#the clearest version of this I've seen

[eppysboys]

Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe, from the Museum of Liverpool

#Astrid Kirchherr #Stuart Sutcliffe #the clearest version of this I've seen #Cyn in the background....does that mean John took the photo? 👀if so...that's incredibly sweet #Cynthia Lennon #Stuart #Astrid #Cynthia #Stuart and Astrid

[boxturret]

Bionicle Toa Posters

Did you know that there are multiple variations of the poster that came with the Toa in 2001?

Version 1

I would consider this to be the first version, and in some ways, the best. It features the fullest view of the Toa art and has the least clutter, just the Bionicle logo, Technic logo, and the ID number. The numbers have a consecutive range of 4130827 to 4130832.

The backside of this poster to my knowledge can have two variants. The first is a general Technic advertisement sheet only focusing on Bionicle in one corner, I assume this is the first version based on the 2000 copyright. The second is a much more Bionicle focused image that can also be found on the backs of many Rahi instruction books.

So version 1 has two variants, I would consider the second variant the "Optimal" Bionicle poster, as it has the clearest view of the Toa and the most interesting Bionicle themed back.

Version 2

The 2001 copyright date makes me think this is a later revision. Many things were added in this version, there is now a trademark symbol beside the Bionicle logo, full copyright text has been added along side the ID number, which is now vertical along the left side of the page, the Technic logo has been shrunk and moved to the right, and at the bottom a strip has been added featuring all the Toa similar to what can be found on the canister, although they're named here.

This version seems to exclusively feature the second back layout, which would fit which it being a later addition.

Version 3

At first glance this poster would seem to be the same as the previous version, but there are several key differences. The easiest one to spot is the dropping of the Technic brand, as this is from closer to 2002 (though it still retains the 2001 copyright), when Bionicle became its own line, rather than a subtheme of Technic. The ID number has also been shifted from the left to the right, being placed over the Kopaka tile in the Toa strip. This is the only variation to actually be given a new ID number, though oddly the numbers are not consecutive: 41760[67 | 72 | 74 | 81 | 83 | 85].

In fitting with the 2002 theme the back of this poster prominently features the Bohrok and several newer Technic sets.

There is also a slight error where Kohrak was misprinted, still featuring the identifier they must have used when assembling the image:

And that's all the information I've managed to gather on the posters. My sample size isn't huge, roughly 13 but it seems to be consistent with what I've seen online.

I've made recreations of all 3 types of posters for each of the 6 Toa and have uploaded them HERE.

And the raw scans can be found HERE.

#Bionicle #Posters #History #How much detail is too much detail #Scans #Version Differences

[msallurea]

It's time I apologize to you all💔

As yall know today happens to be my birthday (yall know Virgos are the baddest bitches in the world 😫..anyways 😂) but it inspired me to make this post to all who come across it. A fun fact is that today happens to be the day that I was first born. I was born Sunday, September 10th 2006, this is the first birthday I've had where I was celebrating my birthday once more again on Sunday, September 10th 2023. With that I've came a very, very long way through all those birthdays I've had before. But I say all that to say this. You are absolutely allowed to have everything your heart could ever desire. I know we already have permission from day one with the ability to manifest anything we want but sometimes just seeing it from someone you look up to and love giving you this permission just feels right. Now this is mostly for my own use and I've been knowing about manifestation for YEARS but I never really manifested things that I deeply genuinely wanted because I use to be scared, I use to be overthinking not about what I wanted but because I was afraid that the things I wanted would affect those around me or make others feel a certain way about me or that I'd lose people because of it. When really, that's not the case at all. Back then I didn't genuinely grasp the fact that I am truly, the God of my reality. I didn't fully digest that I am genuinely the creator of my reality everything in my life I created it whether it was good, bad or indifferent. But when I finally accepted this it caused me to fear myself even more and backfire I was unsure what my world would be like knowing I take full responsibility of my life despite being totally free is all I've ever wanted since day one, to live a life at peace has always truly been my deepest desire. After sitting with myself for a minute I realized that all the things I've wanted throughout all the years I only wanted them because I thought they would make my life feel easier, I wanted what I wanted because they made me feel good, they made me feel beautiful, they made me feel lovingly, they made me feel accepted, they made me feel at peace if I knew I had a chance to have it in the 3d world. The perfect scenario is when I was little and I watched anime for the first time this was when I first found manifestation. I had the burning desire to be an anime girl. I came from a life of bullying, being picked on, being called ugly, a total dump of lack of self love, toxic family, etc at the time all I wanted was to be the biggest form of beauty the world had ever seen because I knew what pretty privilege was and I'd do anything to get it. But back then my desires (at least in how I saw it) were so absolutely grand, my heart imagined with all uts might I could see myself being that anime girls its super powers with the perfect life etc and it was in the small moment I had the clearest glimpse of my highest self. She was everything I ever wanted to be. This is what kept me going in this manifestation community and made me never give up I knew I could be her I knew I was her but seeing who she was, the life she lived it was just so entirely perfect it scared me. I felt I wasn't allowed to be her, I didn't deserve to be that perfect because of his amazing my highest self is. Her femininity and sex appeal overfilled my imagination so much all I could do was resort to anything that reminded me of her whether it was the colors, pinterest, trying to do things she did but failed, etc. But I never gave up on this version of myself regardless of how many things I continously added to her over the years.

