#it feels like they put half this cast in so that the white characters/audience/and writers had people to racially profile

[noomyguts]

and the way people of color were written in this show 😬😬😬

#amateotw #a murder at the end of the world #yall can not keep writing like this #it feels like they put half this cast in so that the white characters/audience/and writers had people to racially profile #then they tried to play that off as part of the mystery #wasted so many talented actors and what could have been interesting characters had they been given a chance #obviously yall should be including characters of color even when the show isnt centered on their stories #but they were completly removed from the plot unless they needed to share their cuture or help white characters #it was handled badly #and i havent seen anyone else talking about it here #Edit: Zal is Iranian so Zibas portrayal im inclined to be less critical of but I still wish she had been more involved in the story #they all deserved more

[evilwickedme]

Can I ask what your lecture on deadpool was about?

Hello anon you absolutely can

Before I continue: repeated rape and suicide mentions in this post, as well as ableist and homophobic writing. It's Wade, tho. So, honestly, all that's to be expected.

Honestly I don't even remember anymore what the concept was when I sent in the idea to the event planners, I think it was something like... The differences between movie!wade and comics!wade? So I rewatched both movies with only a week in between and then sat and read... So goddamn many Deadpool comics. I went through every single series he appears in starting in 2008 and made a list of what I wanted to read, what I had to read, and what I didn't think I'd get to. The list I ended up with was still... Ridiculously ambitious. I only had about a month left before the lecture needed to have at least a rough draft done, and I had only managed to read Deadpool's first appearance for context and fun. This is the list I wrote out in a server I'm in with some friends:

Hey, at least I show some self awareness by saying that it's a lot. What I managed to actually read was maybe half of this, at best:

This is still, like, a whole lot to read in five weeks. My brain was melting by the end, and all thoughts of comparing this shit to the movie had basically disappeared by the time I sat down to organize my thoughts.

(Deadpool doesn't appear in Spider-Men, I just don't feel like cutting it out of the screenshot for no reason)

(ETA I also read Deadpool, Volume 2: Soul Hunter, I just forgot to put it on the comics shelf on GR so it escaped the screenshot)

What I ended up with was a lecture that was half factual overview of the character and his supporting cast, half thematic overview of the character and his supporting cast.

I started with just a vague rant on canon, because I knew the kind of audience that would show up to a lecture entirely about Deadpool. I stole much of the meat of it from thepandaredd on TikTok, but basically the claim is that with comics, canon is basically whatever you personally accept as canon. Because especially with a character like Deadpool but also basically any character with any history, writers are often going to disregard or actively negate something that was said earlier (you know, a retcon) and this is made worse by the fact that Deadpool doesn't know his own history. So whatever didn't make it into the lecture was simply... Not relevant to my discussion. Of course, at the end of the lecture somebody raised his hand and asked me about Thanos fighting Deadpool. I straight up told him I didn't care. I had already said that canon in this lecture is limited to the 2008 run, the 2012 run, the beginning of the 2015 run and spideypool, and whatever other random issues I had managed to fit in between.

The next thing was introducing Deadpool - he's a mercenary, he's got two major superpowers (healing factor stronger than almost anybody else's and breaking the fourth wall, which counts as communication with a different universe), he had cancer and the cancer also got the healing factor, he's insane. Then I compared his pre 2012 and post 2012 supporting cast - if you've only seen the movies, the pre 2012 cast is the people you know: Blind Al, Weasel, Hydra Bob, Cable, and of course, White and Yellow/the boxes. The post 2012 cast includes Agent Preston, Butler (who is the man behind Wade's first appearance and who brainwashed him and sent him to kill his own parents... harsh), Ben Franklin's ghost, Michael (a necromancer, and not the reason Ben Franklin's ghost is around), and Eleanor Camacho (!!) (among others). And, of course, White is revealed to be Madcap, while Yellow is revealed to be... Wade himself. I can go into detail about the different casts another time, if anybody's interested, cause there's certainly more to say here. A constant between both these eras is typhoid mary, who raped Wade, and Spidey, although he's more prominent post 2012 with the rise of the spideypool ship and, of course, their very own teamup series.

Now that we were all familiar with the basic facts of Wade's existence and his friends and family, I started my thematic analysis. The first slide was called "Yes Homo" and was just a brutal take down of the homophobia in Wade's writing. Again, I can talk about this at length if anybody's interested, my askbox is always open, but suffice it to say, the writing is plenty homophobic.

I then pointed out every single romantic or sexual relationship Wade has had has been with a woman, unless it's treated as a joke like Cable, and discussed the important relationships in his life. I also discussed Typhoid Mary more in detail here. And then the only canonical Achillean relationship Deadpool has ever had: Madcap. Again: more detail upon request. The point is: Wade's relationships are all toxic, brief, outright abusive, or all of the above. I got asked this in the lecture and clarified that he is sometimes the abuser, and sometimes the abused. Wade isn't a good person, but he's also repeatedly a victim. It's just... A very complicated subject.

Which brings us to Spidey. I had two slides dedicated to Spidey: one about Deadpool's hero worship of him, and one about their romantic/sexual dynamic. They absolutely are connected - Deadpool's admiration of Spidey as a hero is connected to his desire of him - but I ended up including a mini rant about how much I hate Secret Empire and the way Wade's heroes influence his path in life so keeping then separate was probably a good idea. Tl;Dr, secret empire Nazi!Steve gets Wade to do some terrible things, because Wade looks to other people to see the difference between right and wrong, and he's chosen both Cap and Spidey to trust to always tell him that difference.

Once more: I'd love to go into detail about this, but suffice it to say, Deadpool admires Spidey as well as admires him, and this is important and a big reason for why I ship them.

I then talked about Deadpool's family, his inconsistent backstory, and literally made people clap for Ellie Camacho.

Then I talked about his mental illnesses, which has absolutely developed over the years. Earlier on, he's pretty much treated as a schizophrenic, although not... Well. Clearly not one person did their research and it's very badly done. The 2012 Posehn and Duggan run presents him as having what would more accurately be described as some combination of bipolar and BPD; again, not particularly well researched, but still, in my eyes, better done. Either way, there isn't a version of Wade that isn't suicidal.

I closed with my discussion regarding Deadpool's relationship with Death, which you don't need to ask me to elaborate on, because I already have! But, you know, to reiterate: Wade is in love with Death, Wade is suicidal, Wade often confuses violence and death with affection and love.

And that was my Deadpool lecture :) sorry for how long this ended up, but I did talk for a full forty minutes uninterrupted, so clearly I had plenty to say lmao. thank you so much for asking!!!

#deadpool #dp #marvel #spideypool #marvel comics #I did actually cover the movie in short but it was unimportant enough I cut it out of this summary alongside a few other things #ask #anonymous

[choicesenthusiast]

Representation at Pixelberry: The Follow-Up

One year ago, on June 15, 2020, Pixelberry released a statement regarding representation at the company. Here is the LINK to the original blog post, and here was MY RESPONSE. Oh, how naïve and optimistic I was. It contained a list of goals and promises they hoped to accomplish within a year. Well, a year has passed, and here is my attempt to hold PB accountable. I'll be going over the five main points of their representation plan and if they achieved what they promised. All criticisms are about content released after June 15th. Long post beware, but I'm not putting it under a read more because I feel like it's important for all to see.

1. Commitment to diversity of Love Interests - FAIL

We’ve already been moving towards having Love Interests have customizable skin tones. We will continue to do this with some stories, while also having some characters with clear ethnic identities. At the same time when we have multiple love interests of different ethnicities, we are aiming for those Love Interests to have equal game time.

"LIs with customizable skin tones" mean they come in three flavours: white, black, and ambiguously Asian/Latinx interchangeably. So far I have rarely seen an LI as connected to their culture/ethnicity as Rafael Aveiro, and he just talked about his Vovo's food if he ever were on screen. They had many chances with the other OH LIs as well. Even Ayna Seth and Tatum Mendoza were confirmed to be Indian and Filipino, respectively, though FA gets a little leeway, as it was set in a fictional west-European continent.

As for equal game time? I'm sure the biggest example we can all think of was the mess that was Open Heart 3, which was written during the hiatus (which only existed because they were going to straight up kill Rafael in Book 2). Game time was not equal among LIs, and the white male LI was heavily favoured. PB also continues to pay female LIs dirt by giving them no screen time. In addition to that, LGBT+ players, who are consistently underrepresented, receive one (1) unprepared pride month survey, prpbably only because someone asked them about it on Twitter.

This is the meat and potatoes of everything because it's what they're outputting to their audience. It's what the people see. Given that things haven't been going so well lately in this department, consider this promise a big fat fail.

2. More authentic and diverse hairstyles for people of color - QUESTIONABLE

Our team will focus on providing more authentic and representative hairstyles. We are prioritizing these hairstyles outside of our normal book processes and will introduce them in new books as they are ready.

While, yes, they have added two new hairstyles in WEH, they also just took Jade Bonet's hair and recycled it for LoA F!MC. PB recycles all their hair more often than not.

3. More diverse book covers - QUESTIONABLE

This is an initiative we started in January of this year. As a result the number of Black, Latinx, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, mixed, and other characters on new book covers increased from 35% of characters in 2019 to 60% characters in the first half of 2020. However, the number of black characters is still not high enough this year. More are already scheduled for books later this year. We will make sure that Black characters are well represented on our covers in the future.

"Diverse" does not just mean by race, but also gender, sexual orientation, etc. FA has the only recent MLM cover. And don't tell me that the FA and LoA covers are any different from each other. The only black characters on covers are Zoey Wade (QB), and Black!Gabe Ricci (LoA) and Bastien (WB), which aren't even their canon races unless you choose them to be. This is the case for many single-LI books, such as Cassian Keane (W:ABR, which technically premiered on Mar. 16, but the sentiment is the same), Sam Dalton (TNA), and Dakota Winchester (WEH). Not to mention the customizable/multi LI books like DS, RT, BaBu2, MTFL, etc. Majority of these covers are just cishet couples delicately cradling each other's bodies or whatever. And we're not even gonna get into how PB literally put the Open Heart LIs in order of their favouritism on Book 3's cover.

4. Writers/Staff - QUESTIONABLE

We will be engaging in professional training on historical and current racism for our writers to ensure more of them have a better understanding and more context for views of diverse characters in Choices. We will also create a program that gives more authority to people of color in the studio to advise writers and artists on more authentic portrayals in both writing and art of black, brown, and minority characters.

A story with a Black-led cast is something I have asked for in the past, but failed to follow-up on. We will very likely start this with a Black-led cast story led by Chelsa, one of Pixelberry's Black writers.

We will increase the number of diverse writers we source for new stories, starting with hiring more Black and Latinx writers to lead the charge.

For all teams at Pixelberry we will actively work to bring in more Black and Latinx candidates with the goal to increase the number of Black and Latinx employees at Pixelberry. Although Pixelberry is over 50% female, on teams where females are not at 50% we will actively work to source more female candidates.

This promise seemed like a copout from the start because we have no way of knowing who works on what at PB unless we very meticulously stalk their LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever. We have no solid statistics except for what they feed us. I do know, however, that they recently let the Ms. Match writers go and were hiring for external writers, but there really is no way of knowing what's going on behind-the-scenes with their 112+ employees, and of course there would be NDAs involved. We are yet to see a book with an all-Black cast, and receive rare development updates with new books. Actually, I think a really good way to promote diversity is to do staff showcases on their social media. Just a way to show the public who's responsible for what. Writers, game devs, the art team, etc. Don't think it'll happen, but it's always a good idea.

5. Donations - QUESTIONABLE

Pixelberry will also be making $100,000 in donations to Black Girls Code, the Black Writers Collective, and the Latinx Writers Collective at Techqueria. Rather than as a lump sum, we will be making these donations over the course of a year to remind us that we are not making short term changes, but are committed to long term sustainable actions. We’ll also be donating up to an additional $100k from profits for this week, 6/15-6/21.

