#like i've been watching nature documentaries since i was a kid i'm not sad when the baby gazelle dies ok

[thethiefandtheairbender]

me getting sad while watching "life on our planet" and learning about earth's various mass extinctions (due to climate) because all the prehistoric animals must've been So Scared

[aemiron-main]

HELLO AGAIN!! Just wanna say that I love your analyses as always. THE NATURE DOCUMENTARY ONE, LITERALLY UNHINGED IT'S SO GOOD. YOU'RE SO GOOD!!!

You talking about how Mike used to be open about his emotions, but isn't anymore with the milk analogy???? JAIL!! PUTING YOU IN JAIL AGAIN- IT'S SO GOOD.

Anyways I've been reading on repressing and suppressing emotions?? Ok so I'm not claiming to be a professional or anything, I'm just reciting what I've read about!! IT'S JUST REALLY INTERESTING TO TALK ABOUT in the case of Mike.

Ok before I go on a tangent, I found something interesting-

CRYING!! MIKE WHEELER??-

Anyways suppressing is when you avoid talking or expressing an unwanted or uncomfortable emotion and in order to do that, some may do something to distract themselves, in the case of Mike (Him playing video games in the basement.) BUT there's also controlling your intake of food!! which is what Mike might also be doing. He's looking for some control.

Suppressing emotions happens when you don't know what to do with said emotions (aka his feelings for Will, he's having thoughts about Will so he ignores/avoids them by playing video games.) Basically suppression is something that you actively do whilst repressing is more unconscious. Mike might be a mix of these 2.

I think by the end of S4 or something he might be leaning more towards repression.

I wanna talk more about how his family life causes this, cause it's soo interesting. Mike doesn't know how to healthily express his emotions, because his parents are emotionally stunt. They've never talk about their emotions, so it's just uncomfortable for him to do so because he didn't grow up in an environment where doing so was considered normal. I think this effect the entirety of the Wheeler kids. They just don't know what to do with feelings, so they shove it down aka suppressing them. Just shoving them down so they don't have to deal with them.

Wonder why Mike feels more dull in S4? Going back to watch clips from S1-2 felt like experiencing smth different. Mike felt more explosive you could say, he was moody and angry, but at least it was an emotion. S3-4 felt like watching the colors drain out of him, because that's when he learns to shove them down, cause they're bad. Feelings like anger, frustration, sadness anything!! He shoves them down. Cause 1) he's shown that he can't express these feelings without repercussions, his parents punishment for acting out instead of understanding him. 2) He's been shown that these emotions are not important.

He thinks he shouldn't have these emotions, because he's not allowed to, he hasn't suffered enough to feel these.

Feels like I'm just repeating things, but he's SUCH an interesting character to talk about!!! Anyways just came here to say that you're probably my fav (personally) Mike analyst. You do it so well!!!



AAAAAAAAAAAA HELLO OMG!!! IM SO SLOW AT REPLYING TO ASKS IM SORRY BUT FIRST OF ALL THANK YOU SO SO MUCH YOU'RE SO SWEET AND IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE MY ANALYSIS!! I LOVE UR ART AND I LOVE UR MIKE'S LACK OF SELF VALUE ANALYSIS (i have a rb of it in my drafts i promise i havent forgotten abt it)!! AFBJHJBH THANK YOU THE MILK POST WENT FROM BEING A SHITPOST ABT HIM DRINKING MILK WHEN HES STRESSED INTO AN ACTUAL ANALYSIS BC I WAS LIKE 'wait... wAIT... a pattern is appearing..." AND YES OMG HELL YEAH IM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOUR THOUGHTS!! Okay so YES!!!!! THAT ABSOLUTELY SOUNDS LIKE MIKE AGHH!!! YOURE SO RIGHT!! Mike in the basement, but also mike controlling his food intake!! I personally think that when it comes to mike & food as a source of control, its more of a subconscious thing rather than actively being aware of it, like he lacks appetite and isnt eating for a variety of reasons which i need to make a full post on one day, and so he then associates not eating w that feeling of being in control and so then it’s just another reason on his list of various reasons as to why he ends up avoiding food! Esp since i think mike’s food issues are also tied to his repression of his emotions and queerness and guilt and again how he’s subconsciously seeking control through food, but also how he associates ‘real food’ in s1 with family and karen’s cooking but as that relationship w his family deteriorates, esp bc of his guilt abt his queerness and bc of his depression/mental health in general, his relationship w food also deteriorates. Mike’s life has had so many moments of a loss of control, esp w the supernatural stuff, but I feel like a.) the continuation of his relationship with el and feeling like he has very little control over that relationship bc theres so many expectations for him and b.) feeling like he’s lost will are two core losses of control that are really affecting him pre-s4, esp feeling like he’s failed and lost will and out of control of his life bc his sense of stability (will’s presence in his life) is gone, and so he’s seeking a sense of control through food while simultaneously punishing himself/neglecting himself by not eating. And that is SUCH a great point both about a.) mike’s feelings for will and focusing on videogames and b.) the distinction between repression vs suppression. I def think mike has a mix of those two, and is leaning towards repression in s4, yes!!!!