I say all that to say this. Sometimes in this manifestation community we aren't vulnerable enough for people. Many of you expect to be the "perfect master manifestor" or whatever u wanna call yourself but sometimes you have to be soft and gentle with yourself. For the past few weeks I have literally been stagnant and crying because the life I wanted to live compared to the life I'm living were just entirely too different. I didn't feel worthy of it. I felt like I would lose ppl around me if I (and don't kill me for this) but if I finally took my life in my own hands and lived my life the way I wanted to live my life...crazy right?! I apologize to you all because I'm doing something I haven't done in a very long time and that's me being vulnerable. It's me being honest with not just you all but myself. I know I always give you guys little advice and stuff and it probably is helpful but I feel so guilty of trying to help you all when I haven't even applied the law fully to get me everything my heart desires. Now don't get it twisted because this past week I've manifested things consciously I hadn't even realized until after I got it BUT it's not the things my heart had been longing for because everytime I'm ready to manifest them I start feeling terrible for even wanting the things I want.

I want you guys to know that right now in this moment, you can absolutely have anything you want. You are allowed to live the life you desire. You have all the permission in the universe to be the person you've always dreamt of being. It is ok to want a life that is best for you, that makes you feel happy, that makes you feel fulfilled, that makes you feel AT PEACE. Yes you can have it, it is yours, you have permission, it is done. Now go darling go far, far away and live the life you've always dreamt. Until next time, and when you all see me again I will be the living proof story that you can have everything u ever wanted, I promise it, that is my testimony.

#law of assumption #manifestation #manifesting #msallurea #neville goddard #my blog

[abysscronica]

Hi! I noticed that many people compare Luffy and Kid about personality and actions and many say that Kid is like an angry unlucky version of Luffy. Luffy had his struggles during his young life too but he was never mean towards others so I thought that Kid must have passed through some heavy stuff (with Killer and the others too since they act all in the same way basically) to became a bloodthirsty and cruel pirate, even without reason.

I wanted to ask you if you ever wondered about his past and if you have personal theories, not just the part related to Victoria's story, but also the one that maybe made him so suspicious and angry towards the world.

Thank you if you'll answer!

Okay, let's talk about this a little bit.

Considerations on Eustass Kid's character

Blaming Kid's cruelty on his traumatic past without taking into account One Piece logic or how Oda does things makes no sense. You can draw from the real world when analyzing these characters, but it doesn't work if you don't put everything in their own world's context. I've seen this done a lot here on tumblr, especially for Kid and Doflamingo, but let's focus on Kid for the sake of this ask.

Kid, together with Killer, Heat and Wire, had a horrible childhood that surely shaped them, but the truth is we have very little information about it. All we know comes from three SBS answers: Oda's drawing of them as kids, the one that first introduced Victoria as Kid and Killer's childhood crush, and the more recent one about their past. ALL the rest was inferred from it. Let's take this shot for example:

While Kid's appearance and ragged clothes are canon, the background is not. It's an interpretation by the anime staff. Did Kid live in a terrible place? Yes. We know that. Did it look like that? Possibly. No idea.

From the info we have, it looks like Kid had a worse past than Luffy. He lived in a place overrun by gangs, in poverty, where kids had no choice aside joining into the violence and try to survive. And Eustass Kid... fit well into such environment; he adapted to the point of becoming a baby-gang leader, just as Killer, Heat and Wire, and later on he even challenged the most powerful lords of the underworld and won. This doesn't diminish the hardships and suffering he went through, but it gives you an idea of his character.

Oda has played with the "nature vs. nurture" concept several times and, to be completely honest, while he absolutely doesn't discard the importance of trauma, he often leans toward the "nature" answer. The clearest example is found in Doflamingo and Rocinante. They faced the same hardships and still remained true to their original (opposite) nature. Yes, Kid has been through hell but he's hardly the only character. Nami, Sanji, Robin, Rocinante are just a few other examples - many of these arguably had it worse than Kid, and they aren't cruel nor rabid.

Even so, I don't mean to completely demolish the idea that Kid is a product of his past (although, on a personal note, I do believe that it diminishes his character). In fact, not everyone in One Piece could maintain their true nature in the face of hardship. For Oda, trauma is a trial to overcome, in a way, and there's not always a clear-cut direct answer as we see with the Strawhats, for example. One example over all is Law: he represents a case where trauma did break his nature for a while, until he had a chance to restore it (through Corazon).

I guess you could say that Kid was never offered such chance, buuuut do you honestly believe it? See, being offered a chance is not enough, you gotta be willing to take it and change. If I had to sum up Oda's baseline on this, I would say his process is based upon two main concepts: 1) your pain does not justify your actions; 2) everyone deserves a second chance as long as they're willing to change.

Think about Orochi and Mjosgard. I've talked about them in this post.

Hey, maybe Kid missed his chance. Maybe he didn't get one at the right time. Maybe he will. If you ask me, looking at the drawing of child Kid, I think it's pretty clear what route Oda was going for him. Look at that evil little gremling at tell me I'm wrong.

