About those new masks..
So i saw this take a few times already and i have some thoughts. Obviously it's paraphrasing but you'll see these a lot similar to this if you scroll in ST spaces since yesterday:
"These new masks have too much personality, they said the people behind the music is uniportant but they now have this new personalized look instead of the uniform sleek minimalist one and it is the direct opposite of what they are saying. These new looks do not fit Sleep Token"
Let me preface this: I'm not going to explore specific reasons why people might hate on the masks because... No i refuse to go there, but i will talk about the issues i have around this a bit.
No.
If you are hating on the new masks so much so as to cry about that "this is not what they supposed to be about" you are missing your own point. You are in fact shooting the opposite direction. You are no longer in it for "just the music" but you are very much caught upon the "everything else beside the music." You got distracted. You putting the blame on them instead on yourself for loosing your own point.
There is no moral highground in this whole ordeal. Please respect yourself enought to try not to look utterly stupid if you frothing about something you visibly misunderstood. Do not hide behind excuses. Do not put this on the artists. Own up to the fact that you simple don't like it.
Admit that it's your opinion purely; because ultimately the artist creating their own art will understand creative choices behind their creations more than you ever will. No matter how far you try to bend backwards.
The masks fit Sleep Token because it is Sleep Token who decided to have them. End of story. You can hate it all you want but it is still part of the shabang now. And don't try to mask your distaste over visuals with shouting about the artist not understanding their own ideology.
If you are so hung up on how they look like, more than what the music still is, than stop and think for a second please..
You have it backwards. If you really truly only care about the music, what it is about, what it gives you, than you are not going to give a shit what they are wearing on stage.
Maybe in a passing few sentences but otherwise you are not going to be worked up about it to the point you sent hatecomments to the artist who made them.. It is shameful.
Besides i hate to break it to people but they already had their personalities with their outfits just not this strongly. III had the random whacky shit. IV had the hint's of this comfy leisurly punk-ish techwear whatever going on besides the fancy stuff the past a months since the summer. II had a slightly sleeker but maybe sort of tech-ish look which is now reflected (in my opinion) much more strongly with this new look (which sorta reminds me of a stylized oni or something tbh and that is extremely in line with their older far-east inspired thematics visually, just saying).
They are not handing you the "we are unimportant" part anymore. They are not spoonfeeding it to you. Not in the way they had before at least. They presume you are mature and smart enough at this point to get it. To get to the conclusion that it is unimportant what they look like. And allow them to still have fun with it.
Or just they are being cheeky and went for something that would shake up the people. I don't know, i don't know them or anyone close to them. I don't have answers. But they are trying something new an it is perfectly fine.
Also which would have come off so much differently if Vessel is 100% btw. Be honest, if they would have been able to perform to their fullest abilities, far less people would be so loud over this.. This was just an unfortunate turn of events and when shit hits the fan it usually never just one dose. And my heart breaks for the boys for all this.
Besides, people were so loud about hating that "they looked the same" and "so hard to distinguish" and "easy to replace because of this" ... now they have personalized masks and looks and the same people cry about the exact opposite they did before..
Also it just occured to me that this is basically the same as the lightshow upgrade. It gives you something to look at at the rituals. The new looks are visually interesting, and with the lighting setup they have now they are gonna look like some seriously fun nightmare creatures btw. I love that already.
So all in all i don't know, i don't really have a point here i guess, but the boys are in such a no win situation right now and i hate the fact that people are shitting on them just because they don't fit their idea of "an anonymous collective" anymore. Which is reddiculous and sad because nothign has changed.
It never was about being a blank page. It was about being human. It flies over so many peoples head but the anonymity part isn't about not being a person under there. It is being about that person not having a name. It doesn't matter if the person has a personality or not. What matter there is that no name.
There is no definitiveness. It gives an open invitation for anyone to step into that person but first you need to recognise that there is a person there. And there is no doing that if there are no traces of personality. Or humanity if you will because personalities makes us humans. Don't make me hold a philosophy lecture here on what it means being human please.
It does not matter who that individual it is by tagging a name on them. But it is extremely important that there is a person there. Otherwise there is no connection point. If there is no person there is nothing to understand. But it does not matter how that person looks like. It does not matter what the person wears. Or what that person is called. What matters is that it is a human being. And as such you can understand it. Our at least you should be able to.
