#especially when they're disproportionate to his actual “crimes”

[total-drama-brainrot]

Island Assistant Noah AU, where Noah got himself eliminated on purpose, but Chris + Chef somehow figure it out... The day after Noah's elimination, everyone is surprised to see that Noah's back... Chris reveals that inside the contestants' contracts: "Anyone who gets eliminated on purpose, will become Chris Mcclean's Assistant."... And Noah has to be decent at his job, or he won't get paid... Noah stays Chris' Assistant all throughout Island, Action and World Tour! 🌎 (I'm sorry if I'm asking this twice; I don't remember asking this!)

OKAY!! SO!!

You did already ask me this and I did have an answer in the works to the original ask, but because Tumblr's mobile app is my number one enemy, I accidentally posted it. So, really, it's super fortunate that you asked this twice!

But! Because I'm a smart cookie, I took some screenshots of what I had typed out in the original post, so I can just re-type it out here and carry on! (I'd post just the screenshots, but they're full of typos because I'm just awful at typing on a phone.)

So, here's my answer:

Yes!! Give me a Noah who thought he was being so sneaky and cunning by intentionally getting himself eliminated, only for it to backfire horrendously!

The producers would've known that the contestants were being sent to Camp Wawanakwa instead of the resort their contract heavily implied they'd be going to, so they would absolutely anticipate at least one of them trying to pull a stunt like Getting Themselves Eliminated Intentionally- either as an act of defiance against the trickery (of Camp Wawanakwa not being what was advertised) or just to be spiteful.

Noah being the one to do so is just happenstance.

(It was more so expected from the likes of Duncan or Izzy, who are outwardly anti-authoritarian and not afraid to confront perceived injustices.)

If I may, I'd suggest having the contract outline that whoever intentionally gets themself eliminated has to work as a base-level intern, and that their "pay" is them working off whatever expenses the show invested into them as a competitor (travel costs, lodging, food, ect.). So Noah ends up stuck in the role of an unpaid intern for however long it takes him to "earn his keep" so to speak. But it's a Sisyphean task, since his debt is ever growing- he's forced to stay at Playa des Losers as an intern, and his daily cost of living is just added to the expenses he needs to work off.

At first, he'd be outright resistant to doing any of his tasks as an intern, because why should he? He didn't ask for the job, he didn't (knowingly) sign up for it either, and it's not like he's gonna be paid for his work. That is, until the producers threaten to pass his debt off to the rest of his family to "pick up his slack"; Noah's not heartless, and he cares a lot about his family, so he concedes to actually doing the work expected of him to save the rest of his brood from having to compensate for his short-sightedness.

(Let's say this turn of event takes about a week, meaning that from the time of his own elimination to the threat to his family's financial wellbeing, only Justin and Katie have been eliminated. Since, at least during Island, it's established that a challenge and subsequent elimination ceremony happens every three days.)

Now, the thing about lazy people- of which Noah undoubtedly is- is that they're downright innovative when it comes to figuring out shortcuts for any type of labour. Now that he's invested in doing his job, Noah uses that big brain of his to quickly figure out how to get all of his allotted tasks for the day completed to near-perfection, in a manner that's both efficient and easy. It gets to the point where he's completing a full day's work in an hour, spending the rest of the day doing what he loves; nothing. The other interns are just as annoyed as they are impressed.

Word quickly gets back to Chris about his miracle intern. But he's either too preoccupied to actually listen to who it is, or no one thinks to explain that his most productive labourer is the ex-competitor he'd contractually conned into the position.

Needless to say, Chris' interest is piqued.

The host issues a request to have the mystery intern shipped out to the island so they can work on the "important stuff" instead of doing menial tasks on the Playa, and is met with staunch refusal on their part. Which is odd, at least to Chris, since the interns send to be far too scared shitless of him (or, more notably, Chef) to ever outright deny a request like that.

It makes more sense when Noah's literally dragged kicking and screaming back to the island. Of course the only person ballsy enough to defy Chris' whims is the same contestant who got himself intentionally eliminated via deliberately pissing off his teammates. But he's back, now, so he might as well be put straight to work! No use in wasting labour, after all.

(Again, this probably happens over the course of a few days at most, since showbusiness is such a hectic and fast-paced line of work, so let's say that Tyler's the only new elimination in this timeframe.)

