#get to know your podcaster

[monstrousproductions]

YOU HAVE A FIANCE!!!???

Congratulations

I HAVE A FIANCE!!! And it's none other than Matt McDyre @diabeticspoon92, who created all the podcast logos and websites, and who is co-creating Travelling Light with me!

He proposed last Saturday after taking me to the beach in an amber weather warning 😍🥰

That's not a forced perspective thing, he really is that much bigger than me 😅 The ring is wood, silver and then flowers in resin, and is on my middle finger because I accidentally gave him the wrong size lmao

#monstrous askbox #behind the scenes at monstrous hq #get to know your podcaster #he's so HANDSOME #that photo was actually before the proposal #we were just having a nice day out

[incorrect-primarchs-quotes]

Can I be honest here,

I find highly ironic that people will harass new fans just because "ew you don't know all the 400 books and 200+ short stories, you're new and ignorant, ew", then will proceed to correct them and

*drum roll*

They are wrong or hold incomplete knowledge themselves.

#where is that graph showing 'how much you know ' and 'how secure ypu are about your knowledge ' #literally a good chunk of the fans here #someone should inform these people that books are meant to be read and that listening to podcasts is not the perfect way to get all the info #especially if you follow those big guys who literally read the wiki #ironically enough those who are really human libraries of the lore are actually chill and understanding

[boombox-fuckboy]

It's a Bandcamp Friday, so if you've been eyeing up seasons from podcasts like Inn Between, Sidequesting, The Dungeon Economic Model, Old Gods of Appalachia, specials from shows like Welcome to Night Vale, or music from shows like The Tower, The Lost Cat Podcast, or The Strange Case of Starship Iris, now is a great time to grab them, as what you're paying goes far more directly to the creators.

#And if you're up on Bandcamp and didn't get a mention here let me know so I can give you money and put your show on CDs for roadtrips. #And emergencies. #audio drama #fiction podcast

[shadow-the-crow]

I think i finally understand how the Distortion works. I mean, i don’t think it’s possible to ever fully understand it, and i don’t know the whole picture yet because i don’t know what Helen will be like, but i feel like i’ve just been granted a glimpse at the lovecraftian (as in ineffable) thing that is this being.

It’s not a person and a creature fighting inside one mind. There’s no Michael clawing himself to the surface to express his emotions and get his revenge.

Michael Shelley is dead. The Distortion became Michael. It sounds so simple, yet a least in my opinion it’s hard to fully understand.

I think what provides the best metaphor is a small thing the Distortion says after becoming Helen: "without a proper mind." The Distortion does not have its own mind. It’s only a what, but in order to really exist in this reality, it needs a who. It needs a body, but also a mind.

So if i understand this right, it’s like this: Michael Shelley is dead. His conciousness is not there anymore. And the Distortion got forced into that mind, an empty mind of a dead person. This doesn’t make it human, it’s still able to understand the impossible, it’s still the thing that was created to scare and kill. But in the mind it’s living in… the previous owner’s furniture is still there. It gets the dead person’s memories. It becomes Michael, in the sense that it has to be someone. Its existence got tied to being Michael, although Michael Shelley is dead.

When Michael got "emotional", that wasn’t Michael Shelley coming through. It was the Distortion grappling with the side effects of being someone - of living in a mind with all the memories and the human emotions that a human mind can’t fully turn off, even when the thing inhabiting it isn’t human at all.

The Distortion was Michael in the sense that it was thinking with Michael Shelley’s mind. When it became Helen, its consciousness, its being stayed the same, but it needed to adapt to this new mind. It could see clearer now, realizing that the windows of the previous house had been dirty, realizing that the wirings of the previous mind had driven it to do something that it actually didn’t want to do. The throat of the Spiral itself getting caught in the spiralling of its own, borrowed mind.

#here comes the first michael essay #this is only the start #i've still got so many more thoughts #i hope this makes sense #idk why but i think i get how the distortion feels #being forced to be someone who isn't you at all #like - it doesn't make sense but i get it?? #okay i haven't watched doctor who but maybe it's kinda like being the doctor? #you kinda change personality and become someone else but your true being stays the same? #(as if anyone of us knew what it's like being the doctor any more than we know what it's like being the distortion lol) #tma #michael distortion #tma the distortion #helen distortion #the magnus archives #tma podcast #tma spoilers #tma thoughts #mag 101 #another twist #michael shelley #i just realized i've probably spelled michael wrong in the tags before oops (i know how it's spelled but “micheal” keeps popping up so...) #you know what i'm gonna put the wrong version too for reach #micheal distortion

[hephaestuscrew]

"With a goddamn harpoon": The significance of Minkowski's weapon of choice within the narrative and characterisation of Wolf 359

TL;DR: Despite its initial comic role, the harpoon becomes a important symbol of Minkowski as a character; it is particularly associated with her desperate need for control, her desire to keep her crew safe, her stubborn determination, and her occasional unpredictability. These associations add to the narrative significance when Minkowski kills Cutter with the harpoon. 

