#season 1 reference screenshots

[referrix]

Tecna Outfit Collection - Season 01 Episode 03 Party Dress

#winx #winx club #winx civilian outfit reference #season 1 party outfit reference #season 1 reference screenshots #winx tecna #tecna outfit reference #tecna reference

[princess-unipeg]

Random Tuca and Bertie pics I might reference for potential future crafts

#my post #my posts #tuca and bertie season one #tuca and bertie #tuca & bertie #Tuca and Bertie season 1 #screencaps #screenshots #reference #references

[winterlady1967]

“thanks for being my funeral buddy.”

#they were INSANE FOR THIS #severance #harold and maude #webs #severance spoilers #film stills #sorry for the ugly edits i tried but tumblr mulches them anyway :| #these are literally screenshots and they STILL reduced the image quality. lol #season 1 episode 4 the you you are #s01 ep04 #spoilers #tv #* #her hair here is absolutely a direct reference don't @ me #also i was too lazy to rewatch h&m for the perfect comparison shot i'm sorry #film

[light-blue-glazed-terracotta]

mutual 1: anyone got any tips for a starter base?

mutual 2: warden cummy wummy in my tummy

mutual 3: three paragraph long rant about a several year old mob vote

mutual 4: uhhhh mimecraft

mutual 5: literally the most fucked up modpack screenshot you've ever seen

mutual 6: reblog of horny enderman art

mutual 6: reblog of horny enderman art

mutual 6: reblog of horny creeper art

mutual 6: reblog of horny enderman art

mutual 7: quitting mineblr for the sixth time speech

mutual 8: hermitcraft lore that's impossible to follow if you're anything less than an actual detective who's watched every pov every video and references season 2

#lucy screams #minecraft #mineblr

[i-only-ever-asked-questions]

Map of Soho Good Omens Season 2 - Part 1 (Location and general map)

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Update: Map now identifies Lucky Snake and the coffee shop listed in Aziraphale's clipboard may indeed be Give Me Coffee I think we all have wondered how the GO Soho looks like and where it would be in real London. So using all the screenshots, BTS pictures and videos I could find I did my best to map out where things are. It is not to scale but everything I could see is there. I originally had all the pictures and explanations in this post but soon it became obvious it was going to be too long and impractical so I had to split it in different posts and I hope I got it right. The map has five reference points (circle with two diverging lines); imagine the circle is you, standing in the set, and the lines are your viewpoint if you were taking a picture from there. The left side of Whickber Street (#1 and #2) is in Part 2, the intersecting street (#3 and #4) is in Part 3 and the right half of Whickber Street (#5) is in Part 4.

As to where the bookshop would be in real London. We know that Whickber Street is supposed to be Berwick Street so let's start there. The intersecting street is not obvious from the show. In this post Neil said he imagines the bookshop to be where Gosh! Comics is (Peter Street) while Michael Ralph and Douglas McKinnon probably put it at The Week (on Broadwick Street). Because it is ambiguous and really you can do whatever you want, I just left it as "intersecting street". We know from the book that Crowley takes Wardour Street after the bookshop fire. Wardour is behind Berwick so in our map it would be where the Chinese Buffet Restaurant is, considering they run more or less parallel. On the other side, we have the Windmill Theatre located on Great Windmill Street. From Berwick St. and Peter St. it takes three minutes to walk to the theatre, it is that close! (yes, I know, Crowley was conducting business two blocks from the bookshop while not talking to Aziraphale for 80 years). I have never been in that part of London so I used Google Maps streetview and based only on that, I like the corner of Berwick St. and Broadwick St. better. It has the crooked intersection but the proximity of the theatre matches Peter St. better, so whatever works better for you!

There is one place missing from the set map though: Brown's World of Carpets! It is nowhere to be found, we simply don't know where it is My very personal headcanon is that it is nothing but a desk inside the furniture store. I find that idea of the guy most worried about storefront looks being the one without a storefront very amusing, but don't mind me, it is just my very silly hc XD Now, we know Aziraphale has a list for the shops he needs to visit. And we know he wrote it in alphabetical order which begs the question: Where is the Dirty Donkey?! Are they not invited? And what about the fabric shop? And Bilton Scaggs? Battye and Palm? The News Agency? Is "Mo Coffee? No Coffee?" supposed to be Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death? Or is there another coffee shop somewhere? @crow-bee23 suggested it could be "Me Coffee" which it is entirely possible, the full name is kind of long. So many questions to ask Mr. Brown.

Anyway, I put pictures and details on the shops in parts 2, 3 and 4. Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens 2 set #good omens soho #A. Z. Fell & Co #the dirty donkey #Windmill theatre #whickber street #berwick street #peter street #broadwick street #the bookshop #good omens 3 #they will be using the same set after all

[wakkass]

I drew Zuko to complement this post.

In general, Katara and Zuko's designs were the only ones that confused me in season 3. So it was important for me to draw them and feel them in my own way.

While Katara's was a redesign of sorts, Zuko's is more of an interpretation.

I like his clothes in canon, this lightness in outfit contrasts very well with the massive armor from season 1. But something in the details was not right, and now I’ll tell you what confused me. I drew the figure without references and screenshots at my own discretion, and here’s what changed:

1. Hairstyle. I'm not a big fan of the season 3 hair, especially the filler strands. Hair in front of the eyes covers the character's face and prevents him from seeing emotions. So I drew his hair from the end of season 2, or at least I tried to. The hair is nice there, the face is open, and the beauty is there.

2. Collar. I drew it from memory, and was extremely surprised when I looked at the original. I see two problems. Firstly, the guides of the two collars for some reason go in different directions, not supporting each other:

Secondly, there are too many thin lines at the neck, which crush the already fragmented collar:

Why are they? Why not make the gold border wider or remove it altogether? They are almost invisible, especially if the character is moved away, so there is no point in them. I didn't remember these strange details. Yes, my version has gold on the sleeves, but it's wide enough to stand out even from a distance.

3. Robe. I remembered that the hem of Zuko's robe was also gold. It's funny that the line is not in the original; it would have nicely separated the color spot of the robe from the pants.

4. Boots. I remember that FN boots have a crease line, and Zuko was the only one whose boots were a single design. This is not bad, but I forgot about it and made a dividing line

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #zuko #atla zuko #prince zuko

[eliias-bouchard]

[18/12 version; check notes to see if theres an updated version]

quick summary:

- newt schottelkotte posts an article about RQ mismanagement & exploitation (https://medium.com/@newtschott/whos-afraid-of-alex-j-newall-ae3a67f3a5e1)

- the first version of the article didn't note that newt is a marketing director at fable and folly, another podcasting network; this has now been edited in

- they cite approximately three sources in total, mostly coming back to unverifiable anonymous RQ affiliates (ex employees, people who were offered a position, etc). the other two sources are a tweet from RQ specifically about the official discord, and a line in the beginning stating that "The information presented in this article is not only taken from  interviews with my sources, but publicly available data that I was able  to find and access.". there is no further clarification of what data, where it came from, etc, and the only time a source is linked or references is the aforementioned tweet from RQ.

ETA: this is false! there are multiple sources on multiple different things.

- (https://rustyquill.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Operations-Update-2020-PUBLIC-RELEASE-1.pdf) this RQ operations update was used to source two quotes on RQ's payment structure. it's worth noting that the payments listed in the article are all above both the uk minimum wage and (with the exclusion of the £11 figure) the national living wage (https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates, https://www.livingwage.org.uk/calculation)

- (https://twitter.com/TheRustyQuill/status/1438175815615791111?s=20&t=m1Z2vI0Fmpvq3gVt72gIvQ) this rq tweet was used to source a screenshot from rq's statement about the discord.

- (https://twitter.com/TheRustyQuill/status/1408001969218859008?s=20&t=ngBXzvyzl4PJY9XpOL7DjA) this rq thread was used to source a screenshot from rq about the transcripts.

- there is a relevant link to the unofficial fan transcripts, although i personally wouldn't necessarily call this a source.

- (https://medium.com/acast/how-to-go-from-0-to-millions-growth-strategies-for-fiction-podcasters-fde8d6dc0cb5) this callum dougherty interview was used to source a quote from callum dougherty about TMA's success.

- the interview is misquoted. newt's article quotes:

"Believe it or not, Magnus was something of a hit right out the gate.  Comparative to I guess what would be considered a popular audio-drama  podcast now. It found an audience quite quickly… To borrow a phrase from  Alex Newall [Rusty Quill CEO and founder], I’d also mention that  nothing at Rusty Quill — despite what it might seem — has ever happened  by accident. And the factor that I would consider — and this may be my  own ego — is the show began to grow really dramatically because this was  the point that I came in."

- this misses out a relevant paragraph, reading

"Though  what I would certainly say is that it was in 2019 that the show began  to grow, and it went on what I would describe as a 10-month journey from  being considered a very popular podcast, to the most popular fiction  podcast in the world. That was a line of growth that looked pretty much  like a straight line upwards, where we were finding month-on-month  listenership doubling at a point. Every single month you could see it —  there were hundreds of thousands, now there was a million this month,  and it would go in that direction." (emphasis my own)

- newt's article goes on to state

"As someone who engaged in the fandom side of audio drama for a long time, including the period of Magnus’ rise to popularity to its finale, I remember things quite differently. TMA  wasn’t nearly the smash hit Dougherty describes until about 2019, when  the season four finale saw the consummation of Jon and Martin’s  slow-burn enemies-to-lovers storyline. Until that point, I had never  heard of TMA." (emphasis my own).

- it's also worth noting that newt's article didn't include the typical ellipses in square brackets to indicate missing text from a quote - it simply has an ellipses, which makes it seem that dougherty trailed off and then continued.

- at the end of the article, there are multiple links to social media accounts of people who may provide a list of laid off employees, intended for those looking to hire ex-RQ employees

- the rest of the claims made are either unsourced or from newt's anonymous sources.