There has been no proof, no receipts, no evidence from PB that they have donated anything to anyone, and as far as we're concerned, their word doesn't mean anything. No news or updates news about it. I would love to believe that they did something, but as you can see, I've become quite the pessimist. BWC still uses PB's old logo (like, pre-Choices) on their sponsors page, and the last interaction they've had with BGC was in 2013. They don't even follow each other on Instagram. In fact, BGC received a huge donation from MacKenzie Scott, formerly Bezos last July. Yes, that billionaire Bezos, and that got coverage from them. Obviously donations don't need to be for publicity, but in this case I think it's important there should be proof. Again, it's really hard to tell with these behind-the-scenes things, but given how PB loves to gloat and hates to keep promises, we can assume that none of this happened.

~~~

So, what's the takeaway? That PB's fallen down the drainhole of shitty content and empty promises and has no intention of climbing out as long as they still make that bank? Seems counterproductive, because good representation gets good feedback and income. They pump out bad books with barebones "representation" if you can call it that, then drop their precious merch and pretend all is fine and dandy. But just as I suspected one year ago, none of this matters, because people forget things, and people move on, and shit gets swept under rugs. Yet, here I am, yelling at a company in a post I for sure doubt they'll see. Because if not me, then who?

@playchoices Your move. It's been your move for a year now. When will you actually make it?

#playchoices #choices stories you play

[mdverse]

why don't you vibe with Rachel?

sorry this took a while, anon. i've been trying to figure out how to answer it because the short answer is that rachel tends to awaken a lot of frustration within me if i think about her for too long. i don't really know why i get as heated as i do just with her but it just happens. it's weird because i don't usually have strong negative feelings towards people, so there might be something aside from the more in-depth explanation i wrote under the cut that i just can't put my finger on right now.

rachel is one of the characters in glee whose storylines are regularly shoved in the audience's face, like the writers are trying real hard to get us to care about her. the thing is, though, i could not care less about most of it? i'm generalising a bit but half of her storylines are centered around finchel/her other romantic interests, and the other half is about how she wants to sing this song or play this role and how she deserves the spotlight more than the other glee kids and can't imagine a world where she's wrong about that. and then if it doesn't work out, she gets really overdramatic and we're stuck listening to her complain about things. even in the finchel dynamic, which i am not a huge fan of, a big part of their season 3 storyline is rachel talking about nyada and new york and ignoring all of finn's insecurities about what to do after high school. when puck told finn that he needed to start thinking about himself, i felt that. the fact that rachel treated even her close friends like garbage without even realising it until they stood up to her like kurt eventually did? everything just revolves around her and it's exhausting.

another thing i dislike relates to this gifset i reblogged on my sideblog. rachel gets so much favoritism regarding her singing/talent - it is mainly from schuester, whom i ignore, but it's so blatant. it gets to the point where other characters, particularly mercedes and tina, are used to taking a back seat because "only rachel can do this" and sure, rachel is talented and does put on some great performances, but that statement just doesn't sit right with me. everyone in glee club is talented, but most of them get sidelined in favour of letting rachel perform. i'm tired of seeing it, i'm tired of seeing rachel sing lead in almost every song in competition (with the exception of s2, where she assumed she'd sing the lead and then complained when she couldn't, and s3 sectionals where presumably the only reason she didn't sing was because she was banned from competing in the first place) or yet another solo after every minor inconvenience or argument, i'm tired of hearing her cover songs that don't suit her voice just for the sake of having her sing more, i'm tired of having to watch equally talented characters get pushed down just to stroke rachel's ego. not to mention erasing a bunch of interesting early-seasons friendships and giving them all to rachel instead (quinncedes? kurtcedes?) and of course i blame the writers for this, because they ignored so many characters who had a lot of potential to be interesting in order to let rachel shine more. i understand that with an ensemble cast as big as glee's, it might be harder to write parts that get an equal amount of screen time but you can tell they did not care about most of their characters. and as a result, they highlighted rachel so much that i just have to pretend she does not exist.

also... rachel's casual racism? need i say more? i know there were other racist comments from people like sue but sue is so obviously written as satirical and rachel does not have that same vibe. like that throwaway line to blaine about how they would have "vaguely eurasian-looking children"? as a relatively white-passing eurasian person that line always made me feel weird. or all of her comments towards mercedes. it wasn't really addressed aside from mercedes herself calling out rachel, even if it happened right in front of schue, and i don't appreciate that. there were a lot of double-standards in glee.

last but definitely not least is the part i struggle to put into words. i also might just be remembering some stuff wrong because it's been a while since i've watched through glee and i try to forget a lot of the rachel content anyway, so bear with me. some of my issues with rachel are similar to my issues with finn, in that they both do shitty things and then for the most part, they don't really face the consequences for it. in rachel's case, it does apply more to her high school self, because i do think she grows and faces reality more in the later seasons (ie: broadway and her downfall). Unfortunately for her, though, i tend to rewatch the first 3 seasons and then only pick certain episodes from the latter half of the show, so her high school self is more prominent in my mind. and of course she isn't the only one who does shitty things, 90% of the glee kids and adults have their shitty moments, but at least some of them grow from their mistakes and show proper development (it's not always consistent, but i blame that on the writers once again). with rachel - and maybe i'm just reading it wrong - it feels like her apologies aren't genuine? from what i can remember, they always come after she gets a lot of backlash for her actions or sees that her actions resulted in some shit going down with other people (ie: snitching to finn about the real father of quinn's baby, sunshine & the crack house, ditching funny girl for that tv audition, i'm blanking on other stuff right now) so it gives off the feeling that she's only apologising because people tell her she fucked up and she doesn't like hearing that, and not because she actually feels guilty and wants to do better.

that being said, i don't hate her anymore. at least i don't think so. do i like her? nope. but i've gotten to a point where i can go "yeah that was a sweet moment and i can appreciate that from her" and that's nice, because i really don't want to spend time and energy hating a character on a tv show (especially when there are worse characters on glee lmao). and i'm being very careful about how i portray her in vb au, because i do think that her dynamics with the rest of the team would be really interesting to explore.

#ultimately i think there are always going to be characters i don't vibe with in any media i watch/read #and rachel just happens to be one of them #for the most part i just try to steer clear of rachel-related content #like i only ever draw her if i feel like she fits particularly well into sth im doing and that's usually just my dumber aus #anyway thank you for the ask! i hope this answer makes sense #ask md #anonymous #anti rachel #anti rachel berry #glee thoughts n opinions

[pluckyredhead]

11 and 17 tell me more of your thoughts.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I will talk about Grant, for you. <3 (Again, for people who aren't @irolltwenties, fandom doesn't dislike Grant, they just don't know who the hell he is.)

What always gets me about Grant is the contrast between his early years and his later ones. I always joke that Grant has never had anything good happen to him in his life ever, but the Grant we meet in his solo series is so optimistic. This is a kid who grew up being horribly abused, who has no friends and no one safe to turn to, who is continually let down by HEROES, who has a highly destructive power he can't control, who keeps getting in trouble with the authorities, and who is constantly attacked by people trying to kidnap or murder him.

And yet he still has that sweetness, you know? He has the Emerson System, that belief that things will be better if he can just figure out the exact right approach. He has a lot of anger, too - anger has been a crucial part of Grant's emotional makeup from the very beginning, and always will be - but it's balanced against the fact that even though he has never had a good day in his life, he still hopes that tomorrow will be the one.

And then we see Grant again in 2008, and that's just gone. He is running on nothing but anger now, because the only thing else he has in him is despair. It's so heartbreaking but it's also really compelling because, like...fuck, dude, I would too at that point! His anger is an understandable and proportionate response to what he's survived.

What I'm drawn to in Grant as a reader and as a writer is finding a way to rekindle that hope. Not expecting renewed optimism from a character who has been given absolutely zero reason to feel it, but giving him that breathing room and that validation and that safety. Giving him the space, and letting him make the choice to try to believe in something again. It's the kind of grace I want to offer everyone who's hurting, but Grant's fictional, so I can just go ahead and build it for him myself.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

I mean, I would never have had the New 52 happen, but I tend not to go "Ugh this arc should never have happened" aside from just noting that something is hot garbage or mentally tweaking a scene to be more effective from a character perspective. (I.e. Ollie fighting Roy in Rise of Arsenal to stop him from killing Electrocutioner sucks, but Ollie offering to kill Electrocutioner for Roy would have been amazing.)

My brain is much more interested in looking at the situation now, and saying "If DC put me in charge tomorrow, what would I do with what I have?" So, a few thoughts:

Superman: I'm actually fine with Clark and Jon's books - I didn't want them to age Jon up, but it's water under the bridge now. The great shame of the Superbooks is the lack of a solid Supergirl ongoing. So, Supergirl book, WRITTEN BY A WOMAN OH MY FUCKING GOD, with young female readers as the target audience. My dream book would be one costarring Kon where they are living with Ma and Pa in Smallville, but seriously, anything with Supergirl FOR GIRLS, it is not that hard a nut to crack.

Batman: Cancel half the books so you they have room to publish other shit. Batman (the monthly comic) should focus on Bruce; Detective Comics should focus on the family. Both should have backup features highlighting the supporting cast. At least 33% of the Batbooks should be about characters who are not white men.

Green Lantern: There should be two books: Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. Green Lantern can rotate its focus through Hal, John, Kyle, Simon, and Jessica. Green Lantern Corps is an ensemble book starring Guy, all the aliens, and any of the other humans who aren't currently starring in the other book. These two books are closely in sync and are allowed one (1) 4-part crossover a year.

Wonder Woman: STOP WITH THE FUCKING MINISERIES. I read every single book connected to Trial of the Amazons and I had no idea what the FUCK was happening. Either give Diana and Nubia both ongoings or have them costar in a single ongoing but for the love of Hera, streamline this shit.

Flash: This book is literally almost perfect right now, I would just add a backup feature to tell stories about other speedsters like Wallace, Bart, Avery, Jesse, Jay, Max, THAD, etc. (Barry too I guess. Whatever.)

Green Arrow: I am begging and pleading for a Green Arrow ongoing so that Ollie can talk to his kids again. Please. My crops are dying.

Aquaman: I repeat: STOP WITH THE FUCKING MINISERIES, THEY ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO FOLLOW. One book, please. Jackson can have his own stories in it! Arthur can vanish for months at a time! That's fine! But you can't build a franchise with a bunch of short, disconnected, hard-to-follow stories. You need an ongoing that gets readers invested.

Team books: At least one Justice League book. I think you can probably get away with Titans for Dick's generation, Outlaws for Jason's, YJ for Tim's, and Teen Titans for Damian's. (Jason and Tim do not get other books if they have these. Dick and Damian can keep theirs, the sales numbers are there. Also, Dick's gen can only keep their book if they can manage to not suck, which has not been the case since like 2001, SORRY.) I personally would be more interested in some kind of Infinity Inc revival/younger JSA-related characters than a regular JSA book. Suicide Squad. Maybe Outsiders? Oh, and Doom Patrol for sure.

Other: I would have to take a more serious look at the spread of how many books this is and who is represented to fill in the rest of the line, but off the top of my head, books I would love to see include: A Booster Gold book that's a zany time travel comedy with a side of slowburn romcom shenanigans with Ted. A Jaime Reyes book by young Latinx creators. Tracy 13 and Detective Chimp solving magical mysteries. Stargirl (she has a show!). Static Shock. Zatanna and/or Constantine. Something Fourth World. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO DC THAN BATMAN. PLEASE LET OTHER PEOPLE BE IN COMIC BOOKS.

(Hi yeah I have thoughts about how DC could be brand-building instead of running the only thing that works into the ground. Ask me anything!)

#comics #meme

[lais-a-ramos]

ok, this one is kind of a hard topic, and i appologize in advance for any mistakes i make or not being articulate enough

all the concearns over ppl in fandom hyping the only prominent white character, christina, in lovecraft country instead of the black characters are valid and the critique is definitely important, once it's common for ppl in fandom to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces.

but i also think we can't dismiss the entirety of the ship only bc the same LGBTQ+ fans are back at it again with their problematic behaviour, especially bc of its significance for black women and feminine-aligned nb folks who feel attraction to woman/feminine-aligned nbs -- lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, biromantic, panromantic etc.

for what i've seen so far, this ship is very important for black women and female-aligned nbs bc finally we have a dark-skinned black woman, who is also fat, to be treated with absolute respect and consideration and be passionately desired in a way that is not some kind of secret fetish or played for laughs, treated as being as worthy of being courted and romanced as her light-skinned and skinny half-sister.

christina respects ruby's choice and agency for most of the time -- i think the exception may be that first time ruby transformed into hillary;

she immediately explains to ruby her plans and intentions whenever ruby questions her behaviour and demands answers, including ruby in her plans when even ruby's loved ones keep secrets from her; she gives her all these baths and caresses her so softly, literally bathing her with affection and desire; she woos her with vows of devotion; and even tried to understand what ruby said when she asked her to try to understand her pain -- albeit in a fucked up way that only a privileged and sheltered girl raised in an enviroment in which magic is real and present in ppl's daily lives possibly could.

christina overall acknowledges that ruby is a woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires, and that's something y'all should keep in mind because i'll return to that later.

overall, these things i described are actually the basic that a person should do for the one they call their lover, and in no way erase the fact that christina is willing to kill innocent ppl to accomplish her goals of self-protection, nor turn these things acceptable from a moral standpoint.

but it's not the kind of treatment black women and feminine-aligned nbs receive, neither in fiction or in real life, by the way.

there are specific forms of misogyny that black women and female-aligned nbs face in which we are read as aggressive or animalistic, oversezualized or stripped from our sexuality and have our femininity denied if we don't check the boxes of what society deems acceptable.

there's this interview wumni mosaku gave for elle magazine U.S. in which she discusses her personal experiences with this problem, and how these eurocentric standards of femininity forced her to act in an overtly nice manner as a way to make sure ppl will treat her kindly instead of with suspicion and assuming she is aggressive.

that is because of the ways race and gender intersect creating a very complex scenario when it comes to definitions, experiences and stereotypes of femininity.

white women are overall treated with an authomatic presumption of innocence, as delicate and frail flowers who must be protected at all costs, especially if they are from upper classes -- that is something that is actually held against low-income white women, who are expected to adhere to certain standards to have their femininity acknowledged.

but, as we can see by that moment in episode 1x05, "strange case", when ruby as hillary is escorted by the policemen to her supposed husband who is actually christina shapeshifted , and, actually, by christina's entire motivations and characterization, that very same presumption of innocence is one of the sources of their oppression, because they are infantilized and stripped of their agency in favor of the men in their lives -- husbands, brothers, fathers etc --, being stopped and/or forbidden to do things cis het men usually get to and are expected to do.

in spite of this paradox, white women still have a privilege when compared to black women, because they're are still seen as ppl that belong to the world of affections and are worthy of receiving love, care and concearn for their wellbeing.

but that is not the case with black women.

usually, we are reserved two roles: one that revolves around being hypersexualized for men's consumption, both white and black alike; and the other, in which we are seen as "beasts of burden", carrying the weight in terms of work, emotions and so on, being expected to be desensitized to experiences and problems that no human would be expected to. sometimes, these two roles actually cross paths.

here in brazil, black activism and academics have been calling it "solidão da mulher negra", "the loneliness of black woman", and i think it's a very pertinent and powerful way to describe it.

and, that is the thing, when you're a black woman or feminine-aligned nb that doesn't fit into this role of being sexualized, you can feel this loneliness go a step further, because all that is left for you is that beast of burden part.

you end up not only being cast aside and abandoned by cis het white men and black men alike if you're attracted to men, but, overall, everyone in your social circle, including family, relatives and friends, expect you to be this source of strength and carry weights and resist to things ALL. THE. TIME.

and, guess what type of women and feminine-aligned nbs usually don't fit into this role of being sexualized????

the ones that are dark-skinned, fat, bulky, or any combination of these.

it's a combination of colorism, fatphobia, misogynoir and other factors that come to play, really.

one can check a few boxes, or check them all.