Regardless of the design of a mask.
94 notes
·
View notes
My thoughts on Skirk
With the way Skirk treats and talks about him, its no wonder Tartaglia turned out the way he did. A bright and naive 13 yr old boy with no combat experience falls away from the comfort of his home into a world full of monsters with no sun or safety and the only psuedo-caretaker he has won't even speak to him properly because she says him as too weak to bother with, and after 3 months of fighting his way through hell and losing his humanity, he returns to that home he was longing for, only to find that 3 days have passed since he left and he tells not a single person what happened to him. No wonder he lost his mind down there.
I miss the Skirk that I had made up in my head, the one I patched together from different fic writer and fan artists ideas for her, the one that had that same rambunctious and bloodthirsty personality that Tartaglia inherited, the one that took care of a child the best she knew how while hardening him to survive the abyss' dangers, the one that at least *tried*, because she *wanted too*.
I just feel disappointed, and I think a lot of other people are as well.
I think that, until we see her again, I'm just going to keep pretending that the one in my head is the real one.
90 notes
·
View notes
i'm about to get mauled ALIVE for saying this but here goes:
i think m'leven's relationship should be based on a mutually requited crush. both the implications it would have on their personal development as characters and the message it would send to the audience would be substantially more impactful, healthy, and progressive than if they only dated out of obligation. in fact, the thematic message of their relationship SIMPLY DOESN'T MAKE SENSE without a foundation of genuine romantic attraction.
still with me??? okay, good.
when shows deal with romance they tend to fall into the categories of either having pretty much every character shipped with every other character at some point, or of having the endgame ships be the most obviously pushed from the start. byler has definitely been built up from the start, but the majority of the show's audience didn't consider it as an option for canon until s4, when they started making it blatant. hell, a lot of people didn't even realize WILL was queer until s3 (again, when the show started to place heavy emphasis on it), and even then a lot of people thought he might be ace rather than gay.
mike and el, on the other hand, were practically the show's flagship couple for the first 2 seasons at least. it wasn't until s3 that their popularity started to dip and their relationship began to receive a lot more criticism. which makes sense, considering they hadn't actually been IN said relationship in the previous seasons. they had a couple of romantic interactions, sure, but we didn't see how they would interact *as a couple*. people obviously couldn't predict how their dynamic would actually pan out!!! that isn't to say that the negative aspects of their relationship were a bait-and switch, though: red flags were visible since at least s2, but they were far from being the focal point and a lot of shippers interpreted them as being cute (like el's jealousy over max).
having a show acknowledge the fact that the first person you get a crush on (because correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure they're canonically each other's first crush???) isn't necessarily your ~soulmate~ is a great thing. even better when they go a step further, and play with the concept!!! the text of stranger things doesn't actually push m'leven as a paragon of romantic love. if you listen to what the other characters say about their (romantic) relationship, their opinions are entirely neutral/negative???
lucas teases mike about his crush in s1, but calls him hopeless in s3. hopper is out of line with how agressively he acts about their relationship, but the resolution of that character arc for him is about him acknowledging that he's been overbearing and accepting that he needs to let el grow up, and NOT some hammy realization that "what they have is true love, i was wrong to interfere!!!" max thinks their clinginess is sweet at first in s3, but she isn't very close with either of them. once she and el start to bond AND SHE LEARNS THAT EL HAS NO EXPERIENCE WITH ROMANTIC ATTRACTION OUTSIDE OF MIKE she encourages el to assert her own self-worth and dump him. [which... actually mirrors the progression of opinions in a lot of audience members??? 🤔🤔]
and those are just a few examples!!! i won't go on an exhaustive list, because honestly we'd be here all day.
furthermore, m'leven's steady downward trajectory is not the only instance of the show basically dunking on the trite expectation that a character's first love interest is automatically their happily-ever-after, AND the recurring motif that any relationships a character explores before their endgame ship are wrong because the alternate love interest is Bad.
dustin has his first crush (onscreen, anyway) on max in s2, but ends the season happy despite his sadness over rejection and later gets together with a girl who's basically his perfect match. in s3, robin confides to steve about how she was so far gone for tammy that she would cry into her pillow. in s4 she's able to laugh over just how bad her singing is without denying it, and is tentatively flirting with vickie. joyce was genuinely really happy with bob, but after having time to heal from the tragedy of what happened to him she's ready to move on with hopper.
