go so far as to say that Percy is at an advantage over her. Yes, they both have ADHD and dyslexia, and yes they both have anxiety and PTSD, and while Percy may have been kicked out of every school he’s ever been to, notice how it was always because of monster attacks, never his grades. And now, his stepdad is one of his teachers and will be able to help him and keep peace with the school so Percy can stay for more than one year.

But more important than that is the fact that while Percy did lose his memory and miss most of his sophomore year of high school, he got those memories back, and an 8 month gap is way smaller than the DECADE Annabeth has to make up for. Was Percy barely passing his classes? Yes, but he WAS passing. He never flunked out, he wasn’t held back. Annabeth, however, likely would be held back.

No matter how smart you are, nobody gets accepted into AP classes after missing 10 years of school.

I also want to make it clear that this isn’t against Annabeth in any way, she’s always been one of my favorite characters. But sometimes, it feels like people gloss over a lot of the less shiny aspects of her story and just paint her as the genius know-it-all who has to tutor Percy in all his subjects to help him graduate. In reality, she’s a lot more complicated than that, and I feel like it’s a disservice to who she is as a character to ignore the bits that make her so.

Annabeth has had a very difficult life, and a lot of the things that have happened to her weren’t her fault, or her choice. We need to recognize that and actually make it a part of how she’s portrayed rather than trying to make everything perfectly fit into the “genius girl” narrative. That’s not her story; maybe it was at one point, but we’re well past it now.

It would be incredibly interesting and gratifying from a story-telling standpoint to see Annabeth struggle with this. Her intelligence has always been a defining factor in how she identifies herself, but we also know that Annabeth does have her moments of doubt. To see her struggling in school and having to reconcile the fact that she’s still a very smart person with the fact that she got very behind and has to be the one to ask for help this time instead of having the answer, could give her a lot of growth.

[wawamouse]

Oz Rewatch 3: S1E03: God's Chillin

Watched another episode with my sister!

Sister: Wow, he really got typecast as an evil doctor... Me: He's a priest. Sister: Yeah, and he's wearing a white lab coat

Watching the show with my sis, the flashbacks began, it struck me that there truly are a ridiculous amount of flashbacks in the show. I know the episodes were airing weekly, but even then, surely they didn't think people were forgetting what was happening THAT quickly, right? Then again, after initially mocking the flashbacks as "being someone else's memory" (narrative wise, they were strictly for the audience's benefit), Sister did end up appreciating the flashbacks for reminding her what was going on. If I recall correctly, the flashbacks became less frequent in later seasons as the show switched to running recaps before the episode instead. Still, the flashbacks are a little annoying to me. Sort of jumping ahead, too, but there were some REALLY cheesy effects on the flashbacks in either s2 or s3.

Sister: Riot! Riot! Riot! Ask me! Ask ME! (Little does she know...)

Stray observation: Cell Block Three is mentioned as Oz's "fag unit". I sort of wonder if the show uses "block" and "unit" interchangeably, which is a bit annoying if so. My understanding is that a unit is a smaller grouping of cells (like a "floor") within a larger dormitory/block.

Sister: (mockingly) God pulled everything back to reveal your true self... what, a CRIMINAL?

Foot-in-mouth moment for Sister Pete here, to be honest. Every time I watch this scene, I'm flabbergasted at why the hell she would ever run with this logic. If I was in prison, "maybe God put you here for a reason" is NOT the shit I would want to hear. I also think from a psychologist standpoint, she should know better than suggest something like this to an inmate... It sort of offers them a way out of accountability, no?

Sister: I don't know if that's Pride... it seems like there's deeper issues at play here.

(Miguel walking away) Sister: Zoom in!

Sister is of the opinion that Miguel's face sacrifice will not work not because God is not willing to negotiate but because Miguel slashed the wrong cheek.

I asked her what she thought about Miguel this episode. She seems to find his plot generally interesting, but she is also of the mind that he will die soon so there is no point getting invested.

Groves: No one's favorite

Sister continues to predict lines in the show:

Rebadow: Wow… Sister: It’s mom… Groves: It’s mom… Sister: Haha, I could’ve written this show!