i myself don't check the "dark-skinned" box because, as a biracial women, i have light-skin privilege -- even though my skin is not as light as jurnee smollett's, who plays ruby's half-sister letitia "leti" lewis. but i sure have dealt with the consequences of not having the right body type for my whole life. i've been one of the "fat kids" for all my teen years, and, even now that i lost weight because of health issues, i'm still bulky and with large shoulders, feet and hands bigger than what is expected for women, and for most of my life i've felt in a similar way than what wumni mosaku describes on that elle magazine interview i mentioned earlier.

now, ruby literally checks ALL. THE. FUCKING. BOXES.

while we haven't seen much of her past, for the tidbits we got we can imagine that she had to be the responsible one in her family, being the older child, and basically raise her two siblings while their mom neglected them.

and we can see that, while the producers and writers changed a lot of her characterization from the source material -- in the part of the book i am right now, she has yet to show up, but the way she's described she seems more domestic and the shrinking violet type like show!hippolyta at the begining -- she is still seen as someone respected in her community and a source of strength -- e.g. being trusted to take care of dee.

and that clearly takes a toll on her, because everyone in-universe seems to expect her to be this mammy type or a role model, "a credit to the race" -- which is kind of ironic, given that it seems the audience seem to expect this of her as well.

and she puts all this pressure on herself because of it, and, while she is a woman with a very active sexual life, she seems overall very unsatisfied and repressed.

interrupted, as ruby herself perfectly put.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

and that is where christina comes in.

now, it's true that the character that's pointed by many as a representation of white feminism surely is problematic in many ways, including her "colorblind" approach to racial issues, which is a particular form of racism that comes from an indifference towards social issues that steem from the privilege of not having to worry about said racial issues because one's not affected by them.

but, inspite of this colorblindness, or precisely because of it, christina sees ruby not for the roles she plays in other ppl's lives, but as the woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires that she is (see??? i told y'all to keep that in mind because it would be useful later).

some of these things might not be politically correct, like wondering what would it be like to be white and not have to deal with all the bullshit she has to.

some of these things might be dowright immoral and unethical, like the revenge fantasy she made come true against that abusive, sexual harasser and possibily rapist that was the guy from the department store that appeared in episode 1x05.

but, they are what makes ruby, well, ruby.

they are what makes her human, what humanizes her.

and christina accepts all of it, all that makes ruby who she is.

like the av club review for episode 9 pointed out, the two women are actually not that different when it comes to motivations: the stakes might be different for them because christina is protected by her whiteness and wealth, but both of them want the same thing in the end -- to not feel interrupted by the social restraints that bind them.

and that is what draws them to each other and feel attracted to each other, even though they might not understand quite well what to be queer means to them, or even avoided/repressed the question altogether as they grew up.

they are two points that seem opposite, and might as well be in some ways, but belong to the same axis that is gender and sexuality.

their relationship is incredibly complex and layered because of all these intersecctions.

ruby and christina's relationship is all about revealing different parts of yourself to the other and peeling each other's layers (sorry for the pun, but, it was just there lol), and, because of this, it's no wonder that it's seen as more romantic than, say, tic and leti's relationship, that seems to be playing out like plenty of cis heterosexual relationships, moving too fast because of the passion involved and what society expects, without the two of them being able to truly proccess and decide what they want, something that will defintely get more complicated now there's a baby on the way.

everything is so raw between ruby and christina, quite literally (it's one ot the things i love the most about all the gory scenes between them, it's a very clever way of using a fantastical setting to highlight these metaphors and symbolism).

with all of this, it shouldn't be a surprise that many sapphic black women and feminine-aligned nbs relate so much to ruby and got so attached to this relationship.

it's not because they endorse the problematic stuff christina or ruby have done -- although, well, to be fair, in a show that draws inspiration from pulp fiction magazines, particularly horror and detective/mystery stories, all characters are expected to be problematic and do fucked up things.

it's because queer black women and feminine-aligned nbs, regardless of whether they check only a few of the boxes i mentioned before or check all of them, can relate to this feeling of loneliness that the producers and writers portrayed so well with ruby -- but also with hippolyta, and dee too.

and for relating to these feelings, they relate to this relationship between ruby and christina.

and it's kind of hard to know what's gonna happen next in the show and the future of this ship

hell, even know whether the show is gonna be renewed or not.

but this should be a lesson for the future, on this fandom and others, to try and consider the perspectives of LGBTQ+ black ppl in these spaces, because, when you don't do that, you're basically reproducing, in a space we should be safe to have fun, the same oppression and silencing we deal on a daily basis

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #lgbtq #lgbtqiap+ #black women #black representation #character analysis #character meta #meta

[inadequate-nefelibata]

i don’t know if it’s the right call to write this. i’m like, weirdly out of touch. It’s 4 am here in Argentina, so if this makes no sense. so be it. 

but i feel like when it comes to characters like johnny - aka male (almost always white too) characters who are shown to be violent and misogynisitic or classist (or racist), that are eventually revealed to have a pretty tragic backstory, meant to cast all their past behavior in a tragic light - i almost feel like im completely done with those stories. I’ve seen them a lot and, most of the time, the backstory not only works as a half-way redeption, but also tends to change the nature of their behavior into something that’s... less meaningful. It removes them from a larger context. More on that later.

The thing is, I liked johnny’s redeption as it was shown in the karate kid. no, that’s not right. I do feel like his story was left incomplete. we don’t see him get back up. and it is nice to see him trying to become a better person, rather than just having the suggestion that he could have been better without kreese’s influence.

But im just a bit tired of the same-old “gotcha! he was just an asshole because he was hurting all along.” reveal. 

Which is not me saying that the writers are wrong to explore how the cobra kai philosophy could be attractive to bullied/marginalized kids. I see how for Tory or Aisha or Miguel the concept of showing no mercy to an unfair world would make perfect sense. especially coming from a teacher they trust.

But with Johnny, i wanted to see a bit of the other side of the cobra kai target audience. 

What does that mean? 

While Kreese is very good at reframing his lessons to fit all kinds of students, really, the real reason why the og Cobra kai lessons creates so many bullies is because if conviced them of this:

what the hell is that, you wonder? i don’t really like how it looks but i have tried putting it to words so many times so... eh. 

It’s the idea that some people are better than other people, stronger than other people. But most importantly, if you’re weak, that changes your worth as a person. Which is why you don’t deserve to escape whatever kind of violence you are subjected to; those who are weak deserve to be put on their place. 

It’s appropiate for a metaphor about US imperialism because it represents an idea that has always been used as a justification of colonialism: “the survival of the fittest”. If a group is weaker than other group, it deserves to be dominated. It deserves to disappear.

This philosophy doesnt come from marginalized groups, and it doesn’t really serve them, even if it can be presented in that way. The lines can be blurred, because human history is complicated as hell but. still. at the end of the day, community is what stops injustice. Not trying to make yourself worthy in the eyes of injust people. 

Having said all that, i’m switching lanes for a second to the way in which cobra kai is presented in this show. sometimes it’s like the show want us to believe that people, kids, need to have cracks to absorb kreese’s (or johnny’s) teachings. cracks brought on by trauma or unjustice. 

and its kind of related to how the phrase “there are no bad students, only bad teachers” gets interpreted in the context of the show.  

I mean, Mr Miyagi doesn’t really go to explain it further so we can read it in many many different ways. But in the show, the idea of a “bad teacher” is closely tied to Kreese’s abusive relationship with Johnny. And, yes, that dimension of the relationship is canon, even in the films. Even in the first film. 

But I also think it’s possible to interpret that phrase in a more neutral sense. A “bad teacher” is not necessarily an abusive one. It can just be someone who is kind to their students but still passes down the wrong kind of values.

And, considering the fact that the karate kid was making several points about  cultural values, the “teacher” doesn’t even have to be a teacher at all. It can just be a family, a culture.

Kids don’t really need cracks to absorb ideas, kids are like sponges. A pair of perfectly loving parents could raise someone who’s not a great person, if they happen to hold harmful ideas. 

So, what annoys me about the idea that cobra kai has finally given us the context of Johnny’s actions its that is seems to imply that, unlike the films, they aren’t saying that he was Evil. That they are instead showing us that he was just a product of his surroundings. 

There’s only one problem. The films do portray him as kid that was the product of his surroundings. 

The difference it’s that it’s not done exclusively throught painful experiences. It’s also done throught privileged experiences. Two things, not one. (And now, he’s just one)

So one moment in the films that gives us a glimpse into Johnny’s motivations its the tournament scene, Which is impeccable, Mr. Zabka put his entire pussy into it 10/10. I will eventually make a post about that. 

But I just. I keep coming back to the Country club scene because it says so much about where Johnny is coming from. 

See, Johnny is quite literally being told that he is a better option for Ali that “that boy from Reseda”. He’s also specifically using the fact that her parents are classist to get close to her. Which it’s another example of him not respecting her choices. But I also think that he fully believes this. 

His background is not some convenient thing, throw in just because. Classism is part of why he is how he is. 

Like, look me in the eyes and tell me these people don’t have their own bussiness-like version of “No mercy” somewhere in their vocabulary. 

And then there’s his general behavior towards Ali, that it’s not really that out of place, even now, in a macho film about “getting the girl”. She does not want you, but dont worry! You’ll win her over by trampling all over her boundaries. She’ll come to her senses and see how much of a man you are! 

Johnny in the Karate Kid is the product of his surroundings, but not just because he’s a kid who’s being influenced by Kreese. He’s also the product of his surroundings as a privileged kid. As a person that is told, not just by Cobra kai, but by the wider society, that he’s more important than other groups of people.  It’s his social class, his position as a white man in the US. 

The main source of his violence is the idea that he’s entitled to that violence. 

It’s why he got so angry at Daniel when he punched back (or sprinkled back, but that sounds less dramatic). It’s why he hates the fact that Ali chose (chose, not was stolen by) Daniel. She chose a boy from reseda who can’t even fight  (who’s weak) over him. Therefore putting everything Johnny has been told about his worth in question. (And just, his attitude towards her, the fact that he thinks he can literally force her to talk to him. It’s so so realistic if you think about all those other things he believes about strength and domination.)

In the movies, these notions of superiority are what makes kids (because we see clearly in the tournament scene that they are still just kids) susceptible to the Cobra kai philosophy. 

And it’s so frustrating! It’s so frustrating because the writers saw that and apperantly were like “Nope, that’s not enoght. Something bad must have happened to him. This it’s too simple.”

Too simple? 

The show transforms the socio-cultural explanation into an interpersonal, individual explanation. He is just A Person who was influenced by A Person. Specifically, a kid in an abusive household who felt prey to a manipulative teacher (And Kreese now has his Own Sad Explanation).  At most, there’s some discussion of Toxic Masculinity (or is there, really?) but, for the most part, his privileged background is ignored. 

I appreciate that we get to see him trying to be a better person, I really do. That he’s recovering from the trauma his teacher inflicted on him. But I am just so tired of the tragic reframing of these kinds of behaviors. Johnny deserves compassion for the things that Kreese put him throught. But when it comes to the belief that he was entitled to hurt other people, entitled to Ali, he doesn’t get sad points for that.  

I just wish we could have seen how a redemption arc would have looked for a guy like that, for that kind of mentality. Maybe then I could finally enjoy a story where a shitty dude gets to grow from his mistakes without feeling like im supposed to pity him for the hurt he caused. 

Cause I am so so so so sick of that, Hollywood! 

#long post #johnny lawrence #karate kid #cobra kai meta #cobra kai #i will probably reread this and cringe at the intensity later but oh well #rational me it's not awake rn #she can't stop #me #it¿s late though are ppl even awake #anyway i am enraged and i know it's just a movie / show but ahhhhhh #since forever and ever i've encountered this kinds of stories i am #tired!!!!

[hadtochangemyurlquick]

you have said that you know how s2 will end and i would like the spoilers please

okay so i wrote the post you're referring to awhile ago and i don't really stand by it entirely but i'm gonna give you some thoughts.

thought one: the wilds is saying something. it is making a statement. it is not just a show about teenage girls making out and being on a deserted island. there's more to it.

thought two: figuring out what the show is saying is key to understanding what will happen

thought three: the show is definitely saying more than one thing but there is an overall message we can use as a lens to predict where the show will go in general. no specifics, but at least to figure out the arcs of each character

my biggest question since starting the show, literally since the first episode has been: so. what?

like, what is the point of this show. why. what are they saying?

if they're trying to be an anti-feminist, "feminism is going too far, sjws suck" kinda thing, they're not doing very well. one of the top reviews is literally: "More Social injustice propaganda thrown in our faces."

so their theoretical target conservative audience doesn't seem to be biting. i'm not saying a liberal show Can't have a message that feminism has gone too far these days, but i Am saying a smart good liberal show can't have a message that feminism has gone too far these days.

And the wilds is probably some of the best writing i've come across in a long time, especially with the accuracy they depict teenagers.

so it's not anti-feminist. but maybe it's more specific than that. maybe it's anti-white feminist. after all, gretchen is white, she abuses children of color, and she's a feminist. doesn't that make for a perfect white feminist?

except that doesn't make a huge amount of sense either, huh? bc gretchen's staff, just running the numbers, is half white people and half poc.

Gretchen, Thom, Alex, Faber

Audrey, Susan, Lihn, Young

even looking at her supporters: alice and leonard, we have a white guy and a black woman.

and would it be less racist if gretchen didn't have any poc on her island? she would argue it'd be more racist. i'm sure in her mind she was trying to be diverse, not to abuse children. bc she doesn't think it's abuse bc she's got the lights on but no one's home.

so white feminism as the critique this show is making just doesn't. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.

so then it's like. what. terfism? maybe? and like, that tracks a little closer. but it'd be weird if a show's entire critique was terfism and there was literally not a single trans person on the entire cast. like maybe dot or nora will have an arc coming to terms with a sexy new gender but. idk bro. it just feels off to me, you know? it's still like, you made an entire show on a major platform criticizing a specific aspect of feminism that's not even that widely known? that's the point of the wilds?

maybe i have good place brain rot, or she ra brain rot, or some other type of brainrot and just expect my morals to be handed to me on a silver platter.

but it's still like. what was the fucking point. why make gretchen an evil feminist villain who abuses children?

this show is too smart and well written to just be that dumb. there's gotta be some justification, some deeper reason why they'd make a show just to point out that lord of the flies wasn't just about british rich boys, it is about all of society and feminism is wrong.

like take black panther for example. as much as i enjoyed it way more than any other marvel movie i've seen, it was still--essentially--dumb. this is an ice cold take but obviously killmonger was a good guy. the rich execs made him a bad guy like every rich person makes every radical revolutionary a bad guy so the good guy can create change but only in a way that encourages people to create change within the corrupt system we all live in.

but marvel is not particularly known for its writing. it's a superhero franchise, it hasn't taken itself very seriously since guardians of the galaxy. its goal is to get you to spend 15$ in a theater watching billionaires blow each other up while wise cracking with some of the prettiest visuals money can buy. it's not supposed to make you think and that's okay.

but the wilds feels like a show that wants you to think. with the careful way they handle eating disorders to the complexities of the sibling relationships, the characters are more than just wise cracking billionaires taking off their shirts the first chance they get.

so why. why. i'd understand evil feminist gretchen if it was the latter but why put so much energy into writing this complex well done show if their villain and thus their message was just gonna be: haha feminism too far these days.

here's the only thing i can come up with, my friend.

class.

yeah i fucking know, there's nothing in the show, but bear with me. all of the people working for gretch are rich, or present as rich. or at least of a higher class.

except for one.

lihn might be getting a fancy education but she works at a bar while she's doing it, and it doesn't seem like she's that close with her parents anymore. her trauma would likely cause some major health problem so i'm not having an issue with thinking that maybe, financially, our lihn wasn't doing excellently.

and to have lihn be straddling these two worlds, as she effectively straddles girlhood and adulthood working as the confederate, makes a large amount of sense.

gretchen doesn't want to upend the actual system, which is capitalism, she wants to upend the patriarchy--which is a product of capitalism. lord of the flies was, in a large part, about class. so looking at that we might see a boys island act similarly to a girls island, especially if they keep the class diversification the same for the boys.