Another element I have for this is that, differently from other villains, Oda never took a moral stand against Kid. Despite his big talk, Kid is an ally in both the arcs he plays a decent role in (Sabaody and Wano). Sure, he's not good, but he's not that bad either. Kid was indeed meant to be a dark parallel of Luffy, a rival even. Too bad Oda just toyed with this interesting idea but never fully engaged with it. We know that the supernova were something he came up with overnight, they weren't planned until the last second, therefore there was no major role for them to play in the grand scheme of OP. Oda went with his whims for these characters (and I suspect the editors' *suggestions*, which are very much based on fan opinions), until he tried to jam as many of them as possible in Wano, with poor results. Kid, Drake, Apoo, Hawkins, heck, even Law... all their storylines in the arc are terrible. Incredibly, Killer is the one that got away with the best one, in my opinion. Especially in Kid's case, reading Wano felt like Oda was desperately trying to give him a role, and failed at it over and over. Eventually he just gave up and wrote his backstory down in the SBS, here, no point in trying further. I wonder whether he'll ever go back to this character and finally delve into him a little more, maybe give some closure to his arc. I certainly hope so, but who knows?

(I'm also not a fan of what Oda did with Kid after the timeskip, he was dumbed down a lot and part of his charm was forgotten, but oh well)

As for my personal theories on Kid's past, I do like to think that his family was caught up in the South Blue sweep for Ace's mother. It would click in so well with his character and the speech he gave at the slave auction in Sabaody.

That said, none of this takes away from my love for the character. Eustass Kid is and always will be my number one man.

#eustass kid #wano #sabaody

[tavina-writes]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

This is a difficult one! I've loved a LOT of characters over the years even if the current blorbo of interest is NHS from MDZS/CQL bc he's just such a fun little guy BUT lets see if I can try to do this chronologically and not in like, any character ranking fashion:

1 & 2: these two characters are absolutely the rulers of my heart: Huang Rong and her father, Huang Yaoshi from Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong. I just love my beloved spoiled conwoman princess and her insane evil wuxia version Maes Hughes dad so much. I could write so many essays about the Huangs and how they mean so much to each other and also to me. I'm always insane about family members who have complex relationships with each other and that's super evident with them.

3. Uchiha Madara from Naruto. Now, people who have known me for a long time know that I am a Naruto girlie, and that I skipped all the way to "Sasuke's Insane and Sad Pathetic Ancestor" on the character likes list. I love insane murder men and Madara is an insane murder man! He's also very sad. What's there not to like about him truly.

4. Mirasol from Chalice by Robin McKinley. I have a deep love for beauty and the beast narratives and this one ALSO had magic bees. I love Mirasol for her kindness and her devotion even in the wake of massive change and I have a special fondness for the entire story of Chalice both for the lovely worldbuilding and also Mirasol herself.

5&6. Sansa Stark and Cersei Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire. I really really love both of these characters for entirely opposing but also really similar reasons! I love them for their flaws. For being stuck in their positions in a world that's really just! not! kind to them! and how they take that and go in such different directions.

7. Sheng Rulan from The Story of Minglan. I have such a soft spot for Rulan. She's petty, she's spoiled, she has so much love and holds onto her principles and her dreams so tightly, she's her father's least favorite child despite also being a legitimate daughter, she finds love, she's so cute, she's the clearest sighted of all four of the Sheng sisters, she's got such a growth arc to her, I love her SO SO MUCH. (I love all three of her sisters too don't get me wrong, Rulan is just my favorite.)

8. Wei Yingluo from The Story of Yanxi Palace. Yingluo! My girl! Never have I ever seen a female lead with so much pent up rage and desire to get even in a story that does not judge her for her hard edges and her propensity for violence. I love that about her. I love how kindness and cruelty and how her quest for vengeance never destroys her ability to love and care for others and recognize other people's genuine kindness and the difficulties other people face in life. I love her shrewdness and her determination to survive too! I'm just! So fond of her!

9. Jaskier from The Witcher (TV). I RARELY TALK ABOUT. MY UNAGING BARD BLORBO. BUT I LOVE HIM. I love the messy relationship Jaskier, Geralt and Yennefer have in the Witcher TV show and I REALLY love the way that Jaskier is portrayed. I don't know anything about the games but! I just! I love! This annoying kind of foppish man because annoying foppish male characters are another beloved character archetype for me, see below.

10. Nie Huaisang from The Untamed/Modao Zushi. Beloved Blorbo. Little crimes man. Unfilial and spoiled. Beloved for being SO jiggly and full of trauma and his tragedy is writ large to me because it! powers! the plot! without his tragedy there is no plot! he burns down his social circle because he loves his brother! There's just so much in here that's like, oh god. I love that he's an annoying foppish dandy and that he loves his pets and creature comforts and that he doesn't enjoy working hard and has so many problems. This too is life. I love this little guy I want to rotate him for a good long time.

#asks and answers #favorite characters #not a comprehensive list obviously #I love a lot of characters #and a lot of canons where like the characters may not be Character of All Time or however #but the love I have for that canon itself is very real #Hope this was fun to read!

[kpodcast]

What makes a good concert setlist? I've been to three concerts this year, and watched the Eras tour movie, and I don't think there's a perfect formula. I saw Twice in Dallas this year, and I'm going to look at their setlist to see what patterns we can identify.

We're going to talk just about song choice, not the videos or chatting, and I'm going to exclude the encore songs since those changed every night, and the solo songs (except POP, see notes).