She said Groves was not her favorite character ("I don't condone CANNIBALISM o_0"), and that she only finds him most amusing, but I feel like that means he's her favorite character lol. She has rejected Keane after this episode both for "being too soft now" yet also for not snitching on the COs, as well as for telling O'Reily he wasn't going to rat on him ("He should've held that over his head!").

Every time Groves shows up, Sister (as she had during episodes 1&2) does the Silence of the Lambs "fava beans and a nice chianti" slurping noises. She also did it during the opening of the communion scene here:

Markstrom & Kenny thoughts

I sort of wonder how the show would have been different if Kenny had joined the Muslim after all. He's so young in the show, and he is shown as easily giving into social pressure. It's sort of tragic. I think he is an example of a character who could have truly reformed had he been given the chance/put in an environment where that was actually possible and where there wasn't peer pressure.

Another thing I enjoyed seeing in this episode, knowing his true identity, was the subtle ways Markstrom lets his cover slip. During Post's funeral, he once again has to check his hand as he makes a gang sign—something he did in episode one upon meeting Keane as well. When the Homeboys are getting high in the classroom, we see Markstrom taking the heroin from Kenny and stowing it away in his pocket. Granted, he was doing so probably to keep Said from seeing the drugs, but I like to imagine that once he and Kenny are booted from the room, there is a deleted scene where Markstrom doesn't give back the vial, and also tells Kenny that Said is right, and Kenny is still young/can get out in a few years if he keeps his head down and makes an effort. In a later scene, Markstrom remarks to Kenny that he doesn't seem to be taking to drug counseling. Maybe he was the one who tried to get Kenny to go in the first place!

Final Thoughts/Stray Observations

Devlin's aide is actually there from season 1! I wonder if the actor had something to do with production, or if they just decided to call up the same extras every time.

Sister continued to worry for Nino Schibetta (alternatively "the mouse" and "the mole") and his feelings. As D'Angelo was getting choked out this episode, she said "aw, but the mole guy will get sad"

The FBI really don't do shit lol

Sister, musing aloud: If this was Sex and the City, what do you think they would wear?

Sister has moved on to theorise that Rebadow is in prison for murdering his wife

I showed Sister the memes I have been making for the show ("I'm giving you peeks into the future"). She seemed to respond the most to the following:

Sister: (narrowing eyes) (unimpressed look) (won't deign to respond)

Sister: (picking up on some kind of vibe) (interest piqued) Do I know the guy on the left? Me: No not yet. You know the guy on the right. Sister: (squinting)

Sister: He's just like you Me: (deep pondering)

[goforth-ladymidnight]

For as much as SJM has proclaimed that R/hysand was always endgame-- though I despise that bait and switch with every fiber of my being-- I think she re-wrote him into the story to make him more important that he was initially. What do I mean? My theory (with evidence) is below the cut.

Feel free to skip it if your favorite book in the series is A/COMAF. Seriously. If you usually skip most of ACOTAR to get to the R/hysand parts, skip this. You won't like it.

Excerpt from ACOTAR ch. 20, 21 (Calanmai): I almost slid down the steep bank as I entered the hollow. At one end, a cave mouth opened into a soft hillside. Its exterior had been adorned with flowers and branches and leaves, and I could make out the beginnings of a pelt-covered floor just past the cave mouth. What lay inside was hidden from view as the chamber veered away from the entrance, but firelight danced upon the walls. Whatever was occurring inside the cave—or whatever was about to happen—was the focus of the shadowy faeries as they lined either side of a long path leading to it. The path wended between the trenches among the hills, and the High Fae swayed in place, moving to the rhythm of the drumming, whose beats sounded in my stomach. I watched them sway, then shifted on my feet. I’d been banned from this? I scanned the firelit area, trying to peer through the veil of night and smoke. I found nothing of interest, and none of the masked faeries paid me any heed. They remained along the path, more and more of them coming each minute. Something was definitely going to happen—whatever this Great Rite was. … As I scanned the crowd, my eyes met with those of a masked faerie across the path. One was russet and shone as brightly as his red hair. The other was—metal. I blinked at the same moment he did, and then his eyes went wide. He vanished into nothing, and a second later, someone grabbed my elbow and yanked me out of the crowd. “Have you lost your senses?” Lucien shouted above the drums. His face was ghostly pale. “What are you doing here?” None of the faeries noticed us—they were all staring intensely down the path, away from the cave. “I wanted to—” I started, but Lucien cursed violently.“Idiot!” he yelled at me, then glanced behind him toward where the other faeries stared. “Useless human fool.” Without further word, he slung me over his shoulder as if I were a sack of potatoes.