what's also interesting is that young is not really of the same class as faber. gretchen talked about him being on that "gin soaked sofa" or something like that, and that could track if we continue to see him help the girls.

idk i'm just. i'm definitely grasping at straws here. but i have no idea what this show is saying and it drives me crazy.

why is gretchen their villain? why is she a feminist doing this for feminist reasons? it's so dumb, i can't believe they wrote it. so why did they write it. why. what am i missing here.

maybe it's something about parenthood? gretchen's a bad parent and it's a critique of the nuclear family? but couldn't they have done that without the evil feminist aspect?

like that's what gets me. what's the point of the evil feminist aspect. why include that when it was so unnecessary and honestly shoe horned in. i could've written something in ten minutes without the weird antifeminism aspect, and definitely they're better writers than me so what's the point of gretchen's motivations

what. is. the. point.

#so like clearly we'll learn more as the series progresses #i have no doubt the experiment isn't over yet #and i'm sure that will reveal things #but like #what is the point #there is no way i can see it going that isn't still #haha feminism gone too far these days #like why does gretchen as a character exist and what are her motivations #how do they write this in such a way that it isn't relentleslly dumb #i don't get it #misuser-of-the-speaking-weight #gus answers #gus analyzes #the wilds

[ohveda]

The Terror - season 1 review

I have paused in my frantic gif reblogging to finally write out my thoughts on the Terror and why I enjoyed it so much.

The first season of The Terror tells the story of the tragic Franklin expedition. This was a British arctic expedition in the late 1840s, led by Sir John Franklin, which had the aim of finding the North West Passage. The expedition was comprised of two ships, Erebus and Terror, hence the name of the show. It was tragic because everyone died (this is not a spoiler). The circumstances as to how everyone died are still mysterious to this day and there is lots of speculation (although a cursory glance at wikipedia suggests that people are building up some theories).

So, this is a TV show where you know from the outset that it is going to end tragically: everyone you get to know is going to die, and the only question is exactly how. And this is why, despite how much I enjoyed it, I wouldn't recommend the show to everyone. It is not so much scary as it is harrowing: there is gore, there is a monster, and there are disturbing scenes. I finished watching it a day and a half ago and I do not yet feel like I have recovered mentally from what I have seen (give me a few more days and I will be fine). You guys out there will know your tv-watching habits; if you don't like stories that are scary, depressing or dark, this show is not for you. However, if you don't mind watching those themes then I absolutely recommend this show whole-heartedly. It is incredibly incredibly good.

Here is the trailer: https://youtu.be/3WLz6wxEabc

The rest of my review might contain mild spoilers, so I'm going to put it under a cut.

There are several things I love about the show. From the first glance it looks fantastic; you can tell that there was money behind the production. The sets and the setting are lush with atmosphere and historic detail; it really feels like care has been taken (not that I know enough about naval history to assess accuracy, but the little bits I do know felt very right). And those coats! If you know me you will know that I go crazy for well-fitted double-breasted coats with bright buttons. I WAS IN MY ELEMENT HERE.

The acting! You can't fault it. Everyone does a superb job and I think one of the reasons the story works so well is just how compelling everyone is.

But my absolute absolute favourite thing about the show is the writing. I am in ecstasies over how well it was written. It's the best period drama I have seen since 2014. The show is based on a book of the same name, so doubtless many good things from the show come from the book, but I have heard some not-entirely-great things about the book too, so I get the feeling that while the good characters and interesting plot may come from the book, the technical skill that makes the show truly rewarding and compelling comes from the show's writers.

The main thing that they get so right is exposition. It's tricky to do well in any piece of fiction, but it is particularly hard in historical fiction when there is always so much to explain. It seems that often the urge with historical fiction is to explain too much and too frequently, to the point where every line loses its poignancy because it's immediately followed by an explanation of why that line is poignant (Poldark, I am looking at you). The Terror does not fall into that trap at all. Things are not explained; the audience's hand is not held; and the viewer is treated like an intelligent person who can come to their own conclusions. This does, admittedly, lead to some parts where I didn't actually know exactly what happened until I read up about them after I finished the show, but this haziness in certain areas does not detract from the watching experience in any way. The writing is good enough that the viewer always knows the key points of what is happening and what that means for the plot (there is never a feeling of being lost and confused), and the fact that you can get an extra level of detail and interest the more you look into it is an additional joy.

When it comes to how good the exposition is, let us take scurvy as an example. Scurvy is mentioned a lot in the first episode, but not anywhere in that episode is it described. In a lesser show, as soon as scurvy is mentioned the first time, someone would say "oh, you mean the disease where your gums bleed and your old wounds open up?" In The Terror this information is not given in the first episode because it's not needed in the first episode. The information is not actually given until after the first symptoms start to show, and even then it's given in an offhand and believable comment that doesn't feel intrusive at all. This means that for viewers who already knew the symptoms of scurvy, it's not jarring in any way, while viewers who don't know the symptoms of scurvy get a wonderful reveal of what has been happening and are now prepared for what is yet to come.

Augh! It's just done so well! I absolutely can't stand it when TV shows talk down to me, whereas I love it when they treat me as a capable adult who is able to put the clues together by myself.

And then we come to the plot. Going from the trailer, and seeing how high the production values were, I had assumed that the plot would have a level of, what to call it, sensationalism? Hollywood-ness? I was expecting it to be more spectacle and less substance. I was ready for jump-scares and plot-twists and set-pieces, and they didn't come, not really, not in the way I was expecting. There was only one part in the final episode where things veered towards melodrama that was too ridiculous to believe. The rest of the plot is not ridiculous nor is it fluffy nor empty; it feels solid: the pacing works and each plot point follows on from one to another. This is not a show where an unsubstantiated plot twist is thrown into the mix for surprise value (looking at you, BBC 2020 Dracula); this is a show where the hard graft of writing is done, to make sure that the plot is built from the ground up so that the audience can follow it and believe in its progression, regardless of how unbelievable the actual events may seem to be.

One of the main reasons for why this plot progression works so well is that it is almost entirely character-driven. Oh yes, there are events from outside that affect the characters and what happens to them, but the bulk of the plot is driven by the characters and their choices. What is it about character-driven fiction that makes it so satisfying? Certainly stories can and do work without being character-driven, but there's something so good about having a character you can get your teeth into: a character who is a person, with likes and dislikes, and good parts and foibles; a character you get to know and care about. The characters in this story are not mere window-dressing; they drive the plot, and you both love them and hate them for it.

Now, take that well-written, rounded, satisfying character, and multiply them by thirty. This is an ensemble cast and boy does it feel like it! I'm frankly astounded by how many fully-thought-out characters there were. It's not like there are five main characters and the rest are all cannon-fodder. Each character we meet has their own story to tell. There are characters in the first episode who feel like extras, but who come to have important and complex parts as the story moves on. Even as we come to the final episodes there are characters whose significance only then begins to show.

This multitude of characters is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it makes for a story that is rich, rewarding and realistic. But a curse because it is impossible to learn all those names and tell all those people apart. They all look the same! Is that character A in the navy blue coat with the big mutton chops? Or is that character B? I've watched the entire series and for a lot of the characters I still don't know! But this confusion doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the show. Just like the exposition, learning more about certain characters (which is where I think a rewatch would help) will add another layer of interest, but without that it is still easy to follow the main parts of the plot. There are certain main characters who you do come to recognise and to know, and this is enough; the other characters, each with their own richness, even if you don't know it yet, are an extra treat for those viewers who want to watch again and dig into the story a little more.

I won't say that the story is without its faults. I would like to ask the show-makers why apparently all British sailors in Victorian times were white??? And why did the cgi monster have to look like that??? But there aren't enough faults to truly detract from how enjoyable the show is.

Look at me here, trying to be all serious, making points with words, instead of just howling like I want to. What I haven't mentioned yet is how this show consumed me. I ate it up! I watched an episode per day (the short length of the show, being only ten episodes, is another reason why the plot is so tight and satisfying) and I couldn't stop thinking about it! My days were filled with thoughts of boats and mutton chops and my dreams were filled with them too. Even now that I have finished the show, and I have felt just how harrowing it is to watch a show where they all die, horribly, I long for it. I have withdrawal symptoms from it. I'm not yet mentally strong enough to watch it again, but my God I yearn for the time when I will be. It's that good! Whenever, over the past week, someone has asked me how I am, my answer has been "I'm watching The Terror!" as if I felt that from that response alone they could glean exactly how excited and happy I was to be watching it; as if it was my everything at that moment! My God!

And I'm not even mentioning just how much I came to enjoy the character of Goodsir. I was told "there's a character in this who's a bit like Segundus from 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell'; you'll like him." I did not know how accurate that was going to be. I want to slam my fist on the table! Do you know what it is like, in a show like this, to develop a favourite character and to know, to know, from the outset that every single character is going to die? It is heart-wrenching and it hurts, and I am still not over it (not by a long shot) but at the same time the pathos is so satisfying you want to eat it all up. This is 2021. We're not here for good times. Make it hurt. Make it cathartic. Take my mind off of the world of today with a pain that I can control with my TV.

So. Wow. tl;dr The Terror is an excellent show that I highly recommend for people who like this kind of stuff. (And I'm still sparkly-eyed over Goodsir and can't do anything about it.) The End.

#The Terror #cross-posted to my blog

[maniacalmagician]

EVERHOOD: Pinocchio in Psychedelic Purgatory: the Rock Opera Adventure. OR: I walked backwards into hell, and felt euphoria as I became privvy to the Divine Truths

Hello tumblr people. I’ve been Away. I played a game recently and I wanted to talk about it.   damnit i really wanted to put pictures into this mini essay. ive been away from this garbage site for too long, i dont know how to do it lol.  ok anyway    First, I want to say to the developers and anyone else that this has quickly become one of my all time favorite games. Currently writing I have personally never felt a greater emotional attachment to an experience with a piece of software. Perhaps it is the extreme idiosyncratic nature of it, perhaps it is the deeply intriguing storyline, mostly however it is a combination of those in addition to some of the most outstanding psychedelic visuals I have ever seen, particularly in the finale sequence, and a killer soundtrack that combines many genres but focuses mostly to being as bangers as possible. I will be upfront and say this game comes with a boatload of trigger warnings, and thus the aforementioned idiosyncratic nature of it may not appeal to everyone, however I feel it necessary to indicate potential content warnings here as I would hate for people to be triggered: epilepsy is the big one, I myself have mild stutter based epilepsy and it didn't cause health problems or anything but my case is not universal. Anyway. That is a hard warning on epilepsy. I do it because The Incredibles 2 did not, lmao (that's an example of the kind of visuals that trigger me personally. An aside ) Other things include (spoilers): arachnophobia, misophonia (screeches, unsettling sounds), themes of death, immortality, suicide. Some game mechanics are not immediately intuitive and puzzles require some pretty clever but sometimes obtuse solutions. Direction is not always super clear either. People have complained of performance issues but I am leaving this review after playing the switch port, which played smoothly other than some awkwardly long loading times here and there. What I have played of PC so far runs smooth but as of writing, performance for me was fine (my pc is a lowend budget build). There is a difficulty to it. Even playing on easier modes, it can be quite unforgiving. If you're a fan of hard games (I am but I suck at them) and rhythm games (this is, uh, Not? That? Almost functions as half walking sim, half rhythm Game, dodgy shoot em up kinda feels. Truly unique gameplay I think. Constantly switches things up, too. But yes I also adore rhythm games, and yes i also do suck at those too.), half of it is that. The devs troll you with puzzles. It's truly a wild experience as it advertises, one of a kind. And yet, however.... This game wears, much like its heart,, its references, on its sleeve. If you are not into that kind of thing, you will probably be annoyed by this game. It also loves to delv into meta, as many puzzles and interactions are references to the UI of the game itself. Personally, I'm not wild about meta but I appreciate the ernestness here, so I'm willing to roll with whatever this game throws at me because every turn feels unexpected, fresh, funky, somber, and wildly intelligent, with boldly sincere ludonarrative choices, script and art direction. If you like Geno from super Mario Brothers, which, guess what, narrator here LOVES Geno from Super Mario Brothers, this is functionally the game you've always wanted that Nintendo could never make because Square has held Geno hostage in some kind of underground torture facility since 1995. Turns out they were rather right to do so, because when that puppet is out serving a higher authroity, he can be quite dangerous. Narrarively it borrows much from its sources but I would argue there's proof the writers have spent time thinking about the implications of their source materials worlds, and that reflection casts itself back to create this, experience that is wholly unique even if we know Red is Geno and "Gaster" (who was based on Uboa from Yume Nikki or princess mononokes forest spirits), and some kind of disco Marceline character who changes their identity frequently, skeleton brothers- well undead brothers, really - We have to remember in the creation and consumption of media sometimes, influences and archetypes are ever present and Everhood almost itself is a realm that would indulge in the idea of self referential material. It makes for this very Jungian experience of friendly archetypes we're familiar with, which works well with this setting of an immortal realm. Thats not to say the personalities we do meet aren't expounded upon - they are, heavily, and become uniquely their own. (Spoiler) if my theory is to be believed this world is a purgatory where people have made their own artificial vessels and as time has made them bored (though some seem to be having a good time) while typical strains of the Pinocchio myth are thrown in about questions of identity and death - and probably even more so towards Timothy Learys concept of the Ego Death, or the return to the collective soup of unconcious being. Undertale will probably always be a reccomendation even by its own reference to it so comparisons to it will be littered through here. It feels like the developers were emboldened by Toby Foxs spirit in game development (his creative energy is rather infectious) and shared many similar ideas, but this feels far more aimed towards a maturer audience (references to the things I mentioned in the trigger warning list) and focused on achieving this feeling that its predecesors have as well. Yume nikki. Lisa. Earthbound. Toby's games. super Mario rpg in its humor, Cat Soup in its psychedellic depressive vibes, all this cool indie cult classicy kinda mash up soup.  bizarre antics and then these characters who have surprising depth the further you go. It has been 6 years since Undertale came out, and the developers for Everhood have called a lot of the "what ifs" that fans of that game ask, an answer in their own game. (What if No Mercy was forced, for example? What if going against destiny is the wrong thing to do? Why is Death such a Bad Thing? etc!) And the further along you progress, the smarter the story gets, the more complex the narrative threads and characters. This game knows how to write compelling literature and that wasn't an element I expecting but god am I so glad for it. Literally my pea brain saw Red's design flipping around some frets on a streamers videocapture (shoutout to based fellow tampa native Charles White, thank you for being witty and having good taste and your Floridian comisery.) one night and went "oh i like." But the experience I got in exchange was, so, so much more than that (but the tetris effect won't let that image disappear from my eyelids quite yet haha.) I hear there are multiple endings and one requires a 3 hour long trek. I'm not done with the game at the time of reviewing. You bet your sweet ass I am going to find out the Ultimate Truth. I found a way to deal with some of the bullshit in other games, I may not be great at games but I want to see whatever imagery these guys put on screen so it compels me to seek out all the alternative routes. I am going to be following these developers projects very closely. If this is their debut, their next project will be ... ... I would hate to force expectations, like if you just made a magnum opus like this it'd be perfectly alright to retire, but I just once again want to say thank you to the developers for putting your heart on display for the world to see. I see it. I have dealt with struggles similar to the ones in the stories this game articulates about anxiety and depression, existentialism and dread, dissociation and all the heavy themes that were risky to include narratively - I'm certaintly glad you took the risks you did. May update this review as I get further along the story but yeah. Tl;dr: haha pinocchio myth done well make brain go brrr. 9.99999999999998/10. I am taking an infitisimal fraction of a point off because of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ spider in the monster maze. that thing was abhorrent, but I won't let it deter anyone else who wants to play.

#everhood #audnalysis

[abanomath]

DC’s Tone Deafness

So I don’t really like ranting or being negative, but DC Universe recently released an article to celebrate pride month about the Top 5 canon and non-canon LGBTQA+ relationships in Young Justice.