“I wanna talk more about how his family life causes this, cause it's soo interesting. Mike doesn't know how to healthily express his emotions, because his parents are emotionally stunt. They've never talk about their emotions, so it's just uncomfortable for him to do so because he didn't grow up in an environment where doing so was considered normal. I think this effect the entirety of the Wheeler kids. They just don't know what to do with feelings, so they shove it down aka suppressing them. Just shoving them down so they don't have to deal with them.” And that’s another fantastic point/great way of framing it, as if he feels “more dull,” in s4, because he DOES, because he’s tired and struggling and pushing down his emotions and feels like he’s always going to be demeaned or ignored if he expresses them!!! Mike’s parents are SO emotionally unavailable and not only do they fail to encourage Mike to show his emotions, but they also punish him for it too! In s2, when he’s upset and expressing himself about having to give away his toys, Karen reprimands him for his upset & reminds him off things that he did like graffitiing the bathroom stall- which is odd because he’s already BEEN punished for those things, he’s already lost his Atari, and the toys aren’t actually tied to his “bad behaviour,” but rather, Karen wants the toys to be given away & is using mike’s “bad behaviour” as an excuse. It also struck me that Ted, who’s usually pretty silent, chimed in to give Mike shit with his “strike 20 you’re on the bench, son” comment but we never see Ted chime in to defend Mike in any of the dinner scenes, only to reprimand him. We don’t even see Ted and Mike have a nice normal conversation at the dinner table- or EVER! When was the last time we saw Mike and Ted just. Talk. At all. An actual conversation, not even a deep serious one but just anything that isn’t just “Ted making snarky comments at Mike”? Hell, Mike doesn’t even respond to Ted’s snarky comments at the s2 dinner table, nor does he respond to them in the kitchen scene in s4 ep1. He’s responding to Karen in both scenes but not Ted. We literally haven’t seen an actual conversation between Mike and Ted at all. The CLOSEST we’ve gotten to that is s1 ep1 where Ted is fixing the tv & Mike tries to ask about staying longer for dnd but Ted shuts him down and tells him to talk to/listen to Karen. This is REALLY interesting to me because that’s the only time we really see any sort of two way dialogue between Mike and Ted where they’re even just. Responding directly to eachother at all. And it’s because from that scene, Mike has learned that he can’t go to Ted and that Ted’s just going to redirect him to Karen & not listen to Mike, so then in Mike’s mind, why should he even bother with Ted? Mike shoves down his feelings SO MUCH, we see him get shut down so often and eventually he just starts shutting himself down & repressing his own emotions before anyone else can try and shut him down. “S3-4 felt like watching the colors drain out of him” THIS IS SO SO TRUE AND ACCURATE AND AGAIN IS A FANTASTIC WAY OF FRAMING/PHRASING IT!!! THATS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS!! And i completely agree, at least he was EXPRESSING himself, at least it was emotions, but then in s3-s4, he REALLY starts shoving them down, because exactly like you said, he’s been shown that not only are his emotions deemed unimportant, but they’re also actively punished. 

He thinks he shouldn't have these emotions, because he's not allowed to, he hasn't suffered enough to feel these.

