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rafeandonlyrafe · 7 months

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movie night

words: 1.1k

warnings: 18+ only, smut, semi public sex

despite both of you being adults, ward absolutely refuses to let you be alone together in rafe’s room. the few times you’ve even been inside of it, you’ve either been accompanied by ward or the door has been left wide open.

it’s not like you don’t have plenty of alone time at your place, with a combination of your parents not really caring and them not even being home most of the time, but tonight, you’re taking refuge at taneyhill, your parents being home for once and in a very foul mood, fighting and yelling at each other.

ward gave you permission to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms, on the promise that you and rafe would occupy separate rooms, and he’s been keeping an eagle eye out for any slip ups, checking on you every 15 minutes or so as you sit on the living room couch, watching a film.

“baby, it’s cold, can you get a blanket?” you ask rafe when the movie gets to a slow part.

“of course.” rafe says, kissing the side of your head as he hops up, grabbing a fluffy blanket and draping it over the two of you as he lays down, pulling you in close so that you’re spooning.

you snuggle back into him, enjoying the way the heat radiates off him as his strong arm wraps around your midsection.

“don’t fall asleep there.” ward warns, making you jump having not realized he had walked into the room.

“we won’t, dad.” rafe groans.

“we’ll sleep in our separate rooms, sir.” you say with an embarrassed smile.

“yes you will.” ward says as he walks away, always surprising you with how overprotective he’s being of rafe, considering he doesn’t seem very interested in his son outside of it. you suppose it’s because you’re the first girl rafe has ever been serious about, and he doesn’t want you two to go down the hookup and breakup path like his past girlfriends.

“sorry about him.” rafe says, kissing your neck and gently petting your tummy.

“it’s okay. it’s cute that he cares. even though i wish we could cuddle all night.” you pout, turning your head to press a kiss to rafes lips before turning back to the tv, scooching even further back into him.

“baby.” rafe places a hand on your hip.

“mmm?” you hum, both going silent as an action sequence plays out on the tv.

you wiggle again, unable to get comfortable.

“baby, stop moving.” rafe warns, and then you feel it, his hardness pressing against your bum.

“you’re hard?” you whisper, turning your head to look at him.

“i can’t help it!” rafe says, pressing his hips forward to get some relief. “you’re so cute in these fucking pajamas and then your ass is pressing against me.” rafe throws his head back in a groan as you push your hips back again.

you lean forward, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and turning it up a few clicks, before tossing it on the floor, a plan forming in your head. you make sure the blanket covers you from the neck down before grabbing rafe’s hand off your hip, sliding it under your shirt until it reaches your bare breast, having taken your bra off when you changed into pajamas.

“don’t tease, baby. you know we can’t.” rafe says, but gives your breasts a squeeze anyways before finding your nipple and toying with it.

“the blanket covers everything… no one will know.” you say, pushing your pants and underwear down to mid-thigh before rubbing your clit, wanting to get yourself ready for rafe so he can fuck you quickly. as much as you want this, you know the risk of being caught.

“fuck, i can’t resist you.” rafe says, giving your nipples one last pinch before pulling his cock out, dragging it over your slit.

“make it quick.” you whisper, opening your legs the best you can with your pajama bottoms still restricting your knees.

rafe pushes inside of you, forgoing his usual teasing. you resist the urge to moan and squeeze your eyes shut instead as he rocks into you, not able to make full thrusts without shaking the entire couch.

rafe pushes your hand away from your clit so he can massage it instead with two fingers. he pushes in and out of you the best he can as he buries his head in your neck, tiny grunts coming out as he tries to hold himself back.

you cover your own mouth in the most casual looking way that you can, like you’re just resting your hand there.

“i’m heading up to bed soon, is your movie almost over?” ward’s voice makes you jump, and also squeeze your pussy tight around rafe, making his gasp.

“yup. i think 15 more minutes.” you say, voice sounding strained, but ward doesn’t seem to pick up on it. rafe continues to play with your clit, making your chest hurt as you hold back your moans, even going as far as to give it a pinch.

“okay, don’t forget separate bedrooms.”

“yes, sir.” rafe grunts, watching as he walks away before grinding his hips into your backside.

“rafe!” you slap the hand that plays with his clit once you hear ward’s bedroom door close.

“what?” rafe grins, but he knows exactly what he did.

you roll your eyes and begin to push back against him, causing the couch to creak slightly, but you ignore it as you feel your orgasm approaching. you also ignore rafe’s pleasure completely as you grind against his hand, chasing your own high.

rafe moves his other hand to cover your mouth, knowing that you’re incapable of staying silent when you cum. you let out muffled moans into his palm as your orgasm hits you, your pussy pulsating around his cock, causing rafe to reach the edge, his cum spurting into you in sudden bursts.

rafe bites your shoulder as he cums, thrusting into you gently until he’s empty. he pulls out just as the credits begin to roll on the movie, tucking himself back into his pants. you pull your underwear back up, cursing yet another pair being ruined by rafes cum.

you turn over on the couch so you’re facing rafe, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him, missing the feeling of his soft lips against yours.

“let me carry you to bed.” rafe says, sitting up and taking you right with him, his hands finding purchase on your bum as he stands, carefully walking up the stairs as you alternate between kissing his mouth when he stops, and pressing your lips to and nipping his neck when he needs to see.

he takes you right to the spare bedroom door, knowing better than to cross the threshold.

“goodnight my love.” he says. “i’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

“gonna miss your lips.” you say, kissing him again. “and your arms around me.” you give his biceps a squeeze. “and your cock inside of me.”

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lynxgriffin · 3 months

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What are your predictions for Deltarune Chapters 3-4 ?

Hmmm, let's see...

I think Susie and Ralsei are going to work out very quickly that Kris was the one to create this fountain. Susie's going to brush it off like "Okay yeah I get why you would, it's okay we'll just have fun and seal the fountain when we're done anyway!" and Ralsei will try and act like it's not a problem, when he clearly is bothered by it, and this will start to build up some tension between Ralsei and Kris.

I am open to Toriel being another side party member, less convinced yet that we'll be seeing another adult like Undyne or Napstablook there as well. I do not think we'll be getting a Snowgrave repeat where Toriel is manipulated into killing Undyne or anything like that. If there's a weird route continuation here, it'll be handled very differently.

I don't think we'll be seeing more of the Dreemurr household in the dark world; it'll just be focused on what's on the TV. We've already got a few possibilities for areas: a cooking show, the weather report, and the monster movie, plus we do keep getting hints that the western show may show up in some capacity.

To that end...hopefully a Susiezilla sequence for the monster movie part!

Unsure of what Mike's role will be in here, but I'm anticipating Tenna as the main big bad for this Dark World.

I don't think anyone has guessed the secret boss for chapter three yet, and I don't think anyone will. Thusfar for secret bosses, there's been no hints of them from other places, and you have to go out of your way to find them. Their function as Darkners made from discarded/forgotten objects makes sense in hindsight, but isn't obvious from the get-go. All we know is that we'll need the shadow mantle for a future secret boss, and that that's missing now.

At the end of chapter three, Asriel is going to call on the landline phone and talk to Toriel briefly, but WE won't get to actually communicate with him and it's going to drive me bonkers.

We know less about chapter four, except for some very basic things...Susie and Kris have a few scenes talking out in the light world, and it's raining some of that time. It could either go the direction of an all-light world chapter, or another dark world they explore the next day.

Assuming it's the latter and there's another dark world (which makes more sense to me), I feel the best location options are the hospital, the church, and Asgore's flower shop. If there's a thread started in chapter three getting into more of the Dreemurr family history and Kris's place in it (which does seem to be the case), Asgore's shop seems the best bet to continue that thread next, so I'm going to predict Asgore's shop for chapter four.

Since that's a flower shop and all, a more Alice In Wonderland sort of theming seems likely, with more of a jungle/wild area that the Fun Gang has to explore compared to the city and sound stage areas of previous chapters.