That little ellipse between paragraphs accounts for R/hysand’s first appearance in the novel. I took out five whole pages, and if you weren’t looking for him, you wouldn’t know it. The story doesn’t miss a beat without that scene. I promise, the only thing I took out between paragraphs was what happened when F/eyre stepped away from the crowd, and half a paragraph when she rejoins the crowd and stops shaking.

The three faeries who accosted her are never mentioned again in this book. They’re barely mentioned in A/COMAF. They were there as a plot device to introduce us to R/hysand that much sooner, and that’s it.

Honestly, it was unnecessary, and to keep the peace, I want to point out that the following observation is strictly from a writing standpoint. F/eyre has arrived at the hollow. Something important is about to happen. The faeries are gathering. Something’s coming down the path... and then F/eyre steps away.

Wait, what? I’m not kidding. Right after “Something was going to happen”, this happens:

I made my way back up the hillside and stood along the edge of a bonfire near the trees, watching the faeries. I was about to work up the courage to ask a lesser faerie who passed by—a bird-masked servant, like Alis—what sort of ritual was going to happen when someone grasped my arm and whirled me around.

Whyyyy? There is nothing to compel her to move away from the action. She could have asked anyone standing next to her about what was happening, but she didn’t. She stepped away, and that was only so that the narrative could introduce R/hys before the halfway point of the story. 

That’s right. Calanmai takes place during chapter 20-21, and there are 46 chapters. I think R/hysand’s appearance in chapter 26 was always intended to be his introduction, but SJM wanted to make sure “the most beautiful man [F/eyre] had ever seen” made an appearance before then. She couldn’t let her readers fall for Tamlin too hard, after all... 

Sigh. 

Anyway, that’s the post. F/eysand is canon, I get it, but I will never not be salty about the wasted potential of this series.

Anyway, @swiftsnowmane this^^^ is what we were chatting about in the comments of my Tamlin/Tam Lin post a while back.

[antisocialxconstruct]

I didn't like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners but I can't think of a clever heading

Okay every time I come back to work on this my thesis changes a little bit so I'm just going to start like this: full disclosure, I went into Edgerunners mostly out of morbid curiosity and I was prepared not to like it very much. I have no real love either for CDPR's game or for Pondsmith's source material, and this show would have needed to bring some pretty show-stopping, foundation-shaking ideas to the setting in order to win me over. It did not do that. That said, also in the spirit of full disclosure, there were moments where I did find myself genuinely kind of enjoying watching it. It's a good looking and well-acted show that has some high points, especially around the middle of the series, although in the end they mostly just leave me wishing that those high points could be transplanted into a different, better story.

(Also I will be spoiling major plot points as well as the finale. Read at your discretion.)

Ultimately, I was never going to actually, genuinely like Edgerunners for the simple fact that I hate "cyberpsychosis" as a concept. In fact I'm comfortable saying it's by far one of the worst tropes the cyberpunk genre has been burdened with and patently refuses to examine, right up there with the gratuitous orientalism and weird contempt for sex workers. I don't know that Pondsmith was the very first to introduce the idea into the genre, but I think it's safe to say that Cyberpunk (the ttrpg) had enough of a hand in popularizing it to solidly lodge transhumanist discussions in the ditch of "but what if cybernetic enhancements made you CrAzY" for the last thirty years.

Not only is the idea that "psychosis = indiscriminate violence" just pure, uncut ableism (psychotic people are statistically far more likely to be the victims of abuse and violence than the perpetrators), but from a narrative standpoint, assuming that extensive cybernetics are just an automatic ticket to losing your mind and dying in a rain of blood and viscera is lazy. It's boring. It depends on a complete disinterest and refusal to engage with the nuances of individual characters' personalities and mental states, or the way societal bias and pressure might impact someone's perception of themself or other modded people.