Again, Noah utilizes his higher-than-average smarts to figure out how to streamline his expected tasks because he's lazy, inadvertently proving himself as a Valuable Asset to both Chris and Chef since he's surprisingly good at what he does (even if what he does is very little by design). Chris is quick to offer Noah an ultimatum; he can either be promoted to being Chris' Personal Assistant, thus meeting the demands of his previous contract (and, of course, entering a new one under different pretences) and finally being paid for his work, or remain as an unpaid intern indefinitely and receive penalisation for his slacking off- since, despite the fact that he's gotten all of his work finished, he's still technically on the clock for the allotted work hours and should be acting as such instead of lazing about.

It's not really much of a choice. Noah reluctantly takes the promotion.

That's how he finds himself in the position we all know and love; Chris' Personal Assistant.

Because of his new promotion, he's expected to be at least within the vicinity of Chris at all (reasonable) times. The problem with that? Chris is hosting the show he got himself eliminated from in the most socially destructive way possible. Noah's now contractually forced to, at the very least, tiptoe around the prior teammates he knowingly and intentionally made hate him and dearly hope they don't notice him.

...Thus begins an AU's worth of shenanigans wherein Noah is desperately trying to fly under everyone's radar as an intern.

(I'd carry on into what he does during Action and World Tour, but this post is already fairly long, so maybe another time?)

#love having noah face the consequences of his actions #especially when they're disproportionate to his actual “crimes” #also really like the headcanon that he got himself eliminated on purpose. it's JUST maliciously compliant enough for him to feasibly do. #...not that i think he did. in my mind noah really is just that much of an asshole AND socially illiterate enough-- #to do what he did in the dodgebrawl episode with no ulterior motive. #anyway in this au noah gets his two disaster gay uncles via chef and chris because i said so. #all assistant noahs get to have chref guardians. as a treat. #total drama #td noah #assistant noah au #silly ideas #others' ideas #replies

[worlds-oldest-teenager]

Why I think Apollo is the golden child and not the scapegoat.

To me both Apollo and Athena are Zeus's golden children.

At first it makes sense that Apollo would be the scapegoat of the family cause of how disproportionate the punishment is when most of his family (Athena & Ares) Have done much worse. The way Apollo narrates as well makes him seem like he gets the blame for everything.

But if we really get into the head honcho himself's brain, the punishment is fitting for the crime Apollo's committed. In his mind Ares and Athena's crimes are excusable. Ares is violent, bloodthirsty and war bringing and he's given up on that child ages ago. (I'd argue that Ares is the real scapegoat of the family)

Athena is interesting. She's very clearly at fault for this war even more so than Apollo. So why doesn't she get punished at all?

I think the reason he comes down so hard on Apollo and not on Athena is cause of their motivations. Athena causing the schism over some statues was because of her righteous anger at the Romans for demoting her to a craft goddess. It was a decision she made millennia ago that any other god, at least in Zeus's opinion, would have also made. They literally stole her and made her nothing which is something no god takes lightly.

Apollo is a whole other story.

The reasons behind Apollo conspiring with Octavian are blurry but what we can acknowledge is that he at least promised to put him above Zeus which is complete high treason on Apollo's part for actually going along with it.

Hoping on Ares just invites disappointment. Athena's the golden child who's actions are perfectly acceptable in his twisted mind. But Apollo? Apollo should be the perfect son, and most of the time he is. He's got the most domains. He's won so many times that the very symbol of victory is one of his symbols.

Athena and Apollo's relationship, from the very little we've seen, also confirms this. They seem to have a deep mutual respect for each other and an understanding that comes from being in the exact same situation.  Apollo loves her enough to give her a nickname. Athena is (I think) the only god to almost stand up to Zeus when he blamed Apollo for the whole war. To me their dynamic doesn't really read as a golden child/ scapegoat dynamic but more like mutual golden children with one absolutely having the potential to kill their father. They're kind of ride or die but they would not die for each other lmao.

So I think Athena and Apollo share the same dysfunctional family role. It's just that sometimes Apollo goes a little astray yenno? He's learnt to sand down his rough edges since he was a godling but at least twice before, he's absolutely lost it and forced his father's hand. But it was nothing a little correction couldn't handle. Now he's back to being Zeus's perfect son and continues being so for thousands of years.

That's why him conspiring to overthrow Zeus is such a collosal betrayal. This level of anger and hurt doesn't make sense to me if Apollo is the scapegoat. It makes much more sense if he's Zeus's beloved son who he thought loved him as much as he did.