Here's the full set list:

SET ME FREE I CAN'T STOP ME GO HARD MORE & MORE MOONLIGHT SUNRISE BRAVE First Solo Set Feel Special Cry for Me FANCY The Feels Second Solo Set - including POP! Queen of Hearts YES or YES/What Is Love?/CHEER UP/LIKEY/KNOCK KNOCK/SCIENTIST/Heart Shaker Alcohol-Free Dance the Night Away Talk That Talk When We Were Kids CRAZY STUPID LOVE

As is becoming the norm, I decided to look at MV views and Spotify streams for every song at the concert.

I think any Kpop fan knows a few of these songs - Feel Special, The Feels, FANCY are the ones I would guess - and the average Twice fan probably knows most of them. But, there are some more deep cuts, ones that I didn't know, like BRAVE and GO HARD.

Some other things to note about the concert:

Feel Special, Cry for Me, FANCY, and The Feels were performed with a live band

YES or YES through Heart Shaker were performed as a medley, with only a verse or chorus from each song.

With all that in mind, what can we determine about setlists from Twice's concert?

Off the bat, I see that the graph shows some lulls - GO HARD and BRAVE at the start, Queen of Hearts before the medley, and both When We Were Young and CRAZY STUPID LOVE to finish off the show. I think lulls in the show are important, as someone who is pushing 30, I need time to rest. It also gave Twice time to rest! There were a few songs where the choreography was really designed around them sitting for a while, which is important when you're planning a 3 hour show.

Also, as previously mentioned, their most well known songs were all done with the live band. This took their most popular songs and gave them a new twist and made them exciting. I have never screamed Cry for Me like I did with the live band. It kept people engaged with songs that they've likely heard hundreds of times already. If you haven't seen it, check out Jihyo's incredible a cappella solo for Feel Special.

And then the medley. I loved the medley. I thought it was such a fun and smart way to incorporate some of their older songs. You can see on the graph those seven songs are among the most popular, and Twice has likely performed them hundreds of times in the years since their release. The medley was a way to, again, keep the audience engaged and give Twice a new way to interpret and perform these songs and play with the choreography as well.

I have so many thoughts about setlist choices! How venue and size makes a difference in song choices and interaction with the audience, how each song flows to the next, how recent releases and future teasers affect song choices, it's all so interesting.

How important do you think the order of the setlist is? Do agree that there should be lulls in the set? I've seen iKON and DKB as well and would love to share some thoughts on their setlists as well if anyone is interested!

As always - some notes:

Views and streams numbers were pulled in early November

I used the Cry for Me choreography video views in place of MV views, since there is no MV for Cry for Me

Just straight view/stream counts is not the clearest way to gauge popularity, since older songs will have more views due to age. I may release an updated version of this post with views/streams over time!

I left in POP! since it was released on the Twice channel, and as of writing this post I realize that I should have included Nightmare from Jihyo as well as it was released after the concert

#kpop #suji stats #admin suji #twice

[pynkhues]

I don’t know if I asked you this already and if so, I apologize, but how would you recast the sisterhood of the traveling pants?

I don't think you have, anon, or at least I haven't saved it in my recastings tag, haha. It's been so long since I watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and even longer since I read the books, so these might be a little off, but hopefully not, haha. It was a fun one to think about.

Let's start with the role I found easiest:

Funnily enough, Tibby's storyline was the one that stayed with me the most / that I had the clearest memory of, and having seen Myha'la in three things in pretty quick succession recently (Bodies Bodies Bodies, Dumb Money and Leave the World Behind), I just think she'd be great. She's definitely got that sort of edginess paired with vulnerability that makes Tibby such a compelling character, plus I just find her really watchable as an actress.

I've only seen Havana Rose Liu in Bottoms but found her really charming in it and thought she had chemistry with pretty much everyone, which feels like a big part of the role with Bridget. Plus, y'know, the hair is an important factor too, haha.

Full disclaimer: I haven't seen Priscilla yet (it doesn't come out here until late January), and there is a chance she could become too big for a role like this, but honestly, I think it could be good for her. So much of her filmography at the moment is playing daughters or young versions of characters in middle-of-the-road awards bait (On the Basis of Sex, Vice and The First Lady), or in tentpole genre cinema (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Bad Times at the El Royale), and a good coming of age movie that lets her step into her own in an ensemble cast I think could be a good move. Of course, it does seem like Priscilla has a bit of that too, but something with the rewatch value and cultural cache of Sisterhood feels like its own sort of move.

I haven't seen much of Haskiri's work, but a friend's kid was obsessed with the Saved by the Bell reboot while it was airing, so I caught a few episodes whenever I went over and just found her really delightful. Having the space to explore her range in a role like Carmen - one of the emotional anchors of the story and the Sisterhood in general, I think - could be a great opportunity, and with any luck, she might get the chance to follow in America Ferrera's shoes. After all, America certainly seems to have had the most successful (and interesting) career out of the original cast.