[Tagging people who said they wanted to be tagged: @browncoatparadox @captain-lovelace @goblincaveofvibes ]

~~~

Ep21 Minkowski Commanding

First appearance 

We first encounter the harpoon in Minkowski Commanding, which is a significant episode for Minkowski's characterisation because it's the first big departure from Eiffel's point-of-view into Minkowski's. It's arguably the most Minkowski-centred episode in the whole show, so it stands out when we think about her as a character.

EIFFEL (over comm) Um, Minkowski? Why is the armory wide open, and also, apparently, robbed? Where's the tactical knives kit? MINKOWSKI Don't worry. I've got that. EIFFEL Oh. And the M4 carbine? The, like, really-dangerous-in-space, select-fire M4 carbine? MINKOWSKI Yeah, I've got that too. EIFFEL And this empty rack I'm looking at right now with a label that says "harpoon" suggests that... MINKOWSKI Yes. I have it, Eiffel.

The harpoon is introduced as part of a list of over-the-top weapons that Minkowski takes on her plant-monster-hunting mission. It's initially just a funny moment to emphasise how seriously she's taking this mission. The weapons arguably increase in unlikeliness as Eiffel lists them, and it's a comic image to think of Eiffel deducing the situation from the empty rack labeled 'harpoon'. It could have been an entirely throw-away joke that was never brought up again. The M4 carbine never comes up again. The tactical knives kit is mentioned in Knock, Knock, but not in a plot-significant or symbolic way. 

'Goddamn harpoon' speech

So why does the harpoon become such an iconic part of Minkowski's brand (and I'm pretty certain it was seen as significant by fans long before the finale)? It's got to be because of the next time it's mentioned, when Minkowski talks to the plant monster in the same episode:

MINKOWSKI (getting psyched up) You wanna play with me, huh? You wanna run rings around me? The joyless, boring, predictable old Minkowski? She can't stop you, right? Not someone as smart and powerful as you. You've got her pegged. Good. Get complacent. Get smug. That's right when you'll find me waiting for you. With a goddamn harpoon.

There's so much to say about this speech and what it reveals her character. For one thing, it's all projection - we have no real indication of what (if anything) the plant monster thinks of Minkowski. We don't even really know how much understanding it has when listening to her talk. She imagines that this silent adversary would call her "joyless, boring, predictable". I suspect that these are all things that she's been called a fair bit in the past. (To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they are all things that Eiffel called her at one point.)

But the harpoon is proof against - if not the accusation of joylessness - the idea that Minkowski is boring and predictable. Boring and predictable people don't opt for a harpoon for fighting on a spaceship when plenty of more conventional weapons available. A harpoon is unexpected, and there's a kind of power in that.

Another interesting thing about that speech is that the whole thing would make at least as much sense - if not more - if it was directed at Cutter. In Sarah Shachat's episode commentary on Minkowski Commanding (part of the bonus material available to buy here), she says that Minkowski "is really speaking to Cutter in this moment". It's made clear that Minkowski's behaviour in Minkowski Commanding is not just about the plant monster itself. She tells Eiffel, "I have to take it seriously! If I can eliminate one threat, just one, then we are that much closer to going home!" 

The specifics of the plant monster's location, abilities, and origin are mysterious, but - unlike many of the other forces threatening the safety of Minkowski's crew - it is at least tangible and harpoon-able and not light years away. Hunting the plant monster is a way for Minkowski to assert control when so much is outside of her control. It's an attempt to demonstrate that she is - as she puts it - "in charge of this disaster". Minkowski treats the plant monster as a physical symbol of all the threats her crew are facing, and so the harpoon becomes a physical symbol of her fierce (if sometimes misguided) determination to take control of the situation and fight back against those threats to protect her crew.

The line "you'll find me waiting for you. With a goddamn harpoon" is one that sticks in the mind, especially since - with one notable exception - 'goddamn' is about as potent as swearwords get on this show. And it's the harpoon that she uses to give specificity to the threat. 

Absurdity

A harpoon is powerful and threatening, which is exactly what Minkowski is trying to convey to the plant monster, but in this context - not only on dry land but on a spaceship - it's also kind of absurd. From the way we hear it fire in the finale, we can tell that it's more like a speargun than a hand-thrown harpoon spear, but it's still an out-of-place weapon for space-based combat. Minkowski's already been shown to have a penchant for archaic weaponry, after her drunken enthusiasm over the cannon during the talent show incident, which is largely played for laughs. Similarly, in the episode commentary for Minkowski Commanding, Sarah Shachat says that the harpoon was introduced mostly just because it was funny; "[including a harpoon] was me sort of embracing the Moby Dick of it all. And I had no idea at the time how much importance that silly harpoon would take on." 