Even his confrontation with Apollo in blood of Olympus was blamey, sure, but it was also a bitterly disappointed kind of angry. I really feel like he was using the war to justify punishing Apollo so harshly for an affront against himself.  (Way to state the obvious).

Pjo Zeus just doesn't really seem to care about most of the problems anyone is facing  until there's real potential that it could turn deadly against himself. He has a prophecy of his son overthrowing him to think about. Golden child or not, nay especially if it's his golden child, they cannot ever think doing such a thing is acceptable or that they are capable of it.

And in that way the punishment kind of fits, right? Try to put yourself above the king of the gods? Get supremely humbled with the most embarrassing experience of your life fighting your nightmare of a nemesis who nearly killed you as a child.

Zeus and Apollo reuniting on Olympus after his trials cements my point. What is Zeus's confirmation that all is right and his son is back in his rightful place? Is it 'I apologize' or 'I love you ' ? No. It's, "You have done me proud ". Because this is who Apollo is meant to be. An object of pride that Zeus doesn't love so much as appreciate when the light from his trophy child reflects on himself.

#toa analysis #trials of apollo #pjo apollo #pjo zeus

[rametarin]

Hi! I've been following you for a while and I have to say that I like how you go into detail and critically examine whatever discourse you are engaging in and don't just leave it at the basics, even if people find it to be "too much", but I'm the type to read in-depth essays of topics that I find interest in. Feminism (radical or not, although I stand by the fact that feminism has been radical since its inception) tends to be one of the main topics you deeply delve into in a way that I've seen very few do. When it comes to them, it's so obvious that they suffer from a severe case of "The grass is greener on the other side" mentality. This notion is so incredibly popular that even women who do not explicitly identify with the movement buy into it as well, regardless of where they come from and their age, and of course, since you are more educated on this than I am, you definitely notice it even more. I mean, this is one of the primary pillars of their ideology and movement, and they couldn't sustain themselves without it at all. This is one of the very first things people who criticize them notice, and I just can't help but think how miserable do you have to be to think about what you DON'T have and what you CAN'T get away with compared to the other. They don't focus on the benefits and pluses of womanhood, only the cons and the lacking, which points a reality about them that they delude themselves into believing it has to do with a sense of justice, but in reality, it's a sense of envy. This is honestly the case with the rest of left-leaning causes as a whole. They rigidly paint the other as the "oppressor" because they have something they allegedly don't have. Hence, they believe they are in a better state than them. What do you think? Keep up the work!

More or less, yeah. In my opinion, the recruiting pole starts from a position of envy and entitlement, and assumption of how the world works. Or rather, yes, "the grass is greener."

Not everybody will inherently or intrinsically believe or feel like this, of course, but enough of them do that there's a statistical probability. And it takes a certain amount of ego, a certain blindness and inconsideration, callousness.

The girl that believes the whole world hates them and thinks less of them for being a girl and that boys get all the attention and pats on the head and benefits, and girls get the shit labor; that's an immature and incomplete picture that negates what is expected of men, in whatever time or society in which they live, and cherry picks the shit parts to believe they live in the jambalaya of all the worst aspects of patriarchal society, in all eras, simultaneously. When, in reality, this is only true if you neglect history, or are ignorant of history.

Now, there's obviously truth in that actual patriarchal systems are shit, especially weighed against secular, egalitarian, liberal societies that believe you own you and that an individual human being's rights and personhood exists irrespective of their sex/gender, and that if your personal rights and liberty as a human, irrespective of sex, are being denied, then that's a crime, whether male or female.

But that sense of "I'm being slighted because I'm a GIRL" exists, and will continue to exist, the same as it will strike a chord in any population of demographic that is insecure, for valid or invalid reasons, that they're being denied prosperity, accolades or recognition and resources and opportunities, either because they're not the favored demographic or theirs is a hated demographic and unfairly handicapped.

It is this population that socialists chose to tailor their message to, because the female sex (and gender) are the perfect carriers. In a binary sexed species, their participation is absolutely essential to the next generation being born, so they're disproportionately the gatekeepers of who gets to breed and why. They like systems that just happen to exist and provide to any whom happen to be there, because they know that, as a woman, people are more likely to want women to get free shit and protection because you can't really have a future without women having babies. So, again, it's on their own best collective interests to cling to any organization and any rhetoric that promises free shit to women on the basis of being women. It's like promising a cocaine addict free coke for their votes.