#thanks for this anon! #these are always fun #which i think i've tagged on a recasting ask before haha #now i'm trying to think of who i'd get to direct... #maybe kelly fremon craig? #the sisterhood of the traveling pants #recastings #welcome to my ama

[taupewolfy]

oh my god i don't think i've seen tale of princess kaguya (the ghibli version) in forever...at least since it first came out here......somehow the ending was the clearest memory i had of that but the first time hearing the song in the movie decimated me....how did i remember....

i think it shot up to all time fave movies?? damn ;-;

#anyway....very hard not to cry from the latter half onwards aoughohgg

[cable-knit-sweater]

Mayaaaaaa, first of all I have to say THANK YOU because today I wasn't feeling well and you were very comforting. And then I ate something and instantly felt better, lmao. Now I know why you're always telling me to eat on time! I don't know what I'd do without you 😘

Secondly - and most importantly - I saw Seb's extended interview with Podcrushed and I just want to say HOW CUTE IS HE?! I've missed him so much! I love the way he talks so passionately about subjects that he cares about. And he may not always be the most eloquent about it, but it just makes him even more endearing. The way he gesticulates with his hands, and you can see him thinking about what he wants to say??? LIKE 😭😭😭

It's clear that when he talks it's not just soundbites or superficial answers. He really tries to get across what he wants to say even if it's not in the clearest way, but he tries!

ALSO THAT FACE?! All tanned and clean shaven?! HIS HAIR?! Please bury me in satin and lay me on the river because I HAVE DIED.

Okay, thank you hope you're having a nice Saturday.

Tejodoreeeee 💕💕💕

I’m so glad you’re feeling better! Who would’ve thought that eating more than just breakfast would have such miraculous results? lmao, next time I go on a trip I’ll set an alarm for tej meal times 😂💛

And OMG I KNOW 😭😭 he looked so good in this interview, and I’m so glad we got the extended version to hear him talk a little more about things he’s clearly passionate about 🥺🥰

(These are not from the extended interview but so adorable I couldn’t help it - credit to @unearthlydust )

He may not always be as eloquent in the same way Chris for example is, but you can always see him thinking, considering, and he always has the most interesting points of view. That reminds me of an interview where he said he doesn’t think he’s interesting, which 🤯, because I find him the most interesting actually 💖💖

And I think he made some great points in this interview, really. You can tell he’s thought about this a lot and is worried, for good reason, about what social media does, especially to the younger generation. Also, I’m still cackling about him saying he has beef with TikTok because he was making those oneminutemen videos with Will years ago 😂😂 (pls bring those back they were hilarious). The only thing about this that makes me sad is the thing about him not being on social media, which we’d seen before. I’m all for him protecting his peace, and I’m so glad he’s taking a break from all of that because it seems to be good for him, BUT I MISS HIM SO MUCH. Both his pretty face and his ridiculous captions 🥺

So I loved that we got this extended video, because his face never fails to cheer me up, honestly. Sometimes I just want to scream, just because he exists, and is so wonderful and thoughtful and kind and PRETTY. Like, the PRETTIEST. Especially here, with the tan and the clean shaven face and the longer hair. I’m soooo with you honey, I’m dead too 😭😭😭 I just love him an insane amount, okay? 🥺

I also love youuuuuu an insane amount!!! Hope you’re having a wonderful Saturday evening, sending you all the snuggles 💕💕💕💕💕

#maya answers #oh wow this got long #I’m just very passionate about him okay? 🥺 #a BABY 💕 #sebastian stan #Tej 💛💛💛

[crazykuri]

Woah I've watched that kissing video in the car so many times but that'd the clearest version I've ever seen!!! 😭 I think if we had that video in HD the tomdayas would never recover so its probably a good thing

but have i truly recovered? 🥲

[roboromantic]

I think it's interesting that when listing pronouns in one's bio, people generally write either sub./obj. (e.g. he/him) OR sub. of pronoun set 1/sub. of pronoun set 2 (e.g. she/they)

it feels weird to only show like. less than half of a pronoun's declensions. If you're familiar with English, then all you'd need is he, she, or they. If not, then adding him, her, or them doesn't help you figure out the rest of the declensions like At All.

because okay the other thing is why use the same format? For all you know, she/her could be listing the subjects for two different pronoun sets or he/they could be the sub. and obj. for the same set!

I think some of the more popular neopronoun sets also get listed as sub./obj. but again, if you just saw ne/nem would you be able to intuit the rest of the declensions? bc guess what: a few years back I decided to stop using nir and nirs from the original set (or at least how it was used at the place I got it from) and replace them with neir and neirs.

There's also a few different sets that'll use the same sub. and obj., but have different possessives or even reflexive - I've seen versions of ne/nem that use n(e)irself instead of nemself. I think if you're gonna write more than one declension, you might should just write out the whole set regardless of which it is.

then again if you don't know that the general accepted order (afaik) is subject/object/dependent possessive/independent possessive/reflexive (I think going to first person will be the clearest example: I/me/my/mine/myself) then I don't know that it'd help all that much either

#this isn't negative or like. trying to make people change how they list pronouns in their bios #it's clearly a useful shorthand I'm just baffled as to how we got here #this is also part of the reason I can't stand jokes like 'my pronouns are your/majesty' #either 'your' is the sub of 1 set and 'majesty' the sub of another or they're sub/obj of the same set #and like am I just supposed to use 'majesty' for both the possessives. and 'majestyself' #I know they're jokes they're not meant to be taken that literally. but it still drives me up the wall #language stuff

[greatwyrmgold]

Can superhero film series work?

This is not clickbait. At least, mostly not.