I am expecting Catti (and potentially also Jockington) to be future Dark World partners, and either chapter four or chapter five seems a good option for that.

I think Catti is necessary as a partner 1) because of her occult history with Kris, 2) her focus on protecting Noelle, who I could see showing up in the Dark World again as early as chapter four or five, and 3) her clearly having beef with Susie.

If we're dealing with Kris's family history through chapters 3 and 4, I can see that then going into more of Susie's backstory and whatever is going on with her family. I get the feeling that Catti knows some secret about Susie that makes her dislike her more than just "she stole Jockington's hat once", and that will need to be resolved in conjunction with learning more on Susie's situation.

Every day in-game that big-headed blue bird monster is going to reveal another shelf in the second floor of the library, which will slowly give more worldbuilding lore, and it's going to be maddening just getting those little crumbs of info one at a time.

We'll be getting more Knight hints, but not a real reveal until chapter five.

#ask lynx stuff #whew that was more thoughts than I expected #deltarune theorizing

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synthient · 3 days

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Matrix parallels aren't the only or primary lens to read this movie through. But I gotta do the special interest shuffle (spoilers for I Saw The TV Glow throughout):

We get at least one overt matrix reference, which is the bit where Owen's movie theater is showing a sci fi movie where humans have been driven underground after machines took over the surface

There's the obvious thematic overlap of "is reality real," "are my memories real," "to what extent is my reality shaped by information/entertainment technology," "is there an Outside to escape to," "would I want to if I could," etc.

The pods and the coffin. "What if I was something powerful and beautiful, suffocating"

There's also some interesting overlap with matrix 4 specifically re "what's the line between transition and suicide," "to what extent is transition a kind of death," to what extent is not transitioning a kind of death." Along with the general stuff around nostalgia and mythologized source materials and hauntology (a term Schoenbrun has used in interviews & that I first heard in a matrix 4 podcast, lmao)

The pods and the heart/luna juice sequence both posit Being Made To Live Like This as a visceral bodily violation

Tv glow is maybe more cynical about the possibility of a true Outside/alternative to the system. Though Zion turns out to not be fully "outside." And Maddy's vision (of a slightly more magical suburbia that still can't escape the confines of "the county") is probably supposed to be less The Only Vision, and more filtered through the lens of someone young and very early transition. Generally though, tv glow is much more focused on interiorty and personal transformation (or lack thereof) than overt politics, although a critique of capitalist suburbia is certainly the background radiation

Also interesting, I think, that "how does kitsch and 'bad art' shape our identity formation" becomes a central question of the later Wachowski oeuvre. And something that's always been present in their work--and has maybe been one of the most polarizing things for viewers--is the combo of "we want to make serious art, And we want to make the kitsch we adored growing up. at the same time." The pink opaque conceit perhaps manages to draw enough of a boundry between The Art and The Kitsch to head off some of the confusion and frustration re "how much of the kitsch is intentional, and how much is an attempt at serious art that failed"

The Family (and the whole concept of having loved ones to leave behind) is basically nonexistent in the matrix trilogy, and Just Evil Robots Don't Worry About It in 4. Tv glow gets much more into this. Though both the saintly mother & and the monstrous father equally serve to keep you trapped, in the end

Anyway. Perhaps the matrix has shaped the entire concept of "trans cinema" to the extent that you kind of have to engage with it on some level. Perhaps it's simply that We Are All Having The Same Thematic/Philosophical Preoccupations. All very interesting regardless, to me

#i saw the tv glow #the matrix

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soov · 5 months

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LOVE iN TV WORLD 𝄢 O8. oh... yikes

⚠ : cursing, profanity, kissing, pet names, mentions of food — 848 words.

After being chosen to carry on the legacy of his members and company colleagues, Lee Heeseung finds himself having a wonderful time hosting Music Bank every Friday. What he did not expect was falling in love with his rookie MC partner.

꒰ 📺 ꒱

Monotonously jiggling some coins in your hands, you made your way to the vending machine in Starship Entertainment’s café.

Sheon had never asked for any kind of tea after a few years of living with your group.

There were countless times where she complained about the sight of mugs of tea being prepared at your dorms. That, and the smell of it, the way it was “just hot juice”, and the iced version “just infused water, but tasteless”.

You were overly suspicious of her asking you to buy a can of Lipton. If it was for a staff member or a member of Kazino, she would’ve told you. She never shuts up, anyways.

Inserting the coins into the machine, you pressed the number 17, waiting for the can to fall. Inevitably, you thought of Heeseung when he bought you a Pepsi. you were seriously going crazy without him, and the fact that he didn’t reply to any of your texts, drove you even more mad.

You wanted more of the jokes he most likely stole from his members, him calling you his flower, begging for you to stay longer at the SBS building with him, only because you couldn’t hang out anywhere else, and his hugs. God, you really missed his hugs. You missed Heeseung badly.

It was like you could hear his voice calling out your name — delusion was getting to you.

But why did it sound so real?

“Flower!” Heeseung shouted, snapping you out of your trance as he sprinted towards you. There wasn’t time to question how he was at Starship when his arms coiled around your lower back and twirled you around, one of his melodic chuckles coming out.

As he tightened his grip on your body, you let out a gasp, wrapping your own arms around his neck and burying your face there. He smelled like caramel and vanilla, a different scent from his usual flowery fragrance, though it didn’t stop from being comforting. You felt safe in his hold.

You smiled, landing a kiss on his ear, “I missed you.” Your words weren’t needed, because he knew you did. It felt like everything had already gone back to normal.

“I missed you way more,” the singer countered, carefully putting you down and kissing your forehead, a hand steadying your head by the nape.

“Liar.” You frowned in a joking manner, feigning anger, but he saw the twinkle in your irises, showing that you had already forgiven him. Heeseung adored your eyes, and even more, staring at them. “You didn’t reply to any of my messages, Seung.”

He was a sucker for when you called him by the nickname you made for him, and how your voice curled around it. He loved your voice just as much as your eyes. Sighing, he apologized, “I’m so sorry. I was so busy with the interviews, then I had to do two Weverse lives, and jet lag hit me like a truck, and I barely got slee–”

The words once leaving his mouth were stuffed back in when you pecked his cheek to calm him down, “Seung, it's okay. I’m just glad you’re not mad at me or anything like that.”

In sequence, Heeseung felt his face flush, heart beating erratically and trying to match his breath, “Okay…” he nodded, his lovesick gaze skimming across your features. “I could never be mad at you, baby.”

Your brain went all fuzzy with the pet name, nearly stopping working. Usually, he called you ‘baby’ on text, but now, he confidently let those words out, and it had an instant effect on you.

“You can’t be mad at me.” You repeated, not sure as to why you were mirroring his sentences.

He nodded, “Couldn’t ever be mad at you.” And without even registering it, he gently tilted your face towards his and sealed his lips to yours, briefly kissing you.

Freezing in place, your eyes widened. The purple-haired boy then pulled away, resting his forehead on yours, and you only realized it when he spoke up. “I really, really missed you.”

When you regained composure, it was your time to take the lead, and your palms quickly made their way to Heeseung’s rosy cheeks, kissing him. You could taste the chapstick that you once gifted him on his lips, one that he always used during plane trips.

It was hard to think of anything when you were trying to figure out how to kiss well, but an intrusive thought came up. You finally lived up to your private account user, and that snatched a giggle out of you.

Lee disconnected your mouths and smiled, eyebrows sewn together in confusion, “What’s so funny?”

His question only made you laugh harder, and your head and hands fell to his shoulders, “Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

So he didn’t, hugging you tight in front of the vending machine as you kept shaking with laughter in his arms.

Neither of you noticed how Sheon was bemusedly staring at you from afar with her phone in hands and your messages open.

“Oh. So the plan worked… Yikes.”

REWiND ⋆ EPiSODES ⋆ SKiP

MiC ON 𑑑 SHEON AND SUNOO SAVIORS OF THE WORLD!!!!!!