And the tone deafness is just off the charts. Like most of the world, I’m not American so I needed someone to screen-cap the actual article for me. I’m going to organize my thoughts and go down below.

General

For one, its pretty obvious the writer didn’t look at the source material. This article sounds like it was written by someone filled in on the basics and told to write a good PR article for DC.

There are a lot of little details in the story, such as when the writer claims that they “showcased even more LGBTQA+ protagonists in season 3″ implying they had previously, which they hadn’t. One character was implied to be bisexual in the comics, never on screen, but more on that below. Season 3 was the first LGBTQA+ rep for the show.

Also its always a bit tone deaf when in an article celebrating LGBTQA+ and diversity in your show, that you have a list of 5 “ships”, of which only ONE is actually a couple in canon. Not only did they need to resort to non-canon ones, they included people that can’t be called a “ship” or couple.

1. Kaldur/Wyynde

This is the only actual LGBTQA+ couple on the list that is canon in the show, and I liked them. But I can’t deny that Kaldur who was a main cast member for the past two season’s had a vastly reduced role (compared to straight cis white characters like Dick and Conner). He was basically written out of the first half of the season, and then his relationship was really present for 1.5 - 2 episodes max. This in a season that was marked with excessive attention given to heterosexual relationships (like seriously, basically every character was in some form of relationship on-screen). The one healthy LGBTQA relationship got less attention than Black Lightning and Dr. Jace’s romance, something that ultimately went nowhere, Dick/Barbara, even Megan/Conner when Megan was also essentially written out of the season.

2. Marie Logan and Rita Farr

They really dug deep for this “ship”. Ironically, they start this by talking about the scene in Young Justice #25, when Queen B’s powers work on Garfield’s mother. This was the first implication her being bisexual. And of course, she also dies in this scene, so starting off with a “Bury your gays” trope where Marie’s queerness literally got her killed and orphaned her son.

There isn’t much more to say about this ship, because it literally doesn’t exist. The shipping community for this is so small you have to go digging deep into tags to find even hints of it. The article even basically says this, posing the ship as a question. As being interesting. (Does it count as Bury Your Gays when both woman are dead before their relationship is even hinted at?)

In other words this article about celebrating LGBTQA ships literally had to try and CREATE A SHIP to reach 5 ships. Despite the fact there are plenty of LGBTQ fanon ships (Birdflash being the most prominent one left off the list). It really hits at the thing I said above, this is a “write us a good PR article with the barest amount of effort put into it” situation.

3. Harper Row and Halo

Oh boy don’t get me started on this. There are so many problems with how they did Halo this season, she is basically tone deaf personified. (For the purpose of this rant, I’ll be using the “she” pronouns for Halo, because I have no choice but to assume they are her preference, unless the show purposely spent the entire season mis-gendering her, but I don’t think her characterization really supports that she prefers “her/she”).

I’ve had a problem with Halo from the start, because she is basically an attempt for the writers to shallowly include representation without having to actually deal with it. She is Muslim representation, but not actually Muslim (as she confirms on the show). She wears the Hijab because she feels like it. She is genderqueer, but they never once talk about her pronouns. She refers to herself as “not feeling like a boy or a girl” and constantly refers to herself in the third person, but everyone uses “she/her” pronouns without asking her. They even have a scene where she informs them she is genderqueer, and its never brought up again without asking any actual follow up questions or awareness. They also infantalize and treat her as a little girl.

Additionally, she falls into one of my greatest pet peeves - she is genderqueer but for fantasy-scifi reasons. For those that follow genderqueer or transgender characters in media, this is a very common trope. Essentially, the trope is when someones gender identity is caused by/determined from otherworldly experiences.

This trope bugs me because it completely undermines the point of representation. Representation in media is supposed to show the audience that these are natural human experiences and that people like this exist and are normal. But the trope ensures that the experiences are not normal human experiences.

(and don’t even get me started on the fact that this show has made New Genesis tech gendered before, with Sphere. And even gender the bioship in the same season they pull this for Halo).

Lastly, she also falls within the “promiscuous bisexual” trope, with the very kiss this article praises as THE FIRST LGBT KISS ON SCREEN for the show. This is a problematic trope that DC seems to love. Basically, this scene has Halo cheating on her boyfriend with another young classmate, engaging in two kisses with her.

Now I’m not going to say that all LGBTQA+ relationships need to be wholesome one true loves. Problematic behaviour like Halo and Harper’s is a story telling tool. But the fact that the LGBTQA+ was told going into the season there would be LGBT rep so they should watch, and this was the first rep we got 18 episodes into the season? It felt a bit like a slap in the face. They could’ve had her break up with Brion beforehand, or any number of different ways that would even keep the scene in tact.

And the relationship doesn’t really go anywhere anyways. Harper doesn’t really remain part of the season going forward, Halo and her boyfriend continue their relationship after it was revealed until the end of the season.

This is ultimately my problem with Halo. There are a few tropes that basically are summed up as “writers put all their diversity into one character” which is basically what Halo is. Each of these qualities, from faith to gender identity to sexual orientation could’ve been a fleshed out character arc (oh! I forgot to mention she also falls into the “My gender identity isn’t cis, so my sexual orientation is also bi/pan/gay” trope). Instead all the diverse qualities of Halo are addressed shallowly as the show-runners pat themselves on the back.

4. Bluepulse

I’ve ranted a lot so I’m not going to go crazy on this point. You can probably find tons of posts about the drama between Bluepulse Shippers and the show, which again makes their inclusion kind of tone-deaf. Bluepulse shippers have been called disgusting by the fandom for the three year age gap, an age gap that was never confirmed on screen and you had to go digging in Greg’s personal message board to know (resulting in many people shipping them not knowing their ages at all).

In addition, the showrunners made it clear they did not like this ship over the several years the show has been off the air. And in Season 3 they give Jaime a girlfriend….who is a lesbian in the comics. Now Traci and Jaime did date in the comics before she came out, and this is another Earth. But when the sole purpose of their relationship being on screen was to tell the audience that bluepulse wasn’t happening, choosing a lesbian character to play the cis straight girlfriend is a bit of a slap in the face. again.

5. Bart Allen and Eduardo

Queerbaiting, nuff said.

For those not in the know, Ed is a character introduced as a runaway in Season 2, but he doesn’t really interact with Bart until mid-season 3. There is an episode where a group of heroes go to a carnival, and Ed and Bart appear to be on a date. They are in a group with all couples, except for Virgil. Virgil laments being the only person there without a significant other, implying that Bart and Ed are together. Additionally, Bart and Ed do everything that the other couples do together. It was pretty heavy-handed that the couples were there on dates.

And fans liked this! Even if Bluepulse wasn’t happening, Bart may still be bisexual or gay. This was made worse by Greg retweeting and liking Ed/Bart content, and not giving a straight answer on whether they were dating.

Which obviously, creates the expectation among LGBTQA+ fans that they will get together. They don’t. And later at a convention, one of the main writers (not Greg) said something like “its funny how the fans see relationships between characters differently from our intent” when asked a question about them. Essentially confirming that yeah, they didn’t have any actual content for them planned anyway. Though they did have an addendum that they may build on the fan reception/view of the relationship in the future (basically saying, maybe they’ll be canon).

As much as I’d like to be optimistic that they actually will get together and we’ll get a LGBTQ relationship that is in the spotlight for once, I’m not. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on this point.

And that was my TEDtalk about how tone-deaf DC patting themselves on the back for LGBTQA+ content in Young Justice is. Especially when other animated shows do so much better with fewer episodes and screen time.

#morning repost #Young Justice #DC Universe #DC Animation #Bart Allen #Impulse #Kid Flash #Jaime Reyes #Blue Beetle #Bluepulse #Eduardo Dorado Jr. #el dorado #zetapulse #halo #harper row #halo/harper row #Jaime Reyes/Bart Allen #Eduardo/Bart Allen #Edbarto #Kaldur #Kaldur/Wyynde #Wyynde #Aqualad #Aquaman #Earth-16 #Marie Logan #Rita Farr

[damfinofanfiction]

Chapter 7: The Shoot (V.2.)

The note is at the end of this chapter

Gail walked into Benjamin’s Photography studio and looked around the place. It had the size of a warehouse. She had a dress borrowed from a friend laid on her arm and had brought makeup to use on the set. With her free hand, She waved to Benjamin, who was still setting up the equipment.

He then noticed the refined curls on her locks, “Darling your hair looks ravishing!”

“Thank you, I was just at the salon.” Hesitant to put her things down and getting ready, Gail informed him, “I have this dress for the shoot. Do you have a changing room?”

He pointed to where it is, “Yes, it is to your left.” She thanked him as she walked to the door.

Having already mounted the equipment, Ben saw Gail emerge from the room in a dress printed with large roses and with light makeup on her face. Ben liked what he saw on her, took the stool for her to sit on the backdrop.

When she sat down, he told her, “How about you try several different headshots to find out which is best?”

"That would be perfect.," Gail nodded. She and Ben were discussing each pose before proceeding with the photoshoot.

As he instructed her, Gail turned to her side looking up, and then a flash came from the camera. When she turned her head to the camera, she smiled a bit. Flash. Turned all of her to the front. Flash. Got up to lean on the seat. Flash. After all that, Gail was feeling hot from the lights. Ben gave her a paper cup of water for her to drink. 

After she took hydrating sips she asked him, “Do you have any more ideas?”

Ben took the now empty cup from her when he suggested, “How about you show some more skin?”

Shocked, she shook her head, “No!”

He took his hand on her shoulder, “It’s only the shoulders. Take those straps down.”

She brushed it off, “No, that’s not the image I’m going for, Ben!”

He implored her, “Ladies like you pose nude in photos.”

“Ladies like me?!?” She stood in retaliation. “Is this what the photo session was about? Me out of my dress?”

He shouted, “No, I’m only helping your damn career!!”

Seeing Gail upset, he realized he had offended her profession. He stuttered, “I-I didn’t mean that.”

Fumed, she declared, “We are done here.”

She went to the dressing room to collect her stuff she didn’t bother changing back because she wanted to leave immediately.

Ben grabbed her arm, but she brushed it off, “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. Can I at least make any amends?”

Before storming out, she requested without maintaining eye contact, “Just send me the photos as soon as they’re developed so I know what I’m looking at, and don’t talk to me again.”

**************

One month later.

Caruthers was helping Buster get dressed for the Seven Chances cast party. It has been usually possible for him to dress up on his own, but he was not accustomed to putting on a tuxedo without help. Earlier today, Keaton was informed that he and his wife Natalie will be riding with her sister Constance, nicknamed Dutch, William “buster Collier, and his mother-in-law Peg Talmadge. The elder sister, Norma, and her husband Joe Schenck were at their place setting up the party. Keaton didn’t mind riding with the former two as Collier was his friend and Dutch treated him as a brother, but Peg was harsher than her husband; she wished her daughter would've chosen a better suitor than a man who made a living by throwing himself to get some laughs. Anyway, he was relieved to have finished his least favorite movie. But hoped it will be profitable enough for his next feature.

 He heard a few knocks from his bedroom door, “Yes?”

His other butler called through the door, “The Vehicle has just arrived.” 

When Keaton started working on his tie, he said, “Tell ‘em I’ll be right over.”

Soon as he exited the room, Natalie came out the door next to him wearing a rose-colored evening gown with pearls dangling on her chest. Her handmaid carried the hemline of her dress so she wouldn't trip down the stairs, while Buster followed them. He and Natalie bid good night to their young sons when their governess brought them from their playroom. The governess, who was holding the year-old Robert, and the oldest son, Jimmy watched the parents leave the mansion for their ride before she took them to their nursery.

As the car drove through Muirfield road, Buster had a chat with the other Buster while the missus converses with his in-laws. When Dutch pardoned herself out of the casual talk to cuddle with Collier, Keaton made a move by placing his hand next to Natalie's, having them touch. Even though she almost flinched, she didn't want to be interrupted.

After she finished her, she whispered to Buster, “I wish you wouldn’t try to touch me.”

He replied, “I’m still your husband aren't I?”

“It's a good thing or you'd be out with someone else.”

They both knew if they were going to fight it wouldn’t be the place and time since they’re in a crowded vehicle. Buster soothed her, “But I’m here. That’s all that matters.” He was going to put his hand on hers, but backed out at the last minute. He added, “And thank you for coming along.”

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s at Norma’s, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. And besides, Mother thought if I went with you, the guest would see how we were doing.” Natalie looked out the window.

Crestfallen he asked, “Are we okay?”

After a pause, she replied, “It depends.”

Buster got her attention back when he nudged at her, telling her, “You look lovely.” Though with a stern face, she took the compliment. Natalie lent her hand for him to kiss it, then she gently whisked it away, having no more than one.

When the Keatons arrived at Joe and Norma’s residence, they pretended to be an ideal couple as if nothing was wrong between them like Buster always wished for.

*****************

"Hey, give her a free ticket," Sally demanded to the ticket vendor, although Gail mentioned beforehand she didn’t mind.

The vendor shook her head, “Sorry, It's against policy.”

“She’s in that movie.” She pointed to the lobby poster of Seven chances.

Gail added, “It’s only a bit role.”

The vendor asked, “Were you an extra?

Gail answered yes. The vendor said, “I still won’t allow a free ticket, but you can pay half.”

After receiving her ticket, Gail and Sally went to the theater and sat down. The Pianist started playing when the film started. The audience and even Gail were surprised to see that the Prologue was in color, but grew confused when the rest of the film was played in black and white. They were amazed at the camera tricks which has always been a favorite for her. There are plenty of laughs throughout the feature, especially when Keaton’s character James wanted to get married by 7 pm to inherit millions of dollars but his proposals always fail. She felt bad for the main character. When the brides’ scene played, Gail was looking out for herself. She pointed Sally where she was. Gail always loved seeing herself in a film. When she started watching films, she imagined herself as a character in that film, but now she appeared in several shorts a year though she was in the background. At the end of the film when it was thought that James failed to get married in time and sulks in shame. Gail almost cried, but then lights up when he finds out the actual time and marries his beloved sweetheart in time. The audience was enabled to applaud as the end title came on.

With the picture over, the friends got up from their seats to leave, but stopped when they saw Benjamin in the theatre as well. “I thought I might find you here,” he said with a sheepish tone.

Gail had not spoken to Ben since the photo shoot, and he kept apologizing to her. She still avoided him. He even sent her flowers to win her back. When he sent her the photos for her to look over, in a note that came with it, he recommended the one where she looked up with the spotlight shining on her. Gail did write back saying she liked that one too.

Gail was less angry than the last time they saw each other. she asked, “How did you know we’d be here?”

“You usually come here whenever a new movie is released, including the one with Keaton. Can we talk?”

“Well, not here.”

The three walked to the nearest drugstore where Gail and Ben sat at a table by the window. Sally was by the checkout, purchasing cookies while keeping an eye on them like a hawk.

“Look, I was an ass that day. I should’ve never offended you and your job.”

“I promised my grandmother, I would never let California change me. I didn't want to alter my image.”

Ben nodded in agreement, “I was merely trying to help you advance your career.”

“And I do appreciate it.”

He took her hand, “There is another reason I wanted to see you.” When she asked why. He told her, “I will be going to New York City for business next Monday.”

“How long?”, she sat up straight.

“If something happens, a month."

“That seems long. I think that’ll be plenty of space.”

“If you want I will write you as soon as I get there.”

“Sure, I never got to thank you for the headshots.”

“You’re welcome. I made more copies so I could send them to the studio.”

“That’ll be enough.”

Gail hugged Ben goodbye when he got up from his seat and he waved to her while leaving the drugstore.

Sally took his now empty seat, “Did you two break up?”

Gail slouched as she replied, “I’m not so sure. We didn’t bring that up.”

The blonde took a sandwich cookie out of the package, “Hey, Bae, do you want a Hydrox cookie?”

She accepted the treat and ate it. Contrary to their talk, Gail was unsure about her future with Benjamin but at least he was trying his best.

Note: I have written an alternate scene where they go to a cast party instead of a premiere since it was actually held at the Capitol in New York. I kept the original for archival reasons. Chapter 13 is at the beginning stages but I’m afraid that I have another case of the writer’s block. i’m hoping to get it done at least before I go out to another vacation next month. if you have any ideas and questions, let me know and hope you enjoyed my chapters.

#Buster Keaton #buster keaton fanfiction #buster fic #buster keaton fandom #buster #actor RPF #silent era #silent comedy #silent film #Seven Chances

[collectsfallenstars]

WARNING: Absolutely long post

IN DEFENSE OF KIM EUN SOOK'S "THE KING: ETERNAL MONARCH"

The King: Eternal Monarch has been getting mixed reviews 10 episodes into the season and it has boggled my mind as to why this has been happening. It’s a grand project, has a robust storyline, beautiful cinematography the likes of which is done for full-length films, and has a love story between two adults who behave like adults and not in perpetual high school. It is very different from most Korean dramas I have come across, and that alone is reason enough to watch it.

 

Granted, I have not watched many of them so maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But what I am sure of is that I get tired of things very easily when they’ve become predictable.

 

