#my media review era or something

[sparrowmoss]

in the past couple days i watched 1. the series The Midnight Club, and 2. the movie Do Revenge. and i thought they both were super good like !!!!! both media with main characters who are POC and ALSO lgbt ??$:);!; it feels so rare but. if anyone is interested i will like summarize and content warning them below

the midnight club is not happy feel good media to be clear it is more geared toward teenagers i think but deals with some seriously heavy stuff because every single main character has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and multiple of them do die through the series. its about all these terminally ill teens living in a hospice care house together and bonding/coping/passing time by coming up with horror stories to tell each other. the horror stories are acted out by the same actors so its really cool. obviously lots of dark topics like cancer and HIV/AIDS and death and hopelessness vibes but also empowerment for those kids. additional content warnings i can remember rn would be for discussion of suicide and self harm, murder in a lot of the midnight club horror stories, cult stuff and the like vulnerability and manipulation that goes into cult recruitment, disturbing imagery like corpse people and jumpscares and hallucinations (?) and unreality and stuff i guess idk. it was SO good. main character is a black girl and there is also a gay black girl and a gay black guy in the main cast as well as lots of other POC characters and some other lgbt characters

do revenge is SUPER DIFFERENT but i thought would also be more for teenager audience, though now i dont think so as much because like those high schoolers were doing coke and ketamine for gods sake it was insane. i thought i knew what was going on but there was a plot twist that i fucking never ever saw coming and my jaw literally was wide open atp but i wont spoil that ! its generally about two girls who meet and decide to help each other get revenge on two people who seriously wronged them. and in the process of that, shit gets so wildly beyond out of hand. everything spirals out of their control so fucking fast. it was hilarious and upsetting and shocking. so good. for that the content warnings i think would just be like… shitty guy cheating, revenge porn stuff, drugging people without their knowledge or consent, some shitty stuff is done to someone who presumably is a lesbian but shes rich and white so she ends up fine, car accident scene that was a little scary, ummmm general fucked up shitty asshole teenager shenanigans by which i mean cruel actions and questionable priorities and general lack of awareness for how characters only care about themselves ??? idk if that would bother someone nfbdjfndf anyway one of the two mains is a lesbian and the other is implied bi and is a POC and theres a bunch of other POC and other lgbt characters

and both of them have mild emetophobia warning scenes with only very fake puking sounds and nothing actually visibly shown just that super fake audio like i have pretty bad emetophobia and cannot handle Seeing it but i was totally fine. i would tend to rec the movie more just because it was a happy ending and like. everyone in it was not terminally ill and dying. no one died. they did a shitload of drugs but they were okay

[hatakemrs]

"Hq Boys and little things they do in their relationship. Pt1"

Warnings: None <3

Characters : Kuroo Tetsuro, Oikawa Tooru, Kageyama Tobio, Suna Rintaro.

Pt.1 Pt.2

Kuroo  would buy you gifts without any special occasion. It isn't always something fancy like gold jewellery or an expensive dress you want (although he also buys them for you). He likes to give thoughtful gifts like a keychain of an anime character you like or a flower that reminds him of you. He picks up your favourite food whenever you sound like you're sad. You casually talk about a book you liked and he would buy you the sequel to that book or more books from that author. He catches you searching for lipstick online and the next day it arrives at your door even though you didn't order it. He loves spoiling you<3

Oikawa would watch your favourite shows with you. He hates horror but he would watch a horror movie if you want to watch it on movie night. You are so excited about this show and will make theories about it and Oikawa would just listen to you and if he had watched the show he would add to your theories. He likes to go on movie dates with you. He likes listening to your reviews about the movies. At one point he might open an account on letterboxd to keep track of the movies you watched and if you love a film, he would find a similar film to watch with you.

Kageyama helps you with tasks without being asked. He has a day off from practice but you had work. Yet you wake up to find Kageyama is already out of bed and the smell of coffee reaches you. He is in the kitchen making you breakfast. When you say he didn't have to do that on his day off, he just kisses your forehead and says he likes doing things for you. He will reach for the things in the top shelf for you even though you said you could do it yourself. He just teases you for being short.

Suna would click random pictures of you. His gallery is full of your pictures, and the most random ones. You are laughing with the rest of the Inarizaki team and he will capture your laugh because he finds it cute. You would peacefully read a book or do something in the corner and he would click pictures. He even takes pictures of you sleeping(not in the creepy way) he claims you look so dreamy while asleep he can't help it. He saves the most embarrassing picture of you as his screensaver just so he can look at it when he's sad. His social media is also filled with your pics. Gotta let everyone know you're taken. 

Anyways hoped you like it <3 Will makes a part 2 . Comment which characters you want in them.

A/n: Hiii! I'm back in my Haikyuu era again! I just miss my boys sm I need more Haikyuu content fr 😭.

[lexirosewrites]

Ok last slick sunday ask that's been sitting in my head!! The 2 part one I did was a great exercise & helped me get some imagery thoughts processed abt things for my haunted Harrington fic 👻

A!Eddie is ofc our favorite famous rock star, an aspirational horror director/actor, fantasy nerd, who's seen w a different omega in every city @ every event

O!Steve is a historian, specifically a costume historian, he has a degree tht he has framed in a reproduction of a rococo golden frame, he has a YouTube channel, Steve's Seams, tht he started initially as a way to keep his adopted mom (B!Claudia) updated & involved w his projects, he specializes in the mid to late Victorian era but he has put in the work on other projects of different eras (high middle ages, Renaissance, regency) Steve makes an effort to make these garments using materials & tools tht r as close to historically accurate as one can get, his videos r informative & calming & his voice is soothing & his projects r creative at their core

he did an entire video series when he was invited to the Met Costumes Department just absolutely nerding out, asking questions, having bubbly conversations. It's this series tht makes his channel suddenly blow up. He's getting comments on old videos, alot of the comments abt how attractive he is, the most popular videos tend to b his videos reviewing costumes in "period piece" movies/shows, not bc he's harsh but bc he takes the time to explain/illustrate how something would've looked if it'd been made accurate to the period the media is meant to b set in

Some time later.........

Eddie & Corroded Coffin r planning a series of music videos for their upcoming album, they've got a reputation for their conceptual albums tht have powerful aesthetics, their albums till now r set in blatantly fantasy worlds following a vague middle ages aesthetic, but now they're stuck.

They've made a rock opera essentially & they know the story they're telling in the album: an alpha detective finds themselves swept up in a missing persons case turned to a murder case tht leads them into a vampiric city underground, literal blood sucking mafia essentially, where they finds the victims omega mate amongst a coven of vampires, now turned & mated to the vampire tht leads the entire underground, the victim had been abusing the omega & when they went to the vampire mafia bc they saw no other recourse, the omega was discovered to b the reincarnation of the leaders first & only love, the album/opera ends w the detective being fed to the hungry horde.

They're throwing ideas back & forth for the music videos w their ever talented manager/agent/creative coordinator A!Chrissy, they have a disappointing meeting but when they come back the next day Chrissy has pep in her step & proudly shows them a YouTube video. It's a critique of one of their music videos from their first big break album, it'd been vaguely set in the middle ages/Renaissance, except this person doesn't care abt the music instead they’re observing the costumes, explaining the time period they'd been borrowing from, how the costumes would've been constructed/actually looked during the historic period they'd presented. Then Chrissy shows them a video of this YouTube channel constructing a Victorian opera gown & opera suit. It's a eureka moment as the band realizes where she's going w this, a Victorian vampire is classic! Why not lean into the whole thing? Eddie is quiet as they discuss giving one word & noncommittal answers, bc he's stuck staring at the gorgeous omega in the paused video, then he speaks up over all the noise saying they NEED this specific historian on their creative team specifically to consult & design the costumes. Chrissy raises an eyebrow but agrees

Steve agrees, signs a rlly big NDA, & is flown out to LA so he can begin his role as a consultant/designer for the 6 music videos the band has conceptualized for the album.

Steve meets the entire team at a meeting meant to discuss & establish the various logistics needed to make the videos the quality the band wants, they've hired a famous horror cinematographer, an even more famous horror director, everyone in the meeting has a lot of experience in a big scale filming environment & Steve doesn't, but he tries to not let it get to him. He wears garments he made himself (ofc) some of them he made on the channel even. A walking skirt in a very sensible deep green & an embroidered matching walking jacket r the focus of the outfit, when he gets to the building he's met by Chrissy & she leads him to the meeting room. He meets everyone especially the band, Eddie stumbles over his words, when Steve removes his walking jacket to reveal the equally green vest Eddie chokes on his water.

Blah blah blah

They don't want any of the ppl who audition for the role of the omega, Eddie is playing the vampire boss ofc & everyone's gotten closer to Steve & tht means everyone basically loves Steve, & hey he's an omega who is more than just pretty & he'd have a rlly easy time making a costume for himself, so Steve ends up as the omega in the music videos. Steddie get closer than they should since Eddie is technically Steve's boss

by the time the albums dropped with the music videos dropping each following week they've fallen fully in love & have discussed mating & Eddie’s been seen w a mystery omega around multiple cities but what's got everyone interested is the fact tht this is clearly the same person & they've been "practicing" for trying for a pup for awhile now😏

Dustin has a full freak out abt his older brother working w his favorite band of all time, AND HE HAD TO FIND OUT THRU PAPARAZZI THT HES DATING EDDIE MUNSON, when he tries to go to Robin w his melodrama tht rlly is more boundless happiness for Steve she blinks at him & tells him she already knew, Steve had told her abt their relationship literally two minutes after a conversation tht was followed by sex tht cemented them as romantic partners, before Dustin can leave to call his mom Robin tells him she knows already as well, after all Eddie had to ask SOMEONE for their blessing to mate & marry Steve & that's how Dustin learns they're engaged 🥰

i love how Steve is just living his best life (AKA making his hyperfixation into a career) and ends up snatched up by a rockstar with big ole heart eyes!!! he deserves nothing less!!!

[cheriladycl01]

My love, is mine all mine - Max Verstappen x Norris! Reader x Charles Leclerc Part 2

Plot: Norris' Twin sister is also a driver in the 2021 line up and is in her rookie era. Not only do the commentators struggle to now talk about the pair in the race, but they also struggle to talk about talent. What happens when two drivers find her eye-catching.

After you'd spent the week at home you travelled to France, you asked McLaren to set you in a different hotel from the other drivers. You found one that was cheaper and still within a decent distance from the race track.

Your sisters in your groupchat that didn't have your bothers in, had texted you telling you Lando was getting worried you wouldn't be showing up for this race. It was Thursday and normally drivers would come to the paddock for media duties but when he came it was just him doing stuff for the F1 YouTube and being pestered by the McLaren social media teams for content.

"Zac where is she, you guys wont tell me and I'm worried she wont be here for practice which starts in 20 minutes!" Lando asks Zac whose in sat in hospitality having a pre-race coffee.

