#only really comparable to Caveat imo

[thirstkanaphan]

You said "(this is where KQ has really dropped the ball for all the members, imo, but we can get into that discussion later)" about the solo outings.

May I humbly request that it is later now and I would very much like to know what you think about the individual forays of Ateez?? Thank you!

@storkmuffin I will happily share my mostly-coherent thoughts about this topic, although I will caveat that this is my first kpop fandom and I really don't know enough about other groups to know if what I'm saying is specific to KQ or applies to other companies.

I'm happy for others to chime in!

My opinions are scaffolded by two broad impressions of KQ as a company: first, that KQ still does not quite know what to do with the unprecedented success and demand for Ateez; second, KQ has delegated much of the promotional responsibility for Ateez to atiny/the fandom.

These impressions have been formed by nearly a year on atiny twitter, where most of the major fanbases reside. I often remind myself that the primary demographic on atiny twitter is under-25, meaning many of their complaints and concerns are based on general ignorance about how business/music industries operate...but I also have so much admiration for how the fandom has mobilized over the years to achieve great things for Ateez: their multiple music show wins, invitations to major music festivals like Mawazine (the result of endless campaigning by the Moroccan fanbase) AND, most importantly, their tireless effort to get Ateez albums distributed in the United States. While Ateez had (and still has) a distribution deal with RCA, my understanding is that they have done very little to promote Ateez and the fanbases had to campaign for their albums to be distributed through Hello82 which gave them the opportunity to debut on the BB200.

The fandom mantra has always been: Ateez only has Atiny.

For many in the fandom, this mantra also applies to how KQ has promoted the members' various solo efforts in recent years. I have mixed feelings about this sentiment, and I'll do my best to articulate them here.

When it comes to the members' solo schedules, whether it be fashion show appearances, artist collaborations, or solo music projects, KQ does the bare minimum to promote these projects to their 10.5 million instagram followers, 4.3 million twitter followers, 4.4 million youtube subscribers, and 8 million tiktok subscribers.

Let's use as an example Sagittarius by Wooyoung, which Hongjoong produced for his Ateez Present series. An original song with original choreography, and a beautifully-produced performance video available only on youtube.

The KQ promotional cycle for this song: an announcement on twitter less than a week before the premiere (often less than 48 hours); our biggest fanbase releases a clip that can be shared on twitter (KQ only posts a link) and the official Ateez account posts an IG story with a link to the video, which Wooyoung reposted to his own stories. A day or so later, they release a logbook. After a few days, it's like the song never existed...except among atiny, who created hashtags, got those hashtags trending, made fun edits, and did their best to share the song with as many people as possible, pushing Wooyoung's IG account under every viral tweet.

To compare, I looked at another recent solo release by a member of a Big4 company: Beomgyu from TXT, who released his first single Panic a couple of weeks ago. This solo had a big promotional push: weeks in advance, HYBE rolled out concept photos, teaser clips, and an official hashtag campaign. You can easily access all this content in the highlighted stories tab on TXT's official IG page, which remains up to this day.

I may be ignorant, but this really doesn't seem like an impossible strategy for KQ to replicate, given the money they've already invested in producing these solo tracks. There was practically no promotion for San or Yunho's solo projects. Mingi really seemed to be in the room when they promoted Autobahn: that release got a lot more build-up and attention, perhaps because of its collaboration with Yumin.

One major complaint among atiny is that songs like Sagittarius or Autobahn are not available on streaming, and to be clear: none of the Ateez Present or Fix Off Project songs are available on spotify or apple music. Large parts of the fandom point to KQ as failing their artists by not making their solo projects available for streaming.

I share the somewhat contrarian opinion of those who argue that these solo projects are largely artistic ventures by the members, driven by their desire to make music for themselves to share with atiny. Making them available to stream transforms these songs into another metric, diluting their artistic value by replacing it with commercial value, and we cannot guarantee that those numbers will hold up to the hype of the fandom (streaming numbers are the no.1 metric used against Ateez in fanwars).

This is perhaps a naive opinion to hold, given that KQ is a company and making money is their primary goal. A more realistic explanation is that there are complicated logistics involved in putting a song on spotify, including artist royalties, licensing fees, and copyright. It may just be easier and mores straightforward to upload something to youtube....

But that still doesn't excuse the minimal promotion expended towards these projects. Frankly, it's short-sighted of KQ not to see that the more attention paid to these solo ventures enhances the overall Ateez brand.

And as a counterpoint, Jongho's recent cover got minimal promo, even though that song is available for streaming.

There's a separate and parallel argument to be made about the members' foray into the fashion world. For their recent appearances at Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks, the official Ateez accounts merely reposted reels and stories; the fandom once again came up with strategies to get hashtags trending and put together guidelines for how to generate EMV and MIV (we achieved great results for San at D&G and Wooyoung for Courreges). To KQ's credit, we did get excellent logbooks documenting Seonghwa and Mingi's fashion week journeys.

However, poor Yunho also had a fashion week appearance: Seoul Fashion Week...but he never got any promo, not even a logbook. It's like it never happened.

There's something to be said about how the small-company mentality of KQ has enabled the members to grow their individual brands in ways that feel organic and suited to their unique personalities: Seonghwa met Isabel Marant at a party in LA and now he's the face of their international campaign; Mingi landed the Calvin Klein gig and his recent Marie Claire photoshoot due to his own networking; Hongjoong met Odetari at a song camp, and they decided to collab (Hongjoong's collaboration with Odetari, which went viral for Hongjoong's lyrics allegedly dissing Bang PD, got next to no promotion by KQ. Odetari did a lot of the heavy lifting to promote that track and made cute animated mvs on his youtube channel and tiktok. It also bears noting that Hongjoong collaborated with a Palestinian American musician, while many Big4 companies are actively being boycotted by kpop fans for their associations and investments with Zionist companies). KQ appears not to dictate what their artists can and cannot do when it comes to their solo schedules, but also seem disinclined to make extraordinary (or industry-standard) efforts to support these ventures, except in rare cases.

There's still so much we don't know about their contracts and what will change when they inevitably renew those contracts. We also know that Ateez now works with an external PR firm for their European fashion schedules, which is perhaps why we saw SO MUCH attention during their recent fashion week appearances.

Yet their solo music promotion remains a mystery to me, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has more to say about this topic!

My final thought is that KQ's reliance on the fandom to do the promotional work will inevitably backfire. Our fandom is growing but with a lot of casual fans who have only ever known Ateez as a globally successful idol group, and not the underdogs whose remarkable achievements were (and still are) underpinned by the invisible labor of their dedicated fans and fanbases. Whenever a member's solo project fails to hit 1 million views within the first week, the fandom goes into blame-mode, tearing itself apart for our lack of support to the members, especially after everything they do for us. This isn't sustainable nor healthy. KQ needs to take on a lot more of the promotional burden now, especially since they have the means to do so.

We will see how that goes with the next comeback!

Thanks for the question, and thanks for letting me ramble.

[chalkrevelations]

So listen, I'm just going to be upfront about it and say that I was overall disappointed by 1.10 of The Pitt, and I'm going to talk about that some, and it isn't all going to be about Langdon's storyline, because I was making faces at my screen before that even happened ... but a lot of it is going to be about that storyline.

A caveat up front, of course: Langdon should not have been stealing fucking drugs and potentially coming to work high and endangering his patients, although we'll never know for sure if he did or didn't use at work, since he was booted out without a urine tox screen, thanks a lot, Robby. Also, Jesus Christ, Dr. Hypocrite, I don't actually have any personal experience in this type of situation, but I'm pretty sure 98.35% of your behavior toward Langdon did not comply with Just Culture in cases of medication diversion. All you needed was a match, and you'd'a been Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale.

Anyway. I've been pretty impressed with the show so far, barring a couple of spots where they fell down (including the mandatory reporter thing, wt-actual-f), including the way they've utilized the teaching framework to make their infodumps sound natural, but they did not manage that well a couple of times in this ep. Given that both instances are areas where I have some specialized knowledge and background, maybe that affected how the scenes came across to me, but there are two places in particular that just hit me wrong:

The back-and-forth between Mel and Samira about treatment on the stroke patient - not the initial assessment, which I almost had to laugh about simply because it was so familiar, but the treatment plan and how to proceed with the patient. It came across as extremely "as-you-know-Bob" infodump-y, and I don't know how much of that was the acting, how much the directing, how much the writing.

The blatant PSA on workplace violence against nurses. Which, fantastic! More people should know why my overwhelming response is a contemptuous "Uh-huh, yeah, you want to compare stats on actual injuries?" when I hear police officers whine about feeling unsafe as an excuse for whatever excessive use of force they've indulged in on any given day. The show hit the mark really well with Dana's response to the assault, which was uncomfortably familiar. The nurses listing their incidents of injury to the med students also came off OK. But the dialogue of the nurses when they're talking about it to Robby? Again, very infodump-y. This ep did a lot better when it was showing-not-telling.

Which leads me into the way Langdon's reactions to seeing Santos talking to Robby felt overdone in a way that was almost comedic, and which certainly led me to believe, oh, wow, they actually are setting this up as a red herring. Or maybe this is just bad writing or direction, or something - the way those previous scenes were. At any rate, ha-ha, we've watched these reactions that are kind of over-the-top, and I guess that was supposed to make us think he was diverting meds, only it's going to turn out that he wasn't ... and then no, all that happened.

So, I dislike the way they've chosen to play this storyline, and it makes me less trusting of what they're going to do with it going forward. I don't want to be mad at this show, but they have set things up in a way that it's going to be very easy for this show to make me mad at it.

Lemme be clear: I'm not surprised by this storyline. Med diversion is a big problem in healthcare - JCAHO estimates, what? up to 10% of healthcare staff? - so it was inevitable that we were going to get an addiction story in a show that prides itself on its verisimilitude, even if it's already well-trodden ground. And unless they waited until season 2 (which, imo, they should have at least) and then set season 2 during a shift three years in the future, of course it was going to be Langdon. I've seen multiple people talk about how clever this decision was, because of how it makes the audience question their own implicit biases about the clean-cut white guy (as if there wasn't a massively popular show that ran for eight seasons featuring a titular character who was a drug-addicted white guy doctor), but let's be real - Langdon was always their safest choice. You do this storyline with someone in 75 percent of the rest of their cast, and you risk pulling in other issues and stereotypes that accrete onto your message. Of the remaining (white) cast: McKay is already involved in the carceral system; Whitaker is too new to be believably able to figure out how to divert any meds at this point; if you use Dana, you're re-treading Nurse Jackie; if you use Robby you're re-treading House, not to mention Dr. Carter (although, god knows, Robby would be plausible, given his erratic behavior, short temper, and literal flashbacks). Am I forgetting someone? Who am I forgetting? (ETA: omg, it's Mel. I forgot Mel.) Anyway, when you line up your safe choices, Langdon is the one who makes the most sense out of all of them. And I'm not opposed to the storyline. Med diversion is an actual, real-life problem, and it opens up a lot of character possibilities that I hope they actually explore - including the completely inappropriate way Robby handled it.