And then the entire institution and culture of radical feminism was set up to groom women to tell them, "your feelings over this subject matter, regardless of the reality! If a BOY says otherwise, he's just trying to do what you're doing, but boy feelings are invalid, because-"

And their best trick was the sematic argument that feminism was purely just, "the struggle for female equality." Which I'd liken as the Christians rebranding colonialism as, "The struggle for religious freedom." In that, no that's not even anywhere close to true and so loaded with bias that you're doing a violent rewrite of history in order to try and define goodness and freedom as synonymous with your religion."

Feminism is, was and always has been the argument to analyze and interpret different things through socialist (often Marxist) principles, dogmas, just-sos, maxims and old wives tales, to judge equality from a gynocentrist position.

Which is kind of like Trump going, "Think of this Critically and use a Trumpinian lens and you'll understand I'm right." They use the term, "lenses," but god fucking damnit, that's just, "see things from my bias." Reworded and reimagined to sound profound or philosophical, and give my bias the benefit of the doubt.

They'll argue that you cannot have female equality without feminism and feminism is just synonymous for female equality, but that is absolutely not the case at all. Feminism is not about female equality or social justice, it's about applying a certain set of class struggle theorist ideas through the demographics of sex and gender and then basing the results of that equation on whether reality meets what's on the paper. Socialists will never stop doing this, because they believe their handwaved perspectives are synonymous with scientific rigor and reality. Even when they're trying to argue that gender doesn't exist as a physical reality at all, because that would defeat the view social constructs are the only reason why sexuality is static at all.

They go right after young women and culture them to thinking that you cannot have a belief in a more equal society or law system without also incorporating feminism, and that feminism is synonymous with that. And the only reason that flies any better than, "you can't have a just and fair and righteous society without the Christian god," is because Christians aren't quite so versed or experienced in the tactic of hiding their bias behind semantics. Whereas, feminists and to a large extent, socialist arguments, rely on ambiguous terms that appropriate neutral words and give them a clique charged meta meaning.

They make that rigid and brittle, like a ceramic. And then they incite them by saying, "you either believe this in extremis, or you don't actually believe in female equality." And they make sure that any pattern of argument against their viewpoints gets cultivated out by repeating them in a mocking tone and ( :^) ) smug 90s guy funnyman face. Just so they know, if you use "those" arguments, you'll be just like Ben Shapiro or blahblah whatever Andrew Tate figure they're scapegoating as "proof of a coming wave of antisemitic, misogynistic, racist, male chauvinist hate."

Now, Tate is a worthless bag of skin, and I argue his very existence is reactionary schlock specifically to be theater and be who they point at when they point to their scary opposition, but it doesn't change the fact that feminism is linguistically and culturally and socially structured to where no one that is male is allowed to critique it, and it have given itself carte blanche to critique everything else in its own interest. So, it's a very attractive mindset for women to fall into, and it's institutional to our colleges and universities.

And I argue, it's also part of the network of shitty hammer and sickle flying subcultures and groups that states like Russia find easy to manipulate into being disruptive at home. These people will make social media post after social media post about how Russia "for sure" meddled in our elections by just fucking running shitty ads on facebook and fringe right wing sites, and be utterly fucking flummoxed when you point out just how many fake assed Tumblr accounts and astro turf twitter/Xer accounts were banned for posting inciting and fake material back when BLM had more credibility. There's more proof that Russia was behind BLM riots internationally which killed more people and burned down more businesses, than there is it was behind getting right wing old white lady to vote for Trump, but they won't bring up the detrimental influences Russia has tenured and operating in every college state-side for the left. Just the stupid milquetoast fringe conservative up through the gradients to the unironic ethnostater white supremacist stormfronter types on the right. They're hypocrites that can't smell the smelly smell when it's coming from their own pants.

I adore the ability to post long form online the way I do, because it was absolutely defeating in real space trying to debate anything with radfems that take delight in disrupting, interrupting, insulting you, screaming over you, trying to trick you into an engaging debate on bad faith and just yelling, "LOL KUNG POW PENIS. XP STUPID MAAALE" in public. Putting on the pretenses of offering to challenge your opinion and then spending the entire time not disputing you, just mocking you and telling you you're wrong and talking to you like you're the amalgam of the Tates and Rush Limbaughs and televangelist-heres, which have no bearing on what you're actually saying- just taking potshots at the caricature of you and then doing victory dances for the zingers that might be zingers, if you'd ever actually fucking said that.

Here I can at least state my piece uninterrupted and not misinterpreted. It's very liberating.