Eiffel makes a Moby Dick reference himself ("10 days of Captain Ahab's Space Walkabout"). I haven't read Moby Dick so I can't properly analyse the significance of this reference, but the initial prominence of the harpoon (traditionally a whaling tool) enables that connection. It feels like a good example of the classic Wolf 359 thing where something comedic has the potential to take on a deeper significance. It conjures an image of Minkowski as a Captain with the potential to be consumed by a single-minded mission to destroy... A potential that she resists in the conclusion to Minkowski Commanding when she chooses to leave the plant monster alone. The harpoon also fits with the sprinkling of nautical imagery and language in Wolf 359 (e.g. the repeated use of the word 'boat'), as well as the retro-futuristic feel of the Hephaestus.

We never learn why there's a harpoon on the Hephaestus. It seems like yet another of those bizarre unexplained quirks of the station, like the items in the storage room where Eiffel finds Box 953. Even when the weird mysterious features of the Hephaestus are depicted in a comedic way, these features are still a demonstration of the fact that the characters are in an environment that they don't understand and that their surroundings have been shaped according to the whims of Command.

I think we can assume none of the members of the Hephaestus crew brought a harpoon up with them. For whatever reason, someone at Goddard Futuristics must have decided to put a harpoon in that armory. Like most things in the crew's lives, the harpoon is owned by Goddard Futuristics. So the way Minkowski uses the harpoon could be seen as an instance of reclaiming something from Goddard and their control over her surroundings (in a similar way to how her crew are able to utilise the maze-like structure of the Hephaestus to their advantage when hiding first from the SI-5 and later from Cutter and the crew of the Sol).

Other mentions of the harpoon

The harpoon doesn't actually make another physical appearance until the finale, when it truly comes into its own. But there are a couple of little hints before then that it has become a part of Minkowski's brand amongst the other characters as well as to the listeners. These mentions remind the listener about the harpoon, so we don't forget about it before its big comeback in the finale.

Ep27 Knock, Knock

EIFFEL [to Minkowski] Like getting rid of all the weapons, for a start. We should gather up all the guns, the tactical knives, your harpoon. Put it all in the arms locker, seal that sucker up, and put the key in one of Hera's service canisters.

In this quote, Eiffel refers to it as "your harpoon" - the only weapon he ascribes ownership to here. He sees it as something she's laid claim to. He also thinks the harpoon is worth mentioning specifically, which suggests that he thinks that Minkowski would reach for it first if she was feeling particularly violent. This reinforces the idea that the harpoon has become a symbol of Minkowski's character. This connection is also strengthened by the fact that the harpoon is also never mentioned in relation to anyone other than Minkowski using it.

Ep45 Desperate Measures

LOVELACE [to Kepler] Yeah, right. Nobody knows this station like Alexander Hilbert. He knows every nook, cranny, hidden room - everything. And as back up he's got the only woman's who's ever turned outer space monster hunting into a recreational sport. You'll never see them coming... until all of a sudden there's a harpoon in your face, and you end up on the operating table of the finest medical sadist that Goddard Futuristics ever produced.

Lovelace mentions the harpoon and specifically refers to Minkowski's plant-hunting exploits, even though she didn't witness them. So we know that someone has told her that story. And what she's taken away from hearing the story is an emphasis on Minkowski's harpoon and an admiration for her determination. I don't think Minkowski was the one to tell Lovelace about her plant-monster-hunting mission, because I don't think she's necessarily proud of it. I suspect it was Eiffel who told her - he's the most natural storyteller of the group. In Mutually Assured Destruction, soon after meeting Lovelace for the first time, he says "Nobody's told you about the Plant Monster yet? So, funny story..." And I believe  Eiffel would have told the story of Minkowski's plant monster hunt in a way that conveyed both the ridiculousness of her behaviour but also a kind of awe at her boldness and persistence.

The tone of "all of a sudden there's a harpoon in your face" is pretty similar to "That's right when you'll find me waiting for you. With a goddamn harpoon". Once again, the harpoon is portrayed as something that the Hephaestus crew's adversary won't expect, something that will play a key role in that adversary's defeat. You might almost think something was being foreshadowed here…

Characterisation through Weaponry

When we think of the harpoon as a symbol of Minkowski as a character, it seems worth drawing a comparison with the only other Wolf 359 character who I think has a form of weaponry as a big part of their brand: Jacobi and his explosives. While a harpoon certainly has a lot of potential for violence (a potential which Minkowski utilises), it is targeted and intentional in a way that bombs don't tend to be. It's harder to have collateral damage with a harpoon, and I think that reflects a difference between Minkowski and Jacobi's approach to conflict.