(Speaking of which, was that Princess wheeling No-Egg-Salad guy past the confrontation, and who Robby screamed at as collateral damage? It was Princess, wasn't it? Because if I was writing the show, I'd sure make something out of the fact that apparently the same staff member who saw that confrontation was also the one making the "WTF are you lying about?" face at Santos when Santos lied to Langdon's face about the decision-making process for MDMA Seizure Girl's treatment.)

Anyway, I don't even mind that Frank "Safe Choice" Langdon was the one who TPTB decided to pin this on. What I do mind is that it's Santos - who's been in this ED and interacted with Langdon for all of nine hours, 8.75 hours of which have been acrimonious, who got to figure it all out and finger him for it. My concern about sterotypes and implicit biases, at this point, is that on both Watsonian and Doylist levels, Langdon - and his very, very correct assessment and concerns about Santos' behavior - will be written off, both within the narrative and metatextually, because now he's a thieving drug addict. Because nothing he told Robby about Santos was wrong - she's a bully who's been repeatedly unpleasant to the med students below her on the ladder; she does not follow safety protocols designed to protect her, her patients or her co-workers; and her cowboy attitude has literally almost killed at least one patient so far, not even a full shift in. We as the audience also know that she'll lie to her senior resident's face and threaten patients, which Langdon doesn't even know (yet). So I'm going to be mad if this show tries to tell me that I haven't seen things that I have actually seen with my own eyes, and it tries to retcon her behavior or flush it down the memory hole. My trust is tenuous at this point. It would be much stronger if almost anyone other than Santos had been the one to bring this forward.

tbh, if I was going to insist on doing a take on the drug diversion storyline in the first shift/season - which I still think was a bad idea this soon - I'd have made it Mel who figured it out. And who then had to work through what she was going to do about this mentor who she had such a great, supportive relationship with, but who was apparently stealing drugs and endangering patients. How would she figure it out? How would she work through it? Who would she go to about it? And what would her conversation with Langdon look like - because you know she would have had to talk to him about it, at some point.

[leonardalphachurch]

saw the question of “how long does it take rvb to pass the bechdel test” and i got curious and also wanted to make myself mad so.

my answer is Reconstruction: Chapter 5 (s6e5). there’s a recorded conversation between sheila and tex about the ship crashing.

my answer with no caveats is Evacuation Plan (s9e4). carolina, 479er, filss and south all participate in a conversation that takes up a good chunk of the episode.

i talk a LOT more about the state of female character interactions under the cut.

the first time two women talk at all is s2e11/bgc30:

sheila bisexual moments. while iconic, this isn’t much of a conversation (tex doesn’t ever speak to her) and it’s certainly about a man so. doesn’t count. next!

next is s3e1/bgc39:

while here it’s implied that they are actually having a conversation at least we still don’t actually see any exchanges between them and they’re still talking about men and quote “Boring stuff like oppression, and a hostile work environment.” which is great but. a) we don’t see it. and b) again, still about men

next is tex and kai’s exchange in season 5. which is misogynistic as fuck and even if it did pass the bechdel test i would refuse to count it. but guess what! not only are they talking about men, but we literally do not see them talk to each other. kai speaks to tex “who’s o’malley?” but tex doesn’t respond to her, instead asking the guys “who’s the girl?” (s5e10/bgc92). then they talk in the background of the next episode while church and tucker are misogynistic. then it’s two more episodes until we get this gem

y’know, girl stuff! how fucking charming. these writers really have a great grasp on how woman act. god, it’s even worse when compared to tex and sheila’s conversation earlier. in what world would tex be fucking intimidated by kai.

and you know what the joke of this all is. even if they did have a conversation here that passed the bechdel test it still wouldn’t count under some rule sets because kai still doesn’t have a name at this point. great work team.

s5e15/bgc92 has a deleted scene where kai calls up a girl friend and they talk… i’m not counting it because 1) kai is as of yet unnamed and the girl friend is never named, 2) the conversation is ostensibly about junior, though they do talk about other stuff enough that you could argue it’s not about a man, but 3) it’s deleted. you don’t get credit for shit you deleted.

next time two women talk to each other is recovery one episode 4. this is the first time we see two women have an actual, back and forth conversation. the conversation is between south and commamd about wash, delta, and the fact that south isn’t rejoining freelancer. i do think this conversation fits the spirit of the bechdel test (two women talking to each other with deeper characterizations unmoored from being about men) but that’s only really by technicality. command isn’t a character here and doesn’t become one for another 4 seasons; the conversation is only retroactively a deeper one. it’s up to you whether or not you pass it. i think it’s important to remember that the bechdel test isn’t really a hard test to determine what’s feminist (and was made in the first place to be about queer women being able to see themselves in media) but rather a marker to help sort out if the female characters in a work are allowed any depth outside of men. this exercise is less about finding a scene fitting exact criteria and more about. me going oh god it really is fucking bad out there huh.

my actual pick, as i said in the beginning, is s6e5. though tex mentions gamma and the aliens, the conversation is still about the fact that the ship is crashing. and in terms of the spirit of the test, two women yelling at each other as they die definitely fits definitely fits “deeper character motivations outside of men” imo. it’s. kind of really sad though. the first time we ever see tex and sheila have an actual conversation is the last time we really see either of them, chronologically. we only got to see them have a relationship as they were dying. why couldn’t they have been friends in life.

if a recorded conversation isn’t good enough for you, you’ll have to wait until s8e15. season 7 does not have a single woman in it. tεx and filss talk about pfl’s files. it’s not exactly an in depth back and forth and the conversation is shared with simmons and church but. it’s something. i think sheila and tex’s convo fits the spirit of the test a bit more but. let’s chalk it up to two conversations in the 8 seasons. fantastic.

all right, season 9 time. come on, a third of the main cast is women! that’s gotta bring our numbers up, right?

episode 1? no. 2? no. 3?

incredible! we have a conversation between female operative and pilot! just kidding. the wiki doesn’t name them bc they haven’t been named yet, but this is a conversation between carolina and niner! no funny business! just an actual conversation between woman! wow. only took us nine seasons to get to a point where i can confidently say something passes the bechdel test with no caveats. unless we look at the 60 second rule. then. oops.

but… wow! episode 4 has… THREE women? talking to each other? and then a fourth joins in? i thought it was a myth! being able to handle so many women on screen at once… they really did something special here. anyway, this episode is the first to pass with flying colors. i can’t time shut bc i don’t have the videos on hand but i’m certain this passes the 60 second mark. great work! if only it didn’t take you nine years to get to this point.

ugh. i had more written past this point but tumblr erased it and i don’t feel like fucking redoing it. i got to the point i wanted to so. maybe i’ll continue this later. would like to explore the rest of pfl and chorus. it’s impressive how well pfl manages to avoid having women actually speak to each other. they’ll literally be in the same conversation but never actually address each other. this happens multiple times.

[daily-hanamura]

I was wondering if you had any analyses on yosuke's dances in P4D, especially his partner dances wrt his character/personality... or even just generally what you thought of his moves. I think atlus/p-studio enjoy putting more than meets the eye into the choreography for the dances, but i wondered what the account that does really good yosuke analyses thinks. >:) Cheers

Oh wow you're very kind!! but this is also a very high level ask as I am not at all a dance expert and I'm still working my way through all of the dances, but I will do my best! o7

Long post incoming!

I remember reading an interview which said that Yosuke's dance style is very much inspired by male idols with a hip-hop flair, and I can definitely see it in his dance? iirc there was a pretty strong influence of hip-hop in jpop of that era - I'm thinking about Johnny's entertainment boybands which I think pretty much dominated the jpop male idol scene around 2010 - just look at Arashi's Monster dance routine, which imo is a super quintessential dance of that time. Like Jun's breakdance around 0:45, but also more generally, the sort of precise, rapid-pace footwork and moves that is also very evident in both Backside of the TV and Your Affection. I think it really suits him for a few reasons

Yosuke generally has the highest agility stat and tends to be the fastest char (for me at least? but i've also seen enough fics that reference how quick he moves), so it makes sense that this sort of high-pace dance suits him. Obviously Yosuke has a very good sense of beat listening to music all the time in combat and moving with it, so despite his real world clumsiness, he's well equipped to take on the kind of rigorous idol dance style that's typically very demanding to learn and perfect.

At the same time, it also matches his narrative - Yosuke in canon is very familiar with idol culture, both with Risette and Kanamin Kitchen, so it's not too surprising? But what I thought was kind of interesting was that there aren't really any references to male idol groups in world, and even his bedroom in p4au only shows female idol posters and some mainstream American albums. However, in the interview scene at the end of p4d, he mentions to Yukiko that he's tried to copy moves from stuff he's seen. But his dance style is more similar to boy idol bands - with the hip hop influence especially - as opposed to being similar to female idol bands - which tend to be preppier in dance style (see AKB48 for example). (Or just compare Rise's dance with Yosuke's.) So idk if this is a random oversight on Atlus/P-Studio's part, or if Yosuke is a closet male idol enjoyer (which would be very funny but also on brand for him, especially if he's still in the closet).

The other thing about idol music and group idol dance styles more generally is how much emphasis there is on harmony. If you look at the Arashi video again, there's kind of the expectation that all members are dancing in sync with each other. The thing about that sort of group dance is that you don't really have "leads" and "backup" dances, because no one member is really supposed to stand out or take centre stage since they're all equals. And I think that's a fun thing to think about because, you know, Yosuke Rank 10. But it's also in his partner dances with the others - I feel like Yosuke tends to harmonise with the others and their dance styles the most, maybe he's second to Yu? But Yosuke tends to match his dancing to the style of the other person when he joins them in Fever, like in Naoto's or Chie's (caveat, maybe I'm just Yosuke-biased LMAO). I think there's a lot to say about it because on the one hand, his captain ressentiment attitude means he sees his friends as better but he also wants to catch up to them and be their equals! but also, on the other hand, Yosuke doesn't want to stand out? And him keeping his head down is very much in character for him throughout most of the game, so :')

(but also souyo lens time his partner dances with yu is SO GOOD they mirror one another so well and it makes me so weak)

I think my final point is on how idol dancing is kind of on brand for him as well? Yosuke is kind of a vain person - he likes fashionable clothes! He likes to look cool! (and we love him for it!!) - and I think one thing that kind of marks idol dancing compared to, idk, interpretive dancing as an extreme example, is how idol dances tend to emphasize... looking good? The whole point of idols is to sell them on their aesthetics, after all, and good looks are kind of a minimum criteria to being in an idol group. The dances are choreographed to maximise the dancer's appeal, so it's all smooth moves that present them in the best light.