The most frustrating thing to me is that Edgerunners feels like it almost manages to actually have something to say on this subject, but I don't think it's self-aware enough to commit to it. The first episode presents us with a pretty clear thesis: the only way to survive and succeed in Night City is to be enhanced; and an equally clear antithesis: being too enhanced will inevitably destroy you. This feels like a potentially really interesting dichotomy, but while these ideas will both prove to be true and central to the plot, it's mostly just in the sense that... they are both true statements. There will be no examination of why, or how those two contradictions interact with each other, or what creates and influences this reality.

And it's not like there isn't room to interrogate this concept in a nuanced way. The kinds of cybernetics most prominently on display in the show are disproportionately combat-focused--things explicitly designed to make a single person better at hurting and killing. So you could argue that the mental degradation could have less to do with the physical reality of being modded, and more to do with the baseline personality required to electively turn your own body into a weapon, or the pressure placed on the human psyche by realizing you now have the ability to kill, easily and indiscriminately, in a way you never could before. But this is not what the universe's lore tells us. If it was, there would have been no reason for Maine (the obligatory seasoned mentor/father figure) to succumb to cyberpsychosis when he was clearly incredibly grounded and invested in the safety and wellbeing of his team, and cybernetically enhanced for the demands of the work he did rather than for the simple glee of violence. If it was about individuals, there would be no reason for characters to remark often throughout the series about the novelty of David being able to withstand the Sandevistan, a single implant that really does nothing more than make him exceptionally fast but is apparently so powerful and taxing on the body that it alone could make the average person into a "cyberpsycho" (ugh). If it was about individuals I would have sooner expected a villain arc from the classmate tormenting David in the first few episodes (whose name I don't remember because he quickly becomes completely irrelevant) who seemed to delight in the sheer fact that he had muscle augments that made bullying easier and more violent.

So maybe the show gets a little closer to saying something about SocietyTM? After all, the first episode does a great job of establishing how utterly desolate it is trying to exist in Night City without money (it's actually one of the few aspects of the show I genuinely liked). Then it's reinforced multiple times that the average person's only choices for survival are the endless grind of climbing the corporate ladder (as David's mother wanted for him before she died) or the endless urban warfare of being a mercenary (as he chooses for himself), with the ultimate irony being that the mercs still work for the corporations anyway. I think I would probably argue that this is the central theme of the story, which ends with David as a pawn in an arms race between two major corporations, which had no real bearing on his life and still rather dramatically, literally, tears him apart. And in the end, he still convinces himself that he chose this, that it was something noble that he did for someone else's sake, rather than something he was driven into both by direct manipulation and by societal circumstances far beyond his control. The corps push cybernetics on everyone, indiscriminately, convince them that it's the normal and desirable way of life, and don't care that they're creating monsters and causing massive and constant losses of human life. It's not a bad premise, and it's woven through the narrative effectively enough that I had to sit with it a bit to piece it together but came away feeling like it came through clearly.

My problem with that is that at best, "cyberpsychosis" adds nothing to this premise except shock value and an excuse for gratuitous violence. At worst, it skews the message into something far more hurtful and less compelling. Capitalist society does create monsters, but it's the ultra-wealthy and ultra-powerful who lose any capacity to sympathize with the rest of humanity. Within the Cyberpunk universe, "cyberpsychos" feel far more analogous to addicts and petty criminals--the idea being that some people just choose to put something into their body that makes them worse, that makes them dangerous, that they're not "good enough" to know their limits, and they should be feared and hated for it. But addicts are people who are desperate, lost, and grasping for any scrap of power and control they can wrest from their own circumstances, even at the expense of their own health and wellbeing, or that of the people around them. They are victims, and creating a universe where their analogues are presented as monsters, as indiscriminate mass-killers who can only be stopped by militarized police aggression, is disgusting.

So, I don't know. Am I asking too much from a 10-episode shonen anime that mostly exists as a video game tie-in? Maybe. But then maybe the 10-episode video game tie-in anime should have focused on something less lofty.