A harpoon isn't really designed for combat - it's for hunting whales and other marine animals. It feels significant that Minkowski's key weapon of choice - the one she threatens the plant monster with and kills Cutter with - isn't the weapon of a soldier. She took an assault rifle with her to hunt the plant monster, but that wasn't the weapon she held onto. She's not a natural soldier, even if she'd sometimes like to think she is. 

Maxwell's Death

When Minkowski kills Maxwell, it's with a gun, not a harpoon. She's trying to be a soldier there. She's trying to do what she has to. I don't know much about how a harpoon is fired, but I've a feeling that there's less uncertainty about whether a harpoon was fired deliberately than a gun; the ambiguity around Minkowski's agency in Maxwell's death is a key part of the story that wouldn't work with a harpoon. But perhaps more importantly, I don't think there's meant to be a sense of victory or relief in Maxwell's death, unlike Cutter's. The harpoon - as a weapon that has become strongly identified with Minkowski as a character - is saved for moments when Minkowski is asserting her power in an active way that she isn't conflicted about. 

Ep61 Brave New World

About a third of the way into the finale, there's another indirect mention of the harpoon:

RACHEL Y-yes, sir… Umm, we also picked up some chatter on their weaponry supplies… Firearms, explosives, something about a harpoon…

This is a nice little reference which reminds the listener of the harpoon in anticipation of its big moment later on in this episode, while once again playing with its incongruity in a list of more typical combat weapons. Given that Minkowski and co. have guessed that they are being listened in on here, their choice to talk about the harpoon might be seen as their way of having a bit of fun, or it might be seen as their way to imply the same threat that Minkowski made to the plant monster. Cutter had warning, but he didn't heed it.

Which brings us, of course, to the harpoon's most significant moment:

Cutter frowns. Then he hears it: CLA-CLUNK! His eyes widen.  MINKOWSKI Let's see you catch this.  FWUUUMP! An ENORMOUS THING IS SHOT. A moment later, Cutter COLLIDES AGAINST THE WALL, IMPALED.  MR. CUTTER ... a... harpoon? That's not... how this is... supposed... to... He struggles for a few more moments...and then he stops.

This scene is a classic instance of Wolf 359 utilizing the audio medium to leave a significant element of the situation unknown to the listener until the right moment. We don't know that Minkowski is carrying the harpoon. We don't know that she's readying it as Lovelace talks. When we hear something fire, there's a moment where a listener might or might not have realised exactly what just fired. It's Cutter who delivers the glorious revelation. It gives the moment an additional burst of triumph that Cutter's final words are an expression of shock, not just that he has been defeated but at the weapon with which the killing blow was struck.

Human unpredictability 

It's not just that Minkowski kills Cutter with a harpoon; it's also that she wouldn't have been able to kill him without it. He can catch bullets after all, so Minkowski and Lovelace's guns are basically useless. Cutter thinks he's therefore invincible, but he hasn't accounted for the possibility that Minkowski might have a less conventional weapon on hand, one which fires larger projectiles that he can't catch so easily. The fact that she's carrying an unexpected weapon - a weapon that might have seemed ridiculous - is what allows her to defeat Cutter and therefore to survive. 

It's a repeated theme in Wolf 359 that the protagonists' strength is not that they are the most powerful or they behave in the most logical ways, but that they are complicated and human and unpredictable and very much themselves - all of the things that Cutter and Pryce don't want in their 'ideal humanity'. When Minkowski kills Cutter with the harpoon, it's a victory for human unpredictability and individual idiosyncrasies.

Making good on her promise

Thinking back to Minkowski Commanding, we can see that the threat Minkowski made to the plant monster absolutely came true with Cutter. He got complacent. He got smug. (I'd argue that smugness has always been one of his key attributes.) And he found her waiting for him, with a goddamn harpoon. The return of the harpoon for this moment suggests the defeat of Cutter is a culmination of some of the motivations and traits that Minkowski showed when hunting the plant monster, now channeled in a more suitable direction. She continued trying to get them "that much closer to going home". Her - sometimes absurd - determination provides a throughline from an episode that was mostly comedic (Minkowski Commanding) to a dramatic emotionally powerful finale. As Sarah Shachat put it in her audio commentary, Minkowski "makes good on her promise [that she makes in her harpoon speech in Minkowski Commanding]. That's why she's a hero."

It's significant that Cutter dies from an unlikely weapon that is so strongly identified with Minkowski. It makes that moment feel like truly hers (although she is of course right that she couldn't have done it without Lovelace - that's called being part of a crew). 