Those are my extremely long thoughts!! but yeah tldr I think his dance style really suits him on every level I can't imagine anything better for him ngl. Anyone with more expert knowledge feel free to pitch in though

[scoobydoodean]

question for you, if you're interested: with all the usual caveats that we can never truly know authorial intent, do you think 04x21 was intended to inspire sympathy for sam? dean? both? neither? i've been wrestling with it but i'm conflicted. would love to hear any thoughts you have :)

Oooh interesting question!

The TL;DR would be that I think it's supposed to help us understand both Sam and Dean's perspective, and absolutely—Sera Gamble wants us to feel sympathy for Sam. However, I also don't think the implication is intended to be that Sam is actually doing something he should be doing or that Dean is mean and unfair. It's just supposed to help us make sense of where Sam's head is, because he's been lying to everyone (including himself) all season.

In terms of Sam's season 4 motivations, 4.21 is a firehose. It fleshes out a huge tangled web of motivations Sam has for his actions, some of which are much more sympathetic than others. In that sense, I would say Gamble's primary goal in 4.21 is to make us understand and feel sympathy for Sam. We also get some of Dean's perspective (especially during his conversation with Cas and Bobby), but I think the primary focus is Sam, and that's timely, because the episodes leading up to this one show a lot of Sam's arrogance. We're repeatedly reminded from 4.14 to 4.20 that Sam absolutely thinks Dean is weak because of Hell (despite claiming "it was just the siren talking"), that Sam is a liar (and isn't even good at it), that Sam has an inflated (and growing) ego, and that Sam is self-deceived about his intentions (Pam and Chuck both point to it). We also see him scathingly compared to John in 4.19 (and while the episode gives us insights into some of Sam's driving motivations as well, it ultimately paints him in a fairly unsympathetic light imo). 4.21 formally lays out a variety of Sam's motivations that were touched on during the season, through his hallucinations in the panic room. Many of them involve a warped perception of events:

Sam can't fight destiny. Sam was never going to be normal. There was never any point in fighting. This is his destiny (4.04, 4.08, 4.19).

Sam is a monster. Monstrosity is inescapable and innate to Sam's nature, and the only way to fix his self-image is to prove that that monstrosity (represented by demon blood) doesn't make him evil and can be used for good (i.e., stopping the apocalypse). (4.04, 4.05).

Sam is just doing what needs to be done. His actions are ruthless, but he's the only one who can save the world. He needs to do this even if it kills him (4.14, 4.16, 4.18)

Dean can't do what needs to be done. Dean is weak (4.14, 4.16, 4.18).

Dean needs Sam to save him (4.18).

Sam wants revenge on Lilith (4.09, 4.18).

Sam wants justice against Lilith (4.21 only).

Mary and Jess's deaths are Sam's fault (1.05, 1.21), and he has to make their deaths mean something by using the demon blood (to which their deaths are connected) to do something good and make their deaths "worth it" (4.04).

The demon blood makes him feel better for being different. It makes him feel stronger and better than everybody else. A part of him likes it. Sam feels intense shame about this and it's the number one thing he hasn't been able to confront (4.15, 4.18).

More generally, the hallucinations show that Sam's motivations are incredibly varied, and that Sam fights within himself about whether the things he thinks about himself and everyone else are really true. The internal battle also indicates Sam's incredible uncertainty despite his bravado from 4.12 to 4.20. Deep down, Sam is not actually sure he's doing the right thing. He also questions whether he's actually strong enough to stop the apocalypse and whether Dean might be right that the demon blood is making him weak.

All of these bits of context feature oodles of self-deceit, and some of the motivations he denies, because he's talking to people he's hallucinating, but they are all ultimately Sam's thoughts. The motivation that gets called out as deceitful the most directly is when Sam hallucinates Dean telling him he's already a monster and always has been one, that Dean pretends to love him like a brother, but that they aren't even the same species. This is both a reflection of Sam's feelings about himself and Sam's beliefs about Dean's feelings, and while it's all being said, Dean is upstairs contradicting the conversation Sam is having in his head.

Dean is upstairs telling Bobby he'd die for Sam, and he's willing to become the shady-AF angels apocalypse-stopping bitch boy if it'll keep Sam from having to turn himself into a monster to achieve the same goal. Dean actually asks Cas if Sam could stop the apocalypse with his demon blood powers in this episode as well, proving it's something he was actually willing to consider, contrary to the dogmatic lens some fans view him through on the issue. Cas tells Dean that it's possible Sam could stop the apocalypse, but that Sam would have to consume so much blood he'd never be able to come back from it. This is what pushes Dean to commit to serving the angels. This is a decision Dean makes even though he explicitly does not want to. He doesn't trust the angels (4.02, 4.07, 4.09, 4.10, 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, 4.20), and previous episodes highlight Dean's growing discomfort with their sense of entitlement to him (4.15, 4.16, 4.17). He agrees to give himself over to them anyway.

Sam's repeated acts of deceit (and the outright cruelty of his views in 4.14 that he reiterates to Dean at the end of 4.21) reinforce Dean's belief that the demon blood is turning Sam into something he isn't. I'm also sure Sam getting slammed into walls by the force of his own powers in this episode did not exactly assuage Dean's concerns. Neither did him going into withdrawal and growing so desperate for a hit (during Ruby's 100% intentional absence) that he completely ruined an entire season of secrecy about consuming demon blood to drink the blood of a demon right in front of Dean and Cas in 4.20, blood all over his mouth and everything. He totally lost control.

Basically, I think we're supposed to see two different perspectives, and feel sympathy for Sam, while also understanding that Sam is deceived about what he's doing and his own identity. He hallucinates his own mother telling him he's evil and that he should die to make her death mean something ffs—it isn't that what Sam feels is the truth—it's that he believes it is.

Unfortunately, Dean reinforces one of Sam's broken beliefs at the end of the episode by saying that if Sam doesn't realize what he's doing is wrong and stop, it means not his actions, but his inner nature might actually be the problem. However, this line isn't supposed to uniquely demonize Dean. It comes right after Sam reiterates his statements about Dean's trauma making him weak, and acting entitled to trust after over a season of secrets and lies. What's so fascinating and tragic, is that both Sam and Dean, on the apocalypse issue, are at some level placing a hope for redemption in being the one to end the apocalypse. Dean hopes that stopping the apocalypse will make up for what he did in Hell (4.05, 4.15). Sam hopes that stopping the apocalypse will prove he isn't a monster. Each of them is also contending with their brother's image of them not being what they want it to be. At the end of 4.21, Dean knows that Sam truly believes Dean is weak for being traumatized by decades of torture, and Sam knows that Dean thinks he might be a monster beyond saving. The end of 4.21 is them each digging into the other's most terrible wounds. While I think there's a tendency for some fans to focus in on what Dean says to Sam (partly because of the incredibly emotional reaction it produces from Sam, and then later Bobby), I think the mutual harm here is plain (and we know from my multiple bitchy posts today and yesterday that Sam entirely loses my sympathy in the last few scenes of the episode ofc). But I do think that final fight is supposed to feel balanced as it separates the brothers through mutual harm.

That's the main response, but if you're interested... a word on Sera Gamble as a writer and some of the larger themes in play here:

4.21 is a Sera Gamble episode, and Gamble likes both of the brothers a lot I think. She wrote "Houses of the Holy", and "Nightmare" which are heavily focused on Sam's fears about his monstrous destiny. However, her first episode was "Dead In The Water". She wrote "Faith", "Salvation", "Heart", "Dream A Little Dream Of Me", "Jus In Bello", "Time Is On My Side", etc.

If I had to form the episodes she'd written into a sort of Gamble thesis on the brothers up to 4.21, I'd have to say she definitely sees Dean as the heart of the family and the moral center.

She writes Sam disinterested in helping someone in the absence of leads on their father (1.03). She writes "Faith" where Dean feels horrible about someone dying in his place and Sam quickly lets it go, just happy to have his brother alive. She writes "Bloodlust" where at the end of the episode, Dean reflects back on all of their past actions with monsters and how John raised them and wonders if they killed monsters that didn't deserve it, while Sam has no such qualms and lends sympathy for their father's emotional state instead. She writes Sam wanting to turn himself and Dean into immortals (3.15), and considering human sacrifice in "Jus In Bello". She writes Sam insisting on entering Dean's dreams in "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" despite Dean's protests about his privacy. She writes him instantly leaping to toss aside Dean's dying wishes so he can get revenge against Lilith in Dean's name (4.09).

All of this suggests a Sam who is desperate to keep his family alive (with a side of John's "losing sight of the actual family in the face of revenge for the family"). She writes a Sam who will jump to extremely morally dubious plays to keep Dean alive or save him and won't feel bad about it. Season 3 features a lot of Dean trying to be the person who curbs those impulses, and Sam (usually) ultimately conceding. I think there is an element of this dynamic in 4.21 when she writes Sam to say, "You [Dean] take the wheel. You call the shots". I think Gamble's really talking about Sam letting go of some of his most morally dubious plans to save Dean because of Dean insisting on it—within her own episodes (3.12, 3.15) and others (ex: 3.16).

I've written about how one of Sam's motivations in season 4 is that from his perspective, Dean's relatively more inflexible morals got Dean killed, and Dean getting killed then sent Sam into a suicidally depressed tailspin. Dean would rather die in 3.16 than sacrifice his moral principles, and Sam would rather have sacrificed both of their moral principles than see Dean die. This fundamental difference between the brothers runs through their entire season 4 conflict, from Sam calling Dean weak for being traumatized by Hell, to Sam lying to Dean all season, to Dean risking Sam's death to detox him from demon blood in 4.21, to Sam conflating a moral clash with loyalty and trust.

[attorney-anon]

Hey, I’m a law student and I’m also autistic and ADHD and I was wondering if you have any tips for working in law as a neurodivergent person? I love my course and I can’t wait to work but the 85% unemployment statistic really scares me.

This is a long answer, so I'm going to cut it for the sake of mobile users. I do link some products below; I'm not getting paid, and I'm only linking them because they honestly work for me. Also, as a caveat, a lot of this advice assumes that you're American and/or working in-person at a private law firm; unfortunately, that's my only experience other than a month doing part-time intake for my regional legal aid service.

The biggest hurdle you will meet is the bar exam*: you need a study buddy who does not have ADHD and can help keep you on track. Don't study separately then meet up; do things like watching lecture videos together and keeping pace with one another in person. I'm not ADHD myself, but my best friend and forever study partner is, and she struggled to self-start.

Buy a bar prep course. This is not the time to be a scrooge; don't buy Kaplan just because it's cheaper (it also sucks). Barbri and Themis are both good - of these, use whichever you can get for cheapest or, if the costs are comparable, use Barbri if structure gives you comfort and use Themis if you need some control over the order in which you do things. Also use Themis if humor engages you; the Property and Contracts lecturers are hilarious. Stick to your bar prep program, but be gentle with yourself if you fall behind pace - realistically, you need to get through all the topics at least once, but you don't have to do every practice MPT, every practice essay, and every practice MBE quiz. Use the same study techniques that got you through law school. IMO, useful supplemental tools include the Critical Pass flashcards (get them used if possible, or get a referral code from somebody) and the Finz Multistate Method guide. Do your best to treat the bar exam as a game - because it is one.