again, not an exhaustive list. why??? because outside of m'leven, the only relationships where the characters ARE each other's first love interest are: lumax, whose entire arc together is about growing up as a couple (you know, the exact arc m'leven shippers pin on mike and el, as if it would make sense for 2 couples to have the same format and message...); stancy, which is only one prong of Love Triangle Hell and the controversy around it speaks for itself; and TED AND KAREN. WHO ARE POINTED OUT EXPLICITLY BY THE TEXT OF THE SHOW IN S1 NO LESS, TO BE AN EXAMPLE OF A WORST TIMELINE FUTURE THAT CHARACTERS DO NOT WANT TO REPEAT.
but if you're reading this, you already know all of that.
the point i'm trying to make is that stranger things shows a consistent palette of themes across all the relationships it portrays. i've obviously been going over the romantic ones, but this applies at least as much to the plationic bonds as well. those themes are of GROWING AND MATURING, of SHIFTING DYNAMICS, and of BECOMING SECURE IN YOUR PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE.
i'm sorry but to present a pair of characters with apparent mutual feelings; to elaborate on how dysfunctional their relationship is; and to ultimately reveal to the audience that actually they were both just confused, they never had feelings for one another in the first place and that's why their relationship didn't work out; sends an extremely mediocre message, to put it nicely. all the characters learn from that lived experience is "don't date people you don't have feelings for, and if you were unsure about how real those feelings were... get good???" meanwhile, all the audience learns from that VIEWED experience is "if the relationship doesn't work, it's because the people involved don't like each other enough." if byler goes on to be canon and is immediately much healthier, that only enforces that shitty message. in that situation the only reason THEIR relationship works while mike and el's didn't is that they actually have feelings for one another!!!
from a show which has explored complex arcs and messages with *LITERALLY EVERY OTHER RELATIONSHIP* they touch on, this would be beyond disappointing. particularly as the central message for the arc of 2 of the mainest main characters in the whole show!!!
on the other hand, to present a pair of young characters at the start of the show and flag them as having an obvious mutual crush; to allow them to explore that crush as a serious prospect; to have them realize that their relationship is dysfunctional; and to have them move on as friends; sends???
a great???
fucking???
message???
they both get to progress and move on as more enriched people than they would have been without their time in a relationship, and that is fucking wonderful.
el has a deeper understanding of romantic interactions based on actual lived experience and not just TV shows. she's able to develop into her fledgeling sense of identity more securely with the knowledge that relationships can change, and that's okay. not everything has to be forever.
mike understands how to process and manage his own feelings much better, and is equipped with a firsthand understanding of how a relationship can become emotionally dysfunctional without proper communication, making him ready to enter a new, healthier relationship. he has displayed the same overprotective behaviours towards will as he has to el, but he's begun to learn how to manage them so that he doesn't stifle his partner. after previously failing to communicate his feelings to both el and will in s3 when he fought with them, he's been making a deliberate point of doing so in s4. this didn't work with el when he tried to open up about his own experience with bullying, but it DID work with will when he admitted to his failings in balancing relationships.
are either of them finished in their personal arcs??? no, of course not!!! they're not even fifteen!!! but they have both grown as people, not in spite of their romantic relationship, but BECAUSE of it. you don't change as you grow up, so much as you start to understand yourself better. but self-discovery and subsequent self-acceptance CANNOT come without self-explaration.
it's okay to try things out, and it's okay if they don't end up being right for you.
meanwhile, the broader message about relationships that this imparts on the audience is an extremely important one. one which gets overlooked continually by storytellers in every industry. one which the show itself has brushed on, but not explored in depth.
one which fandom, in particular, likes to ignore.
ATTRACTION ≠ COMPATIBILITY
(...and that's okay!!!)