As the Commander, it feels apt that Minkowski is the one to kill the long-standing 'big bad'. Pryce is arguably the same level of antagonist as Cutter, but he's the one that we've been aware of since we became aware of larger sinister forces at work in this narrative. 

And if Minkowski has a personal nemesis, it's Cutter. He's the one who recruited her into the hellscape that is the Hephaestus. He played on her ambitions to get her where he wanted her. She trusted him the way she trusted the official chain of authority at the start of the mission. And that trust was extremely misplaced.

The significance of Minkowski being the one to kill Cutter is highlighted by the fact that she kills him with a weapon that only she uses, a weapon that links us back to her behaviour 40 episodes earlier. The sense of control that she was desperately seeking in Minkowski Commanding might not be completely within her grasp by the end of the finale, but she's reclaimed a piece of it by defeating the man who has been exerting control over her life for so long. And she did it with that goddamn harpoon.

#It's harpoon time!! #Honestly I think there's probably still lots more to say #but this is plenty to be getting on with #Feel free to share your own thoughts #Wolf 359 #w359 #Renée Minkowski #The stuff about human unpredictability was inspired a lot by conversations with my friend @commsroom #so she'd be in my bibliography if I had one #Something that didn't really fit in here but feels relevant is the way that fans #(particularly podcast fans who don't have canon appearances to go off) #will use certain characteristics/ objects/ clothing choices to make a character identifiable in art #Like if I see art of a Wolf 359 character with some combination of cigarette/ headphones/ Star Wars t-shirt #I know it's Eiffel even if it doesn't look like my mental idea of him #And the harpoon is definitely part of that shorthand for Minkowski #because no one else would have it #so lots of Minkowski art features the harpoon #which strengthens the associations that I'm talking about in this post #And that's interesting to me #because it's an unintended way in which fandom has the potential to influence how people perceive a character #but I think in this case it just adds further value to things that are already implied in canon #Renee Minkowski #Commander Minkowski #w359 spoilers #wolf 359 spoilers #the empty man posteth

[thedragonemperess]

In my very humble opinion, Ness went to school for music production and theater but when that unfortunately didn't go anywhere, he got the job at Sparky's. He has a music-focused podcast on the side, though. It's called Music Theory.

#marankton speaks because why not #vanessa listens to it and gets mike to start #he tends to put it on while he falls asleep #one day while ness is taking his order and gets distracted talking about god knows what mike just goes 'your voice is very soothing' #queue flustered ness #queue oblivious and confused mike #as they get closer mike eventually ends up babysitting for abby #he finds out mike listens to his podcast and considering hes pretty popular he has a mini crisis #but mike has deadass not connected the dots that the hot waiter babysitter is the same person who talks him to sleep every night #idk theres an only one bed trope hidden in here somewhere #securitywaiter #security waiter #dreamtheory #dream theory #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's movie #fnaf ness #ness fnaf

[benkyoutobentou]

What I've Been Enjoying Lately - Japanese Media

This is way overdue! I've been consuming so much great media in Japanese, it's time to share the love and recommend some things for all of you lovely language learners

📚 Books:

旅猫リポート - 有川浩: This is a super adorable novel about a stray cat who is taken in by a young man. Five years later, the owner is suddenly unable to take care of this cat and the two embark on a road trip across Japan to find the perfect new owner. This one is definitely a tear jerker to any animal lover and will absolutely make you want to cuddle your own fluffy friends into oblivion.

キノの旅 - 時雨沢恵一: This is a light novel series that's extremely close to my heart! The 2003 anime adaption of this series also isn't just my favorite anime, but my favorite TV show ever. Because of the relatively simple vocabulary, I often see it recommended as a first read for Japanese learners just dipping their toes into novel reading, and I find myself agreeing. This series follows a teenager named Kino who travel from country to country with a motorrad named Hermes. There's not much of a continuous plot and very few recurring characters, making it even easier to follow if something confuses you. Despite the fluffy sounding description, this series has a good amount of content warnings accompanying it and can get pretty gory at times as well.

僕らの地球の歩き方 - ソライモネ: An adorable manga series in which two men travel the world together under the agreement that, upon returning to Japan, they'll get married. I feel like if someone looked into my brain to find what I like in a series in order to create a manga series perfectly suited to my tastes, it would be 僕らの地球の歩き方. It's gay, it's adorable, it's about traveling the world, it's about loving the people around you and human culture and delicious food, I'm already crying. Definitely one of my all time favorites.