There's a strategy for every section, and you should practice these strategies. For the MBE, use the Finz method - it works. For the MEE, or any other essay exam, use IRAC - and make up the R if you need to. The UBE, and most state bar exams, are graded such that you do get more points for knowing the rule, but you can still get points if you make up a reasonable-sounding rule and then apply it correctly. For the MPT, just throw in as many case and rule cites as possible. Try to cite every document you're given.

Join a bar prep FB group if you use FB; I was in Themis Memes for Should-Be-Studying Teens, but I know there's a Barbri group too. I found that being able to laugh at my bar prep course made it less miserable to do it. Don't be afraid to turn the videos on 2x or 0.5x speed - or faster or slower as needed. Some of the Themis lecturers talk to slowly that we went up to 3x; one of them talks so fast I had to slow him down.

Practice for the test in as many different environments as you can. I took the 2020 Pandemic Bar, so my bar was different than standard (I took it in a hotel room with my back to the door and proctors patrolling the hallways, it was mildly traumatizing fun), but I highly recommend getting used to noise while you're taking the test. Your ADHD/Autism hyperfocus will help here - make the bar exam your hyperfixation to the extent possible.

Once you pass the bar exam, your next hurdle will be the job search. You are going to have to mask for interviews, there's just no getting around it, but how much you mask will depend on your area of law. Big Law firms and intense, litigation-focused practice areas (e.g., business lit or criminal law) will expect you to be gregarious, friendly, and charming from the get-go; less litigation-focused practice areas (e.g., probate or family law) will often have more tolerance for quieter, less aggressive types.

Do not panic if you wind up at a less-than-favorable firm on your first or even your second job; a lateral shift between firms won't kill your resume as long as you can give a tactful reason you left (e.g., "I found that I prefer to focus on X instead of Y," or "I found that I had more opportunities to explore X at Y firm, and I am interested in focusing on X"). It is not normal to cry every day after work. It is not normal to routinely have panic attacks in the bathroom.

Once you have a job, billing is going to be difficult unless you gamify it. I use the Finch self-care app, so I have a task at the end of every week to make sure I have billed my time. My friend rewards herself for every day she bills by buying herself a new pen. Some people thrive off of timers (MyCase and Clio are popular case management software programs; both have timers built-in), but if nothing else, simply note when you start tasks and when you finish them by sending e-mails to yourself (or others, if relevant) at the end of every task. If your case management software can integrate with your e-mail (MyCase can integrate with Outlook, for instance), then use that to tag outgoing e-mails so you can be sure each one gets billed.

Outside of Big Law or intense practice areas, very few people bill 8 hours per day - a lot of the work you do will be non-billable, but also you will suffer from exhaustion or burnout if you try to bill 8 hours per day (my minimum is 20 hours per week, which is just 4 hours a day). You also will usually have some discretion in billing - use that to make yourself feel better if inattention issues make something take longer than you feel is fair. As for billing enough, if you find that you are most productive outside of work hours, find a firm that will let you access client files offsite - work at home if they'll let you.

I do a lot of my best billing either in the mornings right when I get to work or at 10:00 at night. That's okay so long as you take breaks during the workday (I watch a lot of TikTok during my breaks, but I also fiddle with various online games and such); you'll need mental rest to reset between cases. If you struggle with task-switching, use a break to help reset your focus. I strongly recommend setting an alarm for yourself during breaks so that time blindness doesn't derail you. Make your alarm kind of annoying; something you won't just mindlessly ignore.

Let yourself hyperfocus on things; all of that time you spend researching and drafting and correcting and perfecting that motion or brief is billable, and it's also good practice of law - your client and your partner will appreciate your thoroughness, and the judge will almost never hate it (some judges prefer brevity, but I've never had a judge upset at me for wordiness).

I also recommend getting apps that can automate things for you; I use Espanso to make my life easier by having easy-to-type shortcuts for common phrases and information (e.g., the current date, my bar card number, my work e-mail address, etc.). You can customize these things to make sense to your own brain - your process doesn't have to work for anyone but you. Similarly, I use macros in Word to make drafting go faster by letting buttons do all my formatting for me.

Excel sheets make excellent task lists because you can split them up by case, and set them up to highlight things (e.g., today's date) automatically. Most firms will have some kind of "docket meeting" where everyone goes over the status on each case - some people prefer handwritten notes (my best friend does), some people prefer digital notes (I have an excel workbook I use). Find a method that reduces distractions but lets you keep up with the flow of conversation.

On the topic of technology, if your firm provides a computer for you, or if your firm will provide accessories to supplement your own computer, push to have multiple monitors - I use my own laptop, but my boss provides monitors and I have two plus my laptop screen. It is WAY easier to keep up with billing if you can keep your time entry software open and visible on one of your screens.

You will be spending a lot of time in your office; make it comfortable. Once you are making enough to get by, invest in a good office chair (that you own, so you can take it with you if you leave the firm) and some basic office supplies that you like, such as a post-it note dispenser (mine is a cat!). My office chair is designed to let me sit cross-legged - I highly recommend having an office chair that matches your most comfortable sitting style. Having some things that are yours will make any future moves less awkward. I also strongly, strongly recommend getting some simple and quietish fidget toys - I have several spinners, wacky tracks, tangles, and clicky fidgets in one of my desk drawers, amongst others, to help me self-stim, as well as a sensory sticker on my desk pad (on the linked set, I have the rough version of the bottom middle sticker, the rainbow finger labyrinth one).

For me, I find that actual litigation requires scripting. Whether it's an oral argument or just a temporary orders hearing, I typically have every word I intend to say written down as much as I can (re-direct examination or re-cross examination can't be scripted before the day of, but I usually at least scrawl a summary of the question I need to ask as I'm taking notes). I don't necessarily read from it, and sometimes I veer off-script, but there is a specific comfort in having the words scripted out. On the few occasions I have ad-libbed things, I find that I come off less authoritative and confident, which gives the judge the impression that I am guessing. I also find comfort in having a copy of the code I need (which is always the Texas Family Code for me) on-hand at the counsel table. You are allowed to tell the judge you'd like to consult the statute when the judge asks you a question.

I also find that, for courtroom litigation, it's worthwhile to make sure your court clothes are comfortable. Courtrooms in my area are universally a little too warm, so I have a linen blazer that breathes and a variety of shell tops that don't have sleeves. I also have bad ankles, so I wear exclusively flats despite the fact that I am less than 5 feet tall. For me, heat sensitivity is a part of my sensory issues so I am all about setting myself up for success. It's also worthwhile to bring extra water bottles; at my firm (we are almost all ND in some regard), the standard is 2 per attorney and 1 for each support staff, then 1 for the client.

For out-of-court days, even "business" can be comfortable if you're a creative shopper. My last firm required business attire, though not necessarily courtroom attire. I wore a lot of dresses to stay cool, and a solid-color dress in a modest cut paired with a black blazer (which you can remove when you're just working in your office) almost always makes the cut. For those who don't like or can't wear dresses, comfortable slacks and a modest blouse or dress shirt, paired with a blazer, also works. My current firm only requires business casual for client meetings, courtroom attire for court, and otherwise as long as we cover our shoulders and don't wear shorts, we're good to go. I use a cardigan to cover my shoulders when I'm outside my office, as most of my blouses are sleeveless. It's worthwhile to invest in a good office sweater anyway; I like a thin t-shirt material cardigan for me, but my officemate uses a pullover knit sweater. Do what's comfortable.

Office meetings, or even court hearings, can sometimes get loud and overstimulating - buy you some Flare Audio Calmer ear inserts, they really do help take some of the 'sharpness' off of the noise. I also recommend a playlist that contains binaural beats (assuming you like them) or colored (white, brown, pink, etc) noise and a solid pair of ANC headphones or earbud, depending on your preference (the linked products are far from the only options, they're just reasonably-priced options that I know work; I personally use first-gen Airpod Pros). If you don't like binaural beats or white noise, instrumentals of pop songs are also excellent.

You can also get phone apps that layer binaural beats over your music - I find that it sometimes helps me calm down when I'm close to a meltdown, though I personally feel worse at the lower frequencies (I usually stay around the alpha-beta frequency line, but ymmv). I think there are probably also some apps for colored noise over your music, but I haven't looked. If you haven't before, I recommend experimenting with binaural beats and/or colored noise - I find that they can help calm down some of the staticky feeling I get from overstimulation.

Offices also sometimes involve other sensory dangers - like, for instance, food texture issues (another big one for me). You can often get out of things like that by simply explaining that the food doesn't agree with you, or that you're not very hungry - or, if your boss knows that you have sensory issues (mine knows I'm autistic), you can just quietly explain that it's a sensory problem and you have it under control. Keep some safe snacks in your office. You can avoid alcohol, if you're picky about it or just don't like it, by explaining that you're not in the mood to drink (or that you don't drink, period) and that you'll stick to soda/tea/water/whatever. Only major assholes will push past that.

Most coping mechanisms for sensory issues can be justified with "I don't feel good" or "I have a headache."

If your office chair hurts your back, get up and walk around. You are not in elementary school; at most firms, you can step out and just let your coworkers know where'/how to find you, and when you'll be back.

For intra-office and extra-office communications, if you have any doubts about the quality of the communication, you can put it in writing afterwards. A quick e-mail saying, "Okay, so this is my understanding of X, please let me know if I've misunderstood anything or if anything changes" is a good CYA to cover any communication difficulties; don't use idioms or shorthand in these e-mails - actually spell out exactly what you think happened, or what you think you've been asked to do.

If you're worried about your tone in written communications, Chat GPT is good at doing a first draft. It can also do a first draft of your attorney bio, if you're asked to write it yourself. Tell it the message you want to convey, and the tone in which you need it said. For instance, if you need to convey to a pro se opposing party that your world does not revolve around them, but you want to do it professionally, you might tell Chat GPT, "Write a professional e-mail to my opposing party conveying that my world does not revolve around them and that I will get to them when I get to them." That won't give you a perfect e-mail, but it gives you an idea of how to set the tone. Never trust any citation the thing gives you, but you can also use it to simplify complex thoughts for motions that you need to be simpler.

Law practice is also emotionally draining. Take the time to cry if you need to, or to go outside or into a breakroom and breathe.

Essentially, working in law when you're ND means finding tools to help you. It's definitely doable (as I said, most of my current firm is ND), but you'll need to find coping mechanisms to soothe yourself. If you've gotten into law school, I think it's clear that you're competent enough to work. The trick is not burning yourself out entirely, which I hope the above can help with.

* - This is not and never will be an endorsement of bar exams as a measure of competence for new attorneys. The bar exam is a racist and classist institution born from the desire of old white men to keep their good-ol'-boys club exclusive. Fuck the NCBE and abolish bar exams nationwide.

