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monkee-mobile · 5 months

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Do you think Davybaby ever regressed before meeting/joining the Monkees? Either in England or after moving to America

And if so how do you think he dealt with it?

I feel like he did but to a different level. he probably never really OFFICIALLY regressed and was really of seen as a little one during it until he came to the states, but when he was particularly stressed out while still in england he’d often go into a kind of weak state if his defenses were really down, he just didn’t process it through really regressing like he would later on. in england, he’d try his absolute hardest not to have that happen. he’d just feel really small and vulnerable and had no one there to protect him or help him through it except his sisters, but they didn’t jump right to babying him, they’d more just help him through the panic attack part of it all. usually he’d just lock himself in his room if he couldn’t brave through it and curl in on himself and sob until he fell asleep (poor thing). he’d often start sucking his thumb, but he just took that as a “weak” behavior that was just coming back from his childhood. He’d also often go pretty nonverbal for a while afterwards but he’d push through it all and move on (which definitely wasn’t the best for him, but it got him through that time. poor little guy didn’t face his own emotions at all). this kind of shutdown didn’t happen all that often cause davy worked hard to build a tough shell and braved it through all the way to when he moved to america and got out of the pressures of his family.

the move really did break him down because suddenly he was alone in a strange country so when the boys first met him he was definitely flighty and not the suave kind of guy he got to be once he became more comfortable, but they were all new to each other so davy didn’t really have a chance to feel super safe to just let himself feel things so he kept up the hard exterior he had built at first. but of course the monkees became very comfortable with each other and basically climb all over each other at all moments so davy started going “feral toddler mode” a lot where he would just go all silly and giggly and playful, so his comfort came through in a relatively childlike way, but he didn’t panic regress until a while after the guys were a group.

but eventually it happens and davy breaks down really hard at some point. it’s the boys who really start babying him when it happens. in the past he didn’t have anyone to really take care of him but things kind of clicked when he was held and talked to softly and he just sunk into the love that was given to him and it helped him process everything anew.

#the monkees #davy jones #davybaby #asks #i didn’t really go into specific incidents because i don’t really have official headcanon laid out for him #but this is how i see his regression at this point #the other monkees just saw poor davy with tears down his face and wide frightened eyes and his thumb in his mouth trying to hold it all in #and just wanted to hold him #mike definitely swooped right in and got all protective #and davy was surprised at first that being held and rocked and talked to in a soft voice would make him feel so much better #but it did #and he kind of got to reprocess how he experienced emotions as a whole #and start from the ground up in a lot of ways like a kid would learn #and he got to do that with the help of his friends who definitely ask him how he’s feeling in simple terms a lot when he’s little #but he’s safe and happy now and that’s what matters to mike #it definitely makes mike feel secure too because he has someone to take care of and know that he can make everything alright for davy #so it really breaks mike’s heart when davy is crying because he just wants to set everything alright #davy again is often ‘childlike’ when he’s happy too. it’s not necessarily the same as his panic regression or is brought upon in the same wa #way #but he’s kind of just a little guy all around so all emotions come out with him all little. it just lets him feel safe and like he’s not to #not to blame for everything #because he probably had a lot of pressure to be perfect on him (see his grandfather)#but now he doesn’t have to be PERFECT he just has to be davy #and he’s still worthy of love and respect #okay i didn’t expect to put so much in the tags lol #thank you for the ask!!!