薔薇王の葬列 - 菅野文: I went back and forth about putting this on my list, but it's not titled "What I've Been Enjoying Lately" for nothing and boy oh boy have I been enjoying this lately. Perhaps I've been enjoying it a bit too much. A while back, I actually banned myself from reading this series because I didn't have the full set and would instantly be put in an awful mood if I caught up with the volumes I had. This manga series follows Richard Plantagenet III, yes, that one, and his ascendance to the British throne. This series is chock full of treachery, murder, violence, and everything else nice. Due to the... everything about this series.... there's a lot of unusual vocabulary, but it has furigana on everything, which helps a lot for speedy look ups.

気になってる人が男じゃなかった - 新井すみこ: Bonus manga! Because this one is worth it, and also because everyone needs a little more GL on their shelves. This manga is so good that I've even been seeing people who don't speak Japanese buy this to have on their shelves. It follows a slightly awkward girl and a gyaru from her class as the two bond of their shared love of western rock music. Yeah, this is the manga that's doing a collab with Nirvana.

📺 Shows and Movies:

Old Fashion Cupcake - This is a BL office romance drama about a middle aged man and his subordinate who begin acting like teenage girls in an attempt to regain some of their youth. Through eating sweets together, taking selfies and food pictures, and talking "girls' talk," the two deepen their bond. I don't think I can say this enough, I love food romances. If their is food involved in a romance, I'm there, no need to tell me twice. This series is super sweet and a really enjoyable watch.

カルテット - Four musicians meet by chance and decide to form a quartet together. However, each one has secrets that they're hiding. Bonus points to Netflix for actually having a J-drama I like for once. This series has a warm and cozy found family vibe, while still managing to have some of the most wildest shenanigans imaginable. I also really appreciated that this series seems to take some stances that I've never seen before, especially regarding family and what you owe to your parents.

映像研には手を出すな！ - This anime follows three girls and their attempts to make anime. As an anime that is about the creation of anime, it's really no surprise that the art and animation is stand out in this series. I loved the ways that we as the viewer were able to see the imaginations of the characters. I also really enjoyed the characters, and the voice acting was phenomenal as well. This show is also home to one of the best intros ever.

赤髪の白雪姫 - This fantasy anime follows the titular character Shirayuki as she escapes from her home kingdom after being chosen as a royal concubine due to her unusual red hair. On her travels, she meets a prince from a neighboring kingdom and becomes a palace herbalist. It's not often that I watch or care about straight romances in media, but this romance is so adorable, and even beyond it, I truly love all the characters and their relationships in this series. Also, I think this is the only show I've watched where I found the soundtrack to actually be distracting- and not because I didn't like it, but because it was just that good.

🎤 Music:

オーガストの風 - THE BLACKBAND

夢伝説 - Stardust Revue

lemonade - Chili Beans.

Show - Ado

#this one is a juggernaut of recommendations in the books category #youre getting like all my favorites at once because i havent had a chance to talk about any of them separately yet #hoping to find a lot more favorites soon #but the shows and books that i watched a little while ago i was like hhhhhhhh brain broke while trying to write about them sob #langblr #studyblr #language learning #polyglot #languages #studyinspo #日本語 #benkyou posting #sorry i havent been watching youtube or listening to podcasts in japanese latelyyyy #i tried one podcast and wasnt really into it #but if anyone knows any good youtube channels or podcasts about books please let me know!!!

[its-your-mind]

feeling shrimp emotions (<-just finished ten thousandth relisten of taz balance)

#I know it’s been said a thousand times and it’s gonna keep being said #but fuck #TAZ Balance is such a fucking good story #No other podcast makes me feel the shrimp emotions this one does #I’m never gonna get over how beautiful the finale was #while sTILL BEING A SLAPSTICK DISASTER #Griffin is such a good DM and Clint and Justin and Travis are such good players #anyway this podcast means so much to me that’s all ty for your time #taz balance #the zone cast #taz #the adventure zone

[waters-and-the-wilde]

mmmmmm Rita sending Space Snapchats (tm) to Mick during S5. eventually culminating with a half close-up Rita selfie/half Juno conked out in the backseat of the Ruby with Some Guy (also conked out) (in the most weird-ass folded up pretzel configuration across the rest of the backseat) (under Juno’s coat) (head in Juno’s lap) (can’t even see his face it’s mostly just a very pointy elbow) (and Juno’s hand in his hair)

caption just says ‘got him!!!’

#i got covid earlier this week and im mostly okay but everything low-key sucks and this is what’s getting me through my day #she knows about the ‘get your man’ conversation #obviously #it’s cc’d to Puck #and Frannie #the penumbra podcast #juno steel #peter nureyev #rita my beloved

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

and shout-out to weepe's guards! competent enough to move quicker than kozma's people, strong enough to overpower them despite being outnumbered, and seemingly didn't even blink at not just killing other people but at doing it with horrific weaponized tearror-blood. weepe found these guys in the fucking TRUST?

