#the way this episode (and them in general) altered my brain.. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comicaurora · 1 year

Note

Do you have any general advice for how to plot out a story? I have a beginning, and something like an end, but I'm not really sure what to do from there.

Hoo boy. That really depends on what you like writing the most.

I like character-driven writing, so I basically turn the posse loose and take notes on what they do, steering them towards my desired endpoint through alterations to their situation and the world rather than forcing them to take specific actions. But that's because I enjoy writing characters more than I enjoy plotting, themeing or even worldbuilding. I like having a playground to facilitate fun episodic adventures (fun for me, anyway) that lets me explore the world from new angles and through the lens of character dynamics. But this is definitely not the only way to write, and honestly might only work for you if your brain works a specific, very chatty way.

For instance, you could instead center your story around the exploration of one or more central themes - unshakeable tenets of the world explored through a variety of scenarios, characters and choices. Spoiler alert, we have an upcoming Detail Diatribe about Arcane that takes this analytical approach, and it really feels like I managed to clock the proverbial center of the corkboard they strung the show around. Sometimes stories are just about how One Specific Thing manifests in a thousand different ways.

Or you could have an overarching plot structure, like the Hero's Journey or any narrative with a prophecy, setting firm waypoints for your story to pass by on its way. Sure, it's Point A -> Point B, but on the way the hero is going to grow from a naïve farmboy to an overconfident hero to a brooding loner to a self-actualized enlightened warrior monk. It's gonna take a while, but you know what it'll look like because you locked in what's coming.

Or you could pick one character and get really deep into their head as the story and the pursuit of the end changes them for the worse. Some of the best and most impactful stories have an extremely simple beginning-to-end structure on paper, and the drama instead comes from the tragedy of how the culmination of their story unmakes them. Frodo has to destroy the ring -> Frodo destroys the ring. Orpheus wants to save the world and be with Eurydice -> Orpheus saves the world but fails to save the girl. Hamlet has to kill his uncle -> Hamlet kills his uncle. These stories have convolutions and complications, but those just serve to feed into the core emotional arc, which is the unstoppable erosion of the hero.

The thing is, I don't think there's a right or wrong angle here. I think the right answer is whatever you enjoy writing the most. For me right now that's episodic character drama, but there's so many other ways to write, and from what I've seen, the best writing is the kind that has love and the joy of creation laced through it. If you're having a good time making it, you're doing something right.

#asks #writing stuff

177 notes · View notes

chrysalizzm · 1 year

Text

survival of the fittest: predictions for generation two

i said in rancord sub-boosty chat that i would probably write a comprehensive meta regarding my theories for generation two and then it got nuked bc i wrote way too much in one message w spoiler blinders so here it is!

spoilers for generation loss episodes one, two, and three.

given that i started watching genloss assuming it was an allegory for genetic algorithms in ai due to the language of “generations” (knowing now that generation loss, as a concept, refers to “degradation of quality resulting from imperfect reproduction techniques”) i think that there's an element both of refinement and of deterioration here. a couple of elements are at play:

for those unfamiliar, a genetic algorithm is a method by which self-learning ai acquire and refine their pool of knowledge. very generally speaking, ai are trained in “generations,” with each generation learning from its predecessor and improving upon itself to reach its ultimate goal. to this end, genetic algorithms use process of elimination to narrow down the best ai—in other words, natural selection: survival of the fittest. the strongest wins.

in the context of genloss, this seems to align with showfall media’s goal: creating the Perfect Hero for their Perfect Show. it also, perhaps, hints at what’s to come in generations two and three. i get the feeling that we will be seeing new ranboos, each one better equipped for the tasks demanded by the show than their previous iterations, and yet also retaining the knowledge that allowed the generations before them to survive. what are favorable traits within the ecosystem of showfall media? complacency? levelheadedness? the ability to perform unflinching normalcy under hellish conditions? at any rate, showfall media wants the generations of our hero, ranboo, to eventually acquire the skills to be the ideal protagonist and engaging pov character, whatever that may entail. it’d behoove us to keep an eye out for changes in generation two that seem influenced by the erratic and even unstable nature of generation one.