GENRE friends / coworkers to lovers, fluff, smau | PAiRiNG lee heeseung & f!reader

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monstersinthecosmos · 25 days

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Okay I don’t want this to be like an obnoxious millennial assumption because I’m positive that every generation has things like this, but the way autism and ADHD was treated for us in the 90’s and how it affects adult diagnoses is like, imo, so integral to our coming of age and the stories we tell and the way we’ve gotten to know ourselves, even the way it relates to our job market and economy and how we operate inside it, and especially the way a pandemic uncovered it for so many people and exposed the cracks and revealed that we were all just barely functioning and held together with popsicle sticks and anyway

I say that because maybe it’s the un-diagnosed 90’s child in me but I feel particularly emotional about Keith’s arc in learning that he’s part Galra, and the way even the creators said they made him sort of prickly because of his biology, and I just !! Think so much about Keith’s neurotype as a part Galra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cause something about being diagnosed later in life is like, looking back at all the other ways you tried to handle yourself, all the missteps, maybe even misdiagnoses. Like, how many times did you try to treat ANXIETY without realizing you didn’t have an anxiety disorder, you just can’t deal with your family blaring the TV from the next room? How many times were you told you were lazy, or lying, when you didn’t know what executive dysfunction is?

Keith is such a lovely rich character because his prickliness is EARNED—we know what happened to him, we know he’s traumatized, we know he’s been treated poorly by many people in his life. We know that he grew up thinking that he’d been abandoned by one of the people who should’ve loved him the most, in the whole world. He even questions that in his vlog—he makes the connection that he has trouble with people because of his mom.

But I just wonder like, how much of it is just his biology. Not understanding the body he’s in, being completely ignorant of one whole half of his culture. Had he ever mutated before the TBP fight? Did it take him by surprise, did it frighten him? ((* This is head canon territory LMAO there’s no way to really know—like, is he able to do this because he just spent so much time with Krolia, or does Shiro going That’s the Keith I remember mean they used to have really primal sex that turned his eyes yellow? Lol))

Like when we talk about even the most broad generic terms of saying someone is neurodivergent, we don't even need to put a real life label on Keith. Like he's literally not human! Of course his brain looks different! Of course he functions differently! And I wonder how much is nature v nurture -- if he knew the truth about his mom, if his dad had lived, if he'd been allowed a normal childhood, would he still have been a weird kid?

Cause like, even seeing the way Shiro is able to get through to him, we see ways that he allowed for thrill seeking, and he didn't judge Keith for stealing his car. It reminds me of like, what we know now about asking children to sit still in school, and how perhaps some children would do better with standing desks. Shiro wants him to behave and succeed, and doesn't judge him for being a car thief, and gets through to him by bringing him cliff diving. And it just feels like this clue, you know, that nothing is wrong with Keith, he's just living in a weird place where people don't get him.

It’s just really special to me, because there’s so many pieces in the sequence of events of Keith’s character arc, and I know I’ve said this a handful of times now, but I really sincerely believe it’s the only thing the show really nailed. Accepting himself during the BOM Trial -> MOMENTS later learning something very important about his biology -> spending time with Krolia -> coming back to pilot Black when he’s READY and WANTS to (unlike the first time, when he resisted) -> becoming a pragmatic strong leader by the end.

Gosh idk.

I don’t really have anywhere to go with this, it’s just something I was thinking about today and it gets me real emotional. Like, Keith must have had these moments, re-evaluating who he’d been before he’d known, finally understanding why he was Like That, and it’s so healing to imagine him accepting his past self and forgiving it because he understands now.

#hes just a lil baby #keith kogane #sheith #SPACE MAN META #i watched the lion king this morning and cried my eyes out and it got me so upset about keith LMFAO

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morsesnotes · 4 months

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Another neat little bit from Shaun's PBS interview for S6 and Apollo:

JACE LACOB: Looking at “Apollo” as both a director and an actor, do you have a favorite scene that stands out to you?

SHAUN EVANS: Yeah, I do, there’s a few things that I love, actually. Are you supposed to say that about your own work? Yeah, well whatever anyways, I do. I love this montage sequence in the middle. Because I’m an actor, as well—and I always try to do this, in all of the work that I do or have done up to this point, as much as you can—is to nick, or steal, little private moments with the character, so you get to see them when no one else is there, and you get an insight, a little chink, into how they’re feeling about something. I always try and achieve that, even if you’re in the middle of a scene, there’s many many ways of doing it. What I like about this is, I love the scene where Thursday comes in, his wife is listening to some music, so we get the sense that she perhaps is having a romantic involvement with someone else, he just looks up the stairs—he’s on his own in a room—he looks at the stairs, the music is playing in the background, and we read on his face that he is devastated about this.

Then, we have Mrs. Wingqvist meditating. Because this speaks to this idea of going to the moon—to me, in a way, kind of a pointless road trip to find meaning, and these people going to the Single Way Institute, or meditating, or being part of a swingers party, going within to find meaning. So we have this girl—I really liked this—where she’s meditating, she’s trying to find some degree of peace. But you can see on her face that there’s something troubling, and at the end she opens her eyes and then we cut to the brother and sister, who are all lost in their own thoughts as well. We’re nicking private moments with them. It’s so incredible, I think, to be afforded the luxury of that over 90 minutes. If you have to squeeze something into, like, a TV hour, you don’t have the time for that, whereas one of the things that I particularly love about this show, I feel very fortunate about, is that you have the time to let things breathe, to not say everything that needs to be said, but actually to visually tell a story, rather than hitting it over the head. So I love that section of it. There’s like two seconds that I think are hilarious, where Strange is talking to them, the brother and sister are sitting there, and she says, “I took Miss Susann to bed” and he goes, “Oh, I see. Where can we find Miss Susann?” and he misinterprets that it’s a book. She’s an author. I love that moment. There’s a few lighter, funnier moments I really like as well.

[Shaun slightly misremembered the Strange scene. Strange misinterprets Miss Susann as being a person the sister took to bed rather than an author she's reading. 😄]

Shaun Evans on Directing “Apollo”

#endeavour #itv endeavour #endeavour: apollo #fred thursday #shaun evans #jim strange #love the use of red/green :)#jace lacob #roger allam #apollo #pbs

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quincywillows · 3 months

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a scattered and overall supportive review of percy jackson season 1

let me just say first of all, it's extremely fun to be enthused about a tv show like this again. the adaptation isn't perfect, but it's a lot of fun, and you can tell there's plenty of heart and good intention behind what they're doing. i'm very much enjoying tuning in every couple of episodes and catching up -- and avoiding the relentless commentary of the internet while i do so lol.

but now it's time for MY commentary!! to preface, i was a huge fan of the books when i was younger, am a stalwart long-term advocate of the original five books as some of the best children's lit of our lifetime, but i also enjoyed the films a decade ago for what they were and think people (including cough rick cough) are way too harsh about them. justice for logan lerman. anyway

i'm not going to do like a play-by-play, but in summary, here are my takeaways from the first season -- what i thought worked, what did not, and things i'm optimistic about going into the future seasons.

the good

for an adaptation of the original series (which, to be fair, i have not reread in years), i felt this was honest and faithful. there were tweaks, obviously, but none that took me too out of it or felt irredeemable. there was a lot to like about this show, so i want to start right from the top with my highest highs.

the worldbuilding / production design. i absolutely loved getting to see how they imagined certain iconic characters, locations, and sequences from the books. it was so exciting to get to see camp halfblood for the first time on screen (at least, in this adaption) -- that moment in episode two definitely felt like a turning point where we picked up from the somewhat laggy pilot episode. i especially loved the design of mount olympus, aspects of the underworld (hades and his upside down castle were baller, though how did percy and grover get up there lol; and i absolutely loved the choice for asphodel and the ghosts being rooted like trees, i never would've thought of that myself but it was so chilling and unique... just wish i could see it better through the terrible lighting, but we'll come back to that), and of course, camp. even down to the small details, like the camp beads... it's just very cool to see it come to life.