EXACTLY!!!!! He feels like he isn’t suffering enough because of how he compares himself to others & invalidates his own experiences and emotions & how other people, including El (with the s4 bedroom fight scene and her invalidating him when he talks about being bullied) have invalidated and shut him down too. And that’s part of what frustrates me about some of the discussion surrounding Mike’s mental health in the fandom too- they fall into that same “Mike hasn’t suffered enough to have mental health issues,” trap, and compare Mike to other characters and use that comparison to invalidate and willfully ignore his struggles and it’s NOT frustrating because that approach completely misses the POINT of how Mike’s character aligns with people who feel like they are suffering enough & who are invisible & who invalidate themselves because of how they’ve been invalidated by others.

HES SUCH AN INTERESTING CHARACTER AND I LOVE THE THOUGHTS YOUVE MENTIONED HERE!! And thank you so, so much omg that makes me so happy because i LOVE analyzing him! YOURE SO SWEET THANK YOU SM AAAAAAAAAAA!!! 💗💕

[stanleywbaxton]

Rhapsody: Aeroplanes

I went on an aeroplane, recently.

And it's been so long. Every year, since I was born, my family would jet off on another long-haul flight to the other side of the world; it's how I spent a two week chunk of my school holidays. We had a chain of doing Texas many years in a row. Before that, several trips up and down the east coast of Australia. 

You know exactly what halted my 20 year-long streak.

As a kid, before I learnt that poor people existed, I couldn't fathom the idea of someone never being on a plane before. It seemed like such a natural thing for everyone to do. To go on all these holidays I had no idea were that expensive. I couldn't fathom never being out of the country, even. Americans still flummox me with that one.

To dream of flying makes you human, I thought.

I think about people who are terrified of flying. Those who can't rationalise hundreds of tonnes of metal soaring through the skies. Those who look down to the impossibly small houses below, and can't comprehend seeing the Earth like gods do. Those who watched one too many documentaries on flight crashes. Those who clutch to their sickbags like it's a rosary, the only thing grounding their mortal form here.

And I feel genuine sadness, at that.

For me, I'm as excited for the plane ride itself as I am for the holiday.

It's been three years. I didn't realise how much I missed it. Manchester Airport heaves with holiday-goers and strains from its covid-ravaged workforce. I've been through my share of travel rushes, so this doesn't phase me, but knowing how to navigate it all doesn't dampen the constant adrenaline of not wanting to be the one guy holding up a security line of a hundred people. Where's your boarding ticket? Your passport? Is your covid test valid? Did you get all your electronics out of your bag? Is there something in your pocket you forgot? Is it shoes on or shoes off? Do you need to remove the jacket, too?

Then it all melts away at the familiar sights of luxury brands.

My instincts kick in, as I'm eating tax-free breakfast. I'm on holiday.

I'm going to be on a plane soon.

Boarding is nothing special. Sat at a gate playing on a Switch while waiting for a seat number to be called out. When I was younger, it was my DS. I always found the amount of times your pass needs to be checked funny, as well. Check at security. Check at the gate. Check before you're on the plane. Check while you're on the plane.

I will speak now from experience. A backpack under the seat beats a carry-on suitcase. Always.

And seating's always a palaver, isn't it? One extended queue, and then you've got one guy shoving his bag into the overhead bin and holding up everyone behind him. Then it's fumbling by that person shoving theirs up and squeezing by this person who's sat down, all just to sit down in an awkwardly leg-roomless chair.

Does that safety demonstration actually do anything, in the end? Twenty three years of my life and I've never needed that lifejacket. It's the exact same on every single airline. I have it committed to memory. I could jump up and join them.

Then, it doesn't matter. I'm on a plane.

My pupils dilate.

It's the unknowns, that get me. The thing about windows on an aeroplane, is how you can barely see the outside. In a car, you have full view of the world. Half of those walls are glass, and should you be so lucky the clouds above you smile down. In a plane, you're given a circular slice of nature. No more. When you're in a queue with anywhere between two to twenty planes in front of you, there's no idea how many away you are from escaping into the clouds.

The mechanical flaps on the wings ripple and flex, like an eagle catching the wind in its feathers. Satisfied, it marches on. 

Everytime the engines rumble you aren't sure if it's another part to the slow advance, or this is the one where it will make its triumphant assault on the sky. You can try peering out of that window, desperate for any glimpse of your orientation, but to no success. The tarmac here looks the same as the tarmac there. The tarmac there looks the same as the tarmac of the runways. Another rumble, another slow stop. Another rumble, longer this time, another slow stop.