#midst podcast #midst #midst spoilers #midst podcast spoilers #i'm of two minds about it bc on the one hand kestrel astutely pointed out that there was no mention of valor or abacuses where you'd expect #and using the fold to tear apart a bunch of guards who are trying to stop their boss getting Murdered doesn't Seem very valorous by trust s #and weepe having a bunch of guys in his pocket who WEREN'T originally trust even if they've been pulled in seems like something he'd like #but on the other hand. where would he have GOTTEN a bunch of non-trust guys???? #AND they're referred to as a special king triangle 'Company guard' in 3.7 #plus i really like the idea that like...the trust really does have some VERY fucking competent soldiers #we've seen phineas do some genuinely impressive athletic stunts and we know costigan can uh. hold her own in a fight #and anyway it isn't the prime consector's unit's job to be the best it's their job to LOOK the best #of COURSE you'd want your really skilled guys protecting your upper trustees and your king triangle #hell it's just another angle of the non-trust society underestimating the trust (but that's a whole nother post) #and as far as the valor goes...well. we've certainly seen definitions shift! company guards stood outside the vault in 2.13 too! #and witnessed the devastation after!

[monstrousproductions]

a fun fact about me is that i got bitten by a HORSE on sunday

#chomp chomp baby #it was more insulting than sore #i believe he mistook me for a delicious apple or sugarcube or similar #it was also a very slobbery chomp #right on the forearm #this has no relevance to the podcast i just wanted to share #get to know your podcaster

[soup-child]

The newest 8bbc feels like one of those youtube videos where it's Elsa and spiderman hanging out slime video for kids unboxing and I mean this in the absolute best way possible I love it

#to be clear this is very very /pos #i hope non naddpod folks see this because how do you explain that a dnd podcast reads choose your own adventure frozen fanfic on off weeks #if that doesnt get you invested in naddpod i dont know what will #naddpod #8 bit book club

[korrolrezni]

John: *Asks Arthur to do something*

Arthur ( randomly) : Yes, my king.

John:

#malevolent podcast #malevolent #Arthur Lester #John Doe #john doe (malevolent) #I like to think that Arthur is the kind of person to pull your leg and tease you from time to time once he's comfortable with you #He likes to mess around with John purely because of John's reaction #John doesn't know how to react #or react normally #John is just very confused about how he should feel #just being human is a new thing for John #sometimes Arthur's left hand even twitches from the intensity of his reaction lol #he's learning though #getting there #anyway malevolent brainrot continues #while I procrastinate everything even listening to the next episode

[kicktwine]

the problem is I’m such a staunch believer in the slow buildup, the earnest enjoyment of meandering through terrible story decisions and weird nothing subplots to build up into a conclusion that explodes out from all that as fantastic storytelling and intrigue based on all that buildup, such that it makes it necessary to get through all that or you’re missing something essential, that I’m also a terrible person to talk to about what makes a story good. I can tell you plenty of what actually makes something tight and well-written and all that technical speak but how could anyone take my advice when I so so so love excruciatingly long unnecessarily complex fumbling and weird nonsense that spirals into, inexplicably, weird nonsense that makes you cry your lungs sore

#kipspeak #my point being everyone is too mean about post arr. sure f’lhammin did not have to be our problem but everything after that was like #meandering. Thinking. building. unnerving. they were cooking and i RESPECT their dubious food #i love homestuck and long audio dramas and dnd podcasts and indecipherable fancomics and lego ninjas and khux and im starting to love ffxiv #all incredibly long and made with passion and kinda weird and hard to get into #said with THE MOST affection in my heart #I could structure a kids show and I know how to write for tv but in my heart of hearts #I just want to write an impossibly long absurdity epic that is weird and a little bad and also makes you feel shrimp emotions #ALSO I feel 0% bad for not respecting ur theory or opinion if you haven’t played khux/dr/recoded I don’t feel bad about it at all I’m right #understand what’s going on in them and I’ll respect your theories. it’s like comics enjoyers but less chaotic #don’t let me get into comics. superheroes never really catch my interest but if you let me get into comics I’d explode #‘it gets really good’ is a genuine way to interest me #also don’t let me get into anime that do this. I already watched a thousand episodes of detective Conan— #maybe it’s a careful balance of weird and Good Storytelling Seeds. it has to have internal logic for one; and it has to have a structure #It has to be leading somewhere. and I want to see where it leads #we are GOING through the disney worlds. all of them. they are COOKING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[constantvariations]