the casting. i wasn't sure about some of the casting when the news was breaking, but i'm very happy to have been pleasantly surprised all around (and have majorly avoided people bitching about every single thing). there wasn't any role where i felt like someone was horribly miscast, and you could tell that everyone involved really wanted to be there and committed. i thought the casting of the gods was especially inspired at times. some of the highlights for me personally:

adam copeland as ares. i had no idea he was apparently a wrestler turned actor until my sister told me, but i thought he was absolutely spectacular. very charismatic, with just the right amount of cringefail that ares needed. i found him thoroughly enjoyable in all his scenes.

lance reddick as zeus. having just played horizon zero dawn recently, oh my lorde was this an inspired choice. he was absolutely brilliant. i'm so so sad about his passing, i don't know how they're going to recapture his performance, but i have faith now that they'll find a way.

timothy omundson as hephaestus. i love that they took a softer, more mad scientist approach to his role than like ugly basement blacksmith vibes... i just thought it was really refreshing. his scene with annabeth, where we got so much humanity from him in such a short span of time, was one of my favorite scenes of the season.

jason mantzoukas as dionysus. i mean. what else can be said. obvious choice, but he was so fun lol. i hope they give him more to do next season.

other standouts beyond the main youth cast for me were jay duplass as hades (his brief appearance in 107 was thoroughly enjoyable) and dior goodjohn as clarisse (she was by far the acting standout of the first couple episodes to me). also very happy to see jessica kennedy parker and sinclair from the 100 get work, lol.

walker as percy jackson. it was really wonderful watching walker grow as an actor even just through the first eight episodes. the difference from 101 to 108 is almost night and day. you can tell how much he cares about the project and percy as a character, and he upped his game with every episode. i cannot wait to see what he turns out in the coming seasons. to be fair, i thought all of the youth cast did a decent job, and i'm giving them a lot of leeway and room to grow since they are literally child actors -- it takes time to hone your craft, and im optimistic they're all going to do a great job as the series goes on. but walker was, definitively and thankfully as the protagonist, the standout.

charlie bushnell as luke. i was so excited when i heard he got cast because i loved him in diary of a future president, and he did not disappoint. i kind of wish he had more to do, but all of that was forgiven in the finale when he had his final confrontation with percy. oh, the acting popped off then -- i can't wait for him to get to chew up the scenery more in the coming seasons.

grover and percy's friendship. it was so sweet to see this come alive, and i thought walker and aryan had excellent natural chemistry together. they were so endearing, and i really believed their friendship basically from the start (them swapping their sandwich fillings is a tiny detail from the pilot that has stuck with me since; i just loved that choice so much). they definitely provided a lot of my favorite moments in the season, and i think evoked the most genuine "aw wow" moments from me.

percy's relationship with sally. since sally was, understandably, absent from the original novel, it was awesome to get the flashbacks here that allowed us to more deeply understand their bond. i thought walker and virginia did a great job with this, and the young actor who played little percy also did a surprisingly great job (he was actually one of the stronger youth actors in the pilot imo lol). you totally understood why percy was doing everything he was, because that mother-son bond felt believable. big shout-out to the absolutely baller line "i am sally jackson's son." one of the first writing moments where i was like oh snap!

the music. a good score really can't be understated, and this one did not disappoint. did just what it needed to do. i also loved the closing title sequence and the art direction there with the epic music -- just such a nice touch that i'm so glad they included.

some of the writing. i'll get more into some of my qualms with the writing below, but there were definitely some great moments that deserve their flowers. i thought they did a great job weaving in some early themes without being heavy-handed about it (percy having to define who he is for himself, mostly). there were some genuinely funny moments that made me laugh out loud, including "i am impertinent," annabeth's "i'm multitalented," and the entire exchange on the road side when the trio to ares are like no... we're fine... ahaha bye... oh and percy trying to drive the taxi out of the garage at the casino was absolutely hysterical.

pivotal scenes hitting their mark. when the show needed to deliver, i thought they really delivered. i absolutely loved the staging and acting in the final luke and percy confrontation -- the lighting of the fireworks was such a cinematic touch. percy's arrival at olympus and scene with zeus was also a big standout. i loved a lot of the st. louis arch episode, and thought the hephaestus golden chair sequence was really well done. overall, the episodes i thought were strongest were without a doubt 104, 105, and 108.

expansion where expansion was welcome. one of my favorite aspects of the series is how it's giving more nuance to the monsters and "villains" of the books. i loved that we got a little more motivation for alecto beyond evil -- that she clearly wanted to accomplish her own mission and retrieve the helm, whether out of loyalty or fear. i loved how medusa got much more depth and humanity, that we're sort of reexamining the fairness of how myths are told rather than just taking it all at face value. i'm really looking forward to seeing how that continues in the next seasons.

the decent

percy and annabeth. to be fair, i think my issue with this is more on the fan reaction than the show itself. i think the show is doing a decent, if somewhat awkwardly paced job, of building their friendship and offering small little hints of what could blossom in the future in classic youth awkward ways -- unexpected hugs, banter, etc. i think walker and leah are both doing a good job, and i look forward to seeing how it develops. but my god, people on the internet are really jumping the shark so hard here. i can't handle seeing more "uwu percy is in love" posts when it's like. y'all. THEY ARE 12. THEY JUST MET. LET THEM ORGANICALLY BECOME FRIENDS FIRST... i just hope the creators don't feed into that and also jump the shark. like yes, we all know where this is going, but can't we enjoy the actual journey to get there instead of forcing what isn't there yet? in any case, on the positive side, some of the moments between them i really enjoyed: the conversation on the train when grover was asleep, the hephaestus chair sequence, annabeth giving him her camp beads before going to olympus (that was a slay... that was a legendary slow burn start moment worth hyping up), the way percy smiled at her in their last scene... that's the good stuff. let's not rush through what we're getting folks. the water is fine.

lin manuel as hermes. here is the thing. i thought lin did a good job. i thought his casting was apt, and fun, and he did a great balance of hermes charisma and like, a darker edge. it's just... the thing about lin manuel is that he's lin manuel. and this is coming from someone who likes him, but it's like he shows up on screen and i'm just like. hey it's lin manuel. it's a bit of a "takes you out of the moment" stunt casting, but i'm not mad about it. i wouldn't call it a bad thing. hopefully it'll wear off (though i doubt it). i guess i'm just deciding that hermes is just lin manuel, which honestly, would kind of track.

the youth acting. mentioned this above, but again, some of that early delivery was rough. but i am giving a lot of grace, and i think they've already improved plenty in the first eight episodes. i felt the same way about shadowhunters back in the day when i thought kat mcnmara was hard to watch in season 1, but by season 3 she was my absolute favorite cast member and came so far. i have no doubt these kiddos will do the same. so very much looking forward to that.

the not so great

the pacing. this was definitely the weakest part of the story writing wise. it wasn't irredeemable, but it did hinder the first half of the show (which didn't lock in for me until about 104, when the stakes truly shot up at st. louis). and that also affected how dynamics and plot points were able to unravel. the biggest victim of this...

the luke reveal. from the start, i was worried about this. since luke was only really in episode 2, i had doubts about whether the reveal of his betrayal would be at all satisfying or earned. i don't know that i can speak on it for sure, since i knew what was going to happen as someone who read the books, but i still feel we should have gotten more of those luke-and-percy-bonding scenes and convos earlier in the series rather than tacked onto the finale as flashbacks. it worked there, but i think it could've been better. thankfully, all of that didn't hinder the delivery of the finale confrontation, which as i said, was a standout moment for me.

the fight scenes. with rare exception, i was pretty underwhelmed with many of the monster battles and confrontations this season. given that's such a huge gimmick of the novels, i hope they're able to revisit and polish up the pacing of these in the future... i just felt that scenes like the museum clash with dodds were so rushed and anticlimactic. or not even confrontations at all, like the scene with crusty. we got a bit more of this at the back half of the season, in the sword fights with ares and luke, but i wanted more of that epic feeling throughout. i'm hoping it's maybe just a budget concern and that it'll improve in the coming seasons -- especially as the bosses get bigger and the stakes get higher -- but i'm not sure i'm optimistic just yet.