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lemonhemlock · 2 years

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i am way too late for any of this, but i felt like ranting a little (a lot) over tma, so here it goes.

i actually really, really liked the dreamlike quality of the S5 statements. i think they're some of jonny's best work. so evocative and just beautifully written, the feeling of horror so prevalent, so delicate, so entrapping. i would listen to them absolutely enthralled. what a submersive experience. so on that front, 100% would recommend.

the problems i have are mainly with the meta-plot. certainly, personal preferences and biases come into play here, bc i despise jonmartin with the fire of a thousand suns and would have loved a jonelias corruption narrative, but, i feel that, in his quest to appease the j-mart shippers, jonny sacrificed a lot of his story's integrity. also, i have no way of verifying this, but it also felt like he inserted his own biases in a way that wasn't necessarily productive.

ultimately, i feel like he disrespected his main antagonists and that essentially translated into a sort of irreverence towards his own story. elias was easily his most dramatic and interesting villain (regardless of what he originally intended for him, it's how he developed throughout the story & i think there is a certain honesty in a writer acknowledging and respecting that), stole every scene he was in, yet after his great villain reveal in S4, he is absolutely absent throughout his entire apocalypse. it creates a lack of catharsis that i find bothersome. his death is way too easy. yet when he finally appears in MAG 193, it is glorious. he is terrifyingly in the throws of religious ecstasy as the eye's pupil. such an interesting idea! so little it was developed though bc jonny for some reason doesn't like elias.

there's this entire commentary about how elias is really just there to be eye's pupil until jon takes over from him, bc it's jon the eye truly desires. as if after faithfully serving the beholding for two centuries and bringing about his ritual, the eye would just disregard elias and actually be interested in the one person who is unwilling to play ball. please be serious. not saying that jon can't be the eye's "special little boy" or whatever, but the nerfing of elias/jonah borderlines on petulant. ofc, jonny is the author and you cannot begrudge a man for writing whatever he wants, but, as a listener, i have to say it feels very unsatisfying whenever authorial biases directly affect the storyline. very deus-ex-machina. very unearned.

i also have a problem with how the eye was ultimately handled and, once again, nerfed. the introduction of this element in relation to the beholding, that it sees but does not understand, felt very trite to me. it was added as a way to de-power the eye and elevate the web. but how could it even be true in the context of the entity conceptualization? the reason scopophobia is a thing is because people fear someone is behind the watching. what they fear is judgment or someone keeping tabs on them and using that information to harm them in some way. that requires intelligence, a capacity to distinguish between the harmless and the incriminatory, a propensity for casting moral judgment, of holding people accountable, of assigning blame, of discovering people's deepest, darkest secrets, of weaponizing shame. no one is afraid of a crow or a cat staring back at them, because, while those are also living beings, they lack the higher intelligence that creates the context necessary for scopophobia. so how can the eye not possess intelligence? apparently it doesn't, because jonny decided he didn't like the eye and the spider was oh-so-cooler instead.

but that only lead to the spider being way too overpowered than it should have been. as the so-called brain of the operation, the web really manifests a lot of faults that could have been exploited, yet the character never do, because the web needs to be true It Girl for some reason. this all feels very childish. the web's motivations do not work in-universe. we are often told it doesn't have a ritual because it is content with playing its games of manipulation within the world as it currently is. and that honestly seemed a rather fair assessment to make, but later proved to be a red herring, because it was the web that was actually behind the eye's own ritual.

i have several gripes with this. 1. if the spider is so smart, why doesn't it/can't it have its own ritual and re-shape the world according to its own preferences? why does it have to piggyback on the eye's grind? 2. the spider's big plan seems to be bringing about the eyepocalypse just to convince the characters to let the fears out into the metaverse so it can start again. because, as it turns out, the eyepocalypse isn't really it's preferred state of being? it was the status-quo after all? the web DID prefer the world as it was, because it allowed it to thrive off manipulation and puppeteering, things it can't really engage in as much as it would like, since now everyone is trapped inside various fear domains. so, why-oh-why, not just leave the world as is? why even bring about an apocalypse in the first place if your intention is to always inhabit a apocalypse-less place?