"As far as I'm aware, she's already in her car getting ready for the practice session ... so I'd get yourself down there now so you can get a good time Lando" he smiles, Lando rushed to the garage Zac slowly trailing behind him, wanting to get to the garage to get a set of headphones and sit with the race engineers.

"Y/N can you hear?" you hear through your in ears.

"Loud and clear, let me know when i can leave the pit" you say shuffling down in your seat to test the pedals.

"Nico, the pedals are feeling a little stiff, its like there's no traction" you complain as your directed out onto the pit lane.

"Okay, just do a slow lap, testing the breaks and make sure the throttle is all okay. Then we'll see if we need to bring the car in quickly before a flying lap.

As you'd gone round on a normal lap, it was determined that there was an issue with the breaks, the minute you'd tried to do the flying lap your car had major under steer. You'd managed to keep it out the gravel but you had spun out. You were called back to the pits and only placed P16.

You slammed your wheel onto the bonnet, and the engineers all immediately started to work on your car. You talked with them helping them out.

You spied Lando's car in the corner of your eyes being pulled into his half of the garage.

"Y/N hey" he says jumping out the car pulling him helmet off.

"Kinda busy trying to fix this trash can of a car right now Lando, later" you say not even sparing him a glance. Grumbles come from the mechanics making you whisper an apology as they jokingly scowl at you.

Was it petty that you weren't speaking to your brother, yes.

Was it petty that you were trying to get him to have a spoon of his own medicine for the way he'd treated you in Azerbaijan, yes.

Were you going to stop right now? Nope!

"Oh, erm okay well I'm going to go grab something to eat before the next practice" he smiles.

"Cool" you nod a smile, before kneeling down pointing something out to the mechanic that didn't look quite right.

"I'll be back in a bit, will the car be ready for FP2?" you ask.

"Should be, just needs some greasing and tightening. Trust us you'll be flying out there in no time!" the head mechanic says and you smile nodding softly before walking out towards the rest of the motorhomes.

You walked past, shyly waving to the drivers she encountered. Sky had seen her but were already busy interviewing Christian Horner and Toto Wolff who were currently talking about the championship this year and Mercedes rough start to the season in Bahrain.

"Y/N?" a voice asks from a table outside the Red Bull hospitality.

"Oh! Max, hey how have you been" you exclaim crossing over the Sky cameras who unbeknownst to you followed you for later review. You pull him into a hug, happy to finally see someone on the grid who hadn't upset you in the last few weeks.

"I'm good but i think the actual question is, are you okay?" he asks rubbing up and down your arm.

"Yeah, I just don't really know how to even talk to Lando about all of this, he's never not been there for an achievement of mine up until now. The team's strategy was shit, and I got us more points passing Lando, i was on the fresher tires, I had DRS i don't understand why they wouldn't want me to overtake" you complain, you really genuinely couldn't understand it.

It wasn't like this in Formula 2.

"You'll come to learn, that people don't like being my team-mate because im golden boy. I was the hot shot that Horner took a gamble on and he won jackpot. It's never easy being the second driver on a team to a golden boy" he advises, making you look down tears in your eyes.

Is that all Zac thought of you? The secondary to your golden boy hot shot brother.

Well that just wouldn't fly, you'll show them that your made of more and that you are worthy of sharing the seat with your brother.

"You know, keep it up Schat, Horner's been keeping an eye on you. So have Mercedes and Ferrari" Max whispers leaning in and holding your waist. You gasp as he leans back looking at you nodding before wandering off and into the Red Bull motorhome.

You check your phone for the time seeing that you really should make your way back to the McLaren garage to see if your car is ready.

"We didn't talk" you hear from behind you and a hand grabs your wrist and pulls you back to them.

Charles

"I don't want to talk to you Charles" you grunt shrugging his arm off.

"Why not?" he asks looking over you.

"I think you know why, just concentrate on FP2 Charles" you say, for the first time you see a sort of desperation in his eyes. It's almost as if he came here with the intention to say something to you, but he also doesn't want to admit it.

"Y/N... wait" he starts again but you continue walking. You manage to get back to the motorhome and see Lando sat in the hospitality, he was with his personal trainer Jon and then the performance engineer Jarv.

You walk past them and here Jarv say something to your brother.

"Go follow her, you need to sort this out before the race"

"She doesn't want to talk to me, I've tried" he groans as you wait behind the door just in earshot of them.

"You call earlier in the garage trying? Jheez man" Jon laughs before getting up and discarding of his food tray.

"Your right!" Lando sighs before jumping up to come and find you. You start to walk away so it didn't look like you were listening in to their conversation.

"Y/N, please can we talk" Lando says stopping you right by the coffee cart.

"Mmmmm"

"Look, I was terrible the other day. Your my twin and we've shared everything together. I- I'm sorry i wasn't there to celebrate with you. It's just annoying when Jon's telling me that you've been told not to go for the overtake and then you do. I see now that you taking over worked better for the team but i cant help but be upset" he tries but you look at him in shock, why on earth was he making this moment, this apology about him and how he was affected.

"How are you still making this about you?" you scoff.

"What what do you mean, I'm explaining why i wasn't there..."

"By saying that I've upset you, when I'm the person you've affected. Do you even know what they have been saying about me in articles because of this whole thing with you and Charles? I'm being told I'm a shit driver and i shouldn't have my seat and that my own brother and multiple other drivers agree... I'm being told im a danger to the sport and that I wont have a seat come next year!" you sigh, knowing that he had a right to be upset about you overtaking him, but it shouldn't be at you.

"I'm sorry, I know I ruined it. I should've celebrated with you! Its my fault" he says, before pulling you into a hug. You hug him back, your shoulders sagging into it. Your brother was always your other half, you guys were two peas in a pod. It broke your heart when he left you behind in F2 before going to F1 in 2019. So this year, being the first year that you were back driving with your brother it was special for you.

"It's not like I wont have other podiums to celebrate this year" you jab him making him laugh.

"Oh yeah, not if i have anything to say about it!" he jokes as you both start walking back to the garage.

"I'm still upset though, just so you know. But I forgive you" you smile as you both get back to the cars.

"Hey, how's the car looking?" you ask the people around your car.

"You'll be good to go, breaks are sorted and its looking good!"

And that was true, you came P3 in FP2.

You didn't have a good night sleep, thinking about Charles and how he's tried to talk to you today, how you'd made up with Lando, and you kept asking yourself if it was too quick. But what was in your mind the most was Max and what he'd told you and how he'd been so nice to you over the last few months.

FP3 the next day was worse and you came P10, which then set the mood for Qualifying, where you finished P10 which would mean that your are in the middle for starting the next day.

Lando was in P8 meaning he was directly in front of you, you were hoping you could get a slipstream from him, and overtake Fernando on the start.

By the end of the French Grand Prix you and your brother both simultaneously moved up 4 places ending with him in P5 and you in P6, Zac was happy as you'd managed to stir Ferrari and get ahead both of them.

You were walking to your car, when you notice a sleek Ferrari next to your McLaren and a familiar man leaning against it.

"Charles I really cant deal with this, the interviews have tired me out. I'll see you in Styria!" you say, clicking the keys to open your car.

"Y/N please I need to apologize" he says grabbing at you wrist again turning you round.

"Charles, look. I forgave Lando for not being at my podium and yelling at me, but you actively told me I didn't deserve my seat when i've had to work twice as hard for it than anyone on the grid. So to be told that its undeserved is horrible because this is all I've ever wanted..." you say tears brimming your eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm so so sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'll think I'll regret this forever if I don't do this" he says before grabbing your cheeks with his hands, one sliding down to your neck before leaning in and placing his lips against yours.

You kiss back, it's more out of anger, you weren't sure why you actually kissed him back. After the initial shock you pulled away, your hand slipping in between you too to push him away.

"Charles what the hell" you shout, looking at him eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, but the reason I get so annoyed with you is because I've had a crush on you for years. At first I hated that you always were better than me, I got more aggressive and you were the safer driver back then, so you'd give me room let me pass. I knew I'd never have a chance with you, getting you attention was easier when I teased you, but i guess as i got older i got more sour at you, and how everyone seemed to adore you and grab your attention apart from me" he reasons now holding her wrist again.

"Charles, you cant, you cant do that" you cry.

"What, I cant admit what I've been feeling for you for years. Y/N please" he begs, the puppy eyes looking down at you as you shrunk yourself.

"What's going on over here" Max asks coming over looking between you and Charles, you turn away so that he doesn't see the tears in your eyes, wiping them with the sleeve of your orange McLaren rain jacket.

"Nothing Max" you say before turning back round smiling at the both of them.

"Come on Y/N. I know you better than that" Max said but you decided to stay silent.

"Is he bothering you again? Charles, just leave her the fuck alone. We spoke about this after Azerbaijan..." Max says pushing him away from you.

"Max don't! Its fine I promise, I'll see you both in Austria okay?" you say getting into the car. You sit there for a second, contemplating what the hell just happened before you realize both the drivers are still stood there watching you.

What. The. Hell.

A/N: I don't know if i like this, it feels like I made her and Lando make up too quickly, and Charles felt kinda quick. But for future ideas in this series, her and Lando making up now means room for more angst in the future *wink,wink*

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @the-fem1n1ne-urge @21stcenturytaegi @dark-night-sky-99 @spideybv28 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic

[oceane4loveu]

The vlog of the perfect "her" océane ≽^•⩊•^≼

"𝑊𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑢𝑝"𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒!!! .𖥔 ݁ 🪐˖

ˢᵃᵗᵘʳⁿ ᴿᵉᵗᵘʳⁿˢ ᴵⁿᵗᵉʳˡᵘᵈᵉ

Heyyyy starfish! I know it's been a long time like 3 months but I was in a bad state. I was literally depressed, my girlfriend had just left me and my whole life was literally boring, I kept comparing myself day after day and I wondered why I was living such a bad life in fact to be honest I didn't feel like myself anymore. So I deleted all my social networks, I deleted the number of several people and I started to focus on myself and I realized that all my traumas were really preventing me from moving forward, already I am obsessed with wanting to be in a relationship and fill this lack of love so I get into relationships with people who are bad for me and I do things that end up hurting me. I compare myself to girls all the time because my ex was always comparing me to his ex or other girls and at the end of our relationship it became a habit for me to do that so by deleting social media and doing a social media detox it helped me to really start loving myself again and to become aware of a lot of things and today I feel like everything is going better in my life I found a temporary job while waiting to start my dream job, I love myself more, I do what I like and I feel better but I haven't achieved all my goals yet. 2025 is in what month and I think I spent too much time creating thousands of plans to finally give up at the last minute and postpone everything until tomorrow so I decided to enter a new era!!!! An era where I work hard for my dreams, I'm 20 years old and I don't want to make the same mistakes year after year! So I asked myself how I can become a completely new woman? how to become her? This better version of me. I watched a lot of tam kaur videos, searched for the best self improvement books and I finally found the method that works best for me it's simple and detailed. For that I watched this tam kaur video which is definitely my favorite video!