The most annoying problem of rwby is how it will say something like "the White Fang assassinates board members of the SDC" while never actually following up on it. We spend several seasons in Atlas and not once does this come up

Despite Weiss literally being the one projected to take over the company, she never interacts with the business and the danger attached to it. No board members popping in to talk to her or Jacques, no guards talking of upping security as a result of another attempted attack, no personal escorts for any of the Schnees whenever they go to the recital

The show says that Schnees and associates are under constant threat by the White Fang, a threat that should have escalated after the fall of Beacon, but nothing in the show's actions even suggest this. Jacques only complaint is about the embargo costing him money, Winter has washed her hands of the SDC entirely, Whitley's focus is being Weiss's annoying (affectionate) little brother, and Willow barely exists

Yet rabids will call you stupid and illiterate for asking the show to... show these things. Just because things are said or things like guards and spies are logical for situations like this doesn't mean that the story gets to slack off in implementing these elements

Shows are akin to a court case. You can't just point at someone and cry, "They're a murderer!" You have to establish a timeline, motive, and method, and provide physical evidence like the weapon used or footage of the person at the scene of the crime. No jury worth its salt would condemn a person on he-said, she-said

You want me to care that board members are being assassinated? Introduce me to them so I can either want them protected or pray for their death. You want me to believe that the Schnees are under constant threat? Have Willow be paranoid to the point of never going outside and never letting Weiss and Whitley go anywhere without a ton of security. You want me to worry about spies? Ilia would've been perfect here! Have her play the demure servant while we see her sneaking into Jacques's office to steal SDC documents

Not only is relying on distant dialogue and exposition a lazy way of establishing elements of the world, not only is it a surefire way for folks w bad memory/auditory processing issues (me) to miss out on important information, it's fucking BORING

#rwde #why yes i am being a petty bitch abt this #sorry that im asking this show to be a SHOW #if i wanted to listen to a story I'd be going to podcasts or audiobooks #also real classy insulting my intelligence then blocking before I could reply. we may be called rwde but youre the one who threw a tantrum #god why didnt ilia get to be a spy in atlas instead of getting wasted and ditched in the menagerie arc #you know how many people id kill for white fang spies all over the globe but especially atlas? #in ohar blake is literally a wf undercover trying to get close to Weiss to learn sdc secrets #god i wish i could work on ohar proper #twould be a dream

[essektheylyss]

I am obsessed with how narratively convenient Lark's divinatory abilities are. She's the only one of the protagonists who is both pragmatic and has a working sense of self-preservation, so having some internal impulse that is actually the guiding hand of the cosmos pushing her into doing the REALLY stupid shit is both necessary and really useful.

Like, I am the type of writer who kind of scoffs at the idea that characters are beyond the writer's control and will completely screw over your outline, because on one hand, a sensible outline will follow the characters' personalities and tendencies anyway. Obviously in an ensemble cast you will need to do some wrangling, but in theory your characters are responding to varying degrees of stimuli in order to maneuver them into the places you need them to be for things to all come together in the end.

But more importantly, "curse from god" is the funniest and easiest way to push any character to do things beyond the realm of reason when necessary, and frankly, what the fuck is the point of playing god if you don't embrace that?

#midst podcast #midst spoilers #cr meta #anyway at all times I am advocating for taking full responsibility for your characters and overall story #this is also why I laugh at those posts like 'um if you're not going to treat your characters right then you shouldn't get custody of them' #sorry babe there is no CPS in my head. I am the cruel custodian and these are my poor darwinian orphans. #that's a joke but really like. look. yeah sometimes you gotta fabricate scenarios to make characters do what you want #but like... you do that by going 'who is this character and what would it take to push them to x'??? #and especially in an ensemble cast sometimes that thing is 'curse from god' or 'divine insight' #fun fact: I LOATHE that post about 'my writing teacher made a joke that the characters are driving and the writer is locked in the trunk' #absolutely fucking hate it. #because THE WHOLE POINT OF FORMALLY LEARNING WRITING IS LEARNING HOW TO BE INTENTIONAL. #it is perfectly possible to write successfully without ever having a formal teacher but IF YOU HAVE A FORMAL TEACHER. UH. #like yeah yeah 'workshopping' but like. okay go build your own workshop group don't pay somebody jfc #(cuz it's not like most creative writing teachers know how to teach you to workshop. let's be fucking real.) #if you wanna learn how to workshop take a script class for the love of god. #ANYWAY rant over but I'm correct. the highest purpose of a writer is to be a control freak and to play god.