[somekindofhannibalcannibal]

i will be reviewing and assigning a numerical rating all of the books in thomas harris' "hannibal lecter" series just to get my thoughts out there. this is a once in a lifetime event you can't miss it

red dragon: the first and best to do it. easily my favorite of the quartet. i’m sure everyone knows by now that despite often being advertised as the first ever appearance of iconic character hannibal lecter he doesn’t actually appear all that much in this one, and i don’t know if it’s my unavoidable pop cultural knowledge that makes his presence feel greater than it is here, but i definitely get why harris felt the urge to bring him back. at the same time it’s really interesting to see how his characterization noticeably differs from later installments, and how harris was probably seeing him as more of a mundane serial killer figure than the force of personality he would become. but speaking of the more prominent characters; i think the book version of will graham is a much more compelling protagonist than he’s given credit for. i feel like a lot of people think the show made him interesting but imo he’s already plenty interesting here. i really really love that he’s a protagonist in a crime thriller procedural novel who experienced a significant trauma related to his job some time back and is being called back for one more case…and while most stories in this genre would have him get over his past issues and heroically face down the killer at the climax, this book really emphasizes how much the act of killing another person will fuck you up. yes, even if you absolutely have to do it. the fact that it ends so bittersweetly (and that description is an optimistic interpretation) instead of a standard “the day is saved, hooray” really makes this book stand out. book will is just so much more compelling to me than the standard main character type in this kind of story even today, and while i of course am into his show counterpart’s arc of trying to reconcile his own urges towards darkness, i think the book version’s relationship with violence and what the book says about the act of killing is so important to the themes. if more crime thriller procedural novels were like this i would probably read a lot more of them. the amount of page time devoted to the killer’s point of view also feels unique - it’s a level of depth and humanization that villains in these kinds of stories rarely get, to the point that francis dolarhyde is arguably the novel’s second protagonist. some of his backstory is a little cliche at this point, like most of his issues being traced back to a single abusive parental figure, but a lot more interesting than the usual page-long motive rant you get at the end of these things. it’s clear this was written at a time when criminal psychology was really heating up in the popular consciousness and people would have been interested in exploring the subject in fiction. harris really knocked it out of the park with this one and i’d urge everyone who’s only seen the show and/or movies to read it. i give it 5 out of 5 dragons 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

the silence of the lambs: unfortunately, despite having a lot of the same strengths as its predecessor, you can’t recommend this book without a ton of caveats. for all its good points - and there are indeed many - the transphobia at the center of the novel’s plot just looms over everything else and it’s impossible to talk about it without discussing how that affects things. part of the problem may be that in contrast to the first book, we get next to nothing from the killer’s point of view and it really feels like harris found this character too much of an insane freak to be worth sympathizing with. but it’s also because this book devotes more time to its actual protagonist’s backstory and characterization, and those parts are great - clarice starling is a very well-done character who is shaped by her background much more than will (who we know comparatively very little about), so we get to delve into her story more, which enhances the narrative as we get to know her. i really like her singular focus on saving lives and her sense of identification with the victims, whether found dead or going missing, and how the book goes into detail on how her background informs that. we also get an increased role for hannibal, who really establishes his personality as we know it in his pov scenes. it’s not surprising audiences found his dynamic with clarice so intriguing; it’s definitely the most interesting to me in this context, full of ambiguities and unspoken admiration for each other that never goes beyond the separation of the prison walls. it ends a lot more straightforwardly happy than red dragon, but with a new, younger protagonist who’s already been through a lot, it feels a little more earned than it could have. (i still don't buy her romance with pilcher, though. the movie made the right choice in leaving that out and having her be unimpressed with his attempts at flirting over a murder investigation.) it’s just…the transphobia. possibly made worse by the novel’s multiple attempts to justify or excuse this portrayal, which just make the book even more uncomfortable to read. (also honestly sucks how many people to this day believe those excuses and will insist “it’s okay because the author said the character isn’t REALLY trans!” whenever they discuss the book or film. you can like something and acknowledge that it’s “problematic”, i thought we’ve been over this.) aside from that it’s mostly good. i give it 4 out of 5 screaming lambs 🐑🐑🐑🐑

hannibal: this one’s complicated. i definitely get why people think it should never have been written in the first place, and why they think hannibal as a character doesn’t work outside of his original context as a side character influencing things from inside a cell, and i’m also not sure i buy harris’ claims in the author’s note that he just felt like he had to revisit these characters one last time, no other reason…but i don’t think the book is totally awful. it’s more of a mixed bag than anything. don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty i didn’t like at all - most people focus on the ending, which i agree doesn’t work or feel properly built up to. i might have been more accepting of it if it didn’t feel so much like it was rushing to a conclusion after spending so much of the rest of its length (i think this is the longest book in the series?) on other things. but there’s other problems too. my biggest beef with it is how relatively little clarice really gets to do over the course of it, despite being such an iconic active protagonist in the previous book. the inciting incident of her storyline is another case of the book getting really uncomfortable to read in ways the author probably didn’t intend - i know this series has always been “copaganda” on some level in how it portrays the fbi as basically good and necessary and heroic, but this takes it to another level by showing clarice becoming disillusioned with the fbi because…well, they’re actually prosecuting her for an action that the media is portraying as another instance of racist police brutality, for SOME reason. i’ve ranted about this before but it’s not good and leaves a bad taste in your mouth for the rest of the novel. we’re a long way from “killing someone, even if you have to do it…is the ugliest thing in the world”, and i don’t like it much. this is also the point at which hannibal is pretty much a mary sue in the purest definition - he’s good at everything, never gets caught, smarter and more capable than almost everyone around him, and basically everything he does is justified somehow. it gets pretty ridiculous by the end.

that said…there’s also a surprising amount that i liked in this one. the sequences with hannibal in florence are probably the best in the book, and whenever we’re in hannibal’s pov the narration really indulges in lush descriptions and poetic prose that’s actually very lovely to read. whatever his real motives for writing this, i do think harris enjoyed the process. on the other side of the pond, mason verger is an absurdly over-the-top villain for us to hate and feel no remorse when he’s inevitably killed, but there’s something kind of fun about the almost campy excesses this book gets up to in its more lurid moments. i also really like margot as a character, even if the narration gets kind of weird about her sometimes, and although she's obviously written by a cishet man in 1999 i do think harris might have been sincerely trying to offer some better representation of queer characters this time around. (i also like show margot as her own character, but…we really should have been harder on the show for making her so acceptably, conventionally feminine. ah well) when i was first reading the books i went looking for older posts about them from people who weren’t focused on the show, trying to gauge if this one was worth reading at all. one account i looked through really didn’t like how clarice was written in it (and they were pretty much the only one talking at all about the ~problematic parts at the beginning of the book, and not just discoursing about the ending), but they did like the rest of it and suggested that this book might have been better if clarice wasn’t in it at all and hannibal was the only recurring character. and honestly…i kind of agree. leave clarice alone if this is what you’re going to do with her. hannibal is already the protagonist of this book and the italy plot with pazzi + the plot with the vergers is plenty of story for the rest. margot is the secondary protagonist in my heart. my thoughts on this book could be their own post at this point but yeah, mixed feelings. not sure i'd recommend it freely but i wouldn't write it off as just bad. i give it 3.5 out of 5 brutal moray eels 🐍🐍🐍.5 (there’s no eel emoji)

hannibal rising: the last and least. yeah this one’s not good. it’s rumored this was only written because dino de laurentiis threatened to have someone else do it and if that’s true…you can tell. it’s the shortest book in the series and harris was clearly trying to get the minimum requirement written to get this over with and be free of hannibal lecter forever. at least that’s how it felt. anyway i didn’t totally hate this one - i actually thought the first half of the book was pretty good for what it was, expanding on an already kind of dumb backstory detail established in the previous book but also creating what felt like a pretty believable portrait of a young hannibal, growing up in a house of nobility, preternaturally intelligent from a young age, having his life torn out from under him by an intense traumatic experience, and rebuilding himself years later into a cunning and dangerous man. however the book really falls apart when it gets to the revenge plot portion of the story, which is just not interesting or enjoyable to read about at all. it’s just him tracking down and killing a group of generic interchangeable bad guys who lack any redeeming qualities or even the entertaining aspects of a mason verger. where this book really fails is as the start of darkness for its main character that it’s billed as. it just doesn’t feel like a villain origin story when every person the villain kills is an irredeemable monster; when exactly does this righteous vengeance-fueled kid become The hannibal lecter, who casually murders anyone who bothers or bores him? lady murasaki’s “what is left in you to love?” line falls flat when he hasn’t even killed any innocent people yet. i’m not even going to touch on the weird pseudo-romance plot between him and his aunt. honestly the book could stand to be a little weirder. it’s like. i hate to say this but it’s like one of those live-action disney movies that purport to tell the story of one of their classic villains but are really just about au versions of those villains who are actually good. 

well whatever. at least it’s still well-written on the level of its prose, even if it was under duress, and even though most people believe this book shouldn’t exist because hannibal is one of those characters who shouldn’t have any backstory (it does ruin the impact of the “nothing happened to me, i happened” line when there’s a whole book reducing him to a series of influences), it does give us at least something to go on when writing about his past for fanfic purposes. would be interested to see how the show would have handled this. i give it 2.5 out of 5 horses pulling chains to squish a man against a tree (extra half point for legit memorable imagery that inspired one of the show's best dream sequences) 🐎🐎.5

stay tuned for when i review the movie adaptations in similar fashion. 

[charles-leclerc-official]

i feel like we are yet to see the true potential of the sf-24. especially with charles. the 3 races haven’t really been very representative of what charles can do in that car, at his absolute best. don’t get me wrong, he has put in the most incredible performances with all the issues and situations, but i think there is definitely more to come. the two fastest laps at the end of the races on old hard tyres are very very interesting imo.

in terms of carlos i think this is as good he will drive that car tbh. but charles is absolutely going to unlock more pace, i know it. that’s why suzuka will be the most exciting race yet because max is usually indomitable there and we will finally get a good comparison. last year also, charles was only a tenth off the mclarens in qualifying but suffered tyre degradation in the race, so with the hopefully better tyres in race now, i am expecting his only competition to be max in terms of pace. (as always)

So far his only real competition in terms of pace is Max.

Also I very much agree, we really have not seen what this SF-24 base is capable of yet. This season has been a better start compared to last year (low bar) but you are right I don't think we've seen Charles' best yet.

I want to agree about Carlos, but with a caveat. I do think that this will be his best result this year, but we may see better driving from him, he was still in recovery from surgery and this was a pretty easy race overall so I'm not sure we've seen his best in the car yet either, even if we've very likely seen his best result. I definitely want to be sure to take that into account.