- RUSTY QUILL HAVE RESPONDED: https://rustyquill.com/2022/12/13/public-response-to-an-opinion-piece/

- FABLE AND FOLLY HAVE ALSO RESPONDED: https://fableandfolly.com/2022/12/15/our-statement-on-the-article/

- rq has posted crew testimonials: https://rustyquill.com/crew-testimonials/

- tal, one of the editors, not affiliated w/ f&f, says this isn't a marketing thing, was run past two editors and multiple lawyers

- there's some truth in the article, mostly a lot of plausible but unverifiable things, and some plain misinformation / bad faith readings [i.e; article states that "there’s a very good chance that the list on Kickstarter of stretch goal guest writers may be the totality of the people in the audio fiction indie world that have still not had an experience with Rusty Quill." this is provably false; many of the guest writers have RQ podcasts or have interacted with RQ before, although it may be intended to mean bad experiences rather than simply an experience]

- ben meredith retweeted the article w/o comment; not sure what he's agreeing with. he also liked a tweet reading "Alright, read the thing. I’m terribly sorry for everyone who has been dealt with so badly by Rusty Quill - and I can only imagine the distress that must have incited this action. I hope these concerns are taken seriously, and that these issues are resolved swiftly.“ (https://twitter.com/GejWatts/status/1602420853630697475)

- ben meredith has now un-retweeted the article, although he hasn’t unliked the tweet about it

- malevolent podcast's official twitter posted

"I don't know much but I will say that if you decide to stop listening to my show; a show I work so very hard on, because of an article that presumptively and poorly attempts to speak for me, then I think you're hurting the thing you intend to be helping." (https://twitter.com/MalevolentCast/status/1602441871992782849?s=20&t=Z_86aECzgsdU9OgtfoiU6g)

- "harlan guthrie [creator of malevolent], quoted above, spoke on the topic in his discord server, invictus. i'm nor comfortable posting screencaps of his words, which were not intended as a public statement, without permission, but the highlights include: "The timing, authorship, and intent of this article doesn't sit well with me." "Overall, this isn't a watergate, neither is it an expose of a dangerous company, it's akin to a glassdoor report with half truths. My experience with RQ has been absolutely fine across the board." "The contract is in no way misleading nor manipulative the way the article would make it seem (no moreso than any other contract)"" (via orchidbreezefc on tumblr; i am not personally in this discord)

- malevolent podcast’s tumblr also posted this:

https://www.tumblr.com/malevolentcast/703493906802868224/you-probably-already-know-about-this-but-an

- the creator(? correct if wrong) of The Town Whispers and Tiny Terrors tweeted:

"What do I say here? I work day and night on @/TheTownWhispers & @/tinyterrorspod. I personally create, fund, produce, and direct my shows. What a shame to see someone speak on behalf of what I and others have built for years at our own expense dominate the conversation. No one reached out to me about "the article" ahead of time, no one asked me if I consented to be spoken for, I don't appreciate people victimizing me & weaponizing it for personal gain, & I don't appreciate that it's being passed off as a benevolent act of courage on my behalf." (https://twitter.com/ColeWeev/status/1602447361045065728?s=20&t=aAf1T5fen0FzXuAAllevLA)

- woe.begone's official twitter tweeted: "The only thing I want to say about The Article is that I am concerned that readers will believe things about my show and my relationship to my network that have not been my experience. I think this is what others mean when they describe feeling "spoken for."" (https://twitter.com/woebegonepod/status/1602453798332538881)

- the cellar letters twitter tweeted: "About the article: I am not going to attempt to invalidate anyone's thoughts or feelings... but I will say that it absolutely does not speak for me or align with my relationship and experiences with the network or anyone involved at the company.   Love you all. Go create stuff." (https://twitter.com/CellarLetters/status/1602457106271330304)

- multiple people have reportedly been blocked by newt on twitter for criticising the article, or asking questions about it. (https://twitter.com/ReassessHistory/status/1602425447098228737?s=20&t=IQ9wZJuHgqX2mgfDvTizqA, https://twitter.com/ReassessHistory/status/1602455204557127681?s=20&t=j22xMz0Hxw0yvW6Oz7B8SQ)

- alexander j newall has given a statement to podnews! it reads;

"Redundancies can be a highly emotional topic but this opinion blog is full of provable factual inaccuracies and its writers include individuals that hold senior positions at competitor companies that stand to monetarily gain from a reputational attack. We were approached for comment under false pretences and were not given a copy of this piece by the author. Numerous cast, crew and contractors have notified us directly in solidary about similarly misleading approaches made to them for this blog.

Rusty Quill has already internally released its 2023 Operations Update which included factual information on these topics along with information on out 93% RQ Network creator retention rate and our independent Employee Satisfaction Survey which scored an exceptional minimum of 4.3 out of 5 in all areas. This Operations update is due for public release in the new year."

(https://podnews.net/update/audio-drama-company-drama)

- audio editor michelle snow made a thread about this: https://twitter.com/MeeshSnowDoes/status/1602717570729132035?s=20&t=mMfAO5TjNFBNWQ_aMfhsHw

- in the (unofficial) “Rusty Quill PLEBS” discord, the creator of the storage papers said “The RQN stuff - I'll just say it's not entirely accurate or, at least, it's not the full picture which means it's painted in an unnecessarily bad light. I can't comment on the RQO stuff because I'm as much in the dark about that as anyone. But, as others on RQN have said, there's at least some of that that hasn't been my experience (and, for the record, I myself am not legally obligated to not say negative things about RQ).”

- annie (an RQ editor) retweeted this (https://twitter.com/serhawke/status/1602375132579827713?s=20&t=Q3iAjLLwsdIqYShTKinvHw)

- this thread also has a useful tweet further up on how to assess the utility of a source:

"PURPOSE - what was it meant to achieve? ACCURACY - can the facts be proven or disproven? CONTENT - what does it actually tell you? LIMITATIONS - what is it NOT telling you? Why? AUTHOR - biased? DATE - was its publication date "convenient" for any reason? Firsthand or hearsay?"

[this method is from their partial study of history in uni]

edits: added crew testimonials, updated tl;dr

tldr: newt (marketing director at a different podcast network) posted an article making serious allegations of mistreatment & worker exploitation towards RQ. the article has some plain misinformation, some truth, and mainly unverifiable info from anonymous sources

multiple rq creators stated they weren’t asked about this, and that their experiences w/ rq aren’t accurate to the article and/or that it doesnt speak for them. all of the crew testimonials from rq’s post are positive.

rq have responded, saying that the allegations made in the article are false. fable & folly have responded, saying that newt made + posted the article of their own accord. i think newt’s working on a followup article, which i’ll add here when it’s released

#rusty quill

[girlbossblackbeard]

S2 TRAILER ANALYSIS WITH 1 BILLION SCREENSHOTS

obligatory warning that this post is gonna be SOOOOOOOOOOOOO foolishly long and rambling with all my silly little theories and thoughts and if you ALSO have silly little theories and thoughts you should ABSOLUTELY share them here please!!!! we can clown so much harder when our cacophonous honking harmonizes!!!!!!!

NOW ONTO THE POST (putting it under a read more so tumblr doesn't literally explode):

-the revenge looks BUSTED AF: i don't know if this is from general disrepair when ed is in his kraken era or if she was in a battle but her sails are all dirty in the opening shot of the trailer, and later we see stede on her deck with tattered sails and ropes everywhere, AND i'm like 99% sure that the shot of buttons ziplining from one ship to another is him going from the Chinese warfleet ship to the revenge, which i'm guessing is essentially stuck bc the sails are so torn they would never be able to catch the wind strongly enough to move her. I also wonder if the shot of roach shooting a canon at something is him shooting a canon at her since we had all those allusions to her exploding from samba, vico, and david on twitter all those months ago

-stede's earring: he DOES NOT HAVE THE EARRING when we see him lying on the deck next to roach and sighing dramatically nor does he have it during his conversation with Olu about stede dumping him, but he DOES have the earring in later shots like the beach english fight and when he's talking about being a failure his whole life which means WE WILL GET TO SEE STEDE GET HIS EAR PIERCED!!!!!!!!!! we'll get to see him make the decision to look even hotter and who knows who does the piercing for him idk!!!!!! @sluterastede had a dastardly beautiful thought in her brain about ed giving stede the piercing and stede making groaning noises and izzy once again thinking they're flapping their jacks right there on the deck in front of god and everybody!!!!!

-stede is spilling his heart out ("i let him down. i should've just told him how i feel") to susan on her ship (you can tell it's her by the long hair)

-interesting that there's a drawing of a donkey next to ed's wanted poster considering s1 had the line "a rich donkey is still a donkey". also i can't really read what the surrounding posters say other than "WANTED 20 GUINEAS". is this in the republic of pirates?

-stede says "i will find him" meaning ed may be actively avoiding stede at the beginning of the season???? (or the basic laws of travel physics have finally caught up to them)

-"look, captain, you know blackbeard's gonna murder you" i just think it's interesting that Olu is referring to him as blackbeard again even though ed told everyone in his pink robe era to call him ed. like it makes sense that he'd say blackbeard considering ed is on a rampage but it just made my brain wheels start spinning

-the Kraken crew are eating cake :)

-ed is holding a torch while letting the storm rain down on him: i don't think the laugh we hear is his because i don't think his mouth is even open during that slow-mo shot

-STEDE with a TEAR in his EYE as he says "i think i hurt him pretty bad"

-ed sobbing on the floor while the little bride cake topper is next to his head

-ed choking on the weed smoke i'm ACTUALLY crying, but also: where the fuck is ed when he's sitting in the chair smoking??? i thought it was on deck at first bc above his head is really dark and it looks like the lanterns we see on the deck of the revenge but there's a chandelier too?? it might be whatever shop Anne Bonny and her friend "you two know each other?" run bc behind ed in that chair is just a bunch of random furniture and a chandelier like we see when ed and stede are at the market. in fact, i think ed is smoking with Anne Bonny because I think that's her hand in the corner of that shot:

-"no more booze, no more drugs, and no more _____" not sure what the end of that sentence could be but we know that the "stede" that was put in there is NOT what he actually says!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-"you two know each other?" now hold on a sec because it kinda sounds like stede met Anne Bonny and Co. separately from Ed/before that market scene (maybe in the teaser clip of Anne on Stede's lap??) WHAT IF WE GET THE AITA SCENARIO WHERE ED AND STEDE TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR VERSION OF EVENTS AND NO ONE REALIZES THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT EACH OTHER UNTIL THAT MOMENT BC THEY'RE BOTH SO BIASED ABOUT ONE ANOTHER

-the evil guy definitely got his nose sliced off by Jackie. good for her :D I also don't think the evil guy is Hornigold, i'm still holding onto my theory that the man in the white rags we saw in the teaser and this trailer is hornigold's "ghost" that ed needs to contend with to find his inner peace or whatever a la stede with nigel's "ghost". but i DO think the evil guy is the rich prince dude from that leaked audition tape from rhys's friend. if memory serves, the guy wants to buy his way into the pirate lifestyle but he's pompous and entitled which makes him reckless. based off the production stills we also got today, he still had a nose when he went into Spanish Jackie's...but i don't think he leaves with one. so because he gets butthurt over invading a space that was NOT meant for him and faces the consequences of purposely disobeying their customs, he defects to the english navy and goes on a rampage against all piracy, very MRA energy :/ also, later izzy says to him "you don't know the first thing about piracy" which would further support that this guy just tried to buy his way in

-izzy gets an honest-to-god pegleg but he doesn't start the season off with it because we see him in several shots with both legs, like the wedding raid and swordfighting stede on the beach. unsure if he loses it due to infection from the toe situation or if he gets shot in the knee like i've seen some posts talk about, but @sluterastede mentioned that one of the leaked audition tapes for archie included dialogue about an amputation so maybe that character has to uh. Get Her Roach On

-as i mentioned before with the teaser analysis, izzy is clearly training stede for something and now im guessing it's the english but like we kinda knew that !

-olu is in a bar fight??