some of the dialogue. it was... wooden, to say the least. i think the worst moments of this were when they were trying to force Kid Bants -- which just felt stilted in the earlier episodes -- and whenever they were explaining greek myths point blank to the audience. there were moments it worked, but many where it didn't, and i hope they flesh out how to better info dump in the future episodes. i didn't mind the change of having percy be more familiar with the myths and thus more aware, but they could afford to finesse how they relay that information to us in the audience without basically reading from wikipedia in percy's voice.

the ugly

oh my god i can't see. i can't SEE. this show went to the teen wolf academy of employing one lightbulb and it's actually criminal. there were so many scenes where i really wanted to see what was happening because the stakes were high or the scenery was so pivotal -- the entry into the underworld for the first time, the vastness of medusa's basement of stone, THE FIELDS OF ASPHODEL -- but the lighting was so god awful i legitimately couldn't see a thing. in asphodel i literally could barely see the trio's expressions, it was that bad / flat. the audience is smart, we understand it's dark out. we can suspend our disbelief so you can add some visibility to this thing. i was turning up my brightness constantly but it wouldn't go any higher. please, disney execs, rick, anyone -- GET ANOTHER LIGHTBULB. i'm losing key immersive aspects of the show to this and it's a bummer. when they were walking through waterland for the first time and annabeth was like "wow can you believe this craftsmanship" i was like i don't know, girl, I CAN'T SEE ANY OF IT. begging on my knees that they fix this next season.

well, that ended up longer than expected, but oh my gods it is so nice to be writing paragraphs about a tv show again. all in all, i'd say 7.5/10 from me in this first season. there's so much to be keen for here, and i'm really happy with how it's going so far.

friends and fellow demigods, what did we all think?

#percy jackson #pjo tv #pjo tv show #pjo series #pjo #idk what y'all are tagging with lol #maggie watches tv #maggie.txt

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galiifreyrose · 6 months

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god I am just having such a great fucking time I've missed being an active part of the DW fandom I really have

rambling flailing-my-arms thoughts for anyone who wants them about Wild Blue Yonder below

HIGH. BUDGET. MIDNIGHT. WHAT THE FUCk. OH MY GOD I LOVE WHEN DOCTOR WHO DOES FUCKED UP COSMIC HORROR.

I forgot how terrifying the Miss Evangelista Face Warp Effect could truly be

I FUCKING LOVE EPISODES THAT JUST. GIVE REALLY GREAT ACTORS SOME REALLY GREAT CHARACTER WORK I AM ETERNALLY A SUCKER FOR THE "IM PLAYING TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME BODY AT THE SAME TIME" SHIT IT'S SUCH. GOOD. TV. JADFLKSDLFKJSDFLASDKFLSD;JF

They have got to fucking explain what's going on with Mavity, they wouldn't just. Write that whole sequence with Newton and Gravity being named something different. It's gotta Mean Something.

To be meta about some of the writing, it's soooooo smart to have Everyone's Fave David Tennant up there doing all the Queer Shit like acknowledging Newton is hot bc it's suchhhh a good way to grease the skids for what is, inevitably, going to be SUCH a queer era of DW with Ncuti. And by putting this all up front, it really does weed out the bad earlier than later so it can't be pinned on Fifteen specifically. Bc I really don't want to see that happen

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW TEN DONNA WAS IN THE SEQUENCE WHERE THEY GOT UPSET WITH EACH OTHER. The way she chastised the DOCTOR for wandering off. And the little Sniff of Indignation. It's SO FUckinG fascinating to see Post-Metacrisis Donna bc her character is Inevitably Somewhat Changed and it's SOOOO COOOL

THE PRACTICAL. FUCKING. EFFECTS. I CANNOT GET OVER IT. THE BEHIND THE SCENES WAS SO COOL I HATE THOSE FUCKING ARMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think one post really recapped it well, I'll have to reblog it - it just makes my blood boil all over again for Jodie is that like. I got more emotional catharsis out of Fourteen working through the Flux conversation with Not Donna than I did out of the end of Jodie's run. I'm realizing it's not even that I didn't like a lot of Chibnall's ideas - I DO! It's the lack of emotional follow through! LET THIRTEEN EMOTE AND EMOTE HEAVILY.

Tennant really is still the actor ever, you can so easily see 11, 12, 13 and a touch of something new in all of his performance and it's FABULOUS it's so obviously Not Ten and I know everyone is saying it but it's so reassuring (this take stolen from @peanutbutter-nutella bc of course we were flail-texting <3)

WHAT ABOUT THE SALT SUPERSTITION WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS

God. God. Anyway. So far, RTD2 is really forcing me to reckon with my own biases and hypocrisies too, because I find myself going "fuck yeah more of THAT" and then realizing it's functionally the same as something from (gestures at everything from Eleven to Thirteen). And frankly it's making me fall back in love with more of the show all over again. And appreciating each piece for what it is, and where it falls short, and how that can still... be okay. I just really, REALLY love this silly show

#rini rambles #dw opinions #dw spoilers #dw #dw60 #wild blue yonder

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noyzinerd · 1 year

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Mistakes Literally No One But I Have Ever Noticed (After Watching Teen Wolf Seven-ish Times)

🤣

Haha! Didn't expect THIS of all things to be the most interesting thing about me, but, sure.

Gurl, you want receipts? I got yo' receipts:

1. Season 2, Episode 2:

Around the 8:58 mark, you can see a crew member under the principal's desk tapping their foot, near Jackson's knee. (Wouldn't it be funny if the principal was actually hiding a secret blowjob buddy under his desk this whole time and they didn't expect the fucking sheriff to be there that day?)

Anyway, it's more noticeable on a big TV screen then a phone, so I tried my best to brighten and zoom in on the foot tapping the best that I could 😓. You might be able to see it in the first gif if you turn the brightness on your phone up to retina-searing though.

2. Season 3B, Episode 21:

Bare patches of unburned skin on the Nogitsune that the makeup department missed (two patches on the neck and a whole wrist)

3. Season 3A, Episode 5:

During the fight with the Alphas, Derek swings at Kali in the background, and Kali reacts like she's been hit, but there is clearly a very wide berth between both actors

4. Opening Theme Starting from 3A, And Season 1, Episode 9:

Derek's tattoo in the title sequence from 3A onward is the reverse of when we see it in the show. The triskele spirals swirl counterclockwise in the intro while the spirals swirl clockwise in the show. (Also the lines are thinner in the intro version too.)

So, just so we're all clear:

Intro triskele direction vs. Canon direction

5. Season 2, Episode 7:

In the fight between Scott and Jackson, around the 20:55ish minute mark, you can see Tyler Posey's stunt double for several shots.

And also a brief shot of Colton Haynes' stunt double from that fight if you pause just right

6. Season 1, Episode 6, and Season 5(B), Episode 18:

Allison reads about her ancestor, sent by King Louis the 15th, to kill the Beast of Gevaudan, who killed from 1764-1767. Not only was this person a man called Argent, he was said to have hunted the Beast down after his wife and four kids were killed by it.

Later, this ancestor is changed to a woman, Marie-Jeanne Valet played by Crystal Reed (not sent by a king, but, instead, her own sense of responsiblity and justice since the Beast was her brother), who marries a man named Henri Argent AFTER she had already killed the Beast (who actually started killing in 1760, not 1764).

Also, Lydia says all her research said that the Beast was killed by a man named Jean Chastel...?? Out of nowhere and for no reason? Even though she was the person Allison had been telling her family history to in season 1??

---------

(I mean, there's also the obvious mistakes everyone talks about, i.e. Liam/Mason/Corey/Hayden skipping a grade and all the times the kanima doesn't paralyze someone in a fight, etc., but I wanted to specifically highlight stuff people don't notice)

Some people can run really fast or lift heavy things.

Me? I guess my superpower is watching a whole fucking lot of Teen Wolf and regurgitating micro-observations.