i felt like this was such a plot-hole of an explanation the way it was presented. the web's greatest flaw was that it loved intricate plots so much there was a real danger of over-complicating its own plans and failing to see the forest from the trees, so to speak. the eye could have been used not to boggle down on meaningless details and ramifications, but to get a better sense of the bigger picture, something the web could very well lose sight of (pun intended). so the web's "plan" could have been ultimately rendered meaningless, because instead of choosing the simplistic, straightforward, occam's razor solution (no apocalypse, just thrive off the world as it is), it chose the overly complicated path that placed it in a situation it didn't thrive in (eyepocalypse) and made it even more complicated to get out of in the first place. it basically surrendered its destiny into the hands of people who had zero reasons to act sympathetic and could have very well chosen to destroy the entire world, fears included. and yet i am supposed to be in awe of the web's great intelligence and buy into the whole dumb eye propaganda?

many things have already been said about the moral dilemma at the end of S5 and my take on that is that jon was right. it was the merciful and just solution to prevent other people from other universes from suffering at the hands of fear entities. but i will be indulgent and account that it is a difficult choice to make for anyone, since human beings are so survivalist in nature and the choice to just make the fears someone else's problem in the hopes of their plans maybe getting foiled more effectively by others is tantalizing. who knows what any of us would have chosen had we been in their situation? perpetuating the horrors on someone else just so you could get reprieve is so cravenly but it's human and i get it. however, by no means is this a happy ending the way it was framed by the narrative. what melanie, georgie, basira and martin did was horrible and evil, but it is never acknowledged in that way. the least jonny could have done is have jon resist martin's selfish decision and have martin genuinely kill him. but, no, martin gets his romantic send-off together with jon, with the open possibility that they get transported to another world where they could start over. melanie, georgie and basira get to start a new life in the entity-less world, after contributing almost nothing. the worst characters get to live & they're validated in their awful behaviour.

however. i do feel like there were other ways to resolve the eyepocalypse without resorting to a horrible sophie's choice in the first place, but that would require a more extensive endgame re-write.

#i also think that the ending was peddled like a tragedy just bc jon & martin didn't live #but imo the ending was pretty horror-like to begin with #the fears escape into the multi-verse and get to terrorize a new set of people!#also if you ask me the fact that melanie/georgie/basira live is a tragedy in and of itself #but ofc the narrative frames it as a good thing #the magnus archives #elias bourchard #the archivist #anti jonmartin #jonelias #putting this in the tag bc that would have been the superior plot line #the beholding #the eye #here i am running my mouth off again #tma critical #magnus critical

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werentloyaltome · 8 months

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I want to make an actual edit with it but here’s my crosshunt playlist

#crosshunt #it’s in chronological order from the betrayal -> back to friends -> to lovers (?)#thousand eyes is a tone setting prologue #plainsong is to act as a bookend to cold’s intro #‘i was cold as I mouthed the words… your name like ice into my heart’ ->#“’it’s so cold it’s the cold like you were dead… sometimes you make me feel like I’m living at the edge of the world’#i tried to keep the songs tonally similar to one another ik if you’re not familiar with TS then it’ll seem jarring but it all makes sense #within da plot of the playlist….#hurricane is the midpoint and signals the beginning of the end aka eventual reconciliation #also I’m your man into cardigan is just too good especially if you listen with a fade #posing for cars is the penultimate track. giving an ambiguous sense of closure. will they won’t they type of thing.#plainsong closes them out and answers that question. for me at least.#crosshair’s the cocky sob who says it’s just the way he smiles #crosshair #hunter tbb

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liquidstar · 2 years

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hiii everyone i finished my newest oc batch :) the dragon tree guild members. Their guild puts a special emphasis on nature, plants and animals and all that. their guildhall is also built inside a huge tree in the forest (the dragon tree!) which has earned them the explanatory title of “the greenwood guild.” but for more info about each character itll be under the cut as usual!

Name: Uranus

Name Origin: The planet whose name means “sky”

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 83

Guild rank: Guildmaster

Weapon: Censer staff

Ethos (Power): Daze. Creation of a dark fog that robs those within it of their senses

Flaw power is based on: Her dark and arcane persona, though as she’s aged it’s faded which has allowed her power to evolve in a way that allows her allies to retain their senses in the fog.