-THE "ED GETS CAUGHT IN A BUCKET ON A ROPE DURING THE STORM AND GOES OVERBOARD" THEORY IS OUT. THE "ED TIES HIMSELF TO A MF BIG ASS ROCK AND JUMPS OFF A GOD DAMN CLIFF TO GO ON SOME SOUL-SEARCHING JOURNEY UNDER THE SEA" THEORY IS IN. and what the FUCK is the rag man doing with ed up on that cliff hello?????? if my theory is correct and that is in fact hornigold's ghost or whatever, what advice or harmful shit is he saying that makes ed do that?????????????????????? but do note the large rock with the rope around it in the first pic

-the revenge crew is blowing up SOMETHING on the side of a building. maybe to cause a distraction or gain access inside the building? is it the side of Spanish Jackie's?? also hiiiiiiii lucius <3

-"our entire escape relies on this" i'm just assuming they're trying to escape from the english bc that seems to be the Big Bad of the season??

-not plot related but during the rope swinging training session izzy slaps stede on the ass and makes this face (sir??????):

>he also has his pegleg here so their mentorship may ramp up after izzy is out of commission for hand-to-hand combat. maybe izzy was supposed to have a larger fighting role alongside ed in defeating the english but once he became incapacitated he realized he would need to train someone else up for the job so ed would be sufficiently protected. but it also had to be someone izzy knew would be willing to die for ed to save his life if it came to that, just like izzy would

-"i've been a failure my whole life. it's not so bad once you get used to it" is stede talking to ed here? is that ed's hair in the corner of the frame??

>side note: as mentioned above, stede also has his earring by this point!!

-"you're going through that 'if i was a regular dude' phase" first of all, SPANISH JACKIE AND EDWARD TEACH BEST FRIENDS TRUTHERS RISE UP. second, why would ed be considered a regular dude now?? how did he lose his reputation? did he willingly give it up or was it taken from him? is this permanent or just temporary? or did he fake his own death with the cliff and the rock thing so he could retire and live a more normal life?? the swede doesn't seem scared of him at all in the final clip from the trailer, straight up asking him if he's poor and going "back to basics". of course, that could just be a power trip from being one of Jackie's newest husbands (or at least her waitstaff)

-possibly totally minor/just a continuity error thing, but: ed has a red ring. we saw it in s1 as he picks up the rather fine cashmere and we see it as ed dramatically drapes himself across the ship's helm with his head on his hand. we do not see it in the scene where he's smoking (see above) or the scene where he's talking to the rabbit. now, if you'll allow me a little bit of clownery for a moment, red has been explicitly coded in this show to be a symbol of love/the heart, especially as it pertains to edward like his red silk scarf as a metaphor for his heart in s1. what if. what if he. gave the red ring (his heart) to. SomeOne. because.....................because his heart belongs to st--[GUNSHOTS]

-olu, jim, and archie with garlic around their necks and making a cross with their fingers - clearly they think someone is a vampire on the ship. @sluterastede proposed it could be izzy, especially if he's on the brink of death due to an infection and frenchie managed to spread his superstitions to other people on the ship!

-THIS FUCKIN GUY. WHO ARE YOU??? it seems like he kidnaps stede and his crew and throws a party on the ship and drugs the drinks which is why everyone is kinda tripping/laughing in some parts. but then everyone gets tied down (stede to the mast, wee john's hands get squished, olu and roach's heads get squished, and jim and archie's feet get secured to the ship's railing i think??). also that wide shot is definitely the rando dude hitting some shrill high note at the same moment the revenge crew cry out in pain from all the squishing (except maybe jim and archie - they might just be laughing at the others bc they're badasses and this pain is nothing). also don't know what the guy is looking at when we first see him but im thinking maybe it's a wanted poster of stede and he's looking at the description of the gentleman pirate to confirm it's the dude right in front of him/that he's captured?? also i think roach is wearing flowers from the drug party in his apron when he fires that canon, so maybe he's tripping too and shoots a canon?? i need a prayer circle for the revenge's safety at this time

-stede has a bullet hole???????????????? did ed fucking shoot him in the heart?????????????????????????? he also notably does NOT have the earring in this scene but he does have the sexy stiddies (blue) shirt like we see in the other shot where he DOES have the earring. maybe this weirdo dude pierces stede's ear bc he thinks stede needs to look more piratey?? or stede gets absolutely sloshed (or drugged) and gets his ear pierced idk !!! maybe jim does it bc they're effortlessly cool and has a bunch of ear piercings!!!

-idk if this is a coincidence or not but i'm pretty sure stede in his training scenes with izzy is wearing the clothes he wore in that final shot of s1 as he rows to find the crew on the island (white linen shirt, dark pants, brown belt and boots). so either costume changes are happening later in the season, they're reusing outfits like normal people do, or the training montage happens extremely early on in the season

-so originally with the teaser trailer i thought ed falling in the water was followed by the shot of ed coming out of the water on the beach. i don't know if i fully believe that anymore because ed is NOT wearing his jacket on the cliff (see above), but he IS wearing it as he comes up out of the water, so either it's two different events and ed just spends a lot of time in the water this season or he puts his jacket on before jumping off the cliff

-ed his holding his right side as he slashes that dude on the beach so he definitely got hurt in battle but i hope it's not him getting stabbed bc ur supposed to cleverly take the sword on the left where all the unimportant bits are :(((

-I VERY STRONGLY BELIEVE that the person in the scene where stede turns around and shoots his gun into the air and everyone else on deck suddenly draws their weapons against that person is our boy lucius!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he's wearing a beret?????????? @sluterastede proposed that lucius got picked up by the english navy after getting thrown overboard and that's why we see him in the english navy garb (which we later see frenchie in too?? i believe an infiltration fuckery is afoot). also the fact that the shot immediately after this one is of Black Pete doing a happy little fist pump which i'm choosing to interpret as a cute little easter egg symbolizing Pete gets reunited with his love. i also also also believe lucius is in the shot of buttons about to zipline from one ship to the other. i missed him :')

-okay i know i said in an earlier post that stede running across the beach was romantic but i changed my mind and i think izzy is just making stede do cardio as part of his training lol. his outfit matches the one he's wearing when swordfighting izzy in that earlier wideshot and i think he even still has the scarf belt and the full beard in both scenes (explained at the end of this post via production stills) so maybe they have an honest to god training montage that takes course over several days and we get an incredible 80s powerballad to play on top of it while stede thinks of ed to motivate him or whatever. david jenkins hire me to help write season 3 i have ideas

-i think jim is behind stede as he breaks into the weirdly religious room we saw in the teaser when stede punches that guy??

-ed is pretty bloodied in the shot of stede leaning over him and saying VERY worriedly "ed????" so my theory is that ed got hurt in battle or he was taken captive by the Chinese warfleet and stede was worried he was grievously injured. however, once ed comes to and realizes who's kneeling over him, he gets pissed and headbutts stede because he's still mad at him for breaking his heart, and maybe his hands are restrained/his body is too weak so he can't push stede away. or maybe they had to begrudgingly work together on some mission and stede fucked it up and ed got hurt so he's mad about that idk!! ALSO HE'S WEARING THE CRAVAT HELLO

-ed in buttons's shirt looking so PEACEFUL what the HELL. obviously it's from the same general time as him being in Spanish Jackie's when she's talking to him about being a regular dude and later when the swede asks him if he's poor addkjfajdfhlkefh i fucking love this show and its writing so much. but ed says "no, i'm just trying something different man >:/" so i wonder if this is ed at the end of s2 or if this is more towards the middle as he's still in the thick of his healing journey. maybe buttons teaches ed about meditation and/or the tai chi he practiced with the Chinese warfleet crew??

-the BTS production still of ed with his "trust no one" tattoo also features what i believe is the treasure chest we see jim carrying off the ship in the shot where fang is smashing two dudes' heads together!

-i also think the BTS production still of stede with the beard is early on in ep 1 because he has a full beard (that im hoping someone on the revenge bullies him into shaving off to the scruff we see in the rest of the promo materials) and ALSO because he's wearing a long red scarf around his waist, which we never see again in any of the other promo material - except, however, around his neck as a makeshift cravat:

>it's the same exact material and everything! my guess is he gets his ass handed to him in a fight (maybe against izzy??) and his scarf belt gets destroyed, so he repurposes the shredded fabric into his necktie

-there's literal gold bars in the background of this production still lmao the kraken crew got BUSY during ed's goth era

>speaking of, the fucking hair dye dripping down izzy's forehead in this production still:

*sad clown noises*

in conclusion:

WE'RE BACK BABEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

anyway that's my second dissertation on less than 2 minutes of content that turned out to be quite literally 6 pages long :)

#ofmd #our flag means death #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #edward teach #stede bonnet #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 trailer #izzy hands #the swede #spanish jackie #jim jimenez #oluwande boodhari #wee john feeney #ofmd spoilers #i don't know what i need to be evaluated for but it's SOMETHING and it's PREVALENT #i spent a collective 5 hours making this post what the whole actual fuck

[yasssgiveusnothing]

Radiohusk Analysis: Husk Cares or Nothing Makes Sense (Part 2)

Husk cares about Alastor. It makes no narrative sense otherwise.

Let's talk about it!

Husk goes out of his way to help Alastor when it would be in his best interest to not care AT ALL about that man:

Husk goes to Al to warn him of Mimzy and ARGUE with him for Al's benefit.

Husk gets frustrated when Al doesn't heed his warning and thinks Al will get hurt.

These screenshots are from season 1 episode 5.

Here's the scene:

Let's delve deeper into it!

Narratively, that whole scene serves three purposes:

1. To tell the viewer Al is also on someone's leash.

2. To tell the viewer Husk worries and cares about Alastor.

We are shown Husk going out of his way to help Al, only for Al to tell Husk that he does not need to worry because Al has everything under control. We then see Al was correct as he jovialy kills and consumes his enemies without effort. In other words, what the viewer learns from this scene is that Husk needlessly worries about Alastor's well-being.

3) To draw parallels between Angel & Valentino and Husk & Al.

You might be thinking, Exactly! If Husk and Al are just lke Angel and Val, why would Husk care for Al or vice versa?!

Vivzie has been pushing this narrative that Al and Husk are parallels for Angel and Val this entire season. I don't think there are enough words to describe how this parallel doesn't work, but I'll try anyway.

A) Angel does not care for Val's well being.

Angel would not go out of his way to help Val like Husk helps Alastor.

B) Val does not care for Angel's well-being.

Val doesn't need to bribe his soul contracts to work with him.

Val straight up gives Angel no free will. (Unlike Al who does not force Husk to attend the bar, instead chosing to bribe him).

If Angel gives the slightest of attitude, Val does not hesitate to get physical immediately. (Unlike Alastor, who not only lets Husk shove a finger into his chest, but let's him speak his mind and does not immediately maim him for disrespecting him.)

C) Husk is not afraid of Al.