Man, what a shitty superpower.

#sterek #teen wolf #derek hale #stiles stilinski #mieczysław stiles stilinski #tyler hoechlin #dylan o'brien #Meta #Lore #continuity #teen wolf mistakes #That's my secret Captain. I'm always watching Teen Wolf.#Derek's tattoo is a chonky boy with them thick chonky lines #And I know they make a point to say the town burned all evidence of Sebastian Valet (the Beast of Gevaudan)#and it's established that town rumors are spread unreliably #But like even in the Argent family journal?#And if all evidence was burned how did the name Jean Chastel even come up in multiple records at all?#Where did this name even come from?? And Why??#And I know there's a post discussing Derek's tattoo being foreshadowing of Derek being an imposter in s04 but clearly that didn't happen #And the reverse tattoo showed up in s03A anyway not s04 so their evidence was flawed #The tattoo was just animated differently in the s04 intro to curl out from the center but the spirals are still the wrong way in both intro

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animehouse-moe · 4 months

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A Sign of Affection Episode 2: To Affection

God, there's so much to talk about with this episode. Ajia-Do and Morishita have absolutely maximized the potential of anime as a medium in expressing this story to its fullest, and that leaves me with endless amounts of things to talk about, so I really just want to get right to it.

How about I talk about Yuki's world first. This is a very very broad topic, but I think it's incredibly important in understanding other aspects of this story.

Yuki herself expresses a very key point: she doesn't want her hearing to define her world. It's not that she detests it or anything, but that she has an insatiable desire to explore a world outside of her own, and the episode expresses that wonderfully.

Also, can I just speak on the visuals for this sequence really quick? Incredible double edged sword. The idea of the glass mural as a reflection of the outside while providing visuals of Yuki's experience at the school for the Deaf that she went to is phenomenal. It alludes to the fact that a greater world exists outside of what she's experience as a person so far, but intends to reflect the protected world that Yuki's only experienced up until now. Really really incredible idea of framing her experience and desire to grow within something so simple.

Anyways, that desire manifests in her decision to go to college, to experience the things that she only saw in TV dramas or manga, to explore a life outside everything that she's known up until now.

So that explains Yuki's approach to life post-secondary school, but there's so much more to her experience of that life. We as viewers are secondary to the characters of this world, and the series continues to express that wonderfully through perspective.

Where you might use visual isolation to express a character's focus, A Sign of Affection takes it a step further, in several senses of the word. The idea of Yuki's "focus" differs from the way that a traditional anime will focus in on something. While both worlds are honed down to their essentials, the idea is expressed much more casually and symbolically with Yuki. And of course, it hinges on her hearing. At times, when with the perspective of another character, we'll hear a lot of background noise- people talking in different languages, the clamor of a busy room, and all sorts of other things- but all the while we'll remain visually isolated from that noise. It's a wonderful expression of the layered approach to Yuki's world. Visually we're meant to follow her experience, but there's time where the episode wants to emphasize the difference that hearing makes in a scene, and it's great. It's a perfect balance of all sorts of things that adds a great deal to how we contextualize the scenes in which Yuki focuses on things like Itsuomi.

And then there's the more explicit and spoken aspects. In the same way that there's style and intonation to speaking, Yuki points out those aspects within sign language to add more depth to the experience. Instead of stumbling over her words, Yuki talks about how her fingers are moving awkwardly, or how Oushi's (her childhood friend) sign language tends to be very pointed but also has more frail and weak pieces that betray his concern over Yuki.

I really love these sequences because in the same way that you might look to a face for emotional expression, they keep that focus on the hands to express the slightest details for viewers to cue in on. It's such a wonderfully conscious execution of the work.

You know what, since we're on Oushi we'll start the dive into his character because boy is it good.

He's meant to be the childhood friend of Yuki, and you immediately grasp the connection that the two share as we begin with a translation of their sign language conversation between one another before moving into fully voiced dialogue. It's really really great at showing the experience and understanding the pair share, and is perfect against the backdrop of the lack of translation when either uses sign language with another person.

It shows the lengths that Oushi goes to communicating with Yuki and Yuki alone, and that his goal is to explicitly meet Yuki where he believes her to be most comfortable.

And that's a hugely important idea. It's not necessarily that Yuki herself prefers talking exclusively in sign language, but that Oushi engages with her exclusively through it. The context clues given in regards to other characters greatly supports this. Her mother talks directly to her and Yuki will sometimes use a white board to communicate, Rin and Yuki use a mix of sign language and typing to communicate, and even with Itsuomi there is a variation in how they converse.

And that idea is perfectly personified by this comment made by Oushi later on.

This series is all about Yuki's world, and how people view and interact with Yuki within that context. And in this case, Oushi believes that Yuki's world needs to be protected no matter what. That she's a frail girl that lives in a dangerous world and that she shouldn't be putting herself at risk like that.

It's just such a great and nuanced idea to place in the series. Oushi's seen Yuki grow and develop from a young girl, maybe even struggle with learning or meeting the world head on. He still sees the young girl that could struggle or be alone out there, and he can't shake that idea from his head. He'll always see Yuki as that even though Yuki has shed that form.

And then the episode places that sentiment against Itsuomi? Incredible incredible idea. Where Oushi represents a closed off world for Yuki, Itsuomi is the representation of her dream to experience something greater. He meets her head on and engages with her in neutral terms. That is, he'll interact with her both in how he's interested in (e.g a lot of physical contact and proximity) and in how Yuki prefers. He puts effort into learning sign language, simplifies his sentences to make it easier to read lips, but then he'll also use text a good deal in the same way that Yuki does.

That value in how the two approach interaction with Yuki creates a wonderful picture that's summarized with how Yuki views her experiences in their respective worlds. Oushi's is a very gray and lonely one, while Itsuomi's is a open and bright blue sky.

And let's not forget Rin! I love her character and her engagement with Yuki, you can really feel the depth of their friendship vs Oushi and Itsuomi.

Rin initiates a lot of conversation with physical touch (like tapping on the table or poking Yuki), and makes sure to use a good deal of visual cues when talking verbally. She also has no issues with conversing over text, but she's a little less inclined to work with sign language. And then there's the idea of Yuki sharing emotions via physical contact, it's a really subtle idea but it's wonderful expression of her character and her familiarity with Rin.

All the same though, Rin is still learning and making mistakes here and there, as Oushi points out. It's a simple piece, but it's really great at showing that while nobody's perfect, it doesn't mean that you can't learn or grow within that context.

And just to tie a neat bow on this before I can go off the deep end and talk even more about things: this little bit of symbolism with birds.

For reference, this bird is a Japanese Wagtail, so the it's not just the idea of freedom that's expressed with these birds.

Of course the first image is meant to embody that idea as Yuki and Itsuomi out in a wide open blue sky, but the second image provides much more detail and value.

For example, the idea that one bird exists in shadow while the other is in light. It's the simple idea of the separation between Itsuomi and Yuki while Itsuomi is in Laos. You can also take the idea of them sitting on tree branches versus in the sky as a lack of freedom or openness because Itsuomi isn't around for Yuki.

Anyways, a Japanese Wagtail is a bird that within Eastern cultures such as Japan, is meant to symbolize the ideas of hope, renewal, and perseverance.

Evidently, the species of bird isn't the piece that symbolizes the romance, but rather the resilience of Yuki within this context. However, you could take the idea of how aggressively wagtails defend their territory from other potential suitors as the idea of the bond or romantic connection forming between Yuki and Itsuomi, but that's a totally different story.

But there it is, another incredible episode of A Sign of Affection. It's really outstanding how well Ajia-Do and Morishita have come together to create such a full bodied experience for viewers. Such a fulfilling and enjoyable experience.