Overly Sarcastic Productions recently-ish released two videos about Superman. (The first is from July and is ~99 minutes long; the second is from Friday and is ~61 minutes long.) The second video is more relevant to this post; its thesis is, essentially, that superheroes need to rescue people instead of just fighting villains, a thesis I agree to with some caveats (not all of which were explicitly stated in the video, sadly).

A comment on that video got me to thinking about pacing and structure, and made me wonder whether superhero film series can work.

Now for the bit where I question whether my one-clause title was, in fact, clickbait.

Caveat #1: What's a superhero?

Not all "superheroes" need to fit in the model Red describes. Heroes in superhero media ranging from Dreadnought to Megamind to Hancock to One Punch Man to Worm are rarely seen rescuing people, and that works with how those sorts of stories conceptualize superheroes. But most superheroes aren't trying to be Worm, which is a good thing.

So for the purpose of this post, when I say "superhero" I mean "classic superheroes," who I categorize by that famed biologist's method. You'll see classic superheroes in the general memespace occupied by most big Marvel/DC heroes, The Incredibles, My Hero Academia('s main cast), Invincible*, Ben 10, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Spinnerette, that one terrible Disney movie most notable for a video essay about it, etc.

*Say what you will about Omni-Man, his son's trying to be Superman.

Caveat #2: What's a film series?

I'm focusing here on three related types of media—standalone movies, film series, and TV-style serials—because I think this problem only exists with one of them. (Which is, sadly, the dominant way superhero stories are being distributed these days.) For the purpose of this post:

Movies are single-installment narratives, generally 90-120 minutes in length, created without intending to follow them up with anything. The Incredibles are probably the clearest example, though plenty of pre-MCU superhero film trilogies started out this way. If I say "movie," I'm referring to standalone movies.

A film series is a bunch of movies meant to tie together, each with their own internal narrative, but also building into a larger narrative. Individual film series are released sporadically, months or years apart. By far the most obvious and successful example would be the MCU. For brevity, I'll use "film" to refer to this kind of film series.

A TV-style serial releases batches of much shorter episodes (usually 20-30 minutes each, sometimes 50-60 or some other length), sometimes all at once but more often weekly for a few months at a time. These batches are called "seasons," and usually last 10-15 or 20-30 episodes. Each episode has its own more or less self-contained plot, seasons usually have some kind of character and/or plot arc tying them together, and a series as a whole probably has something linking different seasons together beyond character names. This format was designed for TV, but these days lots of serials are produced for streaming platforms, and might not get any broadcast release. For brevity, I'm calling these "serials," even though that technically applies to film series and a bunch of other serial media.

TL;DR: The Incredibles is a movie, the MCU is films, Invincible is a serial.

I realize there's a lot of gray areas. The MCU includes a lot of serials in addition to the films, the DC universe has a bunch of loosely-linked animated movies, and I've mentioned more superhero stories with installments/versions in non-audiovisual mediums than ones which have only seen movies, films, and serials (as defined above).

But I'm not talking about all superhero stories, every way they can be structured, in every format. I'm talking about film series, and I'm using movies and serials as points of contrast.

Caveat #3: Let's not question OSP

To summarize OSP's thesis: Superheroes (as defined in caveat 1) need scenes where they save people from mundane peril to feel heroic. Superheroes are supposed to exist to save people, not just to fight villains.

If you disagree with these premises, if you think it's dumb for superpowered people to waste their time saving people from fires or industrial accidents or whatever, I'm not gonna argue. That's an argument about the philosophical nature of superheroism, which boils down to an argument over how "superhero" should be defined. I don't want to get involved in that kind of debate.

Instead: Starting with these caveats, let me get onto...

The Point

Story Structure

I'll be brief.

Stories have structure, and often recognizable structures. There are two big forces which drive stories to have the structures we recognize, or at least two I'll be discussing: The need for stories to tell a complete story, and time constraints.

Stories need to tell a complete story. The reason a lot of MCU knockoffs flopped as hard as they did is the amount of time they wasted on setups for future movies. MCU movies were reasonably restrained; each movie (or at least the movies I saw) did a pretty good job of telling a self-contained story, even as it built up to future movies. MCU knockoffs wanted to play catch-up, wanted to release their Avengers with as few introductory movies as possible.

But stories only have so much time to tell a story, and that time is very restricted in the mediums being analyzed here. Distributors don't really like movies and films more than 120-150 minutes long, because they either can't play as many times, require the theater to stay open longer, or both. And of course, serials have their episode lengths limited by broadcast schedules. In theory, streaming should give more runtime flexibility, but not many people have taken advantage of those possibilities so far.

In movies, the need to tell a complete story and the fairly strict runtime limitations have lead to a fairly strict structure known as the three-act formula; it's so ubiquitous that most films which try to avoid it end up reconstructing a form of the three-act structure, just to tell their whole story in one go.

Of course, films and serials operate on two different structural levels. Each film or episode needs to feel like a satisfying self-contained story, or at least a satisfying story fragment which went somewhere. An installment where it feels like nothing happened is often derisively called "padding" or "filler," because it is perceived to have added little to the series except runtime. You do not want your series to have filler if you can avoid it.

TL;DR: Every story, and every portion of a story released individually, needs to be structured in such a way that it tells its own story.

Where do we put the flood?