Then, they don't rumble. They roar to life in an instant and barrel down the runway, the cabin shaking and metal grinding in its wake.

Pilots approach it differently. Some treat it as a delicate operation. To carefully ween the plane off the ground, to remind it of its purpose and the job it must do. So carefully, to not upset those the plane protects. Others treat it like rearing a wild horse. This plane will fly, hurled upwards, regardless of who or what inhabits it. You can feel that jolt when the wheels are no longer touching the ground. The weight liberated from them as the engines take the burden. You can feel it.

Flying sates a deep, deep need in my soul. I didn't realise how much I needed it. I'm not entirely sure why I need it. But I felt something as the plane took off. Like it was scratching an itch in a place I couldn't chart on a diagram. Like it was nourishing organs I forgot I had.

And the turbulence as you climb. The brief moments of weightlessness as the pilot banks and pitches through the winds. All the lefts and rights as we discover exactly which direction is our 'forward', to plough through unchanged for the next seven hours.

More. I want more. I want the sky to battle and bend us for having the audacity to think we could grace her heights.

I feel those fights, the most. After I'm off this plane and readjusting to life below the clouds. I feel my body trying to compensate for knocks of turbulence that aren't there, and popping my ear canals on reflex. I feel rushes through my veins preparing my heart to be left suspended in my ribs, just for a few seconds.

This is where I belong. In the infinite, insurmountable sky. Feeling the gentle rumble of meticulous engineering with a thousand hours behind it. Seeing how blue really is such a gorgeous colour. Looking down, hundreds of thousands of people through that little circle, realising how insignificant we all actually are in the end.

I'm at peace, here. I wish I could live in the skies.

Then I remember half the budget that went to this holiday is for everything this part isn't.

I went to Chicago, recently.

The city was wonderful to me, and makes me want to return. American cities have a specific touch, every road the same; all squares, no curves. I turn left, I should have turned right. I go straight on. I turn left. I turn left. I'm lost. I turn right.

I see one of the most beautiful skylines I've seen in my life.

I turn right, I should have turned left. I go straight on. I turn right. I turn right. I'm lost. I turn left.

I see the peak of American architecture a stone's throw across the river.

Americans are so eager to tell you how it's so easy to not get lost in their cities. They're built to be navigable! Here's a key. A crossword puzzle. Here's a number system that no other country uses to tell you how to navigate urban planning that only came to be in this single corner of the world.

It doesn't matter. I will never get used to it. There's nothing I can do to not look like a fool as I find myself clueless in the masses of these jungles, and the only victory is to embrace it.

One of the many things I've learnt to embrace.

I went to Macy's, recently.

In Chicago. My mother's taste in fashion has worn off on me, and I found myself on the better end of Captain Vimes' Boots Theory long before I read Discworld. I was walking around in black Levi jeans, a vintage edwardian-style blouse, a cape and mantle made from real leather; I'll wear plastic when I'm embalmed and thrown into the dying Pacific.

I get many comments on the outfit. Living in alternative fashion means you start getting used to the attention you recieve, but those unique compliments always stick in your mind. One man on the CTA called me a superhero.

I look like I belong, among the jewellery that's quintuple my credit card limit.

"Excuse me," an assistant says, as Americans are so fond of, and I'd been continually reminded of their unique approach to customer service, "what brand are your boots?"

The question stuns me. Never in my life had I had someone care for what was behind the fabrics. They only cared for the looks, no regard to the name and price tag behind them. As they should.

"Russell and Bromley," I say.

"I've never heard of them!" she sings. "They look so good!"

"They're a UK brand," I say, to her continued amazement. I smile and thank her for the compliments.

I wander back through the aisles, thinking how lab-grown gems shine just as bright.

I'm on the edge of that world of luxury. The world most will only experience through television series and documentaries. I brush by it almost everyday, to the point most people think I live there. And I know, because of how capitalism works, I will find myself ascending through salaries and back in the throngs of it, just like I was at the age of eight, dutifully following my mother through perfume aisles at the airport. 

My socialism is fueled by champagne.

But that world, it only exists on the ground. Where everyone else cares what you look like, and not where they put their boarding pass last. Where makeup isn't decanted from Italian leather and shoved into plastic bags. Where your high-end purchases aren't made two feet from someone on a budget airline.