𝟏. 𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞.

Ok this year I planned more than 15 glow up plans that I ended up abandoning because all these goals were literally dictated by others like I see this person doing something and I want to do it too so each time I did nothing and I stayed there doing several glow up plans without really taking action so this time I followed the SMARTER method

S: SPECIFIC

Be specific in defining your goal:

What exactly do you want to accomplish?

Who are the people involved? (individual or team) How are you going to achieve it?

M: MEASURABLE

How are you going to measure it? How will you know when you have achieved your goal?

A: ACHIEVABLE

Is your goal realistically achievable?

Can you achieve your goal within a defined time frame?

Is the goal ambitious enough to motivate you to take concrete action? Reminder: Don’t set goals that are too ambitious and might seem unrealistic to achieve

R: RELEVANT

Are the goals relevant to your vision?

Are the goals aligned with your role? (student/professional/leader)

Is the reason/motivation for achieving this goal relevant/meaningful in your context?

T: TIMELY

What is your timeline for achieving this goal? (30 days, 3 months, 6 months) Break down big goals into smaller goals

E: EVALUATION AND EMOTIONS

Continuously assess the needs of your goal

If it serves your goal of personal, academic and professional growth and development

Do you feel

empowered/motivated/energized/excited to achieve this goal?

R: REWARD AND REVIEW

Reward yourself for achieving your goals Review your goals to adapt them to your current contexts and needs

I finally created a list with all my goals

𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝

𝟐. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞?

I used the everskies app to create an avatar of the new me but I will do a more in-depth post on that so Describe everything in detail:

A. About yourself. Your personality. Your brain.

B. Money

C. Career and opportunities

D. Friends and family

E. Relationship

F. Hobbies and happiness

G. Hobbies/how you spend your free time

H. Workouts, etc.

I. Home/habitat

𝟑. 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠.

move each goal into a weekly calendar every sunday, plan the week around that to come up with achievable goals to achieve all those goals and it becomes part of the weekly to do list

For example I want to read 15 books so I choose a book and I read 5 or 10 pages of that book per day and so on. I will use this planner and Canva to plan my week

𝟒. 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭

I'm going to read several self improvement books that I bought recently and also here are some phrases that can help

A. You saw these dreams because you were supposed to see them. They are your dreams, seize them

B. Failure is part of your success

C. Don't despair of anything. Just do your job.

D. The fact that others live normal lives doesn't mean you have to live average. Work for your dreams.

E. Put down your damn phone

F. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop giving reasons why it's not for you.

G. Stop thinking about what others are doing. Everyone's life is different.

H. Take a look at your inner speech.

𝟓. 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞

For this no need to be tired I took some routine ideas from Pinterest

𝟔. 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬.

I understood one thing when I did my digital detox, no one comes and does all the work for me it's up to me to do it it's up to me to work to get what I really want it's not by running after people that it will happen by magic. It's time to work for my dreams and enjoy the process because the best version of me only depends on the actions I take to make it exist. So I focus on my goals.

[marzipanandminutiae]

so I'm not watching The Buccaneers, because period dramas have to pass EXTENSIVE peer review before I engage with them (for my own sanity). but this showed up on my YouTube recommended:

I.

this show is set in the 1870s. an unspecified year, and pre- vs. post-1875 does matter for fashion, but the decade in general that gave us Looks such as these:

and the best these designers could do was Lob With Headband + Frumpy Prom Dress What Does Not Fit? (even if the girl in question had short hair, at the time she would not have worn it that unstyled, especially not for evening. plus that is plenty long enough to pin back and attach a false chignon to, something common back then even if a woman DID have long hair)

apparently, based on interviews, this was a choice and not a budget thing. and like. I don't know about you guys, but I'm so damn tired of designers who make media set in eras they clearly don't even like the fashion of

congrats you made it less visually interesting. great job.

[pluralzalpha]

There's a question surrounding the arseholes people of Finetime in "Dot and Bubble," and whether or not they're actually human or some kind of parallel alien society. I discussed this at the end of my review but here's my thoughts:

Firstly, they have human, indeed western first names, and their surnames are similarly western or are unusual combinations of English words. They use the Latin alphabet and have a society that appears to be an extension of how our own is developing. However, there's no mention of Earth - which might be the Homeworld but this seems unlikely - and when one of the colonists is dragged off by a slug, they appear to leave a trail of blue blood. It might be slug slime, but it isn't really presented that way.

So, if they're not human, they have developed in a way that parallels humanity remarkably closely, to the point where they've duplicated "Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." More likely, they are human, and the blue blood can be explained away by their having mixed with an alien race at some point, something we know is common in the future. This would make their desire for "racial purity" particularly ironic.

While the social media technology has a near future feel, the overall atmosphere of the story is more like the New Earth era, which might mesh with the mention of a year as Five-Dash-Five. However, both the mingling with other species and the resurgance in racism fit with the 51st to 52nd centuries, the latter being the origin of Krasko in "Rosa."

My conclusion: a human society with some alien interbreeding in the past, 6th millennium AD.

[bewareofchris]

I've been on the writer's tag again.

Listen guys.

Nobody owes your fanfic anything. I know that you want validation and adoration and those are both completely normal things to want. But this obsessive demand for comments over kudos and reblogs over likes is A Problem.

I won't bore you with tales of yore where we literally punted our fiction into the world with no idea of how it was being perceived by others because the only way to know if anyone even glanced at it was by the incredibly inaccurate page counter on our shitty geocities page.

(But that was a thing and it's semi-relevant to my point.)

A lot of you are growing up in a era of social media and viral marketing. You are babies of the influencer age, raised on the myth that if you can just get enough attention you'll get famous for something. I don't mean 10 million followers on insta famous but famous in your specific sphere.

That will not happen for you.

Not because people aren't reblogging your shit or writing out loving comments but because it's a myth. The idea that if you shame, beg and cajole enough people into interacting with your creation you'll access some serotonin high and ascend to a greater state of being is also a myth.

Here's the truth:

Most writers do not know how the majority of their audience feels about their fics. Those very few novels that you see on booktok, X (former twitter) or wherever else you get your writing news represent an infinitesimal portion of stories written and books published.

Most writers do have writing buddies or trusted members of an inner circle that they share their writing with.

For most fandoms, fanfics are so plentiful it's like going into a mall sized grocery store that sells only apples and then demanding the customer review every apple they touch.

For those few fanfics that you see that have an outrageous number of comments there are three possible explanations: 1. that person is what we used to call a "Big Name Ficcer" and they have amassed a following through consistent production of whatever that fandom is into, 2. that is a fic so long you have to sign a waiver to start reading it and despite the fact it was started seven years ago its still getting updated, or 3. that person is writing a viral fic in a fandom that is presently on fire.

Your self worth and self esteem cannot be tied to writing and posting fanfiction. It might be a fun outlet or you might be looking for your viral moment, but either way the moment you start weighing your worth as an author or creator based on what a bunch of strangers on the internet think of you is the moment you give up on yourself.

Social media has brainwashed you into thinking that you must be recognized and rewarded for the things that you put onto the internet. Or maybe it hasn't brainwashed you, maybe you just want to get a comment because you worked super hard on something and you feel like if you can't even get one decent response then its all been wasted. (I.e. you've been brainwashed into the feeling that you need the validation of strangers for happiness purposes.)

So what are you going to do about this?

Get off the internet. I don't mean permanently. I don't even mean literally. I mean take yourself out of the spaces that reinforce the idea that you need validation from strangers to be happy. Stop going on the social media sites for a few days (or a few weeks). If you've got a friend in fandom that you share fics, headcanons, ideas or anything with start chatting with them about something you want to write. Invest in them, in what they're doing and their opinions and how they react to your creations.

Put your shit on the internet like you literally don't give a fuck about anyone's opinion. Explain nothing about your writing choices. Put warnings, no more than 5 tags and drop that shit into the world like a newborn giraffe. Then ignore it.

Teach yourself to seek validation from your accomplishments: write a slightly longer fic, write a fic in a different genre, write a fic in a different rating, write a fic in a different fandom.

Find an actual friend that you actually interact with whose opinion you know matters because you agree on the important stuff.

Stop begging strangers for compliments like a cartoon hobo shaking a cup for coins. You're better than that.

[queerprojectionist]

I Saw The TV Glow

As always, a little housekeeping to start things off. This is not a “review” in the traditional sense but a discussion of the themes and the experiences of a film. It is not impartial or impersonal, and there are lots of spoilers though I will try to leave you some reason to watch for yourself. Queer and trans people are deeply affected by the media that does include us, because we’ve fought for so long just to have that. As such, my experience of cinema and my identity cannot be fully untangled and must be presented in it’s gnarled, multifaceted whole. Here there be trauma, folks. Tread lightly and enjoy. I Saw The TV Glow

Jane Schoenbrun, A24 Films, 2024

It is rare within recent queer cinema that a film doesn’t end with some variation on the lesson of you can choose this, if you want to. Coming out of the closet is a choice, just like the bigotry and intolerance queer people face just trying to live an authentic life. The predominant thinking towards coming out is that the independence of that discovery is sacrosanct; we may suspect our friends, family, or lovers are queer, but we can’t make them acknowledge that, before they’re ready to see it for themselves. 

I Saw The TV Glow doesn’t agree. It is a burning ice-cream truck of hard truths, about the urgency, the utter consuming need to let our true selves live. A beautifully shot, sumptuously themed fever dream soaked in neon and teenage dysphoria, Schoenbrun’s latest demands that we reconsider; that not only can we choose our true selves, we must. 

The backdrop for this proposal, The Pink Opaque, is a television show in the vein of Are You Afraid Of The Dark? (how’s that for a reference, 90s kids?). Tara and Isabel are summer camp friends who share a psychic connection, which they use to confront the forces of Mr. Melancholy, a terrifying celestial god who wants to drag them back to The Midnight Realmand bury them alive. Crucially, it’s their connection with each other that is the force that keeps the Realm at bay, a connection that is deeply sapphic coded. The show takes place across a ghostly, always-night surburban hallucination, an eerily perfect backdrop for Mr. Melancholy’s monsters. It feels deeply and directly queer in a way most shows of the era couldn’t be. 

Owen becomes fascinated with the show after seeing advertisements for it, but the show airs after his bedtime, so he isn’t allowed to see it. He then meets Maddy, who he spots reading a book about the show, and strikes up a conversation, despite being in Grade 7 to Maddy’s Grade 9. He convinces his mother he’s gone to a sleepover at a friend’s and joins Maddy and her friend to watch the show one night, altering his life forever. 