The SF-24 is by far the strongest in tyre deg this year, even on Red Bull, like you can see the difference in the condition of the tyres at the end of a race. I'm actually so impressed with the massive jump in improvement Ferrari has made in that area. If I was any other top team I would be worried and trying to figure out what they did. It's so promising,

And yes, Charles has given us great performances at each race: somehow managing not to retire on those brakes in Bahrain and still coming in P4, getting fastest lap in Jeddah, P2 and fastest lap in Melbourne. (And he was so close to getting the fastest lap in Bahrain too which is insane given the circumstances)

Overall yes, I think there is still a lot of potential still to be unlocked in the SF-24 especially as far as Charles is concerned.

[greetings-inferiors]

You mentioned KH asks?

What’s your hot take on something KH related?

My hottest kingdom hearts take is probably that kh3 is better than kh2 in nearly every way. Both of them are incredible games and in my top 3 (with the original too), but to me I think kh3 is much better.

To me the only things that kh2 even has a chance at beating kh3 at are the combat (which is fucking excellent) and the story (but it has some caveats I’ll get to)

First, the combat: it’s flawless, I won’t even lie. My only complaints are that in critical the early game is wayyyy more difficult than the rest of the game. Yes I know that I’m complaining about the hardest difficulty being too difficult, but what I mean is that before you get enough options and get going Sora’s kind of a sitting duck to every enemy except literal shadows. Every single thing one shots or two shots him, and enemies are difficult because you don’t have to proper abilities to crowd control or do single target damage yet. But once you get going then the combat is excellent. The other problem is that it doesn’t explain summons, and to a lesser extent limits, very well. I think almost every casual player has this same problem, being they hardly use limits and summons and mainly only use drive forms, which are much more intuitive. Once you know how to use them they’re insane, but still.

Kh3, however, ALSO has excellent combat. It basically does all that kh2 does well, with drive forms being replaced by formchanges (which while maybe not as fun are definitely more balanced, they’re still really fun though), summons being replaced by links (which I personally prefer, apart from like Ralph they seem more intuitive), and the long combos are back. The only problem I have is that kh3 doesn’t have as many reaction commands. They’re still there, but they’re fewer and far between compared to kh2 where most enemies and practically every single boss had a reaction command, with most of them being unique.

So if kh3 does better the one thing that kh2 unquestionably does perfectly (which is my opinion, apparently Sora feels too “floaty” in kh3 and honestly I don’t even know what that means he feels great to control to me, my favourite combos in kh2 were the ones were sora takes an enemy to the skies, I enjoyed grinding mushroom no.8), how does the other boon of kh2, the story, fare?

Well let me just say that the beginning, middle, and end are ALL incredible. The Roxas prologue might be the best opening to any game ever, the battle of a thousand heartless will never stop being awesome, and the ending is just *chef’s kiss*. But a story has more to it, you can’t have a banger opening then go missing for ten to twenty hours then come back then go missing again for another ten hours. You have to be there throughout. I’m obviously referring to the Disney worlds. They’re honestly chain of memories in terms of story, they’re just lucky that they have incredible combat to back it up. Kh2 started the trend of “just do the movie with sora Donald and goofy in the background” and it’s particularly heinous. Either the original or revisit is just the movie’s plot, and the one I enjoyed more is ALWAYS the one which tells a new story. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but 99% of the time a unique scenario is better.

To use kh3 as an example, we have two worlds whose stories are just “movie but with sdg”, and that’s arendelle and kingdom of corona. In arendelle yeah it’s awful but in kingdom of corona the tangled story is actually really fun I think it’s the 1% that get it right imo. And the toy box and monstropolis scenarios are so cool that it’s actually possible to say that they are canon TO THE MOVIES because they work so well. Also, ALL worlds tie into the game’s plot and they ALL tell you how they relate to the themes of the game. And if you think that Arendelle is just frozen but with sdg if you agree with game theory (which I do) there’s evidence that the story was going to be an original one, about Elsa being tempted by the organisation into being a villain, but sdg convince her not to and that her powers don’t make her evil. But Frozen 2 was coming out soon and disney probably just made them do the first movie almost as a promotion. Anyway, kh3 also puts a little bit of story inbetween each Disney world, so even if you didn’t enjoy the Disney world’s story, you get some story as a reward every time you finish one! A lot of people have problems with the story but personally I don’t see it, I think a lot of that either stems from not being familiar with every game so they have no idea what’s happening, or just not being keen on the cheesy dialogue (newsflash it’s always been this cheesy). Personally I love Kh3’s story and feel it’s a great wrap up on the dark seeker saga, and a great Segway into the lost masters arc.

Now, the biggest thing that kh2 does poorly is world design. It’s been said a million times but kh2 is essentially a bunch of flat corridors between fights. Which is all well and good since the game’s combat is so damn good, but compared to kh1 and kh3 it’s honestly quite sad. Kh1 does it the best, it almost feels like a 3D metroidvania, and you can interact with everything, and kh3 is similarly packed with interactions, but on a massive scale. Kh2 is small scale and you can hardly do anything. Chests are just placed around with little thought to hide them in interesting or hard to reach places, and the only reason to EVER use your movement options outside of combat and getting places faster is to collect puzzle pieces, which umm suck sorry not sorry.

Anyway now time for small things - the gummi ship in kh3 is the only time I don’t want to die while playing the gummi ship, the magic feels SO GOOD in kh3 whereas unless you’re in a drive form it just feels clunky and stiff in kh2, the chemistry between Sora Donald and Goofy feels so much better in kh3 than in kh2, switching between three keyblades is the best thing ever honestly it’s so cool and works really well with formchanges, the three arrows building up to give you formchanges or magical finishers or whatever is way better than the drive gauge, shotlocks are really cool and really fun to use (my only problem is that focus is really hard to build up), flowmotion is so fun to traverse with and can be used to extend combos, the game is just more charming, aaand that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

Honestly I literally just finished kh2 and haven’t played kh3 in a year or two, but still. I really really like kh2 but I just think that kh3 does everything it does badly well and everything it does well at least good or sometimes even better. My personal ranking of the games is 312, but idk it’s so close between all of them. I probably had more fun with kh2, but 1 and 3 was more fun at all times, y’know?

[theriverbeyond]

WOT ep 2 thoughts

interesting how the Aes Sedai were set up in episode 1 as Super Powerful (1 could turn the tide of battle, defending the village etc) but in ep 2 we learn it isn't so, not only are they hunted by the. Children of the Light??? group. and there are also whole towns/areas that are considered too dangerous for them to go to. I'm wondering abt like, myth vs what they are actually capable of

enjoying continued use of blues and purples in night or otherwise shadowed/dark scenes. the prolonged night scene in the abandoned city was really well done IMO esp when compared to other media i will not name. I love to See

VERY CURIOUS ABT THE DARKNESS. very fun to have that show up almost like an swarm or other sort of. physical threat with dubious sentience vs just like the nebulous concept of "The Dark side"/Dragon which before this I assumed was more about people being evil than a physical darkness. very fun.

also i am enjoying the setup of Children of the Light, the White Tower of the Aes Sedai, the Darkness, the Trollocs+weird mouth guy, etc. many factions multiple sides and all sort of arranged around this dichotomy of dark vs light (with the caveat that dark vs light doesnt = good vs evil, obviously the children of light definitely scream "WE ARE EVIL" atm). very interesting I' excited to watch more

[mercurydraak]

that alphabetcompletionist balatro post has made me unreasonably mad and I'm gonna make a separate post because I don't really want to spam angry reblogs on the post.

anyway 0.5x for every unique letter in other jokers.

there is a common joker called delayed gratification. this and the custom joker would give you a 7.5x multiplier assuming you start at 1x like every other scaling joker. Yorick is a legendary that gives 5x after you discard 23 times. with a rare and a common you've outscaled a legendary.

the combo I can think of off the top of my head that comes close is vampire + Midas mask + pareidolia, which gives vampire +1x multiplier every hand at the cost of 2 dead jokers and a very lucky setup.

with just the rare custom, you would turn ANY run into a winning one. Comparatively, every other joker has some sort of cost or downside. Some only give multipliers or points on certain hands. Others give unconditionally, but are often so weak that it's far better to only take them in early antes. There are 3 jokers I can think of that I would take on almost any run and those are blueprint, throwback and brainstorm. 2 of those copy another joker's ability, and throwback gives multiplier that scales well at next to no condition (since I skip frequently). the custom card is objectively better than throwback, since it has even less of a condition and scales far better, and blueprint and brainstorm copy your strongest ability (effectively, although it's a little more awkward to copy stronger jokers with brainstorm), so they are about as strong as your strongest joker, putting them as about equal to the custom joker imo.

even legendaries are worse overall because they are far more conditional for their strong effects.

- Canio needs you to destroy face cards, for which you would need to farm tarots or spectrals, neither of which guarantee a face card being destroyed.

- Triboulet needs kings and queens to score. you start with 8 in most decks (NOT face cards in general, which would make this far easier)

- Yorick needs 23 discards, which can be 4-8 rounds of full discard use depending on how many discards you have.

- Chicot disables boss abilities, making its power dependent entirely on how much the boss ability would screw you over

- Perkeo relies on you having a consumable that you want to copy indefinitely, like the planet card for your most used hand or something like the hanged man to think your deck. This also has the caveat that consumables you hold are exclusively generated randomly with no choices, unlike in packs (to my knowledge).

All of this is to say, the custom joker is far more powerful and far less conditional than any other joker in the game. as such, the way I would personally balance it is to make it a 0.1x multiplier instead of 0.5x per unique letter. this would make it pretty unconditionally strong, but not game-breakingly so. Designing a selection of jokers to capitalise on it would make it more effective, and at 20 unique letters a 3x multiplier seems a pretty powerful reward. This is still stronger than other rare cards, I believe, but to a degree that is far more in line with existing ones - for example, baseball card with 3 uncommons is a 3.375x multiplier. hit the road with 4 jacks discarded is a 3x multiplier. Duke with 3 kings in hand is a 3.375x multiplier. all of these are comparable, with a relatively similar level of commitment in order to achieve consistent rewards from them.

[glassprism]

Since twitter is a mess these days due to owns it now do you have any good recommendations? Any good social platforms for theater people?

Bold of you to assume I'm on enough social media to even have recommendations.

That being said, I can give you a run-down of... some of the stuff I'm on, whether it counts as social media or not. I'll try to go in semi-chronological order. Big caveat that this is based mostly on my own experience; so much of social media is what you make of it and the niche you create for yourself, so it can be hard to determine what is the "general vibe" and what is just "my opinion". Having said all that, here we go.

Forums - Definitely not the oldest place for phans to congregate online, but it's the oldest I've been on, so I'll just start here. I honestly only know one, Deserted Phans, and it's pretty quiet. (No wait, I know another, but it's the phandom equivalent of the shadow lands and we will not speak of what goes on there.) When active, it tends to be the place for many older (or old-school) fans, people who were there when the ALW musical first opened, viewed many of the original casts, saw the changes wrought by the 2004 movie and LND first-hand, probably got into actual fistfights with ALW and CamMack. Cool people, but they've seen A Lot and are a bit tired. Nowadays, it's probably not worth it to make an account since they're so quiet, but the nature of forums is they're great archives of info, so that's a good reason to check them out.