Notes: Ongoing beef with guildmaster Venus for that one time she said “I’m not too old to be a guildmaster if Uranus is still at it” old lady fights ensue

Name: Anthe

Name Origin: A moon of Saturn, the name means “Flowery” or “Blooming”

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 31

Guild rank: 5 star

Weapon: Ahlspiess

Ethos (Power): Efflorescence. control of plants

Flaw power is based on: Her unduly gentile and sentimental nature

Notes: I swear the name relation is incidental

Name: Lesath

Name Origin: The star that makes the “stinger“ of the Scorpio constellation, it’s name means “bite of a poisonous animal”

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 20

Guild rank: 4 star

Weapon: Poison-laced karambit knives

Ethos (Power): Venom. The poison itself is similar to that of a belladonna flower.

Flaw power is based on: Her mischievous streak which can sometimes become ill-natured

Notes: She could bite to transfer her poison but the knives make it easier and less awkward.

Name: Crux

Name Origin: The southern cross constellation

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 25

Guild rank: 4 star

Weapon: Cross

Ethos (Power): Austere. The ability to turn his body into stone.

Flaw power is based on: His hard-headed stubbornness.

Notes: He doesn’t really talk much

Name: Patella

Name Origin: A former constellation, the limpet, a type of sea snail.

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 7

Guild rank: no star

Weapon: None yet on account of she is 7.

Ethos (Power): Lag. She can make things around her move in what seems like slow-motion.

Flaw power is based on: Her sluggish and lackadaisical attitude

Notes: That backpack functions on absolute cartoon logic, what DOESN’T she have in there?

Name: Diphda

Name Origin: The brightest star in Cetus, it’s name means frog (Or second frog more accurately)

Pronouns: They/them

Age: 14

Guild rank: 2 star

Weapon: Slungshot

Ethos (Power): Flying-frog. They can hop super high

Flaw power is based on: Their extreme hyperness and impulsiveness

Notes: Could use some adderal maybe

Name: Ramus

Name Origin: From the former constellation ramus pomifer, which means apple branch

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 21

Guild rank: 3 star

Weapon: Bo shurikens

Ethos (Power): Point-slice. If he throws two or more of his weapons at once, he can make a clean slice manifest in between the two points where they land

Flaw power is based on: His incredibly direct and consequentialist approach to life

Notes: There’s a joke here but it might be low-hanging fruit

Name: Musca

Name Origin: A small constellation, Latin for “the fly”

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 19

Guild rank: 2 star

Weapon: Anelace dagger

Ethos (Power): Diminutive. The ability to shrink himself down.

Flaw power is based on: His shyness leading to the tenancy to make himself “smaller” around other people

Notes: The flight is really just a bonus power that came with the wings

#finn's ocs #oc references #finn's art #YAY i finished them yayayayayayayayyay #i hope that they all look okay too ive been trying some new stuff out esp in the faces. different mouth shapes and nose shapes and #ran out of space. and eyes and eyelid shapes the latter of which ive been getting really great input on from some friends who are great <3 #so hopefully they were all done justice but of course i usually go back and edit stuff after the fact anyway so i never discourage input in #ran out of space again. in general*#anyway this specific set was fun to do. i wanted them all to stand out in different ways so i didnt just give them a flower theme #uranus has a sort of vague nature theme but the light blues and whites under the dark greens were like #meant to evoke the sky. which is her namesake. but the sky name also sort of refers to the fog in a way #anthe was the most obvious w the nature theme is IS flowers. and lesath also has a flower motif going to but poisonous ones #crux is like. Rocks. because he rocks we love a short king #and patella diphda and musca all have various types of animal and or bug themes. is a snail a bug or an animal? not sure #musca also has a bit of a fairy theme going too which like are usually associated w nature #and of course ramus is apple themed. thats a kind of plant like anthe and lesath but instead of a flower its a fruit #theres technically another character who has an apple theme but in a different way so i dont think they impede on each other #yeah :)

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maraiheroine · 2 months

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wip of namis odyssey redesign, im still working out the colours and her suit design... (just stealing one of her ref poses to figure out the initial design xd)

#🔱 my art #ive got her body design and maybe colours down at least! even if its a little close to her base as is her suit compared to armour #but like. who really cares lmao #i cant unsee only her smaller set of eyes and her mouth... its so funny but i caNNOT remove or change it 😤#im also trying to get her mouth to be a weird fish shape without being Too weird but o well... its just a wip #its bedtime now so no more work boo...