I walked around Chicago in brands. Ones you wouldn't find imitated on the highstreet, but brands nonetheless. There's no use pretending they're something they're not. On the aeroplane, I wear my old zipped jumper with the fluffy hood to keep the cabin chill off. I wear my reliable jeans I bought five years ago with a hole I stitched over. I wear my trainers so broken-in they would be impossible for anyone else to wear. Only my arch fits that sole.

People fly in suits, of course. There's always the one. Some business-type with sunken eyes running on a redbull and jetlagged six hours behind. They probably have a meeting scheduled for the moment they run out that cabin door.

But there's no glamour here. There are no appearances to keep up. That suit holds as much fashion weight as my shirt with a still-unidentified stain does. On the plane itself, they're jammed into the same seats and given the same rules on when we can and cannot leave them. They eat shitty food and drink that one tub of water covered in tinfoil that's inexplicably served on every single airline. There's no glamour here.

We are all at the mercy of the sky. We respect it; we have to.

And yet, the aeroplane itself is the one thing that doesn't. Man was not given the means to fly. None of us have wings. And trying to circumvent that, to build our way to the heavens, eventually there's no oxygen. 

We made the aeroplane with no need to breathe. It only uses the air to travel, a careful balancing act of physics. How much thought, has gone into that? How many attempts and failures to bring us the dominators of the sky so commonplace today? Have you seen, the tests they put them through? They bend and break these beasts and strain them to their absolute limits, to face one of the most extreme biomes on Earth. The one place we were never meant to conquer.

They try so hard to make aeroplanes something they're not. The paradigm of luxury and style. Sophisticated. A jetsetter, a professional, rolling up to their velvet-clad seats with a pristine carry-on suitcase and a permanent, white-toothed smile. You see them, on every single advertisement. Served by a dutiful stewardess who wants nothing more than to dedicate herself to their entire existence, no more than an automation. Just like they would be served back on the ground. Or perhaps, they're served a slice of a life that, to them, is just out of reach, not realising how far that gap truly is. Maybe they, too, get mistaken for being part of it.

But the existence of an aeroplane is one that defies every attempt at aesthetic sanitation. There is no room for the matter of making things look 'better'. The exterior cannot change like a car can. Consider that, how many cars you've seen looking so different from the other. Someone believes this curve is more aerodynamic than that one. This shape is so much easier on the eyes than that one. 

An aeroplane cannot afford the silly opinions of man. One wrong concave surface, or a window slightly too big, or a wing too small, renders faults and stress that ruin its integrity. Then soon it will be unfit to fly. They all look so similar by a simple ruling of physics. Every plane is beholden to the sky, as much as it has the audacity to pierce it.

The aeroplane is the perfect evolution of rigourous engineering.

And there is beauty in that. Of course there is beauty in that. 

The beauty of the cabin with pressure calculated to the exact needs for life thirty thousand feet from where it should be. The beauty of the engines bursting into speeds scaling hundreds of miles per hour. The beauty of the wings, precision tensile strength and able to weather the worst storms humanity could dream of. 

A beauty that is in defiance of the world on the ground.

I've experienced the luxury they so desperately wish to sell. Multiple times. When we went to Australia, my parents deemed it reasonable to splash out the extra pounds on legroom and hot towels before takeoff. Business class.

They do so certainly try. This was Singapore Airlines, an airline that prides itself on an image of prestige and luxury for everything that isn't economy. Legroom is the one often quoted, but what isn't is how you get waited on. The cabin crew put on a whole performance of being butlers, remembering your drink orders and what snacks you like to eat. Doting on you so carefully that your meals are made exactly how you want them. The seats lean back far enough to turn into beds, with privacy shields from the rest of the world. You could play, to my five year old brain, the best games on the entire planet with that remote I have seen nowhere else but hoisted by a stretchy wire in an airliner chair.

But all around you, even the interior clad in rich colours, is still the omnipresent realisation that you are on a plane. The constant drone of the engines that no sound-cancelling has truly figured out how to silence. The toilets, that have terrified child and adult alike. The odd bits of turbulence that don't suddenly stop because you walked left instead of right.  Physics doesn't bend around a few more stacks of cash. You speak louder over your closed-back headphones to the person next to you, in bed. You clench your phone to not fall into a suction vortex, while applying skincare. You wear your seatbelt while the cabin trembles through the forces of nature, as you are handed a menu. 