(on a slight tangent: this is also how our brains learn things, and is relevant to trauma formation and retention. we often develop trauma responses to specific things—triggers—because those are what helped us survive traumatic experiences. there is positive reinforcement here: because we survived, we will do it again, and again, and again. parallel to natural selection, our brains prune responses; this is why trauma survivors have altered responses to things that may seem completely normal for people who don’t share those triggers or responses with them. altered response in brain structures, particularly the amygdala (the so-called “fear center”) are part of the observed neurobiological differences btwn those with and without ptsd—but i digress.)

on to generation loss. this has probably already been theorized before so i won’t beat a dead horse, but in the context of knowledge retention and crystallization as mentioned above, i think we’ll also see the next generations deteriorate significantly. this may manifest as more frequent breaks between the narrative of the show and what’s actually happening (e.g. this clip [blood and emotional distress tw] of the showfall media illusion breaking and us being shown ranboo elbow deep in charlie’s blood) and likely more emotional turmoil and derealization on the part of generation two and three. i wonder if generation two will inherit generation one’s cracked mask as a symbolic gesture and as an implicit warning, but that’s just broad speculation (and i imagine that mask is pretty much crushed to bits by now).

also re:the idea of imperfect reproduction causing the phenomenon of generation loss. we have to remember that ranboo is not the only character to be rescripted. charlie has had multiple generations. sneeg has had multiple generations. it’s sort of implied jerma has had multiple generations just by proxy of how long he’d been part of the genloss project. circling back to charlie and sneeg, though: their generations were imperfect. they made mistakes that broke the flow and immersion of the show, and it cost them. the generation that made the mistake was killed, and a new generation—streamlined, scripted, perfectly seamless—was put in their place. i found sneeg particularly rebellious, and also wonder about the importance of that hat and how it seemingly granted him self-awareness. at a guess it was because the hat was a holdover from the previous episode so the continuity error was what fucked sneeg up, in which case the hat didn’t actually have to be put on sneeg for the same effect to happen, but sneeg did hold it together remarkably well—long enough to attempt an escape. i wonder if that, too, was scripted. i wonder if everything we saw, everything we were handed with both hands by showfall and by hetch, was scripted.

ultimately i was super intrigued by genloss and am hyperfixating on it, if you couldn’t already tell. it was an incredible production with an incredible cast, story, costuming—everything. i’m in love with it. thank you to ranboo and to everyone on the cast and crew for genloss and i’m very excited for what’s next.

other stuff that stuck out to me that didn’t quite fit into this prediction:

hetch isn’t the founder, he’s just someone who appears to have control over the production that ranboo specifically was starring in (which is still a lot of executive power). saying that makes me wonder if there are other shows showfall media is in charge of, and genloss is just one of them. i found it interesting that hetch told ranboo to keep his mask at the outset of ep3, and this was the main reason why i personally did not trust him.

according to the genloss bts twitter, there was a “live” ending. that said, i think hetch opening the floor for ranboo to speak directly to the audience was what ultimately swung the vote so far to “die.” i’ve seen people talking about this already: we swarmed the vote en masse for “live” until hetch told ranboo they would just be reprogrammed into the show again, and ranboo begged. they begged us to let them die. look at us. we were never going to be able to say no to them. (i also think ranboo’s death makes for a compelling story in the future regarding my theory of generations, but i don’t know what the “live” ending would have looked like, so this is fully biased.)

thinking about how the show was shaped to culminate to ep3 from the beginning. we’ve seen and heard hetch through it all, and he was the one to break the illusion for ranboo. every last bit was scripted. uhh something something i think ranboo’s rebellion against chat in ep3 was also intended, even if the specific code that he chose wasn’t scripted. it really defeats a person to realize nothing is in their control, you know? the freedom was an illusion after all.

sources

what is generation loss (concept)? how genetic algorithms work human-guided machine learning optimization of knowledge acquisition

#generation loss #genloss #generation loss meta #genloss meta #generation loss spoilers #long post #ranboo #chrys analyzes #this is more concise and focused than the papers i write for school lmao

60 notes · View notes

ahrasliaayahanambar · 7 months

Text

🚨🚨🚨 Miraculous World: Paris, Tales of Shadybug and Claw Noir SPOİLER ALERT 🚨🚨🚨

So as always after something THAT POWERFUL I'm still in processing mode and I'm also glad that I'm still alive because there were really many moments when I thought my heart would stop but what I can say for sure is that in my opinion THIS IS THE BEST SPECIAL EVER. If I could , I'd probably take a screenshots of the entire episode xd I'm madly in love with good Gabe's opening (his singing and whole style although the first time I was like ???? what's going on here ???) and his character in general. And Ubiquity? Hello this style fits Alya so much. And when we talk about Alya - HER FRİENDSHİP WİTH MARİ 😭😍 İ wanna have what they have. And the part where Mari recalled the beginning of school and about Alya being a good person - CRİED. But it was emo Marinette/ Shadybug who completely stole my heart in this special (btw my heart is truly in pieces after scene where Shadybug read Marinette's diary, when she started crying, when she saw her face in pieces of glass and, above all, Shadybug's conversation with Marinette and of course Claw Noir's conversation with Adrien especially ,,İ know'' and Adrien's expression there 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭).

I also