A man scared of Al would not argue with him or his benefit, nor go up to him and jab a finger in his chest. And yes, Husk was scared of Al when Al threatened him, but Husk fucking started it! He literally made a jab at the guy where it would hurt! If you made a jab at your pal and they start foaming at the mouth, you'd be scared too, but also know you lowkey deserved it and shouldn't be surprised it happened. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Al and Husk sit together without Husk shitting himself. Could you possibly imagine Angel sitting next to Val without wanting to disappear through the floor? Nope!

D) Al trusts Husk. Refer to my previous theory for more information.

E) Al does not regularly assault or overwork Husk.

Husk chills at the bar all day with access to infinite alcohol. This is the closest Husk will ever get to Heaven.

Alastor has not assaulted Husk ever. Unless we're calling the time Alastor pulls on Husk's chain and makes him fall to the floor an assault. Which, sure, fine. But that ONE push that left NO INJURIES was the only time Al has ever gotten aggressively handsy with Husk. And funnily enough, Husk was the first one to put hands on the other.

This 'assault' in comparison to the treatment Angel gets from Val pales CONSIDERABLY. In fact, the two duos are NOTHING ALIKE beyond there being a Overlord owns your soul dynamic, but with Radiohusk, that dynamic barely takes place as Alastor treats him more like a trusted pal than an object to be abused.

I also want to quickly go over how I feel Husk is out of character for the second half of this scene.

Husk is perceptive. He understands other people extremely well, which has been shown numerous times throughout the show as he reads the entire main cast and Mimzy. He is also a gambler, which means he knows when to bet and when to fold.

So you expect me to believe that Husk would say THAT to Alastor and expect him to take it well, especially when Husk knows it is a sensitive subject to him?

And Alastor's reaction is kinda valid. I mean, someone who you trusted with this information weaponizes it against you by spitting it back in your face! If Angel can have a meltdown over being someone's bitch, why can't Alastor? I mean, Angel throws a broken glass bottle at Husk's head, but Alastor pushes Husk and suddenly Al is as bad as Valentino?

With this, I conclude thtat:

Husk cares about Alastor

Alastor cares about Husk

Angel & Valentino's relationship does not parallel Alastor & Husk's.

Husk was out of character during the second half of that scene and was possibly a result of Vivzie desperately trying to parallel Valdust with Radiohusk.

#radiohusk #radiohusk analysis #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel theory #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel husk #hazbin hotel #angel dust #valdust #hazbin hotel spoilers #hazbin alastor #hazbin angel dust #alastor hazbin hotel #vivzieverse #alastor x husk #hazbin hotel valentino #the radio demon #angelhusk #huskerdust #vivziepop

[benzedrine-calmstheitch]

Good Omens season 2 referencing Powell & Pressburger films

Crowley's angel hair is modeled after Kim Hunter's hair as June in A Matter of Life and Death (1946).

Maggie's shop is called The Small Back Room in reference to 1949's The Small Back Room.

The red ballet shoes on the door of Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death are a nod to The Red Shoes (1948). (Note : the klaxons sounding in Heaven at the end of episode 1 are said to be a nod to the alarm bells in The Other World in A Matter of Life and Death. Personally, I don't think they sound at all alike; they are only similar in both being alarms. Plus, it's an audio reference, which I don't have the skill or patience to include here. But it's there!)

In The Small Back Room, Maggie has a poster for the film Stairway to Heaven displayed. A Matter of Life and Death was released under this title in the US.

The tartan hills welcoming Aziraphale to Scotland are a reference to the tartan hills welcoming Joan to Scotland in I Know Where I'm Going! (1945). And of course, the third episode is itself titled "I Know Where I'm Going."

Jim drops the book My Best Games of Chess, 1924-1937, by Alexander Alekhine, onto a table in the bookshop repeatedly as he is discovering how gravity works. This book is featured prominently in A Matter of Life and Death.

When Aziraphale enters The Resurrectionist pub in Edinburgh, I Know Where I'm Going! is playing on both televisions (I'm pretty sure I found the right scene to match this screenshot). You can also make out the name 'Pressburger' on one of the posters in this screenshot, but we'll get to that later. . .

The family name on the mausoleum where Aziraphale and Crowley hide out with Elspeth and Wee Morag is Archers. It's never clearly seen in the show, but it can be seen in this BTS photo of the model used for Crowley's embiggening. The Archers was the name of Powell and Pressburger's production company. The interior of the tomb and the urns outside the full-size set also reference the Archers, and Powell & Pressburger individually.

In Mr. Arnold's record shop, one of the posters on the wall is for a UK music tour; either the band or the tour is titled Met By Moonlight. This is referencing Ill Met By Moonlight (1957), the final film Powell & Pressburger made together. (I personally think this one is a reach, as the title of the film is a line from A Midsummer Night's Dream and thus not really clockable to the outside viewer as a direct Archers reference, but apparently the intent was there so we're counting it!)

The Pressburger posters are more clearly visible during the Gabriel and Beelzebub rendezvous scene in The Resurrectionists pub. We can see they advertise 'Pressburger Scottish Lager,' which is of course a nod to Emeric Pressburger himself. (Unclear if Michael Powell has his own label that we just don't get a clear view of. . .)

-- -- -- -- --

I clocked a couple of these myself, but they are all referenced in the X-Ray trivia on the Prime Video player. Would love to know if anyone has clocked anymore that aren't divulged. . .

#as a side note : please watch a matter of life and death #it is exquisite as a film and also very relevant to gomens interests #it's on youtube! #good omens #powell and pressburger #the archers #a matter of life and death #the small back room #the red shoes #i know where i'm going #ill met by moonlight

[referrix]

Bloom Outfit Collection - Season 01 episode 03 Party Dress

Bonus Kiko vs the Unaltered Dress:

#winx #winx club #winx civilian outfit reference #season 1 party outfit reference #season 1 reference screenshots #winx bloom #bloom outfit reference #bloom reference

[probablyhuntersmom]

Hunter's Experiences After Belos's Death

Oops, this got long. Aw well, it was really fun to write.

Special thanks to @ashanimus!

This is speculative at the end of the day, but since:

1. This is my fave animated show of all time

2. I grew up with Complex PTSD (CPTSD) like Hunter

3. I work as a therapist,

I thought to list down some things I can visualize happening in the duration of the finale's timeskip, before that beautiful epilogue we saw. And I want to dive in using whatever clues, leads and parallels I can find in canon: to analyze and see how he went from the Bad But Sad Boy to that peaceful-looking palisman carver in the epilogue.

A small reference I had for this meta is Cinema Therapy's episode on the Hunger Games movies (link), since the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, from the book and also movie trilogy would have the same diagnosis as Hunter. Those books and movies explored how Katniss coped with the frightening and dramatically different landscape that was the calmness of her world post-victory.

Part 1: His Possible Experiences Leading Up to Seeking a Therapist

His disposition could possibly become like Luz's from early Season 3: a state of emotionally shutting down and numbing out. He appeared to nearly head in this direction right after he was revived by Flapjack, as he began to cry. There was that small window where he could have expressed more tears than he did, and have his body shut down under the weight of bereavement.

But the immediate physical threat, Belos, was still on the run. He got up, sprang into action and didn't catch a break from the time he followed Belos through the portal until he stood in The Collector's palace after Belos died (had he even received the news of his 'Uncle' dying yet??!).

Now that Belos isn't around anymore, the Isles will have a completely different feel and rebuilding the land would've taken grueling work after the dismantling of a damaging Coven System.

I was looking at Luz's behavior and gestures in Thanks to Them, which were indicative of her sinking into depression after 1. the horrible revelation in Hollow Mind that she unintentionally helped Philip. 2. witnessing Flapjack's death. I'm putting screenshots of her below in parallel with Hunter's own emotions in For the Future:

They have different mental health conditions if you talk symptoms, e.g. Luz doesn't show signs of CPTSD hypervigilance, while Hunter doesn't have that slowing down in his physical and mental activity which points to depression. But both have suffered from moral injury thanks to Belos's violence and manipulation.

However, a major comparison is that Hunter has had much more repressed emotion over a long period compared to Luz. The column with Hunter screencaps above, is what he may feel with a much higher intensity in the weeks and months after he first hears that his abuser has passed on.

Shown below, the few seconds of Hunter's big smile drooping when it was all over, was a big hint for me:

A hint that there is a deep undercurrent of emotions he'd much rather not feel, that he'd probably rather hide from himself. Even while smiling, we know how his heart-wrenching story has played out and the light in his eyes here doesn't match the brightness we see in his expressions in the epilogue, post-timeskip.

That is the face of a kid who has not cried out massive amounts of tears yet. He doesn't look like he's carrying a light load yet, compared to what we see in his future self. And it's certainly a heavier smile than the jollier one he makes here right after King's Tide when Flapjack was still around:

I can't imagine the amount of grief that his body has yet to dredge up and release, once he finally doesn't have to worry about his 'uncle' threatening his life anymore. Too many times to count, I've been in the situation where I cry intensely after being retraumatized and think "Huh? More tears? Where did it come from?? I thought I had cried it all out from my whole being the last time!". It kind of convinced me that anyone with CPTSD has so much grief stored up in their body that the number of times needed to have a good cry feels like a really endless expanse.

However: because I had 7 years of being in and out of therapy, what matters is that the durations between these episodes of mine, the durations of the episodes themselves, plus their intensity have reduced a lot. It was around a 4-year timeskip in the finale, so for Hunter to get as far as he did to heal, his own therapy sessions would've probably been rigorous and very consistent.

Anyway, he might now cycle through his own version of what Luz cycled through when she gradually shuts down from failing to build a new portal door in Thanks to Them, continually believes she's as bad as Belos, and when she alludes to her suicidal ideation in the classroom:

whereby there is a likely parallel between Luz wrestling with guilt from her own moral injury, and Hunter's own guilt from what he wished he could've done to prevent being possessed, to prevent Flapjack from dying. Both their situations are that of moral injuries.

The adrenaline rush would be over for everyone on the Isles.

I'm quite sure the therapists on the Isles will operate pretty soon after the news about Belos's death was out. They would conduct whatever version of mental health triage they have, that involves risk assessments and crisis counselling. Both of these based on what I've learnt are shorter in duration (30 minutes) and are one-off sessions, compared to regular talk therapy which is an hour minimum.

The therapists would be redirecting people to necessary resources e.g. where to find food or loved ones, and managing distress only related to people's immediate needs instead of forming a longer term plan for several weekly sessions.

I believe things are simpler when you are running away from an external threat, like the two Hunter scenarios below. In Hollow Mind there is no emotion on his face because in peak C-PTSD mode he has shut down his emotions to pour that energy into escaping Belos. In Thanks to Them, he appears quite obviously scared with widened eyes because he got comfortable with safety for months and Belos's return was a surprise attack (thanks ashanimus for pointing out to me how his expressions are animated!):

But what is there to run from now? Not an external threat for sure. The war zone is now the one in his mind, heart and soul and it would become front and center. I believe both these screenshots are two notches on a dial, and the missing third image - which would show him finding it difficult to stuff down the grief any longer, might look like a more exasperated version of when he told Willow "Please don't call yourself [a Half-a-Witch] ever again" in For the Future, and eventually a more depressed version of his vanishing smile in The Collector's Palace.