See, before watching The King: Eternal Monarch, the last Korean drama I watched was Something Happened in Bali back in 2004. Then coronavirus happened, billions of pesos were to the government but no mass-testing happened, ABS-CBN shut down, people speaking against the government were being put in jail, and I thought, hmm let’s go to Netflix to escape. K-dramas with beautiful autumn colors should do the trick.

 

I watched maybe one or two series in full but soon found myself giving up on the ones that came next. Watching them one after another made it clear that they were built like romance novels – no matter how different each premise was for a series, they always followed a pattern. And patterns, while they may be dependable, can sometimes be boring.

 

And then I decided to give The King: Eternal Monarch a try even though the binge-watching monster inside me disagreed with it. So there I was last week, Netflix open and a lunch of Sinigang na Baboy with rice laid out in front of me.

 

The series opened with a serene view of a bamboo forest, wind blowing gently through it, and the voice of a man talking about the legend of a bamboo flute back when monarchs ruled Korea. Oh, a historical series.

 

1 minute and 40 seconds later, it cuts to a man covered in blood, in a police interrogation room in modern day Korea. Oh, it’s also detective fiction. Gotta watch out for red herrings then. Oh but wait, the man covered in blood, Lee Lim, is supposed to be 70 years old but he doesn’t look a day over 30. I mean, yes Korean genes and skin care are magical but not to this extent. The idea of immortality is introduced which suggests that the series has supernatural elements too. This means world building for these magical elements and forming rules that govern them. (I mean, Bram Stoker and Anne Rice made their vampires perish under the sun and Stephanie Meyer chose to make them…sparkle.)

 

And then 4 minutes in, we get a flashback to winter of 1994 in the Kingdom of Corea. Uhm. Typo? No? Lee Lim, the bastard son of the former king, murders his half brother, the current king, in order to steal the bamboo flute that grants the owner much power. The king’s young son, 7 year old Lee Gon, witnesses his father’s murder, struggles with Lee Lim, splits the power laden bamboo flute in half, and nearly dies if it weren’t for a mysterious figure coming in to save him.  The mysterious figure drops an ID card with the name and picture of Lt. Jung Tae Eul on it and Lee Gon clutches it along with half of the bamboo flute. Lee Lim escapes to the forest with only a broken half of the bamboo flute. He comes upon a pair of obelisks, passes through it and lands in Korea with a K. Lee Lim comes face to face with the face of the person he had just murdered, except he isn’t a king anymore. He’s just an unkempt unemployed man. We now have the introduction of parallel worlds and doppelgangers. It had only been 18 minutes into the first episode.

 

I put it on pause, finished my lunch quickly, cleared the table, and settled down on the couch to watch. I did all that before resuming to watch it because it clearly wasn’t the kind of K-drama you could easily watch while eating, glancing up and down between the screen and your food, missing bits of the subtitle here and there and not paying any mind. Because of its structure, the kind of story it wants to tell and the breadth of its narrative, it demands your full attention.

 

I get why people find it difficult. I found it difficult. But it was infinitely exciting. It’s as if someone laid out a puzzle with a thousand pieces, a maze, Connect the Dots, Spot the Difference in front of me and told me to play with them all at the same time.

 

What kind of story did the writer, Kim Eun Sook, want to tell? She began with the murder of the parents of Lee Gon by his bastard uncle, Lee Lim, who feels he has been deprived of power for too long and intends to take it all for himself. It becomes a story of both sides seeking justice for their own separate tragedies. To flesh out this story, she has to give Lee Lim a plan for world domination and give Lee Gon a defense strategy in place, as well as an active pursuit to entrap his uncle. She has to give them motivations, conflicts, moments of doubt and triumph. If this were the only story she wanted to tell, a linear storyline with flashbacks and flash-forwards should be enough. Throw in a romance, love triangle, one final obstacle, 2 chaste kisses, 1 passionate kiss, 1 tearful kiss, 1 reunion kiss and you will arrive at your happy ending.

 

But Kim Eun Sook wanted to do more. She expanded Lee Lim’s plan for world domination into two parallel worlds. Adding science fiction to the mix complicates matters because you will have to build another world that is visibly different from the other even if they are parallel to each other. Audiences should be able to tell one apart from the other quickly in order to keep up with the story. The difficulty that The King: Eternal Monarch faces is that the Kingdom of Corea and the Republic of Korea look almost exactly alike. It takes almost a few seconds to recognize the Royal Seal, or the European inspired trams running in the background to ascertain that the scene is in the Kingdom of Corea. But once the characters appear, it becomes easier to tell which world we’re dealing with. Jung Tae Eul and the police force belong to Korea. The Royal Staff and family, Prime Minister Koo and cabinet members belong to Corea. The only ones to traverse between both worlds are Lee Gon and his uncle.

 

Therein lies one of the criticisms for Kim Eun Sook’s work – the pace is too slow. I would argue though that the pace is just right when you’re creating two worlds, with very different characters in each, whose stories run parallel to and interweave with each other. It is very easy to place all evil characters in World A and all good characters in World B. But that’s lazy writing, and also ugly.

 

Kim Eun Sook humanizes and fleshes out a significant amount of the supporting cast with such care, developing them alongside the major characters. Usually in dramas, the side characters will get hints of a back story in an episode or two, and then have just one episode dedicated to them. Kim Eun Sook did so much more and in effect, her two parallel worlds became so concrete, with real, moving characters contributing their bit into the two separate forces of Lee Gon and Lee Lim that are about to clash. It creates anticipation, excitement, and spreads your heart out amongst many characters instead of investing your emotions into just the main leads.

 

But aside from the science fiction element, Kim Eun Sook also takes on the task of writing detective fiction into her already robust narrative. Lee Lim is essentially building an army of doppelgangers from the Republic of Korea and planting them in key positions in the Kingdom of Corea. He then takes the dead bodies of these Corean citizens and dumps them in the Republic of Korea, leaving Lt. Jung Tae Eul and her squad in the police force with a trail of unsolved cases. Detective stories are by themselves difficult enough. You begin with a dead body, a search for clues, weeding out which clues are significant, chasing a lead, failing, planting and then ignoring red herrings, closing in on a suspect, interrogation, a surprise turn of events, and so on until the murder is solved.

 

But Lee Lim didn’t leave just one dead body in Korea. There’s an entire army of them and Jung Tae Eul has to be on the trail for some of them in order for her to work with Lee Gon in order to solve them and in turn, help him uncover his uncle’s evil plans.

 

This brings us to one of the major criticisms of this drama – the romance between Lt. Jung Tae Eul and King Lee Gon. Apparently, there’s not much of it as it has taken a backseat to the struggle for power in Corea by the Prime Minister, Lee Lim’s murderous spree and body switching between the two worlds in a bid for a two-world domination, and murder investigations that Jung Tae Eul and her squad must carry out in Korea.

 

Would I like to see more of the actors Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun on screen? Why, yes of course! But as early as the 1st episode, it was already apparent that this was not going to be the usual K-drama. They weren’t going to meet cute, fall in love, fight their feelings, work on a murder mystery on the side, finally confess, become a couple, fight the final boss side by side, and then live happily ever after. Fantasy, science fiction, and detective fiction all seem bear equal weight with romance. It was different, and I found that absolutely interesting. And just because romance doesn’t dominate 80% of the story does not mean that the romance is lacking.

 

The first episode tricks you into thinking that there is very little romance in this drama. The lead characters of Lt. Jung Tae Eul and King Lee Gon meeting each other for the first time in the last 6 minutes of an episode that was 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 15 seconds long. What can possibly develop and deepen in 6 minutes? Not much, right?

 

But what happened in the last 6 minutes? Lee Gon rides into Gwanghwamun Square on his white horse after having crossed over from Corea and into the parallel world of Korea. He creates a slight commotion what with his royal handsomeness and almost ethereal white horse. Lt. Jung Tae Eul reprimands him. Lee Gon recognizes her as the woman on the ID card his savior had left behind 25 years ago. And in dramatic fashion, he alights from his horse, walks towards her, stops, and then engulfs her in a tight hug. He tells her, “I’ve finally met you” and the episode ends with a shocked Jung Tae Eul in the arms of an almost reverent Lee Gon.

 

In Kim Eun Sook’s other, wildly popular work, Goblin: The Lonely and Great God the first meeting between Kim Shin and Eun Tak also had that moment of finally finding the one they’ve been searching for. But for the Goblin, his bride’s existence was merely functional, as he needed her so he can finally die in peace. So their first meeting was your typical first meeting in K-dramas. There were no feelings yet, but they develop from there. So the whole drama then became a stage to establish the growth of their relationship that would give him the will to live instead of dreaming of death all the time.

 

But now, in The King: Eternal Monarch, the first meeting isn’t an easy blank canvas.

Lee Gon bursts into the first episode, already halfway in love with Jung Tae Eul long before he’s even met her. As a child, Lee Gon had held on to Jung Tae Eul’s image as his a savior. There is deep gratitude.  As a young orphaned monarch, he held on to the idea of her to ease his loneliness. His first duty as a king was to bury his father and learned to cry only in the privacy of his own room when he was 7 years old. But somewhere out there, there was someone who had cared for enough for him to have saved him. This thought sustained him as he grew up.

 

And at this point in the first episode, we’re working with the idea that time travel hasn’t been introduced yet. Which means we’re treating time as a straight line, allowing Lee Gon and Jong Tae Eul to age at the same time. So if Jong Tae Eul had been 25 years old when Lee Gon was 7 in 1994, then she would be 50 years old and he would be 32 in the present year, 2019.

 

Then, as a man in his 30’s, he still keeps on searching for her. But in his head she is frozen in time as the 29 year old woman in her ID picture, and at this point he might possibly be half in love with her already. And when he finally meets her in the flesh, he had spent nearly all his life loving her in different iterations. Finding out that she hadn’t aged as he thought she would have gives him another possibility of loving her as a man would a woman.

 

Now the audience has to grapple with this idea, that he had loved her for 25 years already, prior to seeing her in the flesh. But then if you add the idea of time travel as hinted at by the 10th episode, then this first meeting becomes heavier. Not only would he have loved her for 25 years, but he also would have loved her for 25 years multiplied by the number of timelines he had crossed as a time traveller.

 

That’s why their first meeting had to happen in the last 6 minutes of the first episode. Everything that happened in that first hour and 6 minutes, all the murders, plotting, collision of worlds, and clash of doppelgangers in the past 25 years had to happen in order to bring Lee Gon and Jung Tae Eul to that fated meeting at Gwanghwamun Square. Kim Eun Sook had played with the idea of destiny with Goblin: The Lonely and Great God’s Kim Shin and Eun Tak. Now she takes the same idea of a fated meeting between two souls, Lee Gon and Jung Tae Eul, and proceeds to tear them apart with time loops, parallel worlds, and a frozen dimension to test how their love can endure all of that.

 

There can be no slow burn; there is no chase that starts with attraction, denial, bickering, jealousy, no you-make-me-worry-so-much love confession that is so often found in K-dramas. The lovers don’t even have that poor girl-rich boy/immortal-mortal or whatever uneven power dynamic that’s so popular in dramas. I guess that's what most people inevitably look for because these things were built to be formulaic.

 

But now you have a writer who is trying to build a bigger, more ambitious story, who is willing to take some risks with that formula in order to tell a love story that can transcend time and universes.  The stakes had to be raised higher, the backdrop made grander, in order to hold a love story as epic as this.   How can this not be romantic enough?

 

There are six more episodes left in this series.  Quarantine has been extended. Give this series a chance. 

#the king eternal monarch #kim eun sook #kim go eun #lee min ho

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

Previously On Supernatural Season 3, we had a really rock solid trio of episodes to kick us off right, so what does SPN do next? It’s gonna lay the groundwork for some spicy character development that may or may not pay off by the end of the season. Let's find out!

To be honest, I felt the next three episodes just sort of plateau? There’s enough nuggets in these three eps - “Sin City”, “Bedtime Stories”, and “Red Sky at Morning” - that it does feel like they’re setting up for something big but it’s taking too much time. If the season had been longer, I don’t know that I’d be complaining, because there’s SO much potential introduced with these character developments, but I know it’s gonna get cut off at the knees in the very near future. 2021 Me has been trained on what to expect from a short season, so half of my brain wants to give the show slack for Unexpected Circumstances, but the other half of my brain is shouting YOUR NOT DRIVING THE BUS FAST ENOUGH, YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT TO THE END OF THE LINE IN TIME!!!

And that’s maybe unfair because there really are some great nuggets in here. We’ve got “Sin City”, which is Dean’s episode. I mean, they’re ALL Dean’s episode, but this one more so than the other two in this post. Dean gets trapped with a demon who turns out to be...kinda...nice? In kind of a Stockholm Syndromey way I guess? She let’s Dean in on the fate that awaits him when his year long contract is up and it is NOT great. This isn’t the first time we see that there’s more to the demons than SPN has shown us in the past (hello, Ruby), but it is the first time Dean chills out enough to actually have a conversation with one. Dean doesn’t really get it, like he’s still not interested in getting out of his deal, but the fear gets planted, it just needs some time to grow. Oh, also, the Colt Ex Machina is back in action, so that's important.

This dumb bitch thinks he can fool us with that devil-may-care side glance but he caaaan't

But then we get “Bedtime Stories”, the Sam episode, where Sam learns...to let go? That’s the point of this episode right? It’s about letting go of someone before that person becomes too toxic and dangerous? At least, that’s the lesson that Dean wants Sam to take away from this case. But Sam will NOT learn this lesson, so instead he tries to cancel Dean’s deal by killing the crossroads demon who wrote it. Spoiler Alert: it doesn't work.

And then we get “Red Sky At Morning”, which opens and closes with some heavy emotional baggage, but then is stuffed full of fun. Like, this episode ricochets wildly in terms of Feelings, but then that’s probably what we should expect from SPN. I mean, what show have I been watching for 3 seasons now?

Fun Facts guys: I’m a tired Millenial, and swapping DVD discs was too much work so I switched over to watching this season on Netflix and GUESS WHAT???? THESE EPISODES COME WITH A SUICIDE WARNING!?!?!

They're not wrong.

And like, if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about this season I don’t know WHAT will. Cuz Dean is absolutely suicidal and I am surprised (??) I guess (???) by how much the show acknowledges that. Or I guess, surprised by how much Netflix acknowledges that. It’s something that I did not...pick up on the first go around on season 3, possibly because I was 19 and I was an idiot and found this sort of emotional vulnerability to be endearing. Listen, I know there’s a lot to be said about the producers of the show making...umm…poor decisions in regards to character developments? But if the target demographic of this show was anything like me - and I suspect they were - then the viewers were also...probably...responding inappropriately to some of those character developments. And here’s the thing - I’m looking at this from 12 years in the future, with 12 years worth of real life drama that makes the heavy handed melodrama of television feel...well, heavy handed. Maybe irresponsible? Certainly a little uncomfortable. Big Me is having A Time confronting Little Me’s taste in TV Characters. It’s one thing to have a kink, Little Me, it’s another thing to romanticize suicidal depression.

And hey, I can’t deny that the character development for Dean makes sense. I actually appreciate that the show is thinking through the world and the relationship dynamics that they’ve built and the toll that these misadventures are having on their main characters. These episodes all get bookended by Impala Fights where Sam keeps pushing Dean to give a shit about his own life and Dean responds with an inability to care. That’s just where he is right now, and I get that. We’re early in the season still. But how will the rest of the season handle this? I honestly can’t remember but I also don’t want this to be a throw-away issue that they use to remind us that Dean’s supposed to die at the end of the season. I’m prob gonna come back to this throughout the season because I ~just~want~this~show~to be~repsonsiblllllleeeeeeeeeeee.

Lol, I know, that’s a lot to ask from the CW.

ON TO MORE FUN THINGS!!

Sam is gettin’ reeeeeallll bitchy in these episodes and #1, I love it, Bitchy Sam 5Ever, but also #2, was this supposed to be the sign that Sam was going darkside? Like, he’s snarky, he’s angry, he’s not pulling any punches and that could just be him reacting to his brother’s situation but it could also be….you know...him...becoming slightly...evil? For instance in “Sin City”, he kills the two demons who kidnapped Dean without even thinking. On the one hand, this is the Winchester MO, they kill demons, that’s their job, but on the other hand, Dean is actively telling Sam to stop. Same deal in “Bed Time Stories” - Sam kills the crossroads demon in cold blood (or maybe viscera). Again, we could blame this on instinct - the Winchesters were brought up to do exactly this - but 1) Dean keeps telling Sam not to and 2) that’s not Sam. This show spent 2 seasons telling us that Sam is the Good Brother, the White Hat, the Touchy-Feely One. This is not the Touchy Feely Sam who reasons with ghosts and falls in love with werewolves. Like, everyone else sees it too, right? Also, he is usually very nice to everyone but he is a REAL BITCH to Gertrude in “Red Sky at Morning.” Like, come on, Sam, she just wants to have a nice time. She is OLD. You really think she’s got what it takes to climb that tree?

Honestly, how tall are this lady's heels?