#a sign of affection #yubisaki to renren #ゆびさきと恋々 #yubiren #yuki itose #nagi itsuomi #anime and manga #anime #anime reccs #anime recommendation #anime review

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pinkmoondoll9shihtzu · 3 months

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Lol how do i explain this chain of events...

there's no way i can make it brief xD So..today i was in an odd mood, feeling so sensitive that any time someone talked to me i almost flinch from how overwhelming it is. And a certain heaviness. sunday is slimbo's only day off tho so i wanted to hang out. We decided to draw, and as we were finishing setting up i suddenly remembered my stereo & how i havent used it all winter. i grabbed it from my room n put it on slimbo's bedroom floor , i was sitting next to it as we focused on drawing for a few hours n listened to CDs.

then as we were about to eat dinner slimbo suggested we watch sopranos. i was reluctant due to my mood today, and ok hear me out: Something about sopranos has like, consistently felt really psychic to me, cus i dont watch it that often but every time i do it's like. that episode will be freakishly synchronized w something happening in my life at that moment. usually in a metaphorical way. Could just be power of suggestion but ive never rly had that with a show before except for a few animes.

ANYWAYS..i agreed to watch it because i felt it to be fateful that slimbo suggested it. like Ok what message is this supposed to send me today, might as well see since i'm already in this strange mood. We sat on the ground where i was drawing and started watching. and ofc, (spoiler warning,) ofc the last ep we watched was the one where junior shoots tony, so this episode is the one where tony's dying in hospital (and having his prolonged dream sequence). Which, if you know me, you maybe know about my Core Wound, but if you dont, well, it definitely involves hospitals and death and fathers. So i'm just sitting there watching like LMAO 🙂 Ok Guess this is what's on tonight's agenda Let's Gooooo 🙂

and i can see slimbo keeps looking at me with an expression like "we can turn it off" but i was like nah im going to watch this im curious now. (i havent seen season 6 of sopranos in 6 years and its the season i have the least memory of because when i watched it i was high as fuck on opiates due to getting my appendix removed (awful experience) so it kinda feels like my first time seeing it). i keep watching and THEN. THE WEIRDEST SHIT OF MY LIFE OCCURED

the fucking scene. Where carmela's in the hospital room with tony and she receives a stereo from chris. she takes it out of the box and i'm like wait....it's only showing the back of it at first, but it looks so familiar, i look over to my right where my stereo is coincidentally sitting on the floor next to me with the back facing me. it's the same. then i see her open the cd slot. ITS THE EXACT SAME FUCKING STEREO SAME color SAME model SAME Everything !!!! and the part that freaked me out most is that my stereo is always just sitting on top of my tv i almost never move it even when i use it but at that moment it just happened to be sitting there on the floor RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO ME !!!

idk. it gave me kind of an adrenaline rush. it freaked me out. like that is bizarre i dont know. especially with the context of the stereo in the show and how it's there in the hospital to play music for tony as he's basically dying. hospital scenes r always like, intense for me on a cellular level. but that just kinda blew my mind. i got this stereo from a thrift store 2 years ago i had no idea it was in the show lol. IDK. i feel like there's a message here. something to do with my dad and healing and music. See im telling you like.....sopranos makes me consistently feel that God is joking around w me, its ususlly just a feeling but today it was tangible. so.... o_o

#timing

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bettsfic · 10 months

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Hi betts! Hope you're doing good! Do you have any advice on how to distance yourself from social media? I saw that you've done so with success and the older I get the more I feel a bit trapped by the internet.

social media certainly has benefits: keeping people connected, giving a voice to those who otherwise wouldn't have a platform, and it allows you to meet new people in the context of interest rather than location.

at least, these are the things social media set out to be, and over time those benefits, to me anyway, haven't been able to outweigh the drawbacks: compulsively checking apps, doomscrolling, content appearing by algorithm to attempt to cater to my interests, and just generally a lot of wasted time.

i don't necessarily believe that if you stop using social media, suddenly you'll be able to devote every minute of your day to a higher pursuit. the brain doesn't work like that. it always needs downtime. before phones, we had television. before television, we had radio. lacking glowing screens and people telling us things from far away, i think we'd all spend a lot of time looking at the things humans are built to look at: fire, water, mountains, sky. we'll listen to stories or read them or watch them.

during your mind's downtime, i don't think anything you decide to do is fundamentally better or worse than any other thing. but i do think social media is designed to manipulate our attention toward it during that downtime (and honestly, all other times) and that pisses me off. it also pisses me off that even though we impose cause-and-effect sequences to our interaction with social media, it doesn't often provide us with a narrative the way reading, watching tv, or listening to a podcast would. stories are a psychological necessity; without the mind's ability to perceive sequences of events and connect them, we wouldn't have memories. we would have no concept of time, of thinking into the past or casting our thoughts into the future. social media, in its drive to keep us scrolling, looking at posts with no narrative connection to one another, deprives us of the stories our minds seek during our downtime.

this got super long so i'm putting it under a cut. tl;dr you need to remove social media as a positive stimulus and build immediate positive stimuli into other aspects of your life. in other words, social media feels good immediately but neutral or bad over time; most other things like reading feel bad or neutral initially but good over time. so you have to find ways to make the latter feel good with the immediacy of the former.

i don't mean to be "old man shakes fist at cloud" about this. i'm a millennial. from facebook's widespread release through the beginning of the pandemic, i raced to every new social media platform. i was an early myspace adopter. my high school graduating class was the very first year people outside of college could use facebook, and so we're the first cohort to have all befriended each other before graduation and never lost touch, completely removing the appeal of a reunion. i joined twitter in 2008 but never used it, and i joined tumblr in 2012 and never stopped using it.

i remember the day i got a smartphone. i was a few years behind everyone else. it was 2010 and i'd just gotten my first office job and i was desperate to be able to look at social media, scroll through stuff or read something, when i was bored. it was an iPhone 4. and as soon as i got it out of the box, i sat and played on it for 10 straight hours.

for those of you who are too young to remember a time before smartphones, i can't emphasize enough how much they changed things. in my life, i went from waking up and eating breakfast and reading for a little bit, to waking up and eating breakfast and getting on my computer to look at facebook and read my daily webcomics, to waking up and reaching over to my nightstand and looking at my phone.

and i don't know, i just decided i didn't want that anymore. last fall i was at this artist residency with no cell service and barely any wifi. and one day the wifi went out. i had a visceral negative reaction to that, which made me step back and go, oh wow, i am way too tethered to the internet. that day, wandering around the property with nothing to do, i got this intense urge to read an old paperback novel. you know, the mass market paperbacks with the pulpy yellow paper and the misaligned typeface. and so i found a very old copy of fellowship of the ring, cracked it open, and read it all day.

the thing about getting away from social media is that it's slow. i don't think you can really go cold turkey. when i got home from the residency, i went on a long hiatus and had all these strict rules for myself about when i was allowed to look at my phone and when i wasn't, but that didn't really work for me. but i did delete all the social media apps from my phone, and on my computer i logged out of all of them and deleted my saved passwords, so if i wanted to check them, i had to go to that extra step of logging in and even typing in my password. and that doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're checking social media out of habit, muscle memory, something to attend to that might give you a brief blip of dopamine, having to type your password is just one step too far. the brief pleasure i would get from checking my notifications was less than the hassle of logging in.

and that's what it all comes down to: feeling good. in the moment, it feels good to check a social media app, to see that somebody has interacted with your content or maybe with you directly. it's that tiny subconscious exclamation point, the feeling we get when somebody politely smiles or waves at us, when a dog comes up to us wagging his tail, when a well-meaning stranger compliments your outfit. that's the social part of social media. but that's also the part that keeps us cycling through our apps out of habit and boredom.

so you have to take away that stimulus from yourself, and you have to create positive stimuli elsewhere. to take away the positive stimulus of social media, you have to stop posting content on it. content is the mind killer. when you tweet something, your impulse might be to check that someone has interacted with it. but if you step away from the great conversation of social media, nobody speaks back to you, and you develop more patience for the longer-term good feelings of reading a book.