When can he really run from himself? Only while asleep, if he's spared nightmares on any given night, or while distracting himself with the main mission of rebuilding the Isles or continuing to bond with his friends and other people.

His anger in For the Future was a telling sign for me that he made sure his focus was still on an external threat: he still had the opportunity to do so back then, because Belos was still alive. But when we see him in The Collector's palace sending Willow off to her dads, there has realistically been a shift in what will threaten the more fragile shreds of inner peace he's still clinging on to. There are those scary trauma-related emotions to worry about, which wouldn't have just evaporated into thin air. They would be looking for a new outlet, and they'll find their way into flashbacks, nightmares, tension still stored in the body, an exaggerated startle response, etc.

We have seen a range of reactions he has to danger, triggers and emotional pain: some involve moving his body more, and fewer involve a short of shutting down:

Flinching during Belos's tantrums, being able to fight Kikimora calmly, freezing up in the throne room (Hunting Palismen)

Suicidal ideation and even a sort of suicide plan (Eclipse Lake)

Freezing up and expecting punishment from Darius (Any Sport in a Storm)

Being able to stay almost entirely calm as he learnt more and more of the truth about Belos, though his hand was shaking briefly, then a panic attack later on (Hollow Mind)

Lots of avoidance symptoms like numbing, combined with hypervigilance e.g. shivering and another panic attack (Labyrinth Runners)

Feeling fear with underlying shame and subconsciously expecting punishment, when he failed to save Luz (Clouds on the Horizon)

Freezing and recoiling, though he fought against this by asserting a boundary with Belos (King's Tide)

Panic attack when looking into the mirror and having an emotional flashback, hypervigilance e.g. stamping his foot and shivering (Thanks to Them)

Anger and rage to cope with bereavement, later being tearful (For the Future)

Most likely a sense of bereavement, deep exhaustion and possibly loneliness, during that briefly shown moment in The Collector's Palace (Watching and Dreaming)

The serious work he has to put in to heal from his trauma would begin once his whole body gives in to the exhaustion, catching up with the bereavement-related emotions that have also begun to settle in. It could be a massive emotional and physical collapse that he can't fight off, where his physical energy levels become tanked seemingly out of nowhere. And I think it would look like a worse version of him lying in his makeshift grave, where he is barely able to move around the house or anywhere for some time.

This happened to Katniss in the Hunger Games trilogy, and while the portrayal was done differently in the books and movies, both were good explorations of what it's like to shift from the default high alert (and long-term) mode of CPTSD to coping with the scary unknown world of newfound safety. Katniss spent her childhood in poverty and being constantly on edge that she might be chosen for the Hunger Games, being parentified, to provide for her family.

While participating in the games, she had to utilize battle skills and kill others to survive and sustained many injuries, still constantly on high alert whereby any respite would last for incredibly short durations. Towards the end of the story, after she loses the one she loved most (her sister Prim, who I think can be a parallel of Flapjack in this meta), Katniss shifts from peak physical activity into mostly sleeping and being actively suicidal for months, hardly moving and not leaving the house, until the shock of traumatic grief began to wear off. She absolutely crashed and went from one extreme to the other. In the movie Mockingjay Part 2, they added a non-book scene where her grief comes out in an outburst when she sees their pet cat hanging around on the kitchen counter. She flings an object in the cat's direction, then screams "[Prim] is gone!!" repeatedly before collapsing into heavy sobs, picking up the cat and holding it to her chest to soothe herself.

This kind of major collapse might happen very soon to Hunter after he leaves The Collector's Palace or only after some weeks. The timing of this, I can't predict. The reason why he didn't appear to have this issue in the early months being in the human realm is because there was still something external to concentrate on: help his friends get back to the Human Realm, help Luz reunite with Eda and King, while him and Flapjack hoped to go home too.

You could argue that even now, he still has something external to focus on i.e. helping the others rebuild the Isles. However I keep imagining that the people who love him are going to be quite adamant in getting him, Luz and the other kids to please rest. Since we saw Steve recommend his therapist to Lilith in O Titan Where Art Thou, I can picture the adults in particular monitoring how Hunter is doing without Flapjack.

But if this collapse I'm speculating about doesn't happen so soon, he would be pouring himself into helping others, referencing his character-centric line all the way back in Hunting Palismen about wanting to offer help, which he utters twice in that episode. There is an overlap between this expectation he has of himself and the old habit he's at risk of falling back into periodically: overworking.

Once his desire to help others is clearly comes across as an avoidance tactic on the outside - a maladaptive coping mechanism to run from the very difficult emotions that he should be processing - people around him are definitely going to set boundaries and say "No" to any attempts he makes to assist them. Someone is probably going to tell him that whatever desperation he is showing in wanting to help other people, needs to be redirected at himself. Making time and space for himself, taking time off to rest.

Him suffering from a major emotional and physical collapse is pretty likely because things are more complicated (though, physically much much safer) for him now than at the beginning of Thanks to Them when he had just fled from Belos to the human realm, and had Flapjack as his closest company. Fast forward to the victory won in Watching and Dreaming: both Flapjack and Belos are gone now.

It's telling that different thoughts are occupying Hunter's mind now, from how his expressions are drawn during his first days in the human realm vs. when peace is restored in the Isles.

1. See the sense of calmer urgency in his expression, putting the mission of building the portal door first, while experiencing a strong sense of togetherness with his friends, and learning to trust Camila who is treating him well:

compared to

2. the sheer exhaustion and feeling of "What now...?" (see his upper eyelids below?) that set in, once he helped Willow find her parents and there was no more task at hand that didn't involve himself. His bright smile from a split-second ago has drooped and disappeared:

I know that right after the above frame, Darius and Eberwolf reunited with him, but his emotions are going to cycle up and down in the hours, weeks and months ahead. The elation from seeing Darius and Eber - people who were there to greet him when he expected nobody to turn up - is not going to last, though it will certainly come and go, because high-running positive emotions like that don't last as long, especially in the context of the life he's had as a child soldier. It's totally possible that on the same night, hours after this reunion with their loved ones, their emotions will shift drastically.

The tired look in his eyes above and the sad face he then makes, is in between two moments of him having something external to focus on (Willow and then Darius). I'm inclined to think that the above depressed look reflects a lot of the complexity that is going on underneath the surface. What is his state of mind when alone with his thoughts, when he has zero tasks to perform? How is he handling those thoughts?

There will be a deep, sometimes mind-numbing sense of bereavement over two significant figures in his life. First Flapjack, now this:

He used to love Belos. But I'm really not sure he can just uproot that love from deep within and discard it. Hunter carries memories like the following ones around which will be confusing to navigate on tougher days, despite being able to tell Luz "That's what Belos does, he tricks people". Because these were his formative years:

and something tells me that Philip was cunning enough to strike a delicate balance between being 'nice' to Hunter like above, versus unleashing his violent temper to terrify and harm him. Making sure that balance was so close to 50/50 that it would leave a child very confused. So confused he would rather believe he's never good enough rather than the more frightening prospect that his so-called family does not actually love him at all.

Hunter will have a moment now and then of still missing the 'niceness' that his 'uncle' showed towards him (felt in his heart and subconscious), while still knowing (in his head, rationally) that Philip was not genuine when treating him that way.

To note though, he did not witness Belos's death which reduces the severity of intrusive images that the poor kid would see in his mind.

What I'm worried about is how he'll handle the news about the grimwalker graveyard, since I'm sure that location is going to be scoured and Darius would want to give his mentor a proper sending off. They'd want to give all the Golden Guards and Caleb a sending off and pay their respects. This might add to what I suspect will be the messed up depression he'll fall into.

It will be very confusing and emotionally disorienting, literally not needing to worry about anyone killing him anymore. He has had no point of reference for this in his life at all. It might possibly the furthest he ever goes from that primal survival instinct he had while living in the Castle for so long, which took up the majority of his life so far:

There will also be the added layer of how he feels about those first emotions. This is literally a concept called Feelings About Feelings and it's a key part of my work since I use the Satir Model in my style of counselling. We don't just feel emotions, we also tack on our own judgments and evaluations about them. E.g. shame about feeling anger, guilt about feeling sad because of burdening others, or even a combination like fear about feeling joy which can show up in healing from bereavement.

Depending on how we feel about whichever emotions got there first, it makes a difference because we could be adding or subtracting unnecessary suffering from the first emotion, especially if the first emotion is an already unpleasant one.

I have a feeling that we'd see Hunter look very very tired, till he makes breakthroughs in therapy. A tiredness that sleep, a healthy diet and exercise alone simply cannot fix. Because there's an entire upbringing in the Emperor's Coven to sort through in his head, this time not combined with the avoidance of having fled to the human realm and living under one roof with his friends.

The Hexsquad are not living under the same roof anymore, they are reunited with their own families with much to emotionally talk out, and the group no longer has a very urgent single collective mission. Sure, Hunter has an active role to play in rebuilding the Isles, but what about rebuilding his very self? He has the steepest climb, because we have seen the symptoms he exhibits.

Most of all, referencing a section of my Retraumatization and Self-Soothing (Part 1) meta (link), a memory as horrible as this:

will likely be the most intrusive image is going to be replaying again and again over the months to come, and it may flood his thoughts during moments of being triggered or even out of nowhere during quiet moments for no apparent reason. It will be just like a broken record, where the same small excerpt of a song loops endlessly until the needle of the gramophone is repositioned.

It was remarkably poignant that his final words to Belos were "And most of all, I'm going to make sure you never hurt anyone again", and I'm happy with the story keeping it this way and understand why the writers likely made this decision - not just because the season was shortened. Hunter did not need to directly see or hear more from Belos in close quarters, not after his abuser minimized his needs for years, gaslit him, possessed him and got him to murder his best friend with his own hands.

It's more straightforward to make sure someone else isn't hurting anyone. It's easier to think of what plans to implement, when it comes to him protecting others: which he has had plenty of practice with. Because those are practical methods that we can see in action on the outside.

But here's the kicker: what about applying that last grand statement from his TTT speech to himself, emotionally: making sure he isn't psychologically hurting himself with harmful unhelpful thoughts and beliefs, after Belos's death? "I'll make sure I don't hurt myself (and by extension, my loved ones) again".

This will be very new to him, and it is a theme that I handle in pretty much every client case in my therapy work. The client's self-dialogue, the self-compassion or lack thereof. Which, in real life, is often not a concept that our own families and schools introduce to us to be familiar with.

For Hunter, this may translate into him making the decision to get help and truly accepting the gift of life that Flapjack gave him.