I know that there was a plan for Sam to start Turning in this season before the show’s episode order got slashed due to the Writer’s Strike. And man, I really would have liked to have seen this play out. Like, first season Sam is the Innocent, right? He’s our stand in for the viewer in those first few episodes and then he’s revealed to be kind of the only thing that went right in the lives of both John and Dean, so Baby Must Be Protected at All Costs. The fact that John ultimately lets Sam go off to college and doesn’t contact him for the next four years says to me that on some level, John felt the need to preserve that innocence, that kind of untouched quality Sam has. Dean is very similar - whenever Sam gets too into the job, Dean calls him out on it. So in the second season when we find out that Sam might be evil, it’s a real punch in the gut, for Dean most of all. But then the show admittedly got bored with that storyline and it didn’t really go anywhere. So whereas Dean has personality in SPADES that fluctuates and changes and develops/maybe just gets more intense as the show goes on, Sam remains that kind of blank slate that the viewer can put their face on. Except now we’re in season three, and if you’ve bought into this show, then you’ve bought into it, so the audience doesn’t need a Blank Slate Sam anymore. And if you start with Sam the Innocent and then introduce the idea of Dark!Sam and then just leave that concept hanging, then isn’t this sort of like Checkov’s Evil Sam? If you introduce Evil Sam in the first act you really ought to deliver on Evil Sam by act three, right? Wouldn’t that have been A+ and Wild? Wouldn’t that have made Sam’s arc and emotional struggles over the previous seasons have more weight?

Will this be resolved in later seasons? Maybe. I’m gonna be honest, this is the last season I watched all the way through and seasons 4 through...like, 8 were real touch and go for me. I know that Sam ultimately is revealed to be a vessel for??? The devil??? And Dean is ultimately revealed to be a vessel for??? Michael??? And then the two of them???? Fight to the death???? Point is, season 5 got weird guys and I’m not there yet.

Back to more fun things! You know what guys?? I think I ship Dean and Bela. I’m...almost ashamed to admit it? Like, I remember Little Me watching this season and just dumping on Bela, I HATED her, but this time? I am 1,000% On Board This Ship. Like, there is an alternate universe somewhere where these two got a spinoff show that ran for 6 seasons and I watched EVERY episode. And then, like, 5 years after it ended, they rebooted it with Dean and Bela’s grown up daughter as the lead and the whole OG cast makes cameos over the three seasons it stays on the air and it’s amazing. I’d own both shows on DVD.

What I like about Bela this time around (and again, I am WILDLY surprised about this development), is that she can dish it just as hard as the Winchesters can. Like, every line Dean throws at her she holds up a mirror to say, “Oh yes, I know the Kettle is black, but what color are you, Pot?” and I’m just continually thrilled. She is also just as damaged as Dean is but somehow channeling it into a healthier way? Like, she’s true Chaotic Neutral, which is not necessarily healthy, it’s just healthier than Dean. Or maybe it’s just that she’s better at managing it. In either case, they are HOT MESSES and I love it. I just love it. I know I complained about shoehorned romances but Ackles and Lauren Cohan just totally crush it in every scene and when Dean walks down the stairs all She’s All That in “Red Sky at Morning”, I yelled at the screen OMG just BONE already!!!!! And then like, 5 seconds later, Bela literally says “We should really have angry sex,” and it was probably the most vindicating moment I’ve had on this ride so far.

I just think they're neat!

WHY did we cancel her? WHY?? I don’t want to believe it was the Wincest again, so I’m gonna pretend that it wasn’t, but it was definitely fans. According to Kripke, Bela gets the axe at the end of this season because of the fan hatred of her. Now, I’ve already admitted that I personally held a grudge, but good Lord, what was wrong with us, as a Fandom? To be fair to me (and all of us), would we have felt differently if we had not been introduced to Jo a mere season earlier?? I'm gonna say yes. Although I had misgivings about Jo the first episode we meet her, by the end of season 2 I was certainly on her side. Working through season 3, I am remembering that, when we were introduced to Bela, I was immediately FURIOUS because WTF, WHERE’S JO? SPN just introduced to her. They just settled on a love interest for Dean and the writer’s just got me on board with that. Now they’ve completely done away with both that character AND that dynamic and you want me to get on board this NEW thing? And be excited about it??? So I'm gonna blame the love-interest-whiplash, combined with the fact that Little Me related my own personal self more to Jo than to Bela, that made me hate Bela in the first place. When you look at how quickly the show abandoned one character to introduce another character, it makes sense why fans got mad, but I’m also mad that we continued to hate Bela when she turned out to be such an A+ Frenemy. It makes me want to shout at the writers through the time void COMMIT TO A FEMALE CHARACTER YOU JAGWEEDS.

What’s wild watching this show now is just how Male it was, especially considering its audience was already skewed heavily female by this point in the series. If you made this show today, I don’t know that you could do that. Today, there’s a real push for balanced, diverse casts in programming, especially in sci-fi/fantasy and young adult. I think if SPN had started in 2021, they would have introduced the Harvell’s or Bela up in season 1, and that introduction would have been much more intentional. The benefit of having a shorter episode count as the standard is that there’s less of the “throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks” approach. Looking at it from 2021, reading snippets of interviews from Kripke, that’s definitely what they’re doing with the side characters in these seasons and you can feel that in Jo and Bela. A shorter season means that the storytelling has to be tighter, it can’t wander, so every decision has to be a load-bearing decision. On the other hand, one of the down sides of having a shorter episode count is the exact same thing - less room to throw stuff, less room to experiment. Heck, Bobby was technically a character they threw at the wall and he didn’t just stick, he became a tentpole character of the series. The only side character that actually made it into the series finale even!

So how much room should we be giving our television programs? I think it depends on the show, honestly. I think you have to decide up front if you want space to experiment, or if you have one, tight, compact story line that’s gonna drive viewers from episode 1 right through the finale without giving them the chance to catch their breath. You have to make the decision, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop making one style of show in favor of the other. Just because we’re in the Age of Streaming doesn’t mean there isn’t room enough for both.

#Supernatural #Supernatural season 3 #Supernatural rewatch #Sin City #Bedtime Stories #Red Sky at Morning #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Bobby Singer #Bela Talbot #TV #TV history #TV format

[orionsangel86]

dude half the characters on the cw are lgbt..if destiel doesn't become canon it's not orders from above, it comes from everyone involved in the show, and especially dabb and jensen.

The network gave the go to make God bi, which risked to pi*s off several viewers. Them not making DeanCas canon makes zero sense. They probably won't make Eileen and Sam stay together. Why? Berens and a lot of the other cast and crew ppl follow acc like Super*iki. Berens even created a char just for her. He knows she loves under*ge in*est. They won't make DeanCas move out of subtext to make their friends like Super*iki happy. Don't believe me? Look at Jason F who told us all ships are the same.

.....

I have had both of these asks in the past few days and I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry about them. 

Anon no.1 - You seriously blaming Dabb and JENSEN for not making Destiel textual? ppffft bitch please. Jensen has basically admitted Dean’s feelings for Cas live on stage. This perpetual concept that floats around fandom like a bad smell in which Jensen is some anti Destiel homophobe has really got to be VANQUISHED. No matter how much we try to febreeze that bullshit out it still lingers URGH. I’m not sure whether to blame the bronlys or bitter destiellers for it tbh. Right now the lines between both are pretty blurred...

I have spoken about this extensively before. The CW is FINE with LGBTQ+ characters on it’s newer shows, where they are established as queer early on, so the audience is well prepared and willing to accept it from the start. What the execs at the CW might NOT be happy to approve, is taking their 15 year old ancient TV show with a 50/50 split republican/democrat audience, in which half the audience are straight white male republicans with a boner for guns, macho men and action scenes and watch the show purely on a surface level basis, and make the LEAD character who is known to that particular subset of the audience as being THE MOST macho dudebro, a queer character in love with the OTHER lead character who is also an angel.

Do you really not see the difference here? Making God bi? Yeah okay it was controversial, but God at the time was still a minor character in the show and it was a one off line in passing that those dudebro audience members can easily brush off. Making your lead character bi and having an entire story arc where he falls in gay love with his angelic best friend? yeah that’s gonna go down pretty differently. Besides, making Destiel textually canon isn’t gonna be something they can easily remove for the more homophobic overseas Russian and Chinese audiences. Also ask yourself this, since Chuck returned as a recurring character have they mentioned his bisexuality once? At all? Other than the line about him having a creepy obsession with Dean (which is hardly good rep for bisexuals anyway)?!? Seriously can you at least CONSIDER what I am trying to say here and use some critical thinking skills to actually understand this situation.

Anon 2 - See above re God being bi. Your ramblings have zero correlation. You are best summed up by this picture:

In case its not entirely clear, you are the guy on the left. I am the dude on the right. 

FANS DO NOT INFLUENCE THE WRITERS. SUPERWIKI DOES NOT INFLUENCE THE WRITERS.

Also Jason F is a troll who likes to joke around with the fandom. His word also means NOTHING in terms of the writers. The ONLY thing that matters is what we see on the screen, which right now is a pretty intense and heavy emotional plot between Dean and Cas that seems to be building to something pretty epic.

We can also take Jensen’s comments at the latest con into account because he let slip that Dean is into Cas, like literally slipped and confirmed it whilst making a dumb joke because the dude gets awkward when shipping is brought up even though in this case it was about Sastiel not Destiel and Jensen just went and confirmed Destiel, so thanks for that Jensen!

Seriously people just stop already. Your incessant need to come into my ask box and shut down my positivity with your ridiculous nonsensical reasoning is driving me mad. You wanna be mad at Dabb, Bobo and Jensen and scream queerbait from the top of your lungs? BE MY GUEST. I really couldn’t care less what you think. But if you really are going out of your way to put the blame on queer writers, and showrunners who are allies, and JENSEN who is a fucking actor and has no decision making abilities in the grand scheme of things, instead of blaming the corrupt greedy homophobic executives that sit at the top of the powerhouse networks, then you my friends are part of the problem. 

#fandom wank #fandom drama #queerbaiting #destiel and queerbaiting #asks #anon #Anonymous

[love-takes-work]

Steven Universe Podcast: The Fantasy of Steven Universe

This is an outline of the Steven Universe Podcast regarding “The Fantasy of Steven Universe”: an issue of the podcast in which the creators and writers discuss a multitude of deep issues, along with some Q&A from both fans and insiders. No volume number or episode number was given for this one. The official description:

It's the last new podcast episode of the season and we asked the cast and Cartoon Network Executive team to submit questions to Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar and former Executive Producer Ian Jones-Quartey! They tackle everything from design to wormholes to escapism to advice to your younger self and dreaming big. Then former writers Matt Burnett and Ben Levin sit down with Rebecca to discuss lessons learned, achieving goals, and what they hope people take away from the show. And finally, Kat Morris and Joe Johnston return to answer a last batch of Fan Q&A!

This is a long podcast with a long summary, so as usual I will give you a bulleted list of highlights, followed by a detailed summary.

Highlights:

Many of the show’s themes and important elements were there right from the beginning--all the way back to the pilot.

Rebecca Sugar comments that she didn’t really learn how to have fun until 2016.

Figuring out how to pace the show out and reveal each piece of information at the right time so it could support another later revelation was very exciting to the writers. They had the pieces laid out like a puzzle on their table.

Mostly self-contained episodes still gave the audience a piece of information or represented growth for a character. The less “plotty” episodes helped keep the energy up.

The Crewniverse knew that their titles were sometimes trollish, but Ben was honestly surprised that people expected apocalyptic happenings for “Last One Out of Beach City.” It was just a Less Than Jake reference.

Rebecca really enjoyed getting the chance to “damsel” Greg for the Zoo arc; she really wanted to use a lot of princess tropes, even that one.

Viewers should take away from the show messages of compassion, self-love leading to ability to connect with others, ability to understand and listen to others, and opportunities to see themselves as well as to see others.

Rebecca has drawn all of Fluorite’s component Gems, but all she’ll say is “they’re fun.”

Lars and Lion are not immortal, but they will live for a very long time and have slowed-down lifespans. Kat Morris says Lars may have no sense of taste; that if he eats it’s just for sustenance.

Lars has all the same powers as Lion. He can indeed do a sonic blast and make portals and walk on water. They weren’t able to work this into an episode we’ve seen, but Rebecca assures us that Lars will discover his abilities and it will be “really funny.”

The Crew had specific voice actors they wanted for the Diamonds. They got who they wanted cast by writing excited letters. Susan Egan’s was particularly weird because she had to play Tiny Floating Whale first.

Blue Diamond was the most difficult Diamond to design because her hair was hard to decide on. Rebecca’s influences for her were Martha Graham’s “Lamentation” dance and Fruma Sarah’s ghost from Fiddler on the Roof.

Yellow Diamond was mostly directly inspired by Patti LuPone’s performance as Evita.

White Diamond was influenced by many old-timey vibes, including Hedy Lamarr in Ziegfeld Girl and the artistry of Nell Brinkley. She had heavy eyelashes and fingernails--lots of design elements they did not incorporate into other characters, so she could adhere to old, “stifling” beauty standards.

Rebecca was disappointed that reveals of Pink’s full jester-like outfit got out before we saw it in the show. Her hair was originally higher in early designs, which contributed to her mural having spikier hair.

Greg is based almost entirely on Tom Scharpling; Rebecca was comforted by his voice when she had upheavals in her life. There’s also a little bit of inspiration from various Crewniverse dads in him.

Another Gem could have a hybrid child like Steven only if they had enough power to do it and the complete commitment to the idea that Pink had.

Steven and his “Gem self” are not really separable and can’t exist independently of each other. His Gem half will not remain if his organic half dies. They are one being. He will likely have a very long life because of his Gem powers, but (though the Crew agrees this is grim), he will probably die before the Gems do.

The Jade Fusion won’t be in trouble anymore once the Jades come out of their bubbles; in Era 3, the act they were punished for is no longer disallowed. However, the trauma of being isolated and then punished as soon as they felt it was safe to fuse may require some healing. Rebecca assures us they should be able to have the opportunity to heal and be okay.

Obsidian definitely has future vision powers. In fact, they’re expanded to the point that the noise is difficult to interpret; very powerful, but difficult to get anything useful with them.

Pearl became a more maternal character because of her voice actor, Deedee Magno Hall, being “such a mom.”

Zach Callison as Steven was so genuine and professional to work with, and the vibe in the booth with regard to him was closely mirrored in the show.

Sometimes Deedee’s or Michaela’s ways of interacting with Zach would influence how Pearl or Amethyst would interact with Steven.

People would give lots of space and reverence to Estelle when she was reading her lines, which parallels how the other characters treat Garnet.

Only Steven can take anyone or anything through the pink space connected to Lars’s hair and Lion’s mane, but yes, Steven could take Lars through Lion’s mane, and if he stuck his head out, there’d be infinite Larses sticking out of infinite Lars’s hair until he pulled his head back in.

Designing new characters requires lots of back and forth and hundreds of drawings. Rebecca asks “why,” not “what”--why are you including something in a character’s design? If it doesn’t contribute to who they are, why is it there?

Influences on the show that may have been missed by some fans include G.I. Joe the animated series, Future Boy Conan, and Mr. Bug Goes to Town.

In response to Deedee requesting a fusion between Pearl and any of Rebecca’s childhood favorite cartoons, she suggests maybe either Bart or Detective Conan, then says she’ll have to think about it and get back to Deedee.

Advice Rebecca Sugar might have given her younger self was that it would be okay and she’d get to tell the story she wanted to tell--but also that she should eat, drink water, and exercise.

One profound thing Rebecca learned while working on the show was that she can be out and bisexual regardless of who she’s with, and that it DOES matter.

One profound thing Ian learned while working on the show was that the story you want to tell doesn’t have to be constrained by the medium--and your fantasy story isn’t necessarily someone else’s fantasy. You can tell your story.

The detailed summary is below!

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

McKenzie kicks the podcast into gear and starts by asking Rebecca Sugar, Matt Burnett, and Ben Levin about the intentions for the show: what did they think it was going to be, and did it end up being that?

Ben shares an anecdote about how their agent seemed to have thought Steven Universe was based on Rebecca's comic Pug Davis, but then they saw the animatic and it was completely different from what the agent described. Matt felt that the themes and certain important elements of the show were already there from the animatic at the beginning. They were excited to see the show even if they might not end up getting to work on it, and they could tell just from the pilot that there was a lot of mythology to be unearthed. One of Ben's expectations that did not pan out was that he thought there would be more dungeon crawling episodes, but that was not the reality because . . . it turns out episodes like that are really difficult to do.

As for Rebecca, she says she had many goals for the show, and one thing she likes to do with projects is make them about something she hasn't truly figured out yet. The big thing for Steven Universe in Rebecca's mind was the issue of gendered cartoons for children. She felt uncomfortable growing up, because socially she was expected to like what girls like but her favorite things were "for boys," while "girl" cartoons did NOT appeal to her. She felt guilty and weird about it, and so with her cartoon she wanted to attack that at first, use and scramble the language others had used to put her in that position. As she worked on Steven Universe more, she realized that some of the things she wasn't allowed to love as a kid were things she DID love. Learning to understand herself better allowed her to build a better relationship with the symbols and elements of children's cartoons that she could have authentic feelings about. She feels she learned a lot.