[realreulbbrband]

which of the cats is the one you like/care about the least? (And what would you change about that cat to make them more interesting/likable?)

Good question, and honestly, the characters I did or do dislike don’t have anything to do with how they’re presented in the show.  (also everything here is my opinion)

I don’t like some portrayals of characters over the years by some performers, (and no I don’t hate on them as individuals) but I don’t dislike the characters themselves overall which I think is what the prompt was asking for. Like a character, I dislike regardless of actors decisions, etc.

The characters I do tend to be more apathetic about are not really at fault either, I dislike them for reasons outside of the control of the creatives and even the source material and more through fandom associations.

But purely from a within the source material standpoint (not controversially) I don’t like Tapper or Rap Tap Tugger. He doesn’t irritate me on his own to a painful degree, and there are aspects about him that I do like, (like his rap in Mr. Mistoffelees.) But, there are other aspects I just can’t get behind and find very underwhelming or downright horrible. 

I don’t like the energy in his song in particular, the tribe almost unanimously doesn’t like him and finds him annoying. And it feels unwarranted? At least for me, Tapper arrives and they’re all immediately done with him except anyone who could be classified as a kitten or bomba for like 2 seconds.

I'm not a fan of his design, if the purpose was to modernize cats and RTT why would they design him in a way for him to appear so dated. Even now. I think there was too much going on in the design that he doesn’t blend well with the rest of the cast (for me) except for *maybe* Grizabella. I think they simply could’ve lost the shirt because it really takes away from the illusion of him being a cat. Like is he supposed to have a tiger tattoo on his chest or is the cat in universe wearing a shirt?

There’s also the jellicles dislike of him, and that almost being paralleled to the fan and critic reception of him just leaves him as being a character who's generally regarded negatively and so therefore he’s the character I’m the least drawn to and dislike just cause I don't like the overwhelming negativity and racism affiliated with the character that's like a giant shadow over him.

Tw: Racism, stereotypes, and mentions of genitals/ vulgar language: If you're unaware of the racism here’s the rough draft of his rap and it's...awful. Just scroll down on the article.

outside of that, (side rant) personally I don’t believe things should ever be changed in case anyone thinks that's where my dislike stems from, it really doesn't. shows and media can evolve over their lifespan, and most changes have a reason to enhance the narrative or adapt to circumstances like the current Shrek tour using puppets instead of casting children or additional actors. (Weird example ik) 

But my point is the change had a reason and justification, I know not every change and choice needs a reason. Like whether Victoria dances the pas de deux with Plato or Admetus. Since that change relatively changes nothing. 

Tapper changes a lot but also nothing at the same time which just makes me wonder why they didn't go all the way with him. It's a new look, but the same song with different lyrics, it's the same name, but a different character, etc etc.

Like If they make something new I want it to be completely new, not just the previous character remodeled. Honestly, I think if Tapper was just an add-on gag character instead of a “replacement that never was” he'd be more liked and possibly welcomed.

(ofc also getting rid of the racism from the jump and getting an actual rapper to write lyrics….)

my rewrite / how I’d go about it:

this is really….really rough draft cause In all honesty there’s a lot of “idk”

let’s say, alternate universe/ non-rep (because honestly, that’s the only way I can see Tapper feasibly existing in the world of the show besides making him a swing) I want to make him sort of like “the rat” in Cats Tampere 2017, but you know- without negative intent.

basically, Tugger and Tapper coexist- Maybe he’s Tugger’s son who really wants to live up to his dads reputation. Or if you want to keep Tugger younger, a little brother/ cousin.

Tugger would still get his song- but Tapper would fulfill a similar role to say Etcetera or 98 Plato where he’s a tad more outwardly excited about Tugger being there than the rest. And perhaps in trying to emulate him he messes up and has to go sit in the back with the elder cats.

(personally, I’d redesign him to look more like chorus Tugger so he doesn’t stand out too much from the ensemble- sort of like Quaxo or Skimble pre-song)

In particular, I’d have Tapper sit with the older cats in the back, sort of grumpy he can't participate but excited about Tugger regardless. Since cettie doesn't exist I think it would be a nice twist to have tapper and a few of the tom kittens cheering instead of squealing for Tugger in the back which earns them a “🤨🙄” reaction.