of course, that's complicated. i guess the first step that i did a long time ago was losing interest in traffic and developing the internal validation skills that make interaction on social media a bonus, not a need. before that, though, i had a drive to be seen and listened to. i think i just grew out of that. regardless of the existence of the internet, all people throughout history have spent their lives developing their relationship with themselves, learning who they are and coming to accept it. i'm not sure there's a way to rush that inner journey along.

creating positive stimuli is a matter of adopting a kind of little-treat attitude toward things. you have to really pay attention to yourself. the day i picked up the fellowship of the ring, i remembered that paper is important to me. vitally important. i like to write on it. i like to read from it. and it's kind of weird to say "paper is my special interest," but it is. all tools of writing interest me. so acknowledging that, accepting it and choosing to accommodate it, was my first small goal of building immediate positive stimuli.

some of the connection we have to social media (and phones in general) is the physical habit that develops from it. when smokers quit smoking, their hands feel empty. they're used to having something between their fingers, and so they replace that with something like a pen or a straw.

for me, i replaced the physical habit of phone-checking with paper-holding, either in the form of a book, or a notebook and pen. i set about finding my perfect notebook: the one that feels best to hold, the one i'm eager to fill, the one whose paper is quality enough that i love to write on it. the one i found and that kind of changed my life was a Rhodia A4 spiral bound. i take it everywhere with me. in fact i went to the doctor earlier this week and because i was holding my notebook, it didn't even occur to me to look at my phone while i was waiting for the doctor to see me, even though it was in my pocket (and i did download tumblr again, and instagram to support my sister, who is kind of a local influencer). the positive stimulus of looking at it had become less than the positive stimulus of holding my notebook. the potential to easily write something or doodle felt better than the distraction of social media.

did my doctor probably think it was weird that i was taking notes? maybe. did i look weird sitting in the theater before seeing oppenheimer, brainstorming barbie fic ideas? definitely. but i just don't care anymore. sometimes making healthy choices for yourself in a world built to manipulate your attention makes you look weird.

my advice is to spend a week without social media apps on your phone, logged out of them on your computer, and pay very close attention to the things that make you happiest. find ways to interact with those things continuously, and see what happens.

#writing advice #reading advice #social media

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elionwriter · 10 months

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MIRACULOUS LADYBUG: AWAKENING

SPOILER REVIEW

Since my last post on Miraculous Ladybug was so vitriolic, I feel like now I have to give my two cents on the film. In my opinion? It was great! It reminded me why I like the concept of the story to begin with. I think sincerely that the movie did a by far better job at telling this story in under two hours than the series did in over 5 seasons.

It's not perfect, mind you, but it is a really good time! The animation is gorgeous, the action sequences were amazing, the story is straightforward and it doesn't make you feel like everyone except for Marinette is an idiot. It does help boost enjoyability not having Thomas Austruc mansplaining at every chance what a perfect society looks like, what the ideal man and woman act like, and what a perfect and healthy romance appears like.

Marinette is lovely! Her characterization is so on point. This time round, you can truly believe that she is a normal girl, with a normal life, just down on her luck. And her character arch is linear and fairly well structured. I really liked that they showed that her failings and clumsiness mostly boil down to uncertainty and self-doubt. It's not the Ladybug powers granting her agily and resilience, the mask just help bring what was already there to surface (something I did not always see in the series especially in the earlier seasons). Adrien/Chat Noir is one of the two characters that most benefits from the adaptation, IMO. He is ever kind and caring but he's not a door mat or a prize to be won. The scene in which he lashes out on his father, calling him out on his neglect: that was just beautiful to witness. And Gabriel Agreste! Oh, Gabriel! Finally, finally this character makes sense and acts like you would expect and hope he would. Surprise, surprise, he actually makes a compelling villain when written right and manages to look competent and threatening. As for everyone else...everyone else mostly disappear in the background and act as their tv counterparts (except for Cloe in the end *cough* *cough*).

While it's a big jarring every time they start singing, the songs 'Better Together' and 'Courage in me' are really catchy and nice. Heck, even the rendition of the main theme 'You are Ladybug' is fun and enjoyable.

The romance is obviously the main aspect of the story and I think it plays out really nicely here! While there obviously isn't much time to fully delve into the love square and you are left a bit wondering why Marinette is so hung up on Adrien when her relationship with Chat Noir absolutely steals the show by being romantic, heartfelt and wholesome, I still enjoyed it. Emphasis on Ladynoir stealing the show, especially when the two spar on the roof, duet in a scene that reminded me of the Moulin Rouge and face the final threat.

The side story of Marinette feeling slightly embarrassed by her dad was unnecessary, but whatever, I guess.

Plag isn't especially great here, but Tikki, oh my gosh, Tikki is a SAVAGE! 🤩 Ten seconds after meeting Marinette and is already about to kick the girl's ass!

Anyway, that is to say, I had a great time watching this, and I hope you all do to.

#miraculous movie #miraculous awakening #miraculous ladybug #ml ladybug #ladybug and chat noir #chat noir #cat noir #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire

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tumblezwei · 3 months

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Hold on I'm about to go crazy again

during the warp jump to Penacony, scenes from the quest flash briefly on screen. We're first shown Acheron after our first encounter with her

then the moment right before Firefly's death where she turns to look at Trailblazer

a chessboard for some reason, the first image rattling around along with the turbulence of the Express

Stelle...looking at something? Outside of the Express? The angle looks like she's on the left side of the couch, near where the memokeeper for MoC stands. Or maybe on the other side. Either way this isn't a shot of her sitting on the couch like she is during the warp jump.

after that is Robin from after we crash land in the Golden Hour

then Acheron again from the same scene but played in reverse, interrupted by TV static.

I think the most base level theory we can craft with this involved Acheron and her multiple red dialogue options. Something about time loops, or multiple iterations of the same story happening at once. Personally, I don't have enough ammo in my arsenal to argue one way or another, but some things here interest me.

The first is the chessboard. I don't remember this being shown in the story quest at all, and as far as I know there isn't a chessboard on the Express. I mean, even if there is that doesn't mean anything to me atm. What does is the positions of the pieces.

We first get a close up shot of the black rook, and then a wider shot showing the state of the game board. My average knowledge of chess just tells me this looks like a stalemate. Both opponents have the same pieces left on the board, protecting their kings in the exact same way. There's potentially a trap being set up by the black rook to capture the white rook, and the white king has moves outside of its shield of pawns.

Since we haven't seen the chessboard or that shot of Stelle in the quest, my guess is that they're from future events we have yet to see. But I also think the order in which these shots appear mean something, or else why would they be included? Maybe we can view Firefly as the black pawn and the Trailblazer as the white rook. An intentional sacrifice to draw someone into a trap. After all, Sam and Firefly were working together until he abandoned her for some unknown reason, and then attacked us after we spent time finding Firefly's traces.

But using that interpretation would put us as the Trailblazer on the white side, with the king moving out of position. And I'll admit right here I don't know what that would mean. Unseen allies, maybe? Or an implication that we're entering into dangerous territory at a disadvantage? I Dunno.

Moving on I'm interested in the last sequence with Acheron. The TV static can quickly be connected to the pile of TVs we see in the primal dreamscape where we fight Something Unto Death. And the scene being played backwards brings to mind a tape being rewound. I swear to god I saw some text saying something like "you're not watching the TV, the TV is watching you" but I can't fucking remember where I saw it. So take that bit with a massive grain of salt until I can recall where I read it from, but I'm keeping it in mind.

I also think this sequence being bookended by our first encounter with Acheron is important. Is it evidence for some sort of time loop? Who knows.

Also also, that shot of Firefly is similar to the shot we get of Robin. Centered in their chests (where Firefly was pierced, and Robin has her wound) and obscuring their faces. This could have just been foreshadowing their shared fates as victims of Something Unto Death. But maybe, if my chess interpretation holds any water, could be foreshadowing Robin and Aventurine acting in similar roles as Firefly and Sam, i.e., bait for the Trailblazer.

anyways, I'm going nuts.

#honkai posting #honkai star rail #hsr spoilers #honkai star rail spoilers #2.0 spoilers #penacony spoilers

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