Basically this on a much bigger scale:

whereby in Flapjack's absence, he can truly believe in this new and positive fundamental belief about himself. The evidence that he managed to make it to that heartbreaking but incredibly beautiful place is pretty strong:

But before his happy ending, the pressure on himself to be useful to others via helping and working is likely going to come back and be used as his way of coping, and there's a chance it will cross the line into becoming a form of self-harm that he's relying on to avoid the frightening, deeper emotional pain. People around him know him well enough that they'll be able to spot his behavioral changes and then sense he is not going in a helpful direction. They'll see that it's hurting him even though it's the most familiar territory for his mind to be in, and someone is going to tell him to change that.

He's going to be seeing his friends with their palismen. How will it be like being among them, even if they are pretty good at supporting him? How would he attempt to make sense of the void that is the absence of the incredible love he experienced from that first friend, the absence of that mental link between witch and palisman?

What emotions could be lurking beneath the surface? Believe it or not, there are some signs from Luz's nightmare even though yes, Hunter was being controlled by The Collector. I wouldn't quickly dismiss this dark Flapjack-related scene as 100% being about The Collector's goal to scare Luz in the nightmare.

I think there was a smaller subplot going on as well.

The Collector needed material to work with in the first place, to perform the puppet acts: the material was whatever fears and whatever pain was already there in their targets.

The Collector didn't create Hunter's emotions from scratch for the puppet act; instead he manipulated and redirected what existed at the base level. All this wouldn't work as analogies of mental illness vs. mental health if The Collector could just engineer emotions on their own and simply replace whatever his puppet targets were already feeling. Emotions never vanish and always take up space somewhere, they are redirected, transformed or channeled into outlets even if it means they become repressed or locked away. But they never stop existing.

I have a feeling that despite the nightmare being Luz's, despite Hunter being used as an instrument for The Collector to achieve their goals...the pre-existing emotions that Hunter himself felt in his body, not puppet!Hunter's verbal responses towards Luz, were true. He is a haunted boi.

This face he makes above might be a hint at the worst of his pain. It might be the furthest he has felt from when he said "I like who I am right now" to Flapjack. In the place of that confidence from before, there might now be his own version of Luz's "I'm as bad as Belos". I cannot be entirely certain, but the negative belief that may have taken root in him could be "I am not deserving of the life Flapjack gave me".

Interestingly, if this is the case, it could easily parallel his line from all the way back in Any Sport in A Storm: "I'm unfit to wear the sigil of the Golden Guard." It's definitely a possibility, since Hunter is now faced with having a lot of time and space now, and less urgency than he's ever had in his life, to think back on all those times he helped to further Belos's cause. Especially when it came to sending many palismen to their deaths.

With his own palisman now dead, the engraving we would eventually see on Flapjack's grave: "Thank you for finding me", would be the destination. But the journey needed to reach that destination of amazing gratitude in the first place...must have been a harrowing one. In the early months of the acute grief, it would've been more like "Why did you have to find me?! You shouldn't have. Then none of this would've happened". Not forgetting the number of times Hunter has replayed in his head what he could've done differently, trying so desperately to rewind the clock and make that better alternate timeline a reality.

If you remove The Collector and even Luz from the equation in the Luz nightmare scene, Hunter may well be having such responses - the ones that puppet!Hunter directed at Luz to blame Luz - as a dialogue with himself. He might direct those negative emotions towards himself since he's so careful about hurting others and has taken on unfair punishment for so much of his life.

Even when he was temporarily himself, smiling, expressing a positive emotion to encourage Luz with "What's the first thing you do when you wake up from a bad dream?", that was him conversing with another person, someone external. Not his own self. I am willing to bet he wasn't at a point in his arc where he would smile at himself like that and easily encourage himself in the same way.

While we can be certain he had already reached his breakthroughs by the time we saw him post-timeskip, he has not experienced them yet in the frame above. He has not felt (yet) what Luz felt onscreen when she had breakthroughs in relation to her moral injury:

Taking a leap of faith to accept the Titan's gift, to trust that he chose her because she has a good heart and will never be Belos.

Then later, being able to stand firm, believing she truly is good ("I am the Good Witch Luz!"), and not uttering a word to Belos as he died - which was post-traumatic growth beyond how she broke down under his threats and manipulation towards the end of Hollow Mind and later in King's Tide.

Recap time. In the (quite likely) long period that passes by before we meet his new palismen, he's likely going to want to jump into action and attend meetings with Darius, Eberwolf and co, help to physically rebuild things and organize people with his own Coven Head experience. Leaning back on the ingrained and familiar lifestyle of pouring himself into work and gearing towards burnout is certainly a risk to watch out for.

The Hexsquad, CATTs and the Clawthorne sisters are going to notice his behavior and likely urge him to get appropriate rest and seek help.

However, there is the other extreme: Belos isn't around anymore to torment him, and Hunter would know this in the rational sense (head knowledge). Which leads to the possibility that he may swing towards shutting down as opposed to overworking tendencies. He would feel allowed to do whatever he wants, in this new Boiling Isles, and he had months of opportunities to do that in the early part of Thanks to Them before Belos's return.

What I'm getting at is, if he didn't sleep enough before, he might swing towards sleeping too much after finally collapsing from the familiarity of survival mode into unknown but genuinely safe territory. If he cared too much about helping others before, he might swing towards a depressive state of apathy (the closest canon reference point would be him digging his grave: he was very disarmed in that scene to even think much about helping anyone including Belos). This is why the screenshot I used of his smile drooping in The Collector's Palace, feels like a big clue to me. This would be where Darius, Camila and other adults have to seriously keep watch over him.

In the Cinema Therapy episode I had as a small reference for this post, the licensed therapist who hosts the series mentions that "It takes a lot longer to put oneself back together than it took to fall apart." In Hunter's case, the "falling apart" period here refers to that collapsing I mentioned. It would be the time between:

1. the grief hitting him in full force: when he subconsciously understands and acknowledges that Flapjack isn't coming back (which...will involve hell of a lot of wailing and sobbing. Him having a full version cry of those first few tears he shed at the end of TTT),

and

2. the time when the painful shock from feeling the full force of the grief has decreased enough that it plateaus.

This falling apart stage may need to pass before he seeks therapy. If he tries going for sessions while still going through that shock and pain, it might be too much for him.

As terrible and sad as it sounds, a deep dark spiral like this might be necessary. It would be his body and mind wanting to compensate for several years' worth of unnatural hypervigilance which wasn't serving him in a advantageous way (i.e. surviving) any longer. His body and mind begging for rest at last, to try and make sense of everything that happened. This big collapse into depression would empty out the old and free up much room in him for new stories, beliefs and perspectives to take root. Depression is, after all, the body's attempt to (maladaptively) try and protect us by numbing us, or else we would be overwhelmed.

As someone whom we know keeps himself very busy, this could be the period where he is the furthest he has ever been from that old simpler life. Because his CPTSD-ridden body would be demanding more than ever that he compensates for a childhood and teen years' lack of general rest, he may not even have the strength to cope the way he did before. The only way he might possibly cope in this period is to go with the flow of that raging current and do exactly what his body is asking of him: getting real rest.

Like what happened with Katniss in the Hunger Games trilogy, this early grieving stage would emotionally be difficult and terrifying, like walking along a tightrope, finding balance between left and right to angle yourself as straightly as possible and walk forward. (the tightrope metaphor is what I use with some of my clients to explain swinging between extremes of coping mechanisms).

The missing pieces of the puzzle in his arc, in the 4-year duration before the timeskip, might be his own version of these points in Luz's arc:

where she sank lower before she realized her deepest wish and emotionally experienced her worst fear in her Watching and Dreaming nightmare.

For Hunter, these could look like the following:

Like Luz saying it'd be better for everyone that she permanently stays in the human realm, Hunter might say he wants to remove himself from his loved ones in some way, for good. Whether a literal suicide attempt (like Katniss from The Hunger Games) or not, I can't say for sure.

A parental figure trying to reach out to him, saying he is deserving of Flapjack's gift. But he still struggles to believe that. What matters though is this parental figure is present and he's not pushing them away.

Him hearing some confirmation of his deepest negative belief about himself, in his own nightmares. Like Luz hearing the most terrifying things she could ever hear - Amity's "You've been the real villain this whole time" and "But for the sake of everyone you hurt, I challenge you to a witch's [duel]".

Him being able to reach an emotional space where he can begin to question that unhelpful belief: "Am I really deserving of Flapjack's gift?", or something similar.

The big moment when he finally tells someone how he really feels about the possession, Belos's death, Flapjack's absence in this new supposed peace and quiet....this would be the important invitation for the other person to connect and meet his emotional needs, and is a lot like how support groups for addiction work: a client needs to acknowledge that they are struggling with a problem, not avoiding it with distractions any longer, and then seek help and express their need for said help.

I suppose the question is how soon Hunter might decide to accept professional help and give it a go: or whether he'd have the genuine need for space first and say "I need some time". Because one's rational mind can be ready to go for therapy, but their subconscious and body would find it too unpleasant if it's too soon. Every part of him would have to be ready to begin putting himself back together after the falling apart stage occurs.

The messed up experience of CPTSD is that you stay shockingly calm during real danger, but on the flip side have big, disproportionate freakouts during actually safe times. Compare how calm Hunter was when he smiled at Luz in her nightmare while he was tied up with puppet strings vs. his fear and shame when he couldn't save Luz in Clouds on the Horizon. 

In a CPTSD memoir I read, the author describes that it was horribly frightening to hear her partner be in a bad mood and wash the dishes more loudly than usual, while during the pandemic, she felt completely calm seeing empty shelves in a supermarket when she struggled to get supplies.

From my own experience, I have experienced being pretty damn calm when bleeding out and needing hospitalization. But in a different year before that, I recall one afternoon alone in my house right before a vacation where a strong gust of wind very loudly slammed an open door shut next to where I happened to be standing, and I broke down sobbing from a retraumatization via an emotional flashback. Because it felt extremely real as if my abusive parent was lashing out to physically hurt me. 

After a 5-year period of mostly being in talk therapy, and then a 2-year period of regularly scheduled EMDR therapy, my response if I have a door loudly slam shut near me now would maybe be a smaller-scale flinch and a flash of anger that would last about maybe a minute. Which is miles better than sobbing for half an hour and being dissociated and frozen in a memory for hours before I thaw out of that flashback.

Since the show's writing is just that good, I could look at Luz's depressive symptoms manifesting in Thanks to Them and see a likely parallel in Hunter's story moving forward, since we know how much this show also digs neat and tidy parallels. These are characters written for TV after all, so they'd have to fit a formula to an extent, to have compelling arcs and reach high and low points along said arcs.

Part 2: Therapy Itself

Part 1 was the setup to give a good amount of context: now for the technicalities of the therapy sessions themselves:

Like Adrian Graye said in Labyrinth Runners, Illusion Magic can sort through memories. We have seen from Gus's own powerful Illusion abilities that he could do so with Belos. It makes sense that a therapist does this in sessions to have a magnified version of how in our world, therapists exercise empathy by imagining what it is like to be their clients:

I would monitor whether his mood (what he is feeling within) and affect (how the emotions appear on the outside e.g. tone of voice, face expressions) are congruent. Congruence usually means a client is in less distress. Incongruence might mean they are in so much pain that they can't connect directly with the main emotion: the perfect example of this being Hunter laughing when digging his grave.