For two years, Maddy tapes the show’s episodes and leaves them in the darkroom at school for Owen to take home and watch, which he does surreptitiously, fearing that at any time his parents might find them and ask him questions he doesn’t have answers to yet. Isabel asks Tara how she knows things she shouldn’t, and if she’s going crazy, but Tara reaffirms her, telling her never to let anyone call her that. Their experiences are such because they are The Pink Opaque. In the following scene, Owen asks to join Maddy again to watch the show with her rather than on tape, and Maddy asks if he knows she’s only into girls, and who he’s into, which Owen can’t answer. He tries to describe how it feels like where that should be, there is only empty space where someone has carved out his heart with a shovel. 

When they meet again to watch the show, there are the beginnings of recognition, understanding why Isabel,  Tara, and the Midnight Realm feel “more real than real life”, in Maddy’s words. She suggests they run away together, to escape their own version of the Midnight Realm, and to better understand themselves, but Owen isn’t able to, and within a couple weeks, not only has Maddy left, but The Pink Opaque is cancelled. 

The depths of Owen’s fear of who he is, something so many trans people experience, is not subtly suggested; they loom over Owen’s dissociative state much like Mr. Melancholy looms over the suburban terrors of The Pink Opaque. Maddy comes back for Owen years later, when he’s settled into a dissatisfying job and a nondescript life as a ghost of himself. She explains that she disappeared into the show. And there she makes it plain: they are Tara and Isabel, one of whom can’t look at himself long enough to allow that truth to escape. One of the most beautiful and brilliant sequences in the entire film is Tara’s impassioned plea to realize that Isabel is not lost; Owen is she. 

But before Owen can fully accept Isabel, he bolts, pushing Tara to the ground in fear and running for home. It is rare for me to cry out in pain during a film, through great big tears no less, but I did so right there. Isabel is so close to realization, but she can’t make it outside of Owen before he stuffs her back into a dark and dissociative corner of his mind. It’s yet another sequence that trans people who fought their own truths for so long will feel like a punch in the guts. Tara leaves for good this time, but leaves a message for Owen on the street outside his house in chalk. 

There is still time. 

Tara sends Owen one more tape in the mail shortly after their encounter, the Season Five finale, the last episode of the show. In it, Mr. Melancholy captures Isabel, forces her to drink a sedating formula, and buries her alive. He cuts out her heart and puts it in an industrial freezer. The Midnight Realm wins. And it breaks Owen to see the parallels between Isabel’s death in the show and her suffocating inside of himself. Once again, the dissociation is broken only long enough for Isabel’s pain to escape, which it does, viscerally and violently. 

I have walked this very road, as a trans person who didn’t make it out until her 30s. There were several times where I tried to re-bury who I was, between flashes of recognition that were both painful and terrifying. We watch Owen try to get on with his life, hold down a job, “become a man” and a “productive member of society” in his words. Just like I tried to start over several times after massive breakdowns where my Isabel almost escaped. 

Which is what makes the ending so brilliant. During an episode he later blames on his meds, Owen cuts open his chest to discover the TV’s glow emanating from where, all those years ago, it felt like someone dug out his heart with a shovel. It’s the film’s final message to us, not to be afraid. Isabel and Owen’s path after that isn’t clear, but the overwhelming emotional release Isabel gets after so many years in hiding is so evident on Owen’s face and in his body language that I truly believe this is finally her moment. Schoenbrun leaves that up to us to decide. 

Being transgender in a world designed to exclude, demoralize, and devalue you is messy and painful. I often took refuge in my own fictional worlds, not unlike those of The Pink Opaque, and my truth, my Isabel, was so ready to emerge, only for me to stuff her back down before I’d even recognized who she was. Unlike Isabel, I didn’t have a Tara, or a Maddy. I didn’t have anyone who understood the hole in my chest or why I’d routinely dissociate in the middle of conversations or visits with the few friends I kept close. 

And I really wish that I had. The true horror of Schoenbrun’s work here is not only what we do to ourselves through dysphoria and fear, it’s also the people we lose, our trans siblings, to the belief that everyone needs to figure this out on their own. How many Isabels are never found, and how many lives are only partially realized . Which is why Tara tries so hard to get to Isabel and turn her gaze inwards. When she reappears in Isabel’s life, she has gone through that death and rebirth, burying herself alive only to emerge, not Maddy, but Tara. And she knows that Isabel is trapped, that Mr. Melancholy is everywhere and is driving her into the ground. He drives us into the ground.

As queer folk, we often recognize other queer and trans people, before they recognize it themselves. We call that being an “egg”, and the realization that they’re not cisgender or heterosexual is known as cracking said egg. I Saw The TV Glow is going to crack some eggs for sure, but it won’t be the only thing that is required for some of us to get to that stage. We also need to start dismantling the decades of trauma that have lead us to the belief that we can’t hold space for and help other queers find themselves. Because our Isabels never truly die, but if they never truly live, then isn’t that the same as dying, in the end? 

There is still time. 

It was similar words that finally unlocked the closet door for me. I was depressed, scared of who I might be but hating who I thought I was. I had spent fifteen years living a persona I created in high school to cover up my Isabel such that she would never get out again, having been tormented in elementary and junior high schools for my effeminate nature and general distrust of boys. If I had to be one, I just had to make it livable, much like Owen says he’s “becoming a man” by sinking into his work and trying to ignore that everything that brings him joy is dying. I had been married, had several failed relationships, and had no schooling, money, or joy to my name. I was ready to give up for good. 

But a friend of mine, a playwright, finally reached me through their art, and gave me the keys to my destiny, an experience that I’ll always be grateful to them for. Sometimes, the pain of dissociation and loss is too great for us to bear alone. And that’s what I Saw The TV Glow was for me. A call to action, to take up arms against the Midnight Realm with our Taras and our Isabels and be there for our trapped fellow queers. Because we can’t expect a world whose hatred for us deepens every day to provide all of the tools and clues necessary for self discovery. I know this won’t be a message that sits well with everyone, and I’m not suggesting the only solution to teenage discomfort is to be trans, but it may well be the only the solution for those of us trapped under the shovel and spell of Mr. Melancholy. That should be enough to try. There may still be time, but purgatory, the Midnight Realm, will sap us of all we have to live for, and as trans people, we deserve better than that, because we are The Pink Opaque. 

[pygmi-cygni]

writing tips - appropriate phrasing

it's really difficult to differentiate between your voice and the appropriate voice for your story.

But it really affects the quality and atmosphere. Like the person who requested this post (@ryns-ramblings) mentioned, Fourth Wing is a good example. Fourth Wing uses slang like 'getting laid' or 'smashing' in a juvenile tense, even though the characters are adults and the setting is supposedly in a very medieval era - aka, in a time where this language wasn't used.

Though you don't need to write in Olde English, understanding character voice and context is crucial. I have posted about this before in my 'character continuity' post but I'm happy to explain again.

When writing a character or a story that takes place in a setting different from modern day or in a way that is intentionally separate from expectation, you have to keep the language consistent. It's part of the difficulty of writing characters of different ages - understanding how their use of language will change depending on their maturity.

Fourth Wing - still a nice story, I'm not hating - doesn't do this very well. Overall the book is still sorta good but this issue really hampers the maturity of the text. Especially in this case, when the author deals with adult violence and content, the use of immature language and underdeveloped research removes a lot of the important context.

The result? A novel that reads as juvenile and is shallowly entertaining.

But this isn't a book review so I'll regroup to the writing aspect.

When you choose to write about something mature, you need to handle the language appropriately. You are introducing your audience to something that is likely upsetting or controversial. Research becomes essential in order to prevent misrepresentation and sloppy explanation.

Colleen Hoover is another example. She writes at about a YA level (14-18) of comprehension, but her content is mature adult (19+). This is a problem, as discussed at length in the media, because younger adults are exposed to what she's writing but not with the caution and proper handling of tricky subject matter (i.e abuse).

I also talked about this in this post.

How to avoid this:

research. research research research. Look up interviews with people that have experienced what you're writing about. Read journal entries, news clippings, as many direct sources as possible. If those are unavailable, get access to multiple perspectives, explanations, and authors. Combing over one single source gives you a lot of one-sided info.

Examine yourself as a writer. Do you feel like you have the tools and the awareness to write about that topic appropriately? If not, discuss with other experienced writers about how to approach it carefully.

Beta readers/draft editors that aren't friends or family. Absolutely share your work with loved ones, but that friendly bias might erase helpful feedback.

Understanding language

You know how teens talk. You've heard children babble, you've listened to older folk tell stories. There are explicit differences in grammar, range of vocab, and sentence quality. If you don't write those differences, the characters all sound the same.

Pay attention to common phrases you've been using and how they fit with the story and the characters. Like I said, it doesn't have to be Olde English, but a woman isn't going to be joking about sex with her boss.

Kids won't be quoting Ray Bradbury in the 30s cause he wasn't published yet. Little contextual timelines that add a lot atmospherically.

happy writing! xox comment for more!

[artbyblastweave]

hello. I am in the middle of doing My Take on vampires and would appreciate your thoughts on Them in fiction. they don't seem to pop up more than occasionally in superhero media, but also you are pretty widely read & they have noticeable Eras/Tendencies that I can see.

I'm definitely not as much of a vampire guy as I'm a Superhero guy, so all my opinions on vampires should be taken with a grain of salt, and with the knowledge that a lot of this is stuff I've picked up through Osmosis and the occasional lit-review for that one class in college. But here goes-

One of my potentially more controversial takes about Vampires is that I think Vampires (and adjacent creatures like werewolves) are great at capturing the emotional truth of being part of a marginalized group, or sometimes just for being subaltern- the world against you, people make you feel like you're wrong for existing, that you're dangerous, etc.- and this is why they go gangbusters both on this website and in general. But the narrative often faceplants for me if it tries to portray vampires as a literal marginalized group because all of that stuff is often objectively true within the fiction in a way that it isn't true of real-life marginalized groups. It's a souped-up version of the X-men problem, because most of the X-Men aren't obligate cannibals! The result of this is that there have been several times I'm consuming something vampire-related that wants me to primarily sympathize with the vampires, and meanwhile I'm going "geez, that's a rough deal, but I think you all need to be killed on purely utilitarian grounds, sorry."