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portmantaur · 2 months

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because I am a Very Normal person who does Extremely Normal and Understandable Things

I finally watched the Amazing Maurice animated movie and had a little cry near the end. it was so clear that at least a few key people on the art team had an intense love for the source material - a reverence, even. I mean, there’s even a reference to Dibbler’s invented toilet dragon as the fountain in the town square, which is such a throwaway line that I can’t actually remember which discworld book it’s from without looking it up (but I -think- it might be a Watch book). The Morpork owls as a recurring motif. Twurp’s Peerage and the bat-embroidery on the chair in almost all of the scenes from which Malicia is narrating. Obviously the bust of Pratchett in the mayor’s office. There were so many visual references to the whole body of work, not just the exact source material, that I can’t even remember them all. I could feel the love coming from the art/design team.

And then the script itself betrayed so much of the original narrative’s purpose that I ended up crying a little (you can’t judge me, remember we already established I am Incredibly Normal and thusly Not Weirdly Emotional About Inconsequential Things). It did not strike me as a movie that would have survived into being made had Pratchett been alive - which is not surprising, he pretty famously rejected scripts, especially regarding Tiffany Aching. But I also remember the animated versions of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music, and how utterly tickled Pratchett was in interviews regarding them — I especially remember how twinkly and pleased he was with some of the artistic direction taken with Cliff, particularly his voice direction and the sound effects used for his movement. So while Pratchett did have a reputation for rejecting film adaptations of his work, he clearly wasn’t impossible to please. I just, in my bones, in a totally Normal And Not Weirdly Sentimentally-Driven Way, do not believe he would have approved the final version of -this- script.

Primarily because it was a children’s book on purpose, and the book spends a lot of time respecting its intended young audience by posing a lot of questions without bothering to provide definitive answers. And so when there is one theme/moral that feels very deliberate and intentionally blatant within the novel, that feels incredibly important to me. To wit: This book makes a very clear statement about how evil is a creation, an action; evil is something concocted by people and put into the world. It is not an accident, it is not happenstance, and most uncomfortably, it can thusly usually not be entirely undone. In my opinion, Spider/The Rat King could not be a clearer way to communicate this concept.

Yes, Spider is evil, and yes in typical Pratchett fashion he indicates that evil is a bit of an expansive concept that cannot be contained within the simplified notion of “doing bad things,” and he very poignantly wraps this into the concept of creating/exploiting fear. But as a rat king, Spider’s existence is intentional and unnatural. Rat kings are a real, “historical” concept insofar as they have existed as a myth for a very long time. I remember reading about them in my wee years, when rats and rat-keeping became admittedly a special interest of mine. The concept of them in Pratchett’s book mirrors almost exactly their concept in real life: They are a human invention, and the only “evidence” of them has always just been evidence of the extent of human cruelty, largely in service of making a buck. Pickled rat kings were a common sight in early sideshow exhibitions, and you’ll even still find some modern references to or models of them in similar settings today. But they are simply an impossible concept when considering them as “natural” phenomenons — The Amazing Maurice (the book) explains that petty well via Keith’s knowledge of rats and their habits, but even that leaves out the obvious explanation of the fact that rat tails are bony structures that simply do not have the ability to bend into any conceivable knot-shape without being intentionally broken for that purpose. For a book that doesn’t shy away from the carnage and cruelty humans otherwise enact on rats historically, I have to wonder if that was simply the point at which Pratchett himself shared his much-written sentiment of “not wanting to draw you a picture.” Either way, readers of course find out that Spider in particular was created as a “masterpiece” by one of the resident rat-catchers in order to secure entry into the local rat-catching guild. As a result, Spider is both creation and burden to the rat-catchers.