Facebook - You can follow the official Facebook page for Phantom on here, but the closed, private groups are where most of the discussion is at. That being said, remember, it's Facebook; the people on there tend to be older, less Internet-savvy, and less connected to other parts of the phandom, so be prepared to see constant rehashes of the same old arguments, over and over again (if I see "Team Erik or Team Raoul?" or "How do you guys feel about the 2004 movie / LND?" one more time...). Occasionally yields some spectacularly funny conversations that you can pass around to your friends.

YouTube - It's YouTube, so most everything is video content and the comments are not worth reading. You'll get people of all ages and experiences here, and their commentary will reflect that. Expect a lot of "Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess are the best!" or "Why do people hate Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum so much? I love them!" type comments. Good if you want to get a bead on casual phandom. I use it mainly for bootlegs and promo footage of shows.

Reddit - There's a dedicated subreddit for Phantom, but it's pretty quiet. I don't go on there too often, but it feels like a slightly better version of the Facebook phandom - a lot of the same questions popping up over and over, but there are some oldies on there ready to give intelligent, nuanced responses if needed. If you ask the right question, good for discussion and responses as it's more text-based.

Twitter - I know you're trying to flee Twitter right now because it's a hell hole, but before you go, I really do need you to make a verified fake account of Cameron Mackintosh and announce that the original stagings of Phantom and Les Mis will be returning. In less than a year. To every country worldwide.

Tumblr - Age-wise, skews a little younger than some of the other places, more older teenager to young adult (thinking 18 to 30s, though there are many, many exceptions). Image- and text-based, so good for gifsets, art, or meta and fic. Very much what you make of it, and who you follow will probably determine what kind of fandom experience and discussion you get, but I've seen people willing to talk about fic, about shipping about meta, about the various adaptations, pretty much whatever you want. Can definitely be some discourse, though I think the phandom is comparatively quiet.

Instagram - In terms of age, I think Instaphandom tends to be a little younger than Tumblr (more teenagers IMO). Very, very picture- and video-based, but also very popular, and lot of actors and people involved in the show and various versions are on there. Didn't have that good of a reputation a few years ago, mainly because people on there kept reposting stuff, but it seems better now. Good place to get very... in-the-moment news and postings, I think. Has some drama and such, again because of how young the population is and the presence of celebrities, but can also be a great source for information that you won't get elsewhere (e.g. news updates, casting info).

Discord - Think of this as like a big group chat. If you're into that, you might have fun on Discord. What you get is very dependent on what kind of server you join, servers being the places where people congregate and talk. Some are public and so you'll have very active conversations with a wide variety of people, some are private and quiet and more like an online friend group. The group chat nature of it can make it overwhelming, but if you're okay with that, it's where a lot of phandom discussion is happening.

TikTok - I dunno, I'm not on here, but it looks like a wild place. Seems to have a lot of young people. The weirdest discourse appears to be coming from here. If you go, tell me what it's like.

[bigskydreaming]

#when i read about tim i often kind of come to the idea that he's relatively self centered#and that can be both a flaw and a strength#but he doesn't often consider other people's feelings and circumstances#like when dick made damian robin he didn't really consider the situation from anyone else's view#or in his origin story#he doesn't seem to consider how dick would feel about hearing how tim was affected by dick's parents' death#or with the spyral situation#or in regards to him earning robin#and its pretty consistent in fandom characterization even if a lot of writers don't seem to be aware of it#its interesting cause i think its something i think he has in common with bruce#its honestly a surprisingly consistent thing from what i see#and it can be a strength to#it can absolutely lead to some confidence and self actualization#as well as being able commit to fixing something and working hard at it#because you believe you can and don't think anyone else can/will do it via @emenerd

Y’know, what’s interesting to me about these points is the fact that like.....Tim having tendencies towards self-centeredness is actually something that COMPLETELY makes sense and can be quite sympathetic in light of his backstory of having neglectful parents.

In an age of armchair diagnosticians eager to label anyone who expresses a controversial viewpoint while centering themselves as an example, as like, having a narcissistic personality disorder (and with the loaded implication that this makes them a bad person even if its true, instead of just....having a disorder, yay weaponizable ableism) like, it can be important to add in distinctions that even tendencies that share overlap with a lot of things born of entitlement, etc....aren’t always necessarily proof of that.

For instance, in Tim’s case, an overemphasis on himself and his own position in situations and arguments can very reasonably be attributed as a coping mechanism he developed in an attempt to acknowledge and address self-esteem issues he sees himself as having, DUE to parental neglect.

Its not that he thinks he’s the most important person in the room, necessarily, its that he spent so many years not even being considered a person in the room, that now he OVERCOMPENSATES on his own behalf, in an attempt to remind himself that no, his opinion and feelings and situations do matter.....and because he like most of the Bat-characters has a tendency towards hyper-fixating on a problem they’re trying to address, this can also understandably create a kind of tunnel vision. Where he’s so busy focusing on what he’s diagnosed as an actual issue he has that he’s trying to address or make up for, in order to build up his self-esteem....that he neglects to keep everyone around him equally centered in his interactions with them, and remember that like, they have their own issues and ignoring that to focus entirely on his own runs the risk of negatively impacting them in the exact same way he’s still learning to cope with having been negatively impacted in his development as a child.

None of this makes him a bad person, or is stuff that can’t be addressed and developed just by paying the appropriate attention to it and his interactions.

SO the issue I tend to more often have....

Is with how often in fandom and fanon we hear references to Tim’s neglect and emotional abuse and how this impacted him.....much in the same way we see Jason and Cass and Damian and Dick’s various forms of abuse and the developmental impact it had on them....

BUT there tends to then be a disconnect, IMO, because that acknowledgment of the WHAT of Tim’s neglect and abuse and the HOW it hurt him.....isn’t often followed up by an examination/awareness of how it also SHAPED him.....at least, not compared to how discussions/fics about say, Jason’s abuse tend to point out the latter as much as the former.

And this is a big part of my gripe with the ways abuse is centered and tackled as a topic in fics and fandom discussions, because its so often capitalized upon as a defense or shield for a character from criticism, stuff like that.....without ever actually EXPLORING the topic itself, or the FULLNESS of the impact it can have.

But only in regards to some characters.

What I mean is like....we see a lot of focus on Jason’s childhood abuse, yeah? And this often is then connected through headcanons, meta and fics to various aspects of Jason’s characterization as a teenager, and as an adult as well.....with a tendency towards anger or violence, abrasive personality, etc. Don’t get me wrong, its usually presented as such in a SYMPATHETIC light, especially when raised by fans of Jason themselves.....but his abuse is very much present and centered in fics and discussions as something that not only impacted him and made him suffer, but something that actually shaped him to varying degrees as well....with a lot of focus then in fics of him as an adult, like, paid to him going to therapy and unpacking his childhood abuse in an effort to WORK on these aspects of himself that make his present day life harder or less healthy than he’d like it to be. The issue of how his abuse lent itself to various behaviorisms is raised in order to address various byproducts of his abuse as FLAWS that he seeks to eliminate, in order to make himself happier and make himself someone that people want to be around more.

And again, don’t get me wrong - for the most part, this is a GOOD thing. The caveat here is just a personal dislike I have for how often these narratives smack of a kind of saviorism, and act like it was only through the grace of Bruce and becoming part of the Batfam that Jason’s ever afforded the opportunity to better himself as a person. I dislike the hell out of this because it not only pairs all too well with a lot of classist shit, it feeds into the singular narrative we’re so often presented with by media about abused kids: the myth of the victim being destined to become a victimizer, it all being an inevitable cycle. The reason this myth is so easily perpetuated is the exact reason I’m so critical of the saviorism in a lot of abused-Jason fics.....people can very easily fall into the trap of assuming that abused kids are likely to grow up to be abusers because they never have anyone to TEACH them that abuse is wrong, or to lead by healthy example. 

The harm of this perception is that it kinda throws under the bus every kid who never lucks out and gets a Bruce Wayne style savior swooping in to not only save them from their abusive environs, but TEACH them that they deserved better and that abuse is wrong. 

Because its like, uh, the thing is, plenty of abused kids who never get a personal mentor or savior figure are fully capable of figuring out for themselves that they deserve better and that people hurting them is wrong, because it makes them feel bad and they don’t like that? 

Many abused kids don’t grow up in a media vacuum where they simply have no access to glimpses of lives different from their own.....we see kids having happier, healthier family lives on TV or in books and are able to figure out that society overall thinks that’s what family is SUPPOSED to look like, and its ours that is the aberration? 

The very fact that we’re taught or have it instilled in us by abusive parents that like, we’re not to bring up instances or examples of our abuse to teachers or friends, that its a SECRET, is like, usually a dead giveaway that there’s something WRONG with it that we’re being instructed - and enforced with abusive consequences - to keep from alerting others to....like, this is basically a blaring siren to a lot of us that no, what’s happening to us ISN’T normal and acceptable, and that’s literally WHY the parent we’re afraid of is so insistent on us keeping the facts of it hidden? 

And so like, tons of abused kids figure out for ourselves the difference between right or wrong, based off nothing more than our own feelings about things and a desire to not be like the people who make us feel miserable - like, never underestimate the power of spite to like, keep a kid from growing up doing the same thing to others that was done to them, lol. 

But point being, lots of kids never get a Bruce Wayne figure to take them away from their abuse and also teach them that they never deserved it and how not to pass the hurt forward by doing the same things to others. And its kinda condescending as fuck that we so often see narratives that take it as so obvious it barely merits commenting on, that like, ‘of COURSE abused kids grow up to become abusers if they don’t have someone else step in and show them a better way’....mmm, no. Fuck that. But you get what I mean.

So like, its a mixed bag. Its a good thing, to see Jason-centric stories that show him addressing his childhood and seeking just a more fuller, happier, healthier life for himself. Its a less great thing to see this narrative presented as all encompassing, with it never being raised that no, Jason actually could figure out he deserved better and how to treat people in ways he’d want to be treated even without a billionaire guardian angel.....NOT because the narrative wherein someone helps an abused kid figure out what was wrong about how they were treated is like, NEVER valid....but rather it just becomes a problem when looked at as a data point against the larger tapestry of fandom-wide works....and noticing that this specific narrative is pretty much the ONLY one raised or treated as valid. With it just being ASSUMED to be the natural course of events and characters, rather than just....the direction society overall has their perceptions of abuse steered towards due to a singular and constantly reinforced abuse narrative shown to us in media.

And the way this all plays back into my point about Tim and what took me down this road in general.....