(I do also get the sense as well, right, that this is inextricably tangled up in the fact that a lot of foundational vampire literature was kind of just taking a lot of the horrible lies people tell about the scapegoat group du jour to justify their oppression and then making a guy of whom these things were objectively true. I get the impression, at a distance, that Dracula demonstrates like fourteen different flavors of "Those Depraved Easterners Are Coming For Our Women," although to truly lock in that Take I'm gonna have to read the thing instead of just absorbing it through Tumblr Osmosis whenever Dracula Daily is running.) There are ways to thread this needle, the big one of which is to just sand down the negative externalities of vampirism. Have them feed on animals or voluntary donors or make the human predation thing an in-universe slanderous fiction to begin with. Have them feed on exclusively on quote-unquote "criminals," if you have the right unexamined assumptions about the validity of the death penalty. Go the Elder Scrolls route, where drinking blood isn't necessary to survive but is necessary to maintain a human appearance, thus ensuring that the most morally conscientious vampires are the ones most likely to be identified as vampires and scapegoated by the angry mob. The issue I sometimes take with this is that the act of implementing a "fix" of any kind can sort of broadcast that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too- that you're cutting away the ideatic core of what makes vampires interesting when divorced from metaphor, taken objectively- that they're living trolley problems. As others have said, if you sand them down too much, what are you getting out of a vampire story that you couldn't get from a Tolkien Elf, or from Batman?

A fictional group which I've never really had this issue with, though, is Zombies, in the Romero tradition. When a work wants to construct Zombies as a primarily sympathetic group, it's much easier for me to get on board with that without feeling like the core Vibe has been compromised. This is because there's actually a fairly recent source text for zombies in the form of Romero's Living Dead films, and a major component of the Living Dead films is how much it sucks without recourse to become a zombie.

I was working on a post once, which I never finished, about how there are like, three-to-four vectors of horror that zombies can embody, which different works play up to different extents. While obviously one of the big straightforward ones is the fear that your entire community starts trying to kill you and eat you one day for basically no reason, a major anxiety on display in the original Living Dead trilogy- Dawn in particular- is that in the face of a weird but manageable problem human society would act as its own condemnation, totally failing to rise to the challenge-the horror is that we would let something as inept as a zombie be dangerous to us! Also present in those films? The horror of the idea that your daily routine is so rote and conformist that you wouldn't need to be sentient to continue to carry it out- that the biggest difference between you and them is that you can occasionally be evil in more interesting and evolved ways. And there's this fear of physically and mental degradation with zombies, which for a host of reasons I find extremely fucking relatable. The sense that your body is falling apart piecemeal, bits of you sloughing off when you turn the wrong way or turn your head too quickly. There's this fog over your thinking. The bone-deep knowledge that you used to be more, and are now fundamentally less capable- that there's just enough of you left to understand something is missing. (Read into my personal circumstances whatever you want from this.) Being a zombie is foundationally, fundamentally gross in a way that being a vampire isn't; when people try to do "sexy zombies" half the joke is the pairing of those two words. There's this horror comic Kieth Giffen did once called Tag which is basically entirely about the horror of being a corpse that could feel it; I think about that comic a lot. Anyway, because so much of the horror of zombism is external to whether they're actually attacking and killing people or not, you can totally sell me on zombies as an unfairly-maligned demographic in a way that's much harder for me to buy with Vampires- dropping the danger they pose to other people allows you to maintain so much more of the core of the thing than it does with Vampires, where it feels much more like you're tip-toeing around the tensions between Wanting To Have Fun and the moral horror inherent to what you're trying to have fun with.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

So I don’t know if you know of Doug Walker, but recently released his Disneycember review of The Owl House.

While he praised a majority of the show, he criticized the main villain, Belos, of how he was written.

Many of the comments tried to defend the writing of the villain.

Doug Walker..

Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Yes, I am very familiar with Doug Walker; I loved his stuff along with Channel Awesome years ago and then the allegations came out and fortunately, the other contributors on that channel moved onto bigger and better things. Meanwhile, Doug just stayed the same, so I don't watch his stuff anymore.

Any way, I think it's funny people are scrambling to defend Belos' writing because, despite my own personal opinions on Doug as a critic, I actually agree with him.

For a show that is ostensibly about subverting tropes and not judging a book by its cover, by showing how people can choose to change or not, etc. Belos is a throwback to an earlier era where the Big Bad had basic motivations and characterizations. And for a show like toh, that actually ends up hurting the narrative.

I have categorized the comments I found defending the writing and here are my responses to them:

Belos does have a deeper layer, you just have to look for it.

While a show can certainly foreshadow and provide little hints about a major character, eventually all of that setup will have to pay off somehow. There has to be a reveal both to reward the viewers that have been paying attention and to inform more casual viewers who may not have. Fans analyzing every little frame to extrapolate a major character's backstory only for that backstory to really not matter in the end despite it being set up for a season is just bad writing. full stop. [A viewer should also not have to look on social media for crucial information on a major character.]

It's also not clever that the show left so much room for interpretation on Belos; it just means that they didn't make a commitment to what was being set up and reduced his character to glib one-liners whenever we learn something interesting about him (Masha's "little bro was jealous of big bro" line and Papa Titan's whole spiel).

2. Belos would have been written better if the show had more time.

The Toh crew knew about the cancellation during production of Eda's Requiem and wrote all of 2B with it in mind. So they knew they were working on a time crunch but still introduced elements like the Collector when they should have spent the time wrapping up their story. The cancellation is not an excuse for sloppy writing.

3. Belos as a villain works more on a meta level.

So the argument here is that Belos is the antithesis to the BI; it's accepting and diverse while he is hateful and only accepts things that conform to his worldview. The characters in the story change and grow, while Belos does not. The problem here is that a villain can't only work on a meta level, it has to work on a narrative one as well.

If the BI is place that accepts weirdos then how did someone like Belos come to power? Oh, he lied his way to the top and created problems that never existed? That just makes your populace look dumb and easily manipulated. The BI being so accepting also undermines the threat credibility of the Emperor's Coven because why should we worry about them if they have no real influence over how the BI residents think or behave aside from when the plot needs them to?

Also, I strongly disagree with anyone who says that toh has a "people are complicated and choose to do good and bad" theme when all of the good characters can blame their bad actions on being manipulated or on circumstances outside of their control OR the narrative ignores/downplays anything bad they did (cough cough Amity and Lilith). Meanwhile, the villains are just shallow with basic motives and this is supposed to be a deep message about how Some People Are Just Bad.

If you're going to contrast why your good characters are capable of growth then you need to show why your villain does not. What is stopping them? How do they react if given a legitimate reason to change (that isn't a cheap jab at Steven Universe)? What is their justification for their actions?

Whatever the answer is, the narrative has to support it and not undermine it with a stupid joke.

4. Belos is so refreshing when every villain character is redeemed.

Watch more shows. If you think that every cartoon villain post-Steven Universe is being redeemed then you're incorrect. Redemption of a show or movie's Big Bad is still in the minority while the redemption of the main villain's lackey is a dime-a-dozen.

Ultimately, I think the problem with toh is that so many of its fans take its thematic statements at face value without ever really stopping to think about the execution of those themes and if they really work or not.

Belos just happens to embody this little trick that toh does: it claims to have bold and timely statements and important themes, but the structure and execution of the plot, character development, and world-building undermines any attempt at a consistent or coherent message.

[ohmerricat]

THE LEGEND OF RUBY SUNDAY ANTI-REVIEW, AKA: I WANT TO SCREAM. CAN I SCREAM. CAN I SCREAM REAL LOUD

well that was … depressing. might go and rewatch something from s1 or s4 or s5 or s8 or s10 to remember what good doctor who feels like. or listen to some big finish.

really thought that the VHS tape would be the truman show reveal. oh well. we all thought something. silly me, expecting complex postmodernist media critique from a disneyfied children’s show. this is my cue to go back to watching things intended for adults, i guess.

i’ll delve into why sutekh is a shitty villain to revive for the new era in my next post — this one’s just for moping.

when you’re autistic, realising that your special interest media will probably never be good again is like growing apart from a childhood friend. it’s a slow, nagging sense of grief and loss, however absurd that may sound. this show saved my life in november after i’d just dropped out of uni. that’s what i’ll remember it as. not… this marvel-ised lacklustre forgettable slop.

and please, don’t you dare put false words in my mouth. you all know how big of a doctor who fan i am. despite what the bigots, racists and homophobes say, it’s not the doctor being Black or openly queer or a woman that killed earnest enjoyment of the show. the openly progressive politics are actually one of the few remaining positives about it. no — what killed it is what killed every long lasting franchise: the inevitable enshittification of all mainstream tv, brought about by unregulated capitalism, a complete disregard for artistic expression in anything but independent/diy media. anything that’s funded by corpos such as disney inevitably turns into figurative capeshit (even if it’s not literally about superheroes, you know the semantic field i’m discussing when i bring up that word). not even a formerly brilliant screenwriter like russell t davies can avoid falling into the trap of becoming complacent. “family-friendly” suddenly means “safe, dull, predictable”. as if children’s minds can’t be challenged or unsettled. as if weird and outlandish art isn’t what children remember for their entire lives, forgetting the other, trite, generic TV they were shown.

casual audiences remember Blink long after watching it as kids because it was wild and experimental on a shoestring budget. it was like nothing else on TV. same with The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. the main issue with “series 1” (14) that i’m trying to express here is that, save two or three exceptions (73 Yards + to a lesser extent Boom and D&B), it is exactly like everything else on TV.

the only way out is to write our own worlds. fund them ourselves. cardboard, clingfilm and bubblewrap. that’s how doctor who used to be when it was funded by the BBC. that’s how it survived. whatever it’s trying to be now — well, that’s none of my business.

because business is all it’s become.

[popculturebuffet]

The Book of Bill Review: Bye Everyone He'll Remember You All in Therapy (Comission for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and man it's good to be back. After a week's vacation i'm recharged and ready to plunge back into reviewing stuff. For those of you new here i'm Jake, I review various media , mostly cartoons and comics.

Over a week off filled with batman, persona 5, more batman, Truthful Timmy the Blowjob Queen of Saskatoon, and more, I picked up a certain book since my money dropped: Yes folks thanks to a generous friend who also enjoyed the hell out of this book it's time to talk about mildly curesed new york times #1 bestseller The Book of Bill.

The Book of Bill is the latest in something Disney has been doing for a while, some of the only merch they really make for their telveision animation series: Journals! Specifically books following a character from the show in the first person and helping drop some juicy lore. I naturally have all three previous major ones: Journal 3, The Big Book of Spell and Marcy's Journal. There was also one for Ducktales I need to get at some point and an early Star Vs book, but these big three are the important ones, making real books from the show canon and not only being cool props to own, but also nice bits of canon after the show ended. Or in star vs case as the show slowly burst into flames.

Book of Bill continues that trend yet also breaks it: This book is coming out 8 years after the series ended, is an entirely new creation, and is geared towards adults even having a warning label. Granted it's more a pg-13 than the hard r said warning label implies but the fact disney is acknowledging a product from less than 15 to 20 years ago has nostalgic fans is a victory in itself.