Anyway my change is that when tugger runs around and all the jellicles are partying after his song Tapper stands up on the car-boot (with his prop mic ig) like he’s about to perform but Griz shows up and that doesn’t happen.

and similar things happen to him throughout the show- he tries to get Tugger’s attention but is either ignored, or not taken seriously. Much to His own disappointment.

My whole Idea for his “arc” if you will is him just learning to be an individual outside of emulating his idol.

I don’t know all the steps towards that, perhaps having him in that “boys messing around” bit in the jellicle ball (but controversially in this non rep) he sings / raps Mr. Mistoffelees. So, like- he’d have his one chance to perform like he’s wanted to the whole night and show off to his idol and the tribe- but he dedicates it to motivating Mistoffelees and ultimately helping to get old Deuteronomy back.

I don’t wanna call this objectively better but I think I did a pretty good job- but I do see a lot of potential in Tapper and that’s part of why he’s so frustrating for me. Hope this was the answer you were looking for anon and thank you for the ask!!!

[tokidokifish]

using star trek versions of my blorbos to pitch MY post-ds9 series, which would be another station trek taking place in the gamma quadrant, where starfleet would have set up a new deep-space base in order to assist (and oversee) the dominion's integration with the galaxy as a whole. i felt like there are so many interesting dominion races with really fucked stories that would be sooooo interesting to look more deeply into, and there would be a whole new quadrant of species and stories to get into! BEHOLD MY VISION!

also vorta get tails bc they deserve them. :) lemurs. :)

anyhow here's a breakdown of the blorbos in question tho obviously i've talked about most of them before:

commander nehn tanith: first officer and the lucky thirteenth host of an extremely unlucky symbiont that keeps getting its hosts killed at young ages. while the tanith symbiont makes her feel like she's have a constant, low-grade panic attack, nehn herself is a confident, capable young woman who sincerely believes wholeheartedly in the utopian ideals of the federation. obvi we would need a starfleet presence there and nehn, certainly, would be there out of a genuine interest in furthering galactic cooperation, but there would be a lotta good meat for stories about federation personnel who simply aren't ready to just forgive and forget and would never be willing to see changelings as anything other than deceptive.

junpei: dominion representative, who volunteered out of duty and definitely not a lot of potentially sacrilegiously intense feelings he shares with the first of his jem'hadar. i really feel like there's SOOOO much untapped potential with the vorta - the concept of them trying to find their places in the dominion after the war, whether some would start to try and move away and establish independence or if they would double-down on worshiping their gods. junpei is also trans in his original narrative and i think THAT would be interesting to explore from a vorta standpoint. i don't honestly think the founders would care about something as meaningless as solid gender presentation, but i also don't think vorta would be expected to like... consider things like that. they were merely tools, made in a specific way to best serve the founders and disposable beyond that; anything else would be a deviation.

and of course with the vorta come the jem'hadar, and THEM finding potential places to interact with the galaxy as something other than soldiers. curing their dependence on ketracel-white! finding out how long they can ACTUALLY live. jem'hadar deciding to be writers, or artists, or craftsmen. IT WOULD BE SO GOOD.

lieutenant, junior grade?? vannerly ch'vaulk: like odo, vannerly is one of the hundred changelings that were sent out into the galaxy at large. in his case, vennerly ended up on andoria, where he managed to successfully (or mostly - he could never pull off the antenna) assimilate with the native people, and even eventually joined starfleet as a xenobiologist - but no one is really sure where he stands now, since he DID pass all his tests but he was lying the entire time. i'm super interested in the concept of the other hundred changelings - we've met odo, who desperately wanted to return home, and laas, who definitely did NOT, and i imagine a lot of them have similarly complicated feelings about it. in vannerly's case, he spent most of his time just trying to fit in and keep his head down, and then he had the knowledge of the rest of his species crash into his life in the worst way possible, and he would be torn between the temptation to join them and the fear of losing the individuality he's come to desire. also we could do way more weird gender stuff because it's not the 90s and i'm not a coward.

anyhow thank you for coming to my ted talk.