Consider the above point, and Caveat #3. Stories need to have structure, superheroes need to save people, and superhero stories only have so much time.

There's a well-established formula for movies. You put the disasters, petty crimes, and so forth late in act 1 or early in act 2, or maybe early in act 1 if your protagonist is an established superhero. This lets your hero earn their "superhero cred," and in the likely event that your protagonist isn't an established superhero, gives them a chance to establish themselves.

Movies don't need much. If you have around 100 minutes of movie, one 12-minute sequence where your hero discovers a burning building, finds people inside, and saves them is roughly an eighth of the movie. That's significant!

But that sequence won't cut it for a longer narrative. For a 12-episode serial with 22-minute episodes, the above sequence is less than 5% of the serial's runtime. Luckily, however, the serial structure makes it easy to work in multiple places where the superhero saves people, largely unrelated to the overarching seasonal plot.

You can have entire episodes focused on individual character conflicts, like the Hero and the Lancer having a pissing contest, or the Big Guy having a crisis of faith, or romantic bullshit, or whatever. At least some of these character-driven episodes should advance the overarching plot, but you can also have a couple which focus on more day-to-day heroism without losing too much—you just need the character conflict to go somewhere, and that can be the complete story you so desperately need.

Film series can't really do either.

The Problem with Superhero Film Series

Films are isolated in a way serial episodes aren't. It's easy to convince an audience to watch the first half of a two-part story if the second part is coming next week! It's hard to convince them to do the same if the parts are separated by a year. It worked for Infinity War/Endgame, but A. the end of Avengers: Infinity War was pretty definitive for a "part 1" and B. it's the culmination of a decade of genre-defining films.

And the year-long turnaround time is fairly short for film series. The MCU has been producing about three films per year, but I doubt anyone would argue that Avengers: Age of Ultron is the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy just because they're next to each other in Wikipedia's list of MCU films. The sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy is Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, which released ~2.5 years later. 2-3 years seems like the typical game between releases within MCU sub-series, and the DCEU seems to have a similar rhythm.

Anyways, whether one year or three, each film has immense pressure to tell the best self-contained story it can. (Assuming the studio heads are applying sensible pressures and not trying to do an Any% Cinematic Universe Speedrun.) That means it's easy to replace "filler" scenes where your hero stops a bank robbery or rescues people from a...volcano or something (I'm running out of natural disasters) with something relevant to the plot of this story.

From the perspective of the individual film, this is a good thing! Spending a full sequence on, essentially, just reminding the audience that Superman is a superhero is a waste of your limited time. At the very least, you should tie that rescue into the plot somehow; maybe the bank robbers have information on the Big Bad, or the volcano is part of their evil scheme. It would probably be less contrived if you just throw out the rescue angle entirely, though.

From the perspective of the film series, this is a disaster! The net effect is that superheroes in these film series only rescue people from non-supervillain-related situations when they still need to earn "superhero cred," generally when they're fresh and inexperienced. This is exactly what Red meant when she said heroes "graduate" from saving people to fighting villains. Saving people stops being the point of superheroism, and instead becomes its final exam.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I don't see a solution within the "film series" model. As long as film series are big individual segments, with each segment being released months or years after the last, those segments need to stand on their own. As long as films are being optimized for their standalone quality, there'll be incentives to cut the ordinary rescues from most films. As long as such incentives are there, superheroes will focus on the spectacular supervillain brawls at the expense of heroism.

In Summary

Stories are shaped by their structure, structures are shaped by medium and release format. Superhero stories these days are often lacking in "mundane" heroics like stopping muggers, rescuing trapped miners, and destroying meteors before they hit the Earth. In film series like the All-Consuming MCU, the release format discourages writers from including those scenes.

I'm obviously not saying superheroes can't work, or even that superhero movies can't work. Heck, even "superhero" film series can work, if they're not trying to be classical superheroes. But the MCU (and most other big-budget superhero films) are trying to be classical superheroes, and because they're film series, they're discouraged from letting their superheroes be heroes.

Now, this problem isn't unique to superhero films. The Teen Titans (2003) were more likely to frame their character-development episodes around petty one-shot supervillains (or fighting, say, Plasmus again) than rescuing people from a natural disaster. But on a fundamental level, nothing about Teen Titans (2003) would need to change if they fought fire instead of Fang.

I'm not sure there's any such solution for film series, without structuring them more like standalone movies or TV serials.

Postscript

Thank you, [NAME REDACTED], for inspiring me to write this.

#meta #superheroes #film series #overly sarcastic productions

[the-firebird69]

This is probably the clearest version you'll get they can only see it on this picture with gear and you need to look at different layers and blot out the brightness and you can see it it's just as big as the sun. It looks like two suns. And later some idiot puts a death star up and says it's just like you're a Jupiter and they're crazy about it and they can't figure it out what we're talking about. But it is the eclipse of Jupiter by the Sun kind of hard to see and it's Jupiter looks kind of transparent it's really bizarre looking it looks like a humongous eyeball or a gelatin ball it's a crystal ball with the air pockets it's just incredible looking it was mesmerizing for me and my wife and we looked at it for a long time and put it up on the board and said it's amazing it's the most amazing celestial event I've ever seen in a son says I'm waiting for this to happen and you told me that you're looking at it later inherited she said we are waiting for the sun to dwarf me and you guys been and they laughed and said this is what it's like it's an amazing thing an amazing person an amazing woman that he has with him and these things are a lot of fun but boy you people have to look at it there's another picture it's a little better but this one you can see it