Next, McKenzie wants to know which episodes were the most fun to write (or throw ideas around for).

Rebecca quips that she did not learn to have fun until 2016.

Ben says he and Matt had fun though. Their job was to take Rebecca's ideas and figure out how to squeeze her thoughts into 11 minutes. Ben thought it was important to reveal something new about a focus character in each episode. Rebecca thought it was exciting to pace out what to reveal when; she says all the elements were on the table "like a giant puzzle." They had to carefully place when we would understand each thing as the audience before they could do something that built on it. She felt it was "like painting a picture across time." You couldn't do something like "Change Your Mind" at the beginning--you needed all those pieces to get it at all.

Putting yourself in the audience's mind as a writer is important, Ben says. Infodumping doesn't work, and laying the groundwork before you start a story isn't the best way to make a story meaningful. Matt thinks the big story payoffs at the end of season 5 were discussed in the first two weeks of planning, and they all thought it would be so cool to finally get there.

The things that were the most fun were actually the deviations from those stories, though they kept with the themes. The "random idea" episodes that felt more like one-offs were responsible for keeping the energy up, according to Matt. "Steven and the Stevens," for instance, was pretty self-contained (and needed a diagram to keep it together). Rebecca points out that "self-contained" episodes were mostly the goal, but you'd still see a change in the character or get an important piece of information in each one. Steven is LITERALLY not the same character anymore after "Steven and the Stevens."

Weaving the "infodump" stuff into Steven's personal growth was important for the type of story they were writing. They also joke about how certain episode titles were very trollish, like "Last One Out of Beach City" and "Rising Tides, Crashing Skies." (Both of those were definitely NOT "apocalyptic" at all.) They were aware that titles could send a message, but Ben was actually really surprised at the expectations surrounding "Last One Out of Beach City" because for him it was just a Less Than Jake reference. ^___^

They also enjoyed getting to do whole new environments with mini-worldbuilding, like the human zoo. The zoo arc comes up and Rebecca remarks on how much she enjoyed "damseling Greg." She really wanted to do pretty much every princess trope in some way, even that one, and she just loved having the opportunity to have Blue carry Greg away "just like Peach."

McKenzie next asks the group what's something they want people who have watched the whole show so far to come away with at this point.

Ben says he's not sure about others, but he feels the show lets us take home messages of being in touch with your genuine feelings and expressing what they are. Matt agrees with Ben about how the show helps viewers learn to see others' perspectives. They hope people had the opportunity to see themselves represented on the show, and that some people got the opportunity to see representations of people they'd never seen before--and that those people who were newly exposed to folks they'd never thought about before would learn to be more compassionate.

Rebecca wants people to come away with the notion that they must learn to love themselves. That it is close to impossible to connect with others if you haven't learned how to love yourself. Kids deserve to be able to express themselves as long as they aren't destroying themselves or others in the process. She thinks sometimes kids are sent destructive messages about how it isn't okay to be themselves, and that people they trust might be shutting them down, but this show is a message to say it's wrong of them to do that and they deserve the freedom to be who they are and say so. Being allowed to talk about how you feel shouldn't be some kind of fantasy. It should be reality.

The next segment of the podcast involves Kat Morris and Joe Johnston answering fan questions with Rebecca Sugar!

Q: Has there been any thought as to what Fluorite's Gem components are?

A: Joe just immediately says "NO" and Kat teases him, but Rebecca speaks up and says of course she has drawn them all. She gave it to Colin and then says "I don't know where it went." The only thing Rebecca is willing to say about it is "they're fun."

Q: Are Lars and Lion immortal now? Or is their aging process just extremely slowed down?

A: Kat agrees that their aging process is just slow. About as slow as Lars's heartbeat in "Lars' Head." Kat points out that she and Joe have disagreements about what Lars's life is like. She thinks Lars probably lost his sense of taste and only just eats occasionally to sustain his body. Rebecca says "they'll live a really, really long time," and Kat says "longer than they'll want to."

Q: Can Lars do the Lion roar warp thing, or does he have his own power?

A: Kat says he can! They tried to write stories around it but never quite did it. Kat jokes that he can do it if maybe he gets tickled or something. Joe says he can make a warp and he can make a sonic blast with his voice. When they discuss whether he's figured that out yet, Rebecca replies that he WILL figure it out at some point, and when he does, "it'll be REALLY funny. Don't worry about it." They speculate that maybe that's how Lars was getting around doing space pirate stuff (infiltrating the Citrine asteroid and the Cosmic Jubilee), but there's also the fact that he doesn't have a Gem and can't be scanned. They also specify that Lars can indeed walk on water.

Q: Does Lion have the ability to sense Steven somehow? Or did he find Watermelon Steven some other way?

A: Rebecca claims they're in tune, but you can't really pinpoint whether it's magic or whether it's just that animal sense some pets have.

Q: How did you pick the Diamonds' voice actresses?

A: Kat says, "begging?" Rebecca says they knew who they wanted and they agree they wrote passionate letters. Rebecca tells the story of bringing Susan Egan in to do Rose's voice for the first time, but the first time you hear her voice was coming out of the Tiny Floating Whale. Susan did the little "ooo!" noise for it as well as the one line that's spoken in "Rose's Room." She had to explain that Rose was very important later, but for now she just wanted Susan to come voice the whale.

Q: Which Diamond was the most difficult to design? Which was the most fun to design?

A: Rebecca says Blue was the most difficult to design. They took a long time deciding on her hair and what would be "inhuman" about her, and there was a lot of trial and error involved. They actually revealed her cloaked form in "The Answer" before they figured out her hair. Rebecca feels that White might have been the most fun because they had to incorporate so many influences. They're all really influenced by tons of things though: for instance, Blue is influenced by a Martha Graham dance ("Lamentation") and the ghost (Fruma Sarah in a dream) from Fiddler on the Roof.

Yellow is very inspired by Patti LuPone in Evita.

White is inspired by Nell Brinkley and Hedy Lamarr (in Ziegfeld Girl)--the aesthetic of the time, really.

White has many design elements that other characters don't have. The heavy eyelashes, the fingernails, the "perfect thigh gap"--she's supposed to be very different from the others, with "beauty standards" that you haven't seen on other characters, meant to be read as stifling and old. She's even on an actual pedestal with shoes that are actual pedestals.

For Pink, Rebecca describes it as "kind of devastating" that even though we'd gotten the first reveal of Pink when she punched a mirror in Stevonnie's dream and was "contorted with rage," the audience got to see her on a model sheet with her full outfit "looking like a little clown" and people kind of got it instantly. Designs for the Diamonds go back to 2014, though Pink's hair was a little different and "looks like a Truffula tree" according to Rebecca. (Joe says that's why her mural looked spikier, because the early hair designs for Pink were higher.) Rebecca was really excited when they nailed down Pink's hair to look like Steven's hair. Rebecca was excited but Kat was scared.

Q: What inspired you to make Greg?

A: Tom Scharpling! Rebecca used to always listen to Tom's radio show (The Best Show) toward the end of college and she based Greg's character on him. She says Tom is currently doing a thing where he's reviewing every episode of Friends. She felt that during a tumultuous time in her life, moving from New York to LA and being apart from Ian, Tom's voice was a constant and a comfort. On his show, Tom is "more cynical" than Greg, but she describes him as only being mean to meanness, and that even when he's mean it's a "force for good in the world." Being angry is fine as long as you're directing it at other things that are mean, helping to cancel them out. She finds Tom inspiring, and thinks Greg is sort of the result of that cancelled-out meanness. Rebecca also adds that Greg has a lot of her own father in him, and she believes the other Crewniverse folks probably pull in elements of their own dads to write him.

Q: Would another half-Gem/half-human fusion like Steven be possible for another Gem besides Pink Diamond?

A: Pink Diamond couldn't fuse with humans--Steven's unique that way. Pink obviously created Steven (not through fusion), but now Steven is the result of that process and he exists sort of as a bridge. He can fuse with humans because of his humanity, not because of his Gem. He would actually be able to pull other humans into his Fusions with Gems, but he'd have to be there to preserve that connection.

Joe interprets the question a little differently, saying he thinks they're asking whether another hybrid might be possible, and Rebecca says it'd be possible only for a Gem as committed to it as Rose was. She specifies that Rose obviously had the immense power of a Diamond as well as that dedication, so if some other Gem that had a similar level of power and a similar interest in creating an organic child wanted to do it, okay, they could.

Q: If Steven were to die of old age, what would happen to his Gem half?

A: Joe hates this question. Rebecca agrees "that's so grim." She says that Steven is Steven, and he is NOT Steven when he's broken into two pieces. There isn't one without the other. Kat thinks Steven wouldn't die unless he chose to (and might do that if everyone he cared about was gone). Joe apparently hates existential questions and Rebecca sort of comforts him saying the Gems will live and live and live, and that Steven will probably die before them so he won't have to be stranded alive with no friends left.

Q: Is the Jade Fusion from "Together Alone" okay?

A: Yes, she's fine! Rebecca says she got poofed like many other characters have been before, and probably bubbled for what they were doing, but in Era 3 what they were doing is no longer wrong. They will emerge and be allowed to be themselves. Rebecca says, though, that there's also a question of whether they're okay as a person, and that what they went through is really hard to go through. She felt so isolated all that time, and then as soon as they got the courage to emerge in front of other people for the first time they were punished for it, so in that sense she's really kinda not okay. She will have opportunities to heal from her traumas, though, and her future is bright.

Q: Does Obsidian have future vision powers?

A: Rebecca says "Yes" decisively. The others chime in to agree. Rebecca says Obsidian's powers are overwhelming and difficult to handle all at once, though with many components they also have support handling it. The future vision Obsidian experiences is so overwhelming it's almost worthless because it's like noise--it's expanded and cacophonous.

Next, Ian and Rebecca are answering questions submitted by the cast and Crewniverse!

Q (from Zach Callison): What aspects of the characters are inspired by the voice actors?

A: Rebecca says the biggest one is how Pearl became more maternal because of Deedee's influence. She's "such a mom."

The interaction of the cast in the room worked its way into the characters' interaction. She also says Steven's growth from childish to mature for his age came from Zach growing up with him. She describes him as professional, insightful, thoughtful--enough such that adults could take cues from him or aspire to be like him. Ian thinks Zach was really interested in the process and very open to learning from other actors. Steven as an empathetic character was enhanced by Zach's genuine personality. Others who worked with him would be inspired and excited by him, which worked for the authenticity of Steven's vibe too.

Rebecca also noticed that sometimes Michaela or Deedee would cheer Zach up or egg him on, and the way they did those things differently also informed the characters of Amethyst and Pearl when they'd be in similar situations with Steven. They also noticed that if Estelle was there for a recording, everyone would stop and give her space to do her thing, which turned out to be very appropriate for how the others act with Garnet sometimes.

Q (from Matthew Moy): Can Lars go through Lion's mane and vice versa? Would they just fall right back out if they entered?

A: Rebecca points out that she actually answered this recently on the Reddit AMA! First, she wants folks to remember that Steven is the only one who can bring anyone or anything through mane space. Yes, Steven could take Lars into Lion's mane and go over to Lars's tree, but if Lars were to stick his head through the grass there, Lars's head would come out of his own hair. But this would cause infinite Larses to come out of infinite Lars's Heads, until he pulled his head back out.

Q (from Estelle): When you come up with new characters, how much time do you spend revamping the look of each?

A: It's a lot of time. Hundreds of drawings. Ian describes a process of coming up with early characters who didn't have a spot in the story yet, and they'd come up with random looks for them, and then they'd narrow down what specifically that character would need when they learned where they would go. Elements that mean something are retained and elements that do not mean anything will be swapped out. Boarders and designers would all take a crack at the design afterwards. Rebecca says that by the time boarding is happening, they need the character's "shape language" to be nailed down. Rebecca also mentions that many designs just get shelved if they're not really working, like some of the designs for Sardonyx did from before Rebecca realized Sardonyx would be a bombastic nerd, not a stoic and imposing presence. Even after they discovered that, though, the tooth gap was a later addition. Rebecca finds it helpful to ask "why" instead of "what" in design. Why is someone designed the way they are? Everyone will work together to create a design that blends form and function. She usually starts with rough sketches that they'll build off of as a starting point.

Q (from Michaela Dietz): With all the references to other shows (Gurren Lagann, Adventure Time, Revolutionary Girl Utena, etc.), what's a reference fans may have missed?

A: Since they pull from SO many places, it's hard to say, but Ian points out Future Boy Conan (Rebecca identifies a scene where the Quartzes run through Pink Diamond's body as a particular scene that's similar), and Rebecca says the rainbow worm from the Kyanite Colony is inspired by Orbitty (from the 80s Jetsons) and other ugly aliens from the time that were influenced by E.T. Rebecca points out Mr. Bug Goes to Town, an obscure film that nobody really watched because it came out on D-Day. Then Ian mentions the G.I. Joe animated series, how they referenced "It's all a fake-a-roo!" from that. And "Frybo" was a reference to The Thing.

Q (from Deedee Magno Hall): If Pearl could fuse with one of Rebecca's childhood cartoon favorites, who would it be, what would their weapon be, and can we see a drawing?

A: Rebecca says this is REALLY hard because she liked so many cartoons, but she just throws out Bart. Their Fusion would have a skateboard with spikes on the front. Maybe the Fusion would be named Part or Bearl. Or maybe Detective Conan; the Fusion would have all those gadgets. She decided she'd have to keep thinking about it and she'll give Deedee an answer.

Q (from Conrad Montgomery): If you could go back in time to give yourself a bit of advice as you started on "Gem Glow" and the rest of the series, what would it be?

A: Rebecca says she would tell herself to drink more water and exercise, and don't forget to eat. She thinks maybe she would tell herself it was going to be okay, because she didn't know that at the time. She says it may have been helpful at the beginning if she could have known she'd get to finish the story she wanted to tell. She was always anxious that her show would be yanked and she wouldn't get to finish what she'd dreamed up, but she did. She also feels like she was so young at 25 to be doing what she was doing, and maybe she'd like to just turn herself into a 31-year-old.

Ian thinks the show became what it was because of what they were learning along the way, though. If you really could tell people ahead of time what the things they're making are going to turn out like, you don't get to understand the process of something coming back wrong and learning how to deal with that. They feel that created a lot of what was good about the show, the debates and discussions. Rebecca is not sure she would have just said "trust yourself" because sometimes she trusted her team and was grateful for it.

Q (from Rob Sorcher): What is the one most profound thing you learned about yourself as a result of making the series?

A: Rebecca says she didn't understand she could be bisexual and be out. She thought declaring your orientation was about who you were with, not about who YOU were. So even though she was telling stories that spoke to feelings she'd had about partners or potential partners who were NOT Ian, she didn't realize she could claim that and care about that, mostly due to the fact that she'd been repeatedly and strongly told it did not matter. But it does matter. How you feel about yourself and how you experience attraction is a relevant and important thing to be able to embrace. She felt like she was "insane, all the time" because she wasn't supposed to talk about it or was told it wasn't interesting. She was floored when people she had connections with still wanted to be friends with her after she started talking about it, and being open about this aspect of herself has made being alive much easier.

If something matters to you, it matters, period. In terms of cartoons, the incredibly gender-segregated way they were doled out to kids in the 80s and 90s had an effect on Rebecca, and for a long time she didn't know why she so desperately wanted to "scramble" that. She finally found ways to discuss how uncomfortable she was being told that she had to be a woman when she was not. She realized through making her cartoon that though she had plenty of wells to pull from, this particular well was one she hadn't been able to speak about, so she did it through this medium and chose this as one of her stories. It's certainly not the only one she has to tell. She reiterates that she is bisexual and nonbinary, and though the language for that might change in the future, "that's what's going on" with her.

Ian's "profound thing" was that he realized you can share a message without being limited by the expected confines of your medium. For example, he knows that if he claims to be making a science fiction/fantasy cartoon, people will have preconceived notions of what that means, but maybe for some people, a major fantasy is just being told it's okay to be who they are, or living in a world where being who they are is okay. You don't have to worry about whether your reasons for making this art will satisfy someone else's reasons for watching it. Rebecca agrees, and says other people's "escapist" fantasies seemed really one-dimensional to her, never satisfying what SHE would like to escape to, but she realized she'd been holding contempt for escapism in general because of that, which dissolved when she was able to explore hers. There is a place for her, there is a dream she can have, and she no longer resented other people for having theirs. Sometimes a fantasy is about even getting to dream in the first place instead of just being fed these ideas of what you're supposed to want.

Everyone should get to have a dream and say it out loud.

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

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