We therapists take note of aspects such as affect, mood, the client's motor activity, any indicators of psychosis, even down to things like how untidy their hair looks in case we get clues about the severity of their issues (this is called a Mental Status Exam, and we write what we see in our case notes per session).

Because CPTSD is so relationship-centric, I'd discuss how he's getting along with new parental figures (the Belos replacements who will heal him so much and change his life forever!) and friends.

If the Boiling Isles therapists use their own equivalent of EMDR therapy, which is theorized to be like a waking version of how REM sleep and REM-related dreams help our brains to sort through memories, it sounds like a great fit for his case. This intervention involves subconscious work and could help him reshape how he experiences memories of Flapjack and Belos. EMDR clients are expected to see vivid images popping up without control in their mind during the sessions, and they are quite symbolic e.g. seeing a grey sky often indicates grief, seeing lighter colors indicates more calm. This technique helps a client's subconscious rewrite their story the way they'd like it to be, and install new positive beliefs and emotions over time.

My own example of EMDR experiences from the second half of 2019 as a client, is it majorly changed how I related to my own abuser, got me to finally feel allowed to emotionally break away from her, even though she is still alive and even lives in the same building.

In the early sessions, I saw an image of my 5-year-old self being forced to wear an ugly grey apron that my abuser used for baking. The apron is a real object, not fictional, and the emotions I felt showing up were matching with the image: feeling very uncomfortable seeing a visual representation of my abuser's hold over me.

But in a later session after a few months, guided by my therapist, I saw a vivid image of my abuser receiving a sea burial. She was lying peacefully on the water surface and sank down until she was gone. That was me subconsciously burying any expectation that she could ever provide what I needed. This was so powerful that I could go home after that session and permanently (so far) be significantly calmer around my abuser.

Therefore if Hunter goes through something like this, he'd potentially be able to put Belos to rest and have it feel very real and true: and have significantly reduced distress about Belos-related memories. There is the potential for powerful breakthroughs for him here, especially also related to Flapjack's death and how challenging it might be to carve palismen in the beginning. Especially since in the worst case scenario, even touching palistrom wood might be enough to badly trigger him. I cover this particular point a bit more in my other meta, Retraumatization and Self-Soothing (Part 1).

We would also be discussing what he's implementing into his routine and what may benefit him. I would be seeing if he is able to laugh about things, be motivated enough to be outdoors and among people, experience pleasure when creating new things, and form closer bonds with parental figures (what I just listed is to do with neurotransmitters in the brain that increase mental health: serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin).

If I were his therapist I might suggest that whatever volunteering tasks he does, he carries those out with his friends, and time should be allocated to managing and taking care of a specific demographic: children. Because I think it'd be a safe, low stakes form of unfamiliarity for him to have enough emotional distance from his traumatic memories. Early months of acute grief usually require such emotional distance.

Having a good dose of an environment like that alongside the other tasks where he's working alongside Darius etc, could help him because kids' emotions are less complex, and their infectious laughter and fun-loving nature may play a role in helping him be more open with his own inner child. His therapist would be seeking to draw out that inner child in their sessions, and that little child would need to feel safe enough to emerge.

Importantly, his future palisman: it would've been interesting if he did what Luz did with Stringbean and allowed the palisman to be whoever they wanted to be...that would've been a nicely organic process. But even if he had a good idea to incorporate a Flapjack-like design but change details like the color, I'm sure he thought it through very well. I'm certain that this was a major topic of discussion at some stage of his therapy. Discussing the guilt he'd feel about replacing Flapjack vs. still taking Flapjack with him in a new way.

Coming from a strengths-based angle: paying attention to which of his individual strengths he is shows and recounts in the session. If he needs reminding, I could give him a simple worksheet listing various positive qualities and ask him to circle/colour in which ones he feels he has, which then prompts further discussion and questions. Lastly, a powerful tool called reframing e.g. if he says he's worried about being a nuisance to his friends, I'll point out how much he cares about their comfort and affirm that place of kindness.

Work on inviting self-compassion into how he sees himself. Is he able to view himself the way he views his friends? If he remembers the encouragement he gave to Luz about "turning on the light", I would ask him what that would look like in his own life, symbolically.

Hunter's own life has been a really really bad dream for a very long time. He himself has to reach for that light switch and choose to heal by embracing Flapjack's ultimate gift to him.

And we can rest assured that Hunter did that.

Because this post-traumatic growth right here?

This looks like multiple breakthroughs have taken place while he's been receiving consistent care from an excellent community. And there's no way it was an easily won victory. It has been very much hard-won, after how dark the story became in Hollow Mind and Thanks to Them, and it looks like whatever breakthroughs he had left him pleasantly surprised.

It doesn't seem like his heart and soul can contain this much joy and hope, without a very painful dismantling to have taken place first, to make room for the most unexpected treasures to fill his life back up.

The joy becomes even greater if you never would've expected it in your wildest dreams.

#toh hunter #toh analysis #toh spoilers #the owl house #loz writes a meta

[somehow-a-human]

Whose POV is it Anyway?

1941

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Alright you lot! I wanted to post this days ago but it proved to be a more difficult bit of writing than I was expecting! I'm not sure why but I just had a tough time finishing this one. The other POV posts I've done have been pretty straightforward, but this one was a little tricky.

As always, for reference & context, I recommend reading these previous posts:

Whose POV is it Anyway? - Introduction

Lens Filters

POV "Your 'Something's Wrong' Voice"

POV a Trip to Hell and a 25 Lazarii Miracle

POV a Companion to Owls

POV The Dirty Donkey & I think I Found a *Clue*!

POV Bodysnatchers & Cosplaying a bookseller

Let's take a trip to Soho during the Blitz....

We open Episode 4 with Aziraphale driving back from Edinburgh in the very late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. Shax stops him and gets herself into the Bentley. The lighting is cool and misty and since we're dealing with Shax, my guess is we're looking at Hell's Black Pro Mist filter (BPM). Shax reminds Aziraphale of 1941 by mentioning Furfur, and we're drawn into the 1941 minisode.

SO enter 1941... we're in the church, and the bomb has just exploded.

I went back and decided to watch this opening scene from both season 1 and season 2 side by side to see if there were any noticable differences and the HUGE one is the difference in the color grading of this scene between seasons. It's the same footage, though season two's is spliced with bits of nazi's dying, but the footage in season two is so much more green than it was in season one. Take a look at these screenshots, season 1 on the left and season 2 on the right.

These are unedited, same computer screen and everything, season 2 is just so green. We know green is associated with Hell, so I'd posit a guess we're getting the green from the nazi's (Hell's) POV being added in here. We're shown they're still alive for a few moments of this scene. Crowley's sideburns are short in this scene but it is reused footage from season 1 so I'd just disregard it.

Then we move on to the drive home from the bombing, Crowley's sideburns are still on the shorter side, which according to our previous theories would indicate we're likely to be matched with Crowley's POV. However I'm sure you'll agree deciphering a filter from this scene is very difficult, given they are driving through a bombing sequence. We are supported though by the demons snippy tone toward Aziraphale, something we've previously observed him don when in his POV filter with the accompanying short sideburn/hair length. Ex: switch inside the coffee shop & switch outside the pub.

They pull up to the Windmill Theater, there are lovely glowy warm halos around the marquee lights, so I'd say we're looking at Aziraphale's POV now, or the Bronze Glimmerglass (BGG) filter. Crowley's sideburns are also long here, which would fit the narrative that these are connected. Inside the theater the coloring is still warm toned. Inside the bookshop, the lighting remains warm and likely the BGG filter as well.

When we cut to outside shots of the bookshop we see that the lighting outside is again extremely green, reminding us that the agents of Hell are lurking.

We move into the magic shop and I believe we're still in the BGG filter & Aziraphale's POV, evidenced by the fact that after Crowley and Aziraphale leave the magic shop, and the zombies enter, the warm hue disappears as the magic shop owner is attacked.

Cue the magic show. The lighting of what we're shown on stage is warm and hazy and likely still the BGG filter.

In the backroom of the theater Crowley's sideburns remain long and the lighting is hazy and warm, I think we're seeing Aziraphale's POV here as well.

In the backroom of the bookshop however, when Crowley and Aziraphale enjoy their wine together, Crowley's sideburns are short again, and he tells Aziraphale he's terrible at magic. He's being snippy which indicates Crowley's the narrator, but the lighting is still warm.

I'm reminded here of Finney's characterization of the different filters from the VFX article. He specifically described the Black Diffusion FX Filter as "Crowley's Present Day Storyline". Does this mean there isn't a filter change for Crowley as a narrator in flashbacks? The filter is definitely helpful for deciphering who's our narrator in present day but maybe that's why Crowley's hair also seems to be correlated with the POV? Because it isn't a hard and fast rule?

Aziraphale arrives home from the trip, and when Crowley brings his plants out of the bookshop, his sideburns are still long.

NEXT POV The Ball

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #michael sheen #crowley #aziraphale #david tennant #crowley x aziraphale #good omens theories #good omens clues #good omens theory #good omens mystery #ineffable mystery #ineffable divorce #ineffable spouses #ineffable idiots #ineffable husbands #ineffable fandom

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

When did Viktor choreograph Stammi Vicino and did he commission the music?

There are some controversies regarding Viktor's free programme and I took the time to look at them in greater detail and pin them down to the likeliest explanation. (some of the things discussed in this post I've mentioned in a discussion I was involved in recently. The rest of this post builds on that.)

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an analysis of the source material. Popular headcanons that have no basis in canon cannot be part of this discussion. This is getting a bit academic. Please bear with me.

1. Did Viktor commission the music for Stammi Vicino?

In an interview, Mitsurou Kubo called the aria a piece of music that exists in the world of YOI, but when we subject the hints in the anime to a close examination, they contradict her statement, making you wonder which is true.

I mean, there’s this (sorry for the crappy screenshot)

Technically, the YOI creators might just have used footage of this programme because there was no time to animate Viktor skating an entirely different routine, but due to the tight time constraints of 12 episodes that forced the creators to condense the plot to 50% of its initial size, every scene and every image demanded to be filled with meaning. Speaking of time constraints, they could have used a series of pictures that show adult Viktor in different costumes (like those that had been drawn for Yuuri's room), but they didn't do that either, which rules out technical reasons for this choice.

But there’s more.

From a storytelling perspective, it makes no sense to combine these lines with a short scene of Viktor skating Stammi Vicino if it doesn’t apply to this programme. It’s bad storytelling, period. As Viktor’s fan, Yuuri knows which songs Viktor commissioned because skaters love to talk about these things in interviews. Being a skater himself, Yuuri is knowledgeable in all kinds of music genres even if he lets his coach pick the songs for him. Skaters just happen to be exposed to a lot of music.