And said victory was followed by an even bigger one with the book recently topping the New York Times bestseller list, even topping "we gotta see what that couchfucker is about just in case". This is a huge victory lap that makes me hope we'll get even more content from various disney shows in book form. At the very least it makes the owl house art book an even easier sell and at most i'm hoping Owl House gets more content now, and I wouldn't say no to Hirsch returning to gravity falls if he has another idea. While i'm used enough to Disney's bullshit to see them ignoring this obvious sign, it could really get them to take kids content from this era more seriously or at least try to get it's creators back to get more of that sweet dollar dollar bill ciphers ya'll. Either way this could be a great thing.

Even if it dosen't lead to more books, Book of Bill is great on it's own and something i'm happy to dive into. And since I know it's harder to get the book outside of the us this is also a chance for those of you outside it to get a peak inside. So let's begin as tonight it's gonna get weird.

Book of Bill is diffrent from the other books in that while it follows a narrative, the first half is mostly just bill shenanigans while the second gives us his history from when he was a baby boy baby to he and Ford's messy breakup involving live snakes, it's a small world and jars of spiders.

It works perfectly too: I forgot how much fun bill was till he burst through the page to greet me

Like bill himself the book deftly ballances comedy and horror. Like gravity falls it leans more to the former, as most of bills antics are just him being unsettling and charming as always, but we get plenty of truly disturbing stuff from his collection of heads to a mouth suddnely popping up demanding blood to this lovely bit showing all the many realities where the pines kids didn't exactly win

Also yeah, outside of Bill's fate, the book dosen't move past where Gravity Falls was on the timeline in the extended Disney Television Universe. It does firmly confirm it's all one universe as we get some refrences to owl house with some tapestry showing off the titan and my boy

As well as a cameo we'll get to later. But it's clear Hirsch, for now has no plans to tell us what happened to errybody after the show aside from bill himself and honestly? That's fine. I'd rather he did a full revivial or book about it at some point than drop it in here and before the nightmare fuel sets in the sleep image of the two on the bus with waddles is adorable.

Back on point the book will hit you with horror well but is maily just a non stop parade of good jokes for the first half. The framing device is simple: Bill created this book and Ford found it shortly before he and Stan went off to make movies, make songs and fight around the world. He tried destroying it but befitting spooky books it kept coming back and so he put in an ash williams style warning telling the reader for the love of god don't read more. And like that idiot from evil dead 2013, I didn't listen and pressed on as i'm sure any of you who got the book did too. I mean we already paid our 20 some dollary doos right?

So the book has bill giving the reader advice, trying to trick them and general other wacky nonsense. This book is DENSE with jokes, and there was hardly a page that wasn't meant to be truly horrifying that didn't have one on it. And sometimes even them. Highlights for me from the first half include his self interview where he deflects being phineas' father, dating a howling void and other hot goss, his entire chapter on silly straws (if you murder someone with one it becomes a serious straw), his having you murder an elf for him, dividing a number and brutally murdering it, and Ford claming he'll tell you how to turn ducks into nuclear bombs.. with Bill doing that immediately after and likely being fully aware of what he was doing.

My faviorite bits are him fleshing out his "reality is a hologram" statment

Every bit of this joke works from me from the reveal, to perfectly nailing the classic pokemon trading card style for this gag. Good stuff. Also not sure why the multiverse has only 50 hp, better not to ask.

The other bit I love the most is bill trying to help the readers love life with advice so good it got this book classified as advice

And helping the love cage with some wonderful bilintines

I"m sending I don't want to die alone to my next crush!

This section really is just a vehicle for jokes and general bill chaos for the most part and it does so gloriously. If you liked bill, your gonna love this thing and if you love him.. he'll never love you back but you'll still enjoy this.

The first half does have a few little pitterpats of lore. One of the biggest.. is that we get more dipcifica

Also Dipper's search history as a whole and while some parts I'd rather forget if my brain would let me, there's a lot of good gags here. But yeah Pacifica Northwest Pagent Video. man is crushing. And also mildly creepy but it's still a step up from looking up Wendy's instagram and other things i'd rather not get into because

This segment goes into the casts dreams, most in depthly Dipper, Mabel and McGucket. That last one is just a really hautning page of how much of a tornado his mind is ... bill BARELY got out. Dipper is naturally bill laughing at his embarassment and revealing he put a bunch of fake author images in his head for funzies.

Mabel on the other hand is one of the funniest segments in the entire book as well as revealing exactly HOW he concoted the scheme. A nice thing we get , and that explains why he gave her her own fifedome.. is that bill actually likes mabel as a person. he likes her chaos, loves watching her dreams which is creepy but for him is about as close to kind as he can get. Problem is he went in AFTER the whole Sock Opera mess, so she hates him. Thankfully the people guarding her dreams are Xyler and Kraz, nature's perfect himbos. So he simply gives himself a hat and blonde hair, a neat jacket and the name chill cipher and gets them on board by eating his skateboard. And to his horror has to do a montage from saying no to drugs to teaching a dinosaur with shades to beleivie in himselef. Just imainging bill doing an over the top 80s montage while having the most pissed off uncomfortable look in the world.. it's going to help me sleep at night.

We also find out he found Mable's deepst darkest fantasy... a tape of Mariah Carrey's fantasy.

It's a genuinely good gag and bill finds out from them how down in the dumps she are, her wanting to let summer last etc.. and thus you can thank these himbos for the apocalypse.

Otherwise the only other little tidbits are in a bit on various dreams. We find out Ford is in love with logic (Bill quips he'd be a plansexual which.. accurate), Soos wants to change his name to pins, and Pacifica.. is suffering horrible ptsd. The big bit though is that dipper walked in on a conversation between his parents about something he wouldn't hear and Bill implies it was why they sent them away. It COULD be divorce, it could be somethign else entirely it's honestly hard to tell given both how little we get and the fact it's bill. Bill's about as trustworth as a snake wearing a top hat

On second thought make that Snake mayor stat.. then god emperor.

But yeah you can't really TRUST bill but it's a nice little seed of info nonetheless and it'd be weird if I didn't talk about it. That said I don't have much to say about it. The kids parents MIGHT have had a rough marraige though that would make sense why they cling to each other so much and make Mable's desperation to keep her brother around even more heartbreaking, so i'm all for it.

So then we get to that sweet juicy lore we woudln't stop bugging Alex for: Bill's history. And this may be my faviorite part of the book simply because there's a LOT of good gags and great visuals tucked in here. A crapton of artists who were VERY good at making something look real enough, as well as GF Vetran Emmy Ciecerga who drew all the gravity falls style art for this book and deserves a LOT of credit, make this book look gorgeous. There's all kinds of styles, from 20's newsclippings to photos to disturbing bill images, all of which needed a great graphic design to it. While none of the books so far are slouches in graphics, journal three itself looked gorgeous, this is far and way the best looking of them so far. Since it's bill their not constrained to one style, like marcy's was mimicking her art style (And later Anne's for her third of the book), journal 3 was. Book of Spells has come closest having each queen have a unique style but it still held to star vs.

This being bill this book goes all over the place: you've got brain teasers, photos, photoshopped nightmarish heads, a reaslitic mouth wanting your blood, all kinds of visual trickery that fits what a visually gorgeous nightmare bill could be. Like the other style, a very chaotic style that oscelates from people magazine to several pages of the great gatsby to punish you for wanting to know his weaknesses (get gatsby'd sucker!) all without breaking a sweat.

The history of bill section is where it really gets to shine once he gets to earth.. but before that.. we adress the elephant in the room. What happened to his home dimension?

Yeah one of the biggest bits of narrative blue balls of book of bill is we don't learn hardly anything about the second dimension and learn NOTHING about how it actually died. Both make perfect sense enough narratively to work and it's clear Alex, while great about answering the shows bigger and more importnat mysteries and not just jerking the audience about, does like to keep some things a mystery. The kids parents, shermy pines, why was thor crying that kind of stuff. While I WANTED an answer for my own works, I respect that it honestly worked better to not get one. We get just enough: bill climas to have been well loved by all in the way a flashback would show he wasn't, having seen the third dimension. It adds layers to him and ford's later friendship: both were outcasts with no one at one point or another. But Stanford at least had stan for a while before he was a dick about things.. bill seemingly had no one and is active denial he was hated and feared.

So he tried to merge dimensions.. and we have no idea exactly WHAT happened.. but not knowing.. is more horrifying. Bill tries to retell it but blacks out

It's very clear Bill has ptsd.. and somehow used urkel to kill people. I feared this day would come but never thought such a dread weapon would wind up in the worst hands imaginable.

It's a great section and I honestly like this... it makes the clear bait and switch work as alex knew what we wanted.. but gave us something more fitting the character.. the one moment bill GENINELY regrets.. but due to eons of lying to himself can't admit. He twisted the narrative to be that he freed a bunch of squares when really it was his first mass murder and the only one he clearly still feels bad about. While he was likely always a tad weird, this event is what snapped him into the monster he is, convicning himself their better this way and he did the right thing instead of truly dealing with his guilt. Bill has lied to himself so much he blacks out when even thinking abotu the truth because if he really thought abotu what he did and what happened, he'd have to rethink his whole sense of self. And Bill can't do that because he's built his whole self worth into his ego after this. That he was specail they just didn't get it and it's to the point he can't even be honest that he wasn't liked> he always had ot be great and special. It's honestly.. sad more than anything. That had bill not done this or simply not made what seems like an honest mistake just not to be alone he may of simply been able to escape and find kinship in ways that didn't involve gaslighting and evil overlord ship.

Sadly he did so we find out he found the nightmare dimension , conquered ita nd slowly gathered his henchmaniacas. We find out little btis; 8 ball has a crush on pyronica, pyronica wants to fuck smokey the bear for the sick thrill of pulling it off

A

Teeth is more a team pet.. all stuff i'm glad we have simply because the henchmaniacs never got fleshed out. Pyronica also has a phd. Bill also has a lawyer named dan crabbleman he uses as a scapecrab because of course. His version of peter I suppose.

Eventually though the good times stopped; While they had nightmare dimension prom (death toll 300), it ultimately was found the dimensionw as dying and we find out HOW bill ended up here and why he hates the time baby so much. .

Now granted the section with the time baby, only a few pages.. didn't do much for me. I've never really been a fan of the time baby: he comes off at least a touch evil, if less here since ANYONE comes off less evil when compared to bill, and the only joke they seem to have is he acts like a baby but is an elder god or something. He's one of the weaker weridos our heroes encountered.

Thankfully bill defeats him and the dinsoaurs would rebound eventually

And we'd only have to deal with time baby a few times after this before Bill kills him

So we then find out why Bill was spread about history. Turns out, not suprisingly, he landed in gravity falls which was perfect for his nonsense. In 30 Million BC he found a small tribe and befriended it's local shaman.. then kinda killed that good will when his first portal created the bottomless hole, let loose sea monsters and killed a lot of people.

This is also where something clever about the book comes about, something I hadn't noticed in the show till Bill's history made it clear: While Bill CAN manipulate a person fairly well he has a huge weakness besides tin foil or techno: He dosen't care enough to hide how unhinged he is. Bill by this point in the story, after eons of self denial and surrounding himself with people who either enable him or he tortured until they enabled him presumably, simply can't grasp that maybe giving a kid deer teeth or a head that's always scremaing isn't the way to make a good first or second impression.

And those moments from the show did set this up well: i'd always assumed he did that shit because it was fun. See the "Your insane!" "Sure I am what's your point?" exchange that's the second thing he ever says. But now I get it's .. well still part that, Bill likes fucking with people.. but it's also that he can't turn OFF his need to fuck with people. Even in this very book instead of giving genuine if shallow love advice he wants you to lock someone in a love cage or become johnny cobra arms. And I mean the second one is sound advice if you've got sufficent padding or a venom immunity, who dosen't want cobra arms, but this book really hammers home that Bill , while good at praying on people's desperation... is REALLY bad at actually keeping them on the hook unless their already as mad as he is or their desperate. He has one exception in ford but as this book, journal 3 and the series all establish.. Ford is also weird, dosen't really get people or social norms. Not saying all societal norms are good.. but maybe don't give your grandaughter a gun Sixer.

It dosen't detract from Bill's threat, as Ford comes to horrifying conclude later... no one actually BEAT bill pemrenantly. The shaman simply banished him and gave out the prophcey for the finale.. a prophecy that ended up not working. Bill constnatly gets shooed away or bribed by people to please shoo, shoo good sir shoo.. but it's not till stan after centuries of work on earth that someone actually BEAT him.

But it does humanize him, even if calling him human is not even a stretch it's just innacurate, but it's the term we got: Bill's ultimate weakness isn't his ego or collection of sily straws: it's that he simply CAN'T stop being him long enough for someone to actually buy into his shit. He actually had the founding fathers listneing.. until he called martha washington hot lips. He nearly gets the US Government to get him to the president.. but can't reissit talking about how fun it'd be to set all the nukes off at once. He makes a truly fun looking silly siphonies style cartoon.. but then it's time to relase the bees

Bill for better and for worse can't help but be himself. his schemes usually drive people to madness or away. He's good at preying on people's desperations and it ultimately needed him his three days of weirdmageddon.. but but he's not good at pulling the long con and only managed it once in his long career.

Thankfully while the book has plenty of great failures from bill from his computer to his do wop group the cipher tones (And the insuing country music backlash record calling him the devil. Please the devil threw him out because living with him is like living in a living nightmare).

There's a few slightly meatier episodes: There's his days in the dark ages.. and one of the few times someone actually got the better of him: he seemingly cons a dark wizard into joining him, sending some knights on a fetch quest to get his copy of monty python and the holy grail. How Disney got away with using the full title I have no idea but they did. God I hope it's not the same copy I have. Turns out though said wizard pulled a sandman and trapped him in a glass orb somehow woven with unicorn hair. Granted it does lead to bill goign on a rampage the second he's free but said rampage gets him banned from Europe so we'll call this one a draw.

The other is the anti cipheretes, a turn of the century group that means well and is engaging.. but sadly tried to preent their findings publicly and their leaders gets intionalized. It's honestly sad.. all this guy wanted was bill out of his head and they lost.

There's also said Silly Symphonies detour where the walt disney expy uses it's a small world (not named directly but barley disguised) to drive bill out.

It's another fun section, filling things in and letting bill fuck with history. He even gets a genuinely heroic moment

Yeah Bill deals with the puritans.. and they piss him off something bad, their lack of imagination making most useless to him, their society being horrifcally stuffy even by the cipher standard of "Stuffy assholes won't let me fill a theater with bees. Charlitans", so he helps an abused local housewive used as a footstool discover what laughter is and soon forms a coven. Said coven inacts a bloody coup, sure.. but it was puritan times, this is the only way a feminism could happen.

We then get the penultimate chapter in our story: At this point it's the 80's, do a lot of coke and vote for ronald regan and bill.. is at the end of his rope. His last scheme is easily one of my faviorites...

I know disney won't because they hate merch but I genuinely hoope a fan recreates these to own. Even the 3d model used here would be appricated for printing.

But then... fate threw bill a bone: he started laughing. Uncontrollably.. lights turned yellow his image was on every computer and breakfast cereal... someone.. opened up gravity falls again.

This is where Ford comes in: In a clever twist the next bulk is from Ford's perspective, with Bill having somehow found pages ford torn out. This is great for two reasons: the first is that it allows us to see their story more on the ground.. and the second is it's a resonable explination why pages that would've defintely told dipper who the author was were missing: Bill points out Ford tore them out due to his own shame and vanity. The former was on display in the last mablecorn, with him not telling dipper and only not getting mindwipped because the horrifying experinces recounted in those pages made him get a plate in his head. The second was in the book: Ford's biggest weakness and one Bill fully took advantage of.. was his ego. Ford thinks a LOT of himself and while he is impressive, it's his need to be seen, to be recognized after being ostrachized most of his life that makes him easy to play like a fiddle before bill and made him stubborn and dangerous after.

Ford can't admit he was wrong and had he left that vunerablity in there the show might of gone diffrently and weirdmageddon probably woudln't of happened.

It also covers in the one gap the journal glaringly left out, but again for plot reasons: that winter Ford was at his cabin. It's a geninely touching story: Ford feels lonely, and bad that he didn't get fiddleford anything before McGucket goes to see his wife back home, and spotted dipper and mable's footprints.. and ends up kidnapped by the krampus and having to rescue a bunch of children because of where he lives. What's heartwaring is fiddleford returns.. and while he fucked up his relationship by forgetting to get her a present, though the shippers certainly got one with this story arc, Ford decorates the portal to cheer him up.

The bulk though is about Bill and Ford: While Fiddleford IS his friend, he's gone a lot because he you know has a life. We see a side we didn't really see too much in the journal but makes sense: Lonliness. Ford is just too dang weird and awkward to be around people, can relate and bill takes full advantage of that. We get to see bill play full on manipulative boyfriend as he preys on Ford's ego, need to not be alone and subtly tries to isolate him when stan comes up and after the heartwarming moment above. It's neat to see just how things went wrong, how Ford got played by bill. Like I said Bill can't hide who he is.. but it works here as Ford dosen't get people so while creepy as hell, Bill leaving a giant pile of dead rats in his name for his brithday and getting him karoke drunk is not a red flag. You also get the sense that while bill isn't remotely a good friend, person or triangle, Bill WAS fond of ford, he genuinely liked the guy and gets shitfaced when eh dosen't on "i'm totally fine juice" and crashes an interdimensional mexican restraunt. Also props to alex I didn't know I needed to see Ford and Bill hammered on seperate occaions but here we are.

Naturally it goes south and the post breakup is easily the most serious part of the book. There's still some great jokes, but it shows how horrifying bill can be. His first actions are, after Ford installs his lab's retinal scanner to keep bill out (since the pupil thing isn't just stylistic, it really happens), he beats the poor guys knuckles bloody trying to claw his way out. He revivies Zombies to stop ford at the mourge as it turns out he can control ANYTHING with a brain. That does lead to a really awesome moment I didn't see coming as Ford admits he's missing him.. but his aim is getting better

Yes they called back to THAT of all things.

It's then things get terrifying: Bill starts writing on ford's post it notes, taking his body at intevals since Ford let him in.. and it's something I just never thought of: while we saw what he could do to dipper, we knew it was a bad idea and he was able to get him out pretty quickly. This segment.. shows what happens when bill can come and go as he pleases. Fordapparenly would just pass out for a second and wake pu with notes.. and when Bill got tired of the post it note tag.. he went a bit further with what's easily my faviorite joke of the whole book

It's just so bill. Grante did' be terrified and probably dead from such a stunt, but it's still just.. so damn perfect.

Ford gets him back with it's a small world after all.. only for us to get to the most unsettlign portion of the book. Ford wakes up on the roof and finds bill left a tape. And while a portion of bills shenanigans, memoralized with polaroid are just hilaroius, like slapping a cop or getting a baby girl tatoo.. we also get shit like eating a jar of spiders (And as an arachnophobe the sentence I keep coughing up siders is.. a lot for me ) and hammering his own hand. We'd seen this kind of shit with Dipper.. but this is what he'd do when he dosen't necessarily NEED the body for himself.

The lowest though is Bill.. trying to call stan. And trigger warning for his next image as it's ... pretty fucking rough.

Yes Bill.. nearly sent a suicide note to stan over the phone in ford's name. It's only sheer luck and likely some lawsuits that saved it but it just hits so hard. Even as much as Ford hates stan.. he dosen't want this and is truly terrified. It strips away the wacky nonsense of bill and gets right to the point: bill is gaslighting and abusing ford, even making him forget his own name for a second, until he gets what he wants. The earlier parts showed him playing the more manipulative roll of abuser but now.. we see what happens when bill goes full on petty and vindictive and there's nothing humorous about it.

Thankfully ford got the plate in his head, he called stan, you know the rest.

It's here the book reaches it's climax: Ford contacts the reader again.. but in a nice bit while he begged them before.. he can't blame them. THe post weridmageddon character development shown in journal 3 stuck: he was where they were. Not only that while he hid the book from his family they found it and instead of turning all into bills.. they just laughed. They'd all grown enough to just find his attempts at playing them funny. They all took his embarssing past in stride. As Stan perfectly puts it "So you messed up a bunch. Guess that really makes you a pines". Stan of all people has EVERY reason to never let ford live this down.. yet does because he gets it. Everyone fucks up and it helps Ford see he's human.. and so's bill. Well again eh's a triangle man but he's ultimately as Ford puts it "A sad theater kid desperate for attention". This book isn't some grand demonic tone: it's the sad last effort of someone who already lost.

We get some fun letters from each pines: dipper and mabel both encourage the reader, and Mabel, even if she threatens to fucking murder bill if he goes after her brother again.. even offers Bill tips on getting over ford. Dipper sympathizes with the reader and also threatens to murder him. And stan.. well stand does what he does best.. promote the mystery shack. Yes even when he's not the owner he can't help plug it. But he also gives bill the biggest kick to the nuts of all: he dosen't care. He hasn't had the personal trauma the others have and just sees bill as another werido trying to steal his wallet like every other thursday in this town. Stan Pines murdered one of the greatest villians in history.. and he somehow tops that by not even carring.

We get Bill screaming STANNNLEEEYYY again, having been beaten and the reader convinced not to swap places with bill. Not only that Stan and co also figured out something important: If bill isn't dead but IS trying to escape.. where he is cant be good.

And we finally find out what happened to him. Which is a mild suprise as while it's VERY nice we found out, as seen in the rest of the book alex is keen to keep some secrets close to the chest. He teased at bill's possible return: the statue in the finale, the axotitl he invokes showing up in a non canon choose your own adventure story, that sort of thing... but it wasn't guarnateed going into this book we'd learn. Thankfully Alex, as ever knows when to not tell us stuff and when it'd be a real dick move not to and not in a funny way.

Bill made a deal with the axitotl to reincarnate. For those less familiar, all two of you the axitotl is some mysterious god taking the shape of that adorable creature whose as kind and benevolent as that sounds and even gave BILL a second chance.

He isn't, thankfully stupid.. and thus after a lifetime of lopsided deals.. just like with Stan moments before making this one.. Bill gets hit with a bad one. And the thing is unlike Stan who just flat out tricked Bill like Bill played so many people, the Axitotl didn't lie: it told bill he'd have to repent. It was bill's own ego that assumed he could scheme his way out

Instead bill is now inside the Theraprism, a maximum security dimensional prison that takes all commers and is filled with sterotypical therapy activites like arts and craft and constant group sessions. And while a tad unsettling it's honestly.. nicer a fate than I expected. It's still pure hell for bill.. but the place isn't EVIL. it geninely wants to help it's patients, even the worst people imaginable and while there's things like a sensory deprevation void, it's clearly because this place is essentially arkham asylym but ran compitently and with actual care towards ehabilitation. To let those who genuinely repent reincarnate.. granted there are options like "cloud of spore sor a butterfly" but I get that maybe Freddy Kruger dose'nt need to come back as a wolverine and possibly maul faces. Let him get a chance at that third time around.

But for Bill.. a place to self reflect, heal and come back as something powerful.. as hell. There's no ESCAPE: whatever's running this place is clearly powerful enough to hold fucking BILL down. Darcy's helmet is there too in a nice little cameo and I wouldn't be suprised if every dead disney villian deemed enough of a threat was here. Honestly making Bill and Belos room together is the punishment they deserve. or belos does, Bill would get a kick out of having someone to torment so maybe just let him do it in moderatoin. As a treat if he participates in group.

It's Bill.. trapped in his own personal hell... a place he can't escape through manipulation, surrounded by people he dosen't respect, with the only way out being self reflection and a cursed arts and craft project that was quickly confiscated before it coudl take the reader. Bill's fate was already great in the show.. but this improves on it> Bil got conned twice and is trapped in a hell he could easily escape but never will because he just.. can't grow. He won't. He refuses to. His ego can't take it. So all that's left in the book is bill pathetically whimpering that SOMEONE wil lcome from him.. but with his henchmaniacs thinking he's dead and having spent his life burning bridges.. no one ever will.

This book is amazing. Read it if you can. A truly great little followup that fills in some gaps, is packed densely with jokes, has some really effective horror and has a truly amazing ending. Check it out if you haven't and if you can.

Thanks for reading

[through-rosey-glasses]

PWHL Teams and Which Taylor Swift Era They are in

My sister and I were talking about how Minnesota Frost is clearly in their Tortured Poets Department Era, and that inspired the rest of this post. This is just a fun little thing I did, please don't take it too seriously or personally.

(Also for swifties, I used the old versions of album covers as it refers to that era. Red TV is totally different than Red ya know.)

Minnesota Frost:

Currently in their The Tortured Poets Department Era. Basically messy despite being on top of the world. The album came out after the raging success of Taylor Swift in her Era's tour and winning her fourth album of the year at the grammy's. This new album brings out snappy lines targeted at fans and revelations at how Taylor Swift didn't live up to the ideal many fans had of her. In Minnesota we had the recent firing of the favored general manager and drafting of a controversial player. You can't convince me that Ken Klee wasn't blasting But Daddy I Love Him, as he made all his messy decisions.

Boston Fleet:

Speak Now was a Taylor Swift era filled with spite and determination. The whole album was written by Taylor Swift alone, partially because her ex and some critics accusing her of not being a proficient writer on her own. After losing the Walter Cup, the Boston Fleet have the confidence that they can make it far and the determination to be better. (I also think spite comes naturally to Boston, not like they need a motivation or something.) This era is very youthful but honest, and I think that energy would be great to see in Boston next season. Someone blast better than revenge.

Montreal Victoire:

A personal favorite of mine, the Red Era of Taylor Swift had it all. Heartbreak, style, chaos, parties, love. This era was also risky and complex, Taylor Swift blended country and pop, bringing critical acclaim and a wider fanbase. Montreal has had a fun, but chaotic summer. Their draft picks are a fair mix of old and new. (With that wild Kessel pick) Their name and logo got rave reviews. People see the the good foundation the team has and are waiting in anticipation for what's to come.

Toronto Sceptres:

Reputation is a come back era, and Toronto has something to prove. Following a devastating injury to a star player, the team wasn't the same during the playoffs. This season they are going to have to show that they are still that team. Reputation is a fan favorite album and I have found Toronto to have the strongest fanbase. (They sell out most often and have the largest social media presence.) The team knows they are good and they have the support, they just need to rebuild.

Ottawa Charge:

Folklore is an era of surprising change. During Covid and following the cut short run of Lover, Folklore was an unannounced reinvention of Taylor Swift. It wasn't an intentional change, but one forced by the way of the world. Ottawa needs to find its grove and step into its own again. I haven't heard much from Ottawa on anything really, and I hope its because they got some cool alt indie surprise on its way.

New York Sirens:

Listen I am not only picking 1989 because it has a cool New York aesthetic. This is the era of leaning in and giving it your all. When Red didn't win album of the year, Taylor Swift decided to move to New York and reinvent herself. New York was last in ranking last season, but got first in draft. They have been working off season with insane draft picks and that somehow it worked out trade with Boston. New York has the star power, the New York city life, and the rebranding to help turn them into something new.

[my-deer-friend]

I have a stupid question. How do you find out about current history scholarship and research? I am sick of reading books I've read a hundred times and were published decades ago. Is there like a forum or something where historians share research or lectures or things?

Not stupid at all!

The key is 1) knowing which sources provide the most up-to-date information, and then 2) using the appropriate strategy to access them.

Conference and lectures

Conferences are where you find the most cutting-edge research – usually work that has not been published yet, or is still in progress. Accessing conferences can be both expensive and difficult (if they're limited to people with certain affiliations, for example), but there are also conferences that are free for the public, and ones run by groups like the Organization of American Historians that are reasonably priced for the digital attendance option. You can browse conference programmes (here is the OAH's 2024 version) to at least find the names of academics relevant to your field of interest, which will help with the kinds of searches you will want to conduct below.

Finding these is a mix of luck and effort. You can set a search alerts on various platforms, literally just do a search for "[topic] academic conference", find relevant organisations and subscribe to their newsletters for updates, or do some browsing on social media. I found History Symposium (free, current, deep-dive history lectures and a virtual conference) because of something shared here on Tumblr. Following the Instagram account of the Powder House in Charleston keeps me updated on their history lecture programming (which host virtual talks including showcasing new research on the US colonial era). Then there are institutions like the Royal Museums Greenwich who publish a range of high-quality historical content on their YouTube account (they have a good series on black history and the Transatlantic slave trade, as well as a fascinating recent lecture by a historian on the queer history of the British navy, which I also found here on Tumblr).

Academic journals

Journals are where you get the most recent published academic scholarship. A journal article generally is a fairly narrow/focused exploration of a topic that adds something new to the ongoing academic conversation (e.g., a new discovery, a new analysis of existing material, a new theoretical perspective, a challenge to a previous author's work).

Other useful kinds of journal content are book reviews, as well as "review" articles, which summarise and synthesise recent research in a field – as well as newly arising questions and research directions.

Getting your hands on articles requires two steps: 1) finding the research, and 2) accessing the research.

Finding articles

For better or worse, the best generalist search tool for journal articles is Google Scholar – it allows you to search across hundreds of databases and independent publishers for relevant content.

If you're a member of a university library (not necessarily staff or student – check if your library allows external membership), it will have its own search tool which allows you to find material in the databases and journals that the university is subscribed to. Individual databases, archives or publishers (think JSTOR) will also have their own internal search.

My advice is to start your search as narrowly as possible, and then expand out slowly if you don't find anything relevant. So, for example, I might start my search with "same-sex relationships london 1780s", and if nothing comes up, I might broaden it out to "england" or "late eighteenth century", and so on.

The other thing to do is follow citations (i.e., who referenced what?). You can travel "backwards" through the literature by looking at the reference lists of books or articles you already have (in other words, which works the author used to base their research on).

But you can also travel forwards – the "cited by x" link below a reference on Google Scholar is your friend, because it shows you who used that particular source in their (by default, more recent) work.

Accessing articles

Unfortunately, a lot of academic research is gatekept by the academic publishing industrial complex – not by academics themselves, to be clear. This results in those ludicrous charges for single papers:

(And $30 is hardly the upper limit...)

But hope is not lost! You still have some options if you're willing to do a bit of work.

1) Sometimes, if you're lucky, the article will be freely available online. In Google Scholar, for example, check for the "PDF" or "HTML" link to the right of the title:

Some entire journals are freely available (usually called "open access") – one example is the Journal of the American Revolution. You can also search on DOAJ for open-access-only articles and journals.

2) I've also occasionally found the article just by googling "[article name] pdf". Some scholars will make these available for free on their personal websites, for example.

3) You can also try contacting the scholar directly through a platform like Academia.edu. Find the article there, and check if there is a "request full-text" option on its page (or, even, if the full text version has already been posted).

4) For slightly older articles, try searching on JSTOR, which gives anyone with an account free access to 100 articles a month. (I say "older", but there's even scholarship from 2024 on there these days.)

5) If all else fails, definitely do not type "sci hub" into your search engine and check there. That would be bad and naughty and very, very sexy of you. I repeat, do not do this. 🤫

Academic books

Books are not usually a great source of super-current research, both because the format doesn't lend itself to it and the publishing cycle can be very long, but they can be an excellent source for a decently recent and detailed overview of the topic. Note that you specifically want academic books here (not the ones in the "history" section of your local chain bookstore).

If you've done some digging in journal databases, you should have a good sense of which authors are writing about the topics you're interested in. Find their websites or social media feeds and subscribe to get updates on their latest work. For example, historian and Tumblr darling Joanne Freeman has a website with links to her books, lectures and podcast, as well as other media. The Museum of the American Revolution has a "Read the Revolution" speaker series featuring newly published books on relevant topics (and they're certainly not the only museum or public institution to do this). Their newsletter will keep you updated on the upcoming sessions, and the website often has a free recording of the talk available.

The prices can be quite extortionate, so again, see if you can find a free version online using the methods above. You might also have some luck finding the book on Archive.org (which might allow you to loan it out for free for an hour at a time) or Google Books (which sometimes shows you a decently large preview). Definitely do not type "libgen" into your search engine and try to download the book form there.

In summary...

There's a lot out there. A bit of persistence and a lot of searching (on databases, social media and the internet in general) will open up a huge spectrum of intereting and relevant resources!