But this entire discussion of rat kings as evidence of cruelty, this whole allusion to evil being a human-made thing, is mostly thrown away in the film. The film takes away both Keith and Malicia’s knowledge of rat kings (the practicality of them and the mythical reputation of them respectively), instead gives both halves of the knowledge to Maurice, and then claims that the rat catchers did not intentionally create the rat king. Rather, while carelessly storing rats they had caught, the two men simply tossed a few rats temporarily into a pot, and upon later lifting the lid to retrieve them, discovered a rat king had been formed — conceding every possible falsehood about rats, their anatomy, and the history of rat kings that Pratchett spent the bulk of a chapter meticulously refuting.

And I, as the Incredibly Normal And Not At All Weird Person we have already established that I am, had a good cry. I was so sad that whoever was in charge of these changes to the script simply did not respect their child audience the way Pratchett himself did. How can you claim to honor or even love his work if your retooling of it is so fearful, so dishonest? The message of “evil is something you put into the world, not something natural to be observed” is such an important concept for children of all ages to be exposed to, and it’s such a narratively satisfying climax to reach after the buildup of sympathy for this rough and tough rat colony who already navigate the casual and perhaps even somewhat “justifiable” cruelty foisted upon them merely for existing in the shapes they have. And while there are a lot of changes in the script that I found disappointing or un-artfully implemented, this particular change felt utterly cowardly. Of course, if as an executive or screenwriter in charge of what gets finalized in a script, your goal is rooted in creating something to mass-produce and sell, then I understand why arming an audience of children with the idea that evil is an action and not a circumstance would frighten you to your boots. But then I have to wonder: Why take this work to adapt? It's not as if it's incredibly well known outside of a somewhat niche and probably slightly older audience. What was there to be gained by taking such a lovingly crafted, respectful narrative aimed at younger people, only to dismantle and subvert the very clear message it contained? By review standards, this film was kind of a flop. So what was the point?

Mostly, again because of how Deeply Normal I am (such that it obviously doesn’t even bear repeating), I felt a lot of sadness for the art team. At least a handful of people in charge of the artistic direction of the film had a deep connection to the Discworld series, and I have to wonder if any of them felt disrespected or otherwise unhappy with the final product they ended up being party to, especially with the love and dedication to visually crafting this story being so apparent on screen. And while I feel personally that there are valid and constructive criticisms to be made about Pratchett’s work, and perhaps more largely about the specific perspective from which he wrote, something that has always struck me about his novels aimed at young readers is the sheer amount of respect he always had for them. This movie carrying a weirdly clear bias of believing that children would only be -seeing- the movie, engaging with it on a strictly visual level, while adults would be the only ones actually -listening-, felt like such an absolute disregard for the love Pratchett clearly had for young readers that it actually made me angry.

There’s not really a larger point to this essay on something as inconsequential as an animated rat movie, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I can’t help but cling to the idea that I’m not the only Really Very Ordinary And Not At All Strange person who had this sort of emotional reaction to this piece of media. Somewhere out there in the wild world of tumblr, someone else might see this and go “yeah…yeah!!!” To which I want to answer, in total commiseration, “yeah :(”

#don’t even get me STARTED on how HARD they had to work to do Rat Sexism via Peaches #or how they just decided Hamnpork was apparently not narratively important enough to make it into the film at all?????#you’re going to tell me Dangerous Beans can’t have his crisis of faith while being supported by his dedicated acolyte Peaches #AND we can’t have Hamnpork discover evil through the relatable eyes of an old set-in-his-ways man????#frothing at the mouth (in a totally normal way)#long post #(I haven’t looked into the production history but I get serious Ordered To Rewrite vibes from like the whole latter half of the movie so)#(but also how did whoever was in charge of these decisions get the rights to this??? h o w did this happen???)

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