This scene makes it seem as if Viktor has been commissioning music for his programmes for several seasons at least. While this doesn’t rule out the possibility that he occasionally picked a song that already exists for whichever reason, Stammi Vicino applies to Viktor’s situation at the beginning of the show so neatly that the lyrics must have been tailored to him. The commentator’s words while Viktor is skating his FS furthermore suggest that this programme shows a new and personal side of him. Of course, that could also work for a song that already exists, but how likely is it that such a song 100% matches the vision of a perfectionist? That a genius like Viktor would just roll with that is debatable at least. He’d rather think “Okay, that’s nice. But this verse and that verse don’t match my idea at all. I think I'll call my composer and ask them to write a song for me.”

Stammi Vicino holds unambiguous references to Plato’s Symposium, which the YOI creators have mentioned repeatedly. And while this is neither an argument for or against the song already existing before Viktor even thought about a free programme for the season in question, it seems too coincidental from a storytelling perspective.

To me, all this points to Viktor commissioning Stammi Vicino because taken all facts together, it’s what makes the most sense.

Side note: It’s not entirely uncommon for storytellers to contradict their creation. Sometimes, you forget details, remember them wrong, or didn’t think them through. Or your views simply change. In the case of YOI, we have to factor in the possibility that certain details had to be de-homoed due to protests from parts of the Japanese fandom. The rings that were removed from many official arts that were released during the first year after the show had aired are such an example. In addition, interviews are often heavily edited.

2. When did Viktor choreograph Stammi Vicino?

The first time we see Viktor wearing the Stammi Vicino costume, is right at the beginning of episode 1 at the GPF. While there is no rule against wearing the same costume for different programmes and costumes are expensive, you usually don’t see this in real figure skating. Some figure skaters even get a new costume for the same programme mid-season because matches the purpose better.

The music, the composition and choreography, and costume build the concept of a figure skating programme. The more perfectionist a skater is (and many top skaters actually are), the more specific you can bet they are about the concept. Viktor is a perfectionist who has full authority over his programmes and he can afford having several costumes per programme. Wearing the same costume for several programmes is a breach with his characterisation.

Let’s assume for one moment that Viktor did indeed create Stammi Vicino because of his encounter with Yuuri at the GPF in Sochi. Why would the creators have been so sloppy and put him into the same costume which he wears at Worlds when they even designed costumes the other two GPF winners JJ and Chris?

Does he wear the same costume because he met Yuuri there? Well, Yuuri approached him at the banquet at the end of the competition and only because he was drunk. Before, Yuuri was to awkward to even talk to Viktor and was, in all likelihood, too busy not freaking out, dealing with having bombed his performance, and Vicchan's death. To reflect Viktor's first actual meeting with Yuuri in a programme, thus choosing a costume that resembles the suit he wore that night would make way more sense.

Some skaters change their programme mid-season. Some switch back to an old programme, other skaters create an entirely new programme. Again, a skater like Viktor could afford this and is skilled enough to bend a new routine to his vision in time for the big competitions. (For reference: Russian Nationals are two weeks after the GPF, which leaves a skater competing in both events one week in between. That’s just enough to pitch the idea to his composer and commission a costume.)

Once Nationals are over and done, Viktor could start working on the new programme and show it at Europeans for the first time. That would leave him about one month to bring it to a level that will win him this competition. Yuuri would now have about two months to create a perfect copy. As he his busy graduating and preparing his move back to Japan, it’s debatable whether this is enough time. That’s the only reasonable timeline for such a scenario. However, since Viktor wore the costume before the banquet, this doesn’t seem likely and the show gives us no clear-cut clue why that could be and I’m loath to speculate wildly.

BUT: Viktor can't have created this programme after Sochi because Yuuri explains to Yuuko that he started practising the programme when the competitions ended [for him, the season itself is not yet over]. For Yuuri, the season ended at Japanese Nationals, which happen to be at the same weekend as Russian Nationals.

Long story short: Everything points to Viktor having created Stammi Vicino at the beginning of the season in which he wins his fifth GPF and world title, respectively. And there’s a beauty in this choice because it gives Viktor an agenda beyond his love interest. Well-crafted characters exist outside of their interactions and relationships with the other characters. Giving them things that belong to them alone adds more depth to their personality and turn them into individuals. Viktor had a life before Yuuri and this life was lonely and his (secret) longing for love was an inherent part of it (I’m preparing a follow-up post that examines the lyrics more closely, so forgive me for not going into the details here).

Especially in a show that is limited to 12 episodes and in which every image is filled with meaning, including details that hint at the characters’ past are beyond precious.

Thanks for reading! <3

If you enjoy my meta, please consider checking out my works on AO3 (link in bio)! My YOI canon works all include my meta musings.

#yuri on ice #yuri on ice meta #yoi #yoi meta #my yoi meta #viktor nikiforov #katsuki yuuri #figure skating #anime #stammi vicino

[squidsponge]

Analyzing the Clone Assassin, part 2: YES, HE HAS ORGANIC LEGS

This is a PSA that CX-2 does not have prosthetic legs, but does have a bunch of accessories and very fancy gadgets the other don't that, and he will not stop playing with them.

The Bad Batch is not a Christopher Nolan film requiring intense scrutiny I'm giving it, but I needed art references and then twitter and reddit started posting nonsense screenshots, so pull out your little red strings and pin boards, because we're going full Pepe Silva here. :readmore:

The other assassins must be taking public transit, because neither of them sported an extravagantly modified comm they can't stop fiddling with, programmed to spin their chair around with as much drama as Obi-wan dropping his cloak.

Unlike the other assassins, who are both snipers, CX-2 is using a rangefinder along with his scope when studying Omega and collecting data intelligence, but not in battle with Crosshair.

These scenes are very darkly lit, so here's a better look at CX-2's very unique yet familiar glass-looking rangefinder.

In contrast, CX-1 from season three, a proper minimalist after Cody's heart does not use a rangefinder despite the distance, nor did his predecessor on Coruscant.

And then our mystery clone who can't leave any of the gadgets at home because he ends up using all of them:

If the idea of bringing Tech back bothers you or sounds like nonsense, I beg you to remember that this is Star Wars, a franchise that brought us "somehow Palpatine returned."

Consider Emerie's big reveal in season two. She spent multiple episodes speaking with a New Zealand accent, wearing a clone insignia patch, and has the same nose, brows, and mouth region that is signature to the clones, and they were hiding it behind a pair of glasses.

Our boy Rex is eating sad chili in a cave instead of having amassed significant numbers or a real plan in the last year and soon he'll be eating sad chili in a motorhome because this show really isn't that complicated.

Which brings us back to our very resourceful and well-funded assassin.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and you're watching Star Wars, it's probably a duck.

And whether or not it's good writing, this authority-averse little duck is wearing his pre-reprogramming personality on his sleeve.

Cody is out there somewhere shuddering over what he did to give anybody the impression that any amount of brainwashing could turn him into this while the other assassins still have good manners and posture. Check out Part 1 for a comparison of CX from season 2's voice and attitude vs. CX-2.

#i really intended to leave this open ended #but it's so obviously tech #don't make me post a part three on why the vibroblade has nothing to do with cody #cody is dumping sand out of his boots #he has nothing to do with this #tbb s3 spoilers #tbb spoilers #tbb s3 #tbb season 3 #the bad batch s3 #tbb season three #tbb season 2 #the bad batch spoilers #clone trooper tech

[carigm]

A BREAKDOWN OF THE POTENTIAL S5 EPISODE TITLES!!

Okay, so today entertainment journalist Jeff Sneider shared some alleged insider info about S5 of ST, mainly directors and titles of the first 6 episodes.

Here’s a screenshot

It’s important to keep in mind that this guy isn’t always the most reliable, and considering he also said he believes S5 could come out before the end of this year, let’s not take any of this too seriously. (Many cast members have mentioned they’re filming until December of this year so that’s literally impossible). The information about the possible directors I believe is correct, because it’s been circulating around from other sources too.

The episode titles I’m less convinced about because it’s also possible the Duffers could’ve put out fake episode titles in case they leaked. I remember for S2 all the episodes titles they announced were changed later on lol. But for the sake of fun, here’s an analysis of all of them:

1. The crawl (only confirmed title) is a very broad, open title. It personally makes me think of the UD and vines, or maybe even the idea of Vecna crawling back to life. Could also be an allusion to the military.

2. The Vanishing of ___ Wheeler is arguably the most insane one. The journalist said he wasn’t revealing the actual name of the person because it’s a spoiler ofc. My gut tells me it’s gonna be Holly, mainly because of the recast and her supposedly being involved in the hospital plot, which we have guessed takes place in episode 2. Could explain why she’s suddenly “more important” this season, especially if she’s used as a plot device of sorts. Could also tie into what Ted’s actor said in a podcast back in February about the first episodes being a rollercoaster of emotions, and that comment he made about Ted having a soft spot for Holly. It would be a perfect tie in for Karen to find out about the UD as well. The implications of naming the episode the same as the first episode, which is so intrinsically tied to Will, is very interesting. It’s also a new connection/tie between the Byers/Wheelers that I assume will bring the families closer together. I don’t think it’s about Mike because I doubt he’ll go missing in ep.2, or be dragged to the UD just like Will was. It would be an interesting concept but I doubt it. I also don’t think Nancy’s gonna go missing. Karen could be interesting but I doubt it as well. Ted would be an incredibly funny choice. Imagine he just goes missing while at the house 😭 Nonetheless, I think Holly is the clear choice here, and I do very much worry for her if she goes missing. Mainly because while Will survived this, I’m not sure they’ll do the same for Holly :(

It also ties into Vecna’s threat to Nancy against her and her family.

Here’s an interesting leak from the same anon that leaked the hospital stuff (which seems to be correct)

I think this could be the very same scene Holly goes missing.

3. Turbow Trap 😭 This one is utter nonsense. I have no idea what a Turbow is, so I assume it’s gonna be a code or nickname for something. Absolutely clueless here.

4. Sorcerer is incredibly interesting, and imo a clear allusion to Will. His D&D character being a cleric, basically a wizard. Could also be a reference to Vecna imo. Or both 😉

5. Shock Jock is clearly tied to the radio station plotline. Imo the title could be a reference to Steve, Jonathan, or even Murray (he fits that eccentric, somewhat annoying personality quite well) In case you guys don’t know a shock jock is like a very eccentric radio host.

6. Escape from Camazotz is another crazy title. He’s a figure from Mayan mythology who’s a bat spirit. That immediately makes me think of Eddie, but also Steve ofc. However, camazotz has a larger meaning that goes beyond “bat spirit”, it’s also a representation of death and night. So the title seems to be alluding to someone escaping from death or a perilous situation.

Even more interesting perhaps is that kamazotz is a name of a planet in A Wrinkle Time. It’s the planet where IT resides, the mind controlling antagonist of the narrative. So I guess in this comparison Kamazotz is the UD, and IT is Henry.

#byler #byler theory #stranger things #st5 leaks #st5 spoilers #st spoilers