It cannot be hidden. It cannot be covered in diamonds and jewels to be sold as something it's not. Even as they try, the cracks are revealed everytime they ascend. For that plane to be that little slice of luxury they are so desperate for, it would never be able to leave the ground.

They are completely beholden to its antithetical beauty. As the plane is beholden to the sky.

And capitalism has tried—oh, how it has taken what corners of the aeroplane it can!—as it has tried with everything else. All those lies of aeroplane luxury. Of painless flights. Of Egyptian cotton and French wine and Italian chefs. Of the world they're so used to packaged with a bright pink bow and brought on as cabin luggage, not a single inconvenience to grace them.

And the aeroplane will soldier on by the laws of physics, by the laws of the sky, forever suppressing form over function. Forever exposing how hollow those lies truly are. 

And there's nothing they can do about it.

[gretavanfleetposts]

hey, i really was in the mood for a ship if that's cool. (sorry for so much stuff btw) :) to start out, i use she /her pronouns. i am 5'4 with brown hair and green eyes. i naturally have freckles everywhere and they show up more evidently in the summer. (i just sent in a few pictures for further help). my love language is definitely touch. i am an outspoken person, always needing to talk, and i'm too independent for my own good. i'm told that i'm very stubborn, but i'm very thoughtful in my own way, despite not being a very sympathetic person. i get lost in thought pretty easily, and love to ramble on and on about my interests. i make friends pretty easily, and i am told that i'm a creative person. i'd say i'm an ambivert in the context that i love being around people and going out and i'm more on the extroverted side, but definitely need my alone time. i spend my time alone listening to music 24/7, reading, painting, and watching movies. that leads to my next thing about myself, i love film. it's my passion, and i want to be a big director someday. i'm currently working on a screenplay that's going nowhere so far. that's the goal. my favorite movies are: the graduate, shallow grave, and la haine. my favorite is 'the graduate' because of the symbolism and integration of showing the materialistic craze of the 60s, the cinematography is to die for, and i have my own inner conflict with hating the main character because he's a self centered prick, but understanding his fear of the future and feeling of uncertainty in anything. i love wes anderson and stanley kubrick's directorial style. i can also quote the first eleven minutes of 'ratatouille' by memory alone. my comfort movies incredibly odd, though. i love: fantastic mr. fox, the pixar story (a documentary i've seen at least a thousand times), and the truman show. my favorite books are: the catcher in the rye, looking for alaska, and my childhood favorite: the miraculous journey of edward tulane. my favorite article of clothing is a red and blue striped sweater that's like three times too big for me. it's so comfortable and i live to wear it with long skirts and baggy jeans.-my big six are: taurus sun, libra rising, capricorn moon, taurus mercury, aries venus, cancer mars. my myers briggs is entp-t. my go to song when i need a pick me up is 'wednesday morning, 3 a.m.' by simon and garfunkel, even though it has a sad meaning, it's so comforting to me. in a partner, i look for sense of humour, sharing similar interests, and someone who loves me regardless of looks or that kind of stuff. i have two cats, max and harry, that are getting old. i've had them since i was a kid, and they've been with me forever. i have two ideal dates: 1. staying in and watching our favorite movies after making a blanket/pillow fort with our favorite snacks, just enjoying each other's presence. OR 2. going stargazing and having a picnic. so, like a picnic at night? watching the stars, feeding each other stuff, talking, having to stay close together to retain warmth which makes things better.

here's pics of me:

Absolutely, my gorgeous bestie. I ship you with Josh!

Instead of working on a screenplay going nowhere by yourself, why not work on it with Josh by your side? He probably has great ideas and would help you write yourself out of a corner but also would respect your art and not impose his own opinion on your ideas. Josh doesn't care about superficial stuff, he doesn't care about what other people think, he just wants to have deep conversations with you, he wants to make art with you, he wants to have movie marathons with you, and he wants to jam to Simon and Garfunkel with you. And if I had to guess, I'd say you probably have the same love language, so really it's a match made in heaven.

- ⭐

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