Thor Freya

We want the other one up okay it's hard enough to see

Mac

[bilbao-song]

#electric light orchestra #elo #jeff lynne #richard tandy #bev bevan #mik kaminski #hugh mcdowell #kelly groucutt #melvyn gale #uploads* #i'm just posting this bc this is like the clearest version of this photo w/ all of them that i've seen #like there's one version that's just super deep fried but i finally found this one again lmao so #queue

[skepticalarrie]

https://twitter.com/onlythebrave_28/status/1435000433324347395?s=19

Welp 🚶‍♀️🚶‍♀️🚶‍♀️

Oh my god, Bria. I was just looking for other videos of Golden, because I really wanted to try to figure out what he said.

Credits: onlythebrave_28 on twitter

I'm hoping ______ hoping that someday I could be open. I know that you're scared because I'm still hoping.

There's also this other version here, is the best video I've seen so far. I don't know, I'm really not sure about the "I'm so done" part, it doesn't sound like "I'm sorry" either.

Quick recap:

This is the third time Harry adds something/changes this part of the lyrics. He did it for the first time at the Electric Ballroom back in 2019.

And it's golden and it's golden (or he's golden) and I'm hoping that someday you could be open. I know that you're scared I'm still hoping.

(there's also this version, which sounds like he's saying something completely different, maybe "I'm broken" at some point)

And then again in the Iheart Radio Jingle Ball 2020, which is the clearest version of that line

Golden, golden, golden, I'm hoping someday I'm open. I know that you're scared because I'm still hoping.

Is he saying the same thing in all of those, and it just sounds different because of the background noise? Or is he actually saying something different every time? What the fuck are you saying Harry, make sure to really pronounce the words next time, please, thank you.

Edit: I missed one, here. But he's apparently saying the same as the Electric Ballroom one.

#ask #golden #golden lyric change #lyric changes

[thequiver]

how much of Batman being a shit character do you blame on the writing? Because I feel like a lot of the writers have a major cognitive dissonance when it comes to who they present Batman to be and then how they write him. I personally love Batman but I know he’s a horrible dad. In so many ways, Bruce Wayne makes me makes me annoyed beyond comprehension and I really rather accept a fanon/personal HC version of him because I don’t get how Bruce who loved kids and doesn’t want anyone to suffer the same, parentless, lonely childhood he had turns around to hit their kids or treat them the way he does Dami or Jason

So I think there's been some confusion here.

Because I think that Bruce is a great character, he has depth, he's fascinating and complex. I just also really fucking hate him and think that Bruce Wayne is a terrible person and an Andrew Carnegie wannabe (please note that as as an Appalachian, Bruce being at all like Carnegie means that I want to watch him suffer horrible excruciating pain).

And the thing is, is that Bruce being abusive is in character for how he's been written since the silver age at least. That's just how he is. His upbringing with Alfred leads directly to the kind of abuse he levels against Dick, and then the increase in his abusive behavior after Jason's death is very in character for the way that we've seen Bruce react to his trauma.

The greatest thing that I need people to remember is that you can love someone and still be abusive to them. Just because Bruce loves his kids doesn't mean that he's not abusive, because I do genuinely believe that he loves them- but that's not enough. His love for them is not enough for him to get help for his considerable trauma, it's not enough for him to give up his controlling behavior, and it's not enough for him to truly view them as children, especially not when ever since he adopted Dick his children have always been expected to be the mature ones in the parent-child relationship. Bruce's character is to me the clearest sign of what can happen when the darker side of trauma responses are left unchecked- and it's a kind of narrative that's actually compelling to me, because I was going down a similar path with my ptsd before I got help and started prioritizing my own health and the wellbeing of those I interacted with over my own hurt. I just wish that they'd acknowledge that that's what's happening in the narrative rather than painting him as being right in all things.

Bruce has consistently and been written with classist and sexist undertones, and has consistently been written as abusive for decades. Everything written about a character comes from the writers, it comes with the act of writing, that's how a character ends up on page at all. But that doesn't mean that it's not still the characterization of that character. Bruce has always reminded me of those cops who make a big deal out of taking down abusers while doing the same behavior behind closed doors- and I've known a lot of those.

Bruce is a great character- he's just not a hero, and isn't a good person. And that's okay, sometimes watching a hero become less heroic due to the culmination of their refusal to prioritize their own mental health and their dedication to their cause is compelling. And in Bruce's case it is. What I hate is him being viewed as a good person because in canon... he's not.

And I think that the fact that so many people say what you do- that you prefer a fanon and headcanon made up version of Bruce rather than the canon indicates that you all know what I've said above. And to this I say, Oliver Queen exists. Like seriously...... after a certain point you have to admit that Bruce's character is just like that, and that he's been like that consistently for almost his entire existence, and that just because the changes to the character aren't things you necessarily like doesn't mean that they're out of character or things that don't make sense with prior canon.

TLDR: yeah it's because of writers, but like that doesn't mean it's not in character. Characters don't exist outside of their writing, which is why fanon isn't true. So Bruce being a horrible person is literally just his characterization.