145 notes
·
View notes
everyone understands that Will had a hard time helping El and standing up for her because he himself has trauma from being bullied his whole life and doesn't know how to fight them back, his reaction to bullying is to freeze. but suddenly no one understands it when it comes to Mike and he's just called an asshole for not being able to stand up and fight El's bullies
i'm not saying he is innocent and did nothing wrong. he could have done more and just handle the situation better but he was just too focused on Will and was in his head and being the otherthinking oblivious dumbass that he is
but just imagine your girlfriend tells you she is having a good time and has friends, she does not mention anything bad and then suddenly she's getting bullied in front of you. when you've been bullied your whole life your first reaction is to freeze, to panic and just wait and hope it passes quickly and they'll leave you alone. Mike did not have any knowledge about her bullying or having any kind of problems, as long as he was aware those people were her friends. he himself has trauma from being bullied (he literally mentions it later on why yall keep forgetting??) and being suddenly thrown into a situation involving bullying can be really distressing.
when you have experience with being bullied even just seeing someone else getting bullied can make you freeze up and panic. and we know that Mike does not stand up for himself when he's the victim. even when you're not on the receiving end of the bullying but you just see it happening and suddenly you're a scared little kid again holding back tears desperately hoping for them to leave you alone.
and i know everyone wants to yell at me "you forgot about Mike standing up to Troy when they were saying shit about Will! so he can obviously stand up for his friends so why can't he for El??" and no i did not forget and yes you may be right but the situations are different. Mike was very well aware of Troy's bullying. he was involved in it. he was the victim there. he's had to deal with his bullying for years it was not a shocking revelation. however he did not know about El's situation at all and your reaction can be very different when you know about something and when you have no knowledge and it suddenly happens
again i'm not saying that he did nothing wrong. i'm just saying that we need to consider his trauma and his point of view and it could make him think less rationally and therefore not being able to help properly. maybe if he knew beforehand that something could go wrong he could be prepared and he would handle the situation better (even if it would be just them seeing Angela and her friends come and they would turn to Mike and say quickly that those people are mean to El he would still have at least some time and could prepare himself). but he did not know that and he was not prepared for this situation to suddenly escalate like this. he was unprepared and probably panicking and didn't know what to do so no he wasn't much of a help.
and maybe we should stop acting like this traumatised 14 years old kid needs to solve every problem and act rationally in every situation and not to make any mistakes (especially when he has no knowledge to prepare him for something distressing) and overall just putting everything on his shoulders and then insult and hate him when it does not end up perfectly well
and maybe i'm just being my overprotective extremely defensive self who's looking too much into this who knows
and i can't even properly put into words what i'm trying to say but if it makes sense to someone then great!
95 notes
·
View notes
I liked doing this last week, but it will get kinda repetitive in the coming weeks. So I'm not sure if I'll do it often while I'm posting the modern/band AU, but oh well!
It's another Saturday morning in a blanket with new music. Truly all I could ever need to write.
Here's what I've been working on...
Modern/band AU is fit and ready to start posting this upcoming week. Chapter [redacted] is complete, and I'm now far enough ahead that even a few weeks of busy life won't stop a regular posting schedule. And if I keep up writing then I'll be able to post around Xmas without needing a break!
Chapter [redacted+1] has an opening sentence, which is often the hardest part.
The outline for the AU has been modified a little. Combined three chapters into one, split out another chapter into two. Probably lots of consolidation to be done otherwise. There's a weird bit in the outline that's kinda fuzzy, but I'm sure I'll knuckle my way through it since it's not thematically deep. Might even be another chapter consolidation. This fic is definitely going to be longer than the 40k I was hoping it would top out at...
Editing the previous chapters has been a fun exercise in trimming the fat! I still want there to be scenes that are just ~vibes~ but I axed 1k words and the whole thing is cleaner for it.
More Minthara/Lae'zel is in the works, but it's mostly only the skeleton of an idea as I've had to rework it multiple times. I've a little under 1k actually written, and I'm not too convinced of what it is at the moment either. Quite frustrating.
Another seedling of an idea for non-smutty Asheera/Shadowheart fics. But it's really just "Shadowheart meets Asheera's parents" and boy I'm not ready for the mixed emotions Shadowheart's going to feel in that one. You know it's not just going to be fluff.
The Gauntlet/Nightsong segment for my core Shadowheart/Asheera series has a skeleton of an outline now. The POVs have been picked, the core beats are there, and I know it's going to hurt like a motherfucker to write some of this.
12 notes
·
View notes