Is that disconnect I was talking about, lies specifically in HOW Tim is often acknowledged and regarded as an abuse survivor due to his emotional abuse and neglect......with this abuse and its impact on HIM often taking center stage, much the way Jason’s abuse and its impact takes center stage in his narratives.....

BUT with a key difference being that while a lot of Jason’s narratives go on to denote the specific ways his abuse helped SHAPE him and his interactions with others, and raise and address the ways in which he can better himself and his relationships by unpacking all of this openly....

Most of the stories about Tim’s abuse/neglect tend to just STOP at the awareness of its existence and impact on him. Never taking it that one step further to examine how those specific forms of abuse could have additionally SHAPED him....in ways that sometimes negatively impact those around him and his own loved ones, even if this is completely unintentional on his part. The difference, the disconnect, lies solely in how rarely its ever acknowledged that Tim’s own upbringing can and does play directly into how he interacts with people later on in life.....and in ways that he’s fully capable of addressing and bettering himself so as to be happier and healthier just in his own life, and in his relationships, as someone others want to be around.

Aaaaand once you actually examine or consider WHY there’s this discrepancy between the full ramifications of Tim’s abuse and that which various siblings of his underwent, when there’s full agreement that what he did go through absolutely can be termed abusive as well....like, its the implications of what about Tim makes him more naturally resistant or whatever to being shaped by his abuse in ways that have actual negative impact on others in his life, whereas the same isn’t true of say, Jason.....that’s when the red flags start to go up for me, and the unintended subtext starts to get Less Than Stellar, IMO.

Anyway. Just food for thought on the subject of Tim, his upbringing, the various impacts this had on not JUST him but also on how he interacts with others, and ways in which all of this compares and contrasts with how the subject of abuse is raised and depicted in regards to other Batkids.

[corvuscorona]

@rivulelle THIS DELIGHTED ME I'm delighted. thank u. for the benefit of anyone curious: it's a really straightforward description of the scene after the Marilith fight. the only Notable thing imo is that it explicitly states that the Neon phantom intends the Dark Crystal handover as a "take this so you can become Chaos" thing. like, she is handing it to Jack with Chaosful intent.

caveat that they changed stuff before release, compared to this script, & anyway this is the kind of thing you'd have to infer or Read Into the cutscene to get, since it's 100% Internal To (Past/Phantom) Neon, but it is also consistent w/ that scene having a non-literal Dark Crystal in it (ie, they probably shoulda put some kind of visual "NOT REAL" marker on it. y'know, greebled it, or had it conspicuously disappear, or something).

as is my way, I wanna list what I think the narrative priorities are here, for the "Dark Crystal" Handover Construct, as a device. imo there are maybe 2, or maybe 3:

priority 1: literal memory of literal Past Neon being like 'fucking gdi I need to make sure this crystal gets where it's going before I can Die And Become A Fiend' (responsible.)

priority 2: vibes-based mechanism by which memories Really Want To Perpetuate Themselves, manifesting in the shape of a Dark Crystal because that's where memories go

priority "implied-to-secret / not actually in the text of the game": Neon phantom is literally just going "you gotta remember stuff for the plan so take this"

maybe this is just my "fuck it" inertia taking the opportunity to commit some confirmation bias, instead of accepting that something more complicated Could be happening, but the fact that there's no mention of "(btw, this Dark Crystal can exist at the same time as Real Neon's Dark Crystal because ___)" or whatever is kinda reassuring. Also I really enjoy how most of the action is described in Sentences but whatever Jack's doing is just like. *takes it*. *nods*. he's consistent.

(P.S. ~2 weeks is not even Late let alone 100 years late. I will keep reiterating this. if we all work together, we can live in a world where we can Post when we are good n ready & everyone will just be like "yeah")

busy lately. but my notes app remains full of things. "next: fuck jack up more" is an Editing Phase I'm gonna Arrive at a lot of times in the next however long, probably

[ouyangzizhensdad]

(1/2) isn't it hypocritical of you to pick on cql fans for their purposeful misreading of canon (which some do, i'm not denying that at all) and then turn around and do that to someone who hasn't said anything critical of mdzs? that person was just listing the merits of each adaptation and you just tore into them as if them saying that cql has any merits at all is an insult to mdzs.

2/2 for example, you pick on the three bows thing, but that is novel canon too and cql shows multiple instances of people bowing in respect only twice, so it's not insanely far-fetched that the three bows are read as an acknowledgement of their marital status. anyway, you're perfectly free to see it as bows of respect, but there's little need to ridicule someone who says they see it differently and that they like cql because of it.

3/2 and i'm sorry if i'm taking too much of your time, i guess i'm a little upset because i've always seen you as a voice of reason in the fandom. to see you make multiple posts tearing down what is an uncontroversial statement (that canon and all adaptations have their own merits, and people shouldn't be judged for preferring one over the other) is a bit hurtful. you say you don't hate cql, but you certainly seem eager to shit on anyone who has anything nice to say about it? 

Hi anon,

I’m not sure I’d consider it hypocritical. I don’t think I’ve ever operated with the caveat that I should only be critical of the arguments of people who have been critical of the book in turn--I guess the baseline is that I am critical of all things I come across. I am not likewise sure I’ve “torn down” into that person or “ridiculed” them. I’ve quoted one part “all adaptations are equally good” and said (yes, as per usual, in a bitter and pretentious tone): “at least take the subjective route of equally enjoyable”. I don’t see how that’s being extremely mean about cql: my view was more that it irks me, for a lack of a better word, that people truly just push aside all the very real issues at a technical level (aside from anything that has to do with the writing or creative choices) that prevents cql, imo, to be considered comparable to other adaptations like the audio drama or the donghua even if it is not my particular cup of tea--but that this does not mean I said that c/ql cannot be enjoyable. I guess I have my issues with people generally being unable to distinguish with a well-made piece of fiction versus one they enjoyed. And that I am still a little bit flabbergasted that it remains a controversial statement to explain that c/ql, despite trying very hard, has many issues that directly impact it’s ability to stand as a well-made tv series.

Then, I think a few days later, I showed the arguments being leveraged by that same person to argue c/ql was just as good or what it ‘brought’ to the table that the other adaptations didn’t (partly because they were representative of many others I had encounter) and ‘responded’ to them one by one underlining how I was left unconvinced by them. I mentioned how one argument in favour (it includes more emotional scenes of wwx crying and being angry) could be read as a failure of the adaptation to stay true to the characterisation of the main character, who is textually said to rarely cry or get angry. I questioned whether it was such a “win” for c/ql to include more scenes of wq and jyl considering how we can infer why this change too place, and how it focuses on a quantitative reading--it’s less a ‘the book handled female characters sooooo much better’ argument than a a ‘we’re really going to give kudos to a tv series because we saw the female characters more often, regardless of how this impacts their characterisation, agency and impact on the story on a narrative and thematic level or why this change likely was made?’.

Then, the three bows thing. I won’t pretend to be an expert here, but my understanding which has come from discussion with Chinese or chinese-diasporic people, is that the third bow must be to one another (bow to the heaven and earth 一拜天地, to the parents 二拜高堂, then to each other 夫妻对拜). We can consider the three bows a wink-wink from the production team because that was the best they could do in the circumstances, maybe. But can we say that these can really be read as an “acknowledgement of their marital status”? It’s different from the novel because wwx talks about reserving that third bow to one another for later. This relates as well to the way fandom have sort of exaggerated aspects of CQL due to misunderstanding certain cultural or linguistic aspects of it, as we have with people being convinced zhiji must always be a grand romantic declaration. Is it a crime to choose to interpret/headcanon these things that way? Of course not. But does it make for good arguments to argue c/ql brought something special to the table that the other works didn’t? I don’t think so.

Overall, I won’t pretend I don’t have a very bitter and pretentious way of phrasing things but I do wonder if that’s where I consider it gets into ‘ridiculing’ territory--I didn’t call them names or anything, I just responded to their points. But the truth is, as you might think that I am targeting that person, whoever they are, for ‘liking c/ql,’ that’s just how I am in general, about all things: I am critical of any arguments I hear and I have no filter. I’m actually trying to be courteous by keeping my responses to my blog, not reblogging from their posts, cutting off the person’s profile picture or name, etc. because in any case more often than not they simply represent to me an illustrative example. Hell, I even get to re-read how I worded things which makes them come out way better than in real life.

You can of course consider that I was out of line! Perhaps it is the pitfall of considering a person a certain thing. Even if you think of someone a “voice of reason” you might also consider that some of the stuff they do or say is a little bit unreasonable. We all draw lines differently. Just because you generally agree with someone does not mean some of the stuff they say or do won’t make you shake your head in disapproval. And if you dislike these posts of mine but still want to stay for the rest, you can blocklist “brine corner”. Unfortunately, although many have tried to change this, I am an incurable critic who is terminally and brutally honest.

[exclamaquest]

While I do heavily agree that Hiyoko is a subversion of the 500 year old lolli trope, I myself who is undoubtedly close to her age, cannot understand why people consider her an actual child? I respect your opinion of course since you’re perfectly valid in your interpretation of her character, but she overall is just canonically the same age as her classmates! If you want to exclude the anime as evidence I don’t blame you, but in game it’s shows Hiyoko having her growth spurt! Personally that’s a smidgen of evidence pointing towards the fact she’s a high schooler! Also, this isn’t me bursting a blood vessel over this conversation, I just wanted to see if I could argue my case with someone who seems level headed with their own!

so, it's not fully true that she's canonically the same age. there is in fact textual evidence to the contrary!

maki refers to her as a child in utdp (with the caveat "regardless of age", but it strikes a very personal chord with hiyoko, who in response decides to run away instead of waiting for mahiru), multiple people reference the fact that she looks and acts much younger that she really is consistently (including "are you sure she's a high schooler?", which is a line of questioning hajime doesn't bring up for anyone else) unlike when it's brought up only once or twice for the other younger-looking characters, and most damning of all, she slips up and, in a moment of emotion, refers to herself as a child.

this is only a few of the pieces of evidence--there's also her fanbase, and the fact that hajime at no point is attracted to her (like he is to the other girls). in fact, the ending of her island mode (where most people have romance) has her comparing hajime to her father.

there's also the fact that she can't get dressed on her own, which imo very much also points to her being a kid.

and actually, the growth spurt is evidence she's younger in and of itself! going by her entering HPA at 11 or 12, her growth spurt would come at roughly 13 or 14, which is the average time that most afab people have their growth spurts--much more likely than her being an extremely late bloomer and having it at 16-17.

there's a lot of ways she COULD have entered young, too! her family has a LOT of influence and money--it's VERY likely that the school was swayed by that, especially if she displayed an immense talent at a very young age.

and i'd like to remind you as well: nowhere in the hpa manifesto admission requirements does it say age. it simply says the person must currently be attending high school. hiyoko could very well be taking high school level classes!

i'm not trying to force you to see my pov, and ofc yours is valid, but i hope this can be a bit more information as to the evidence in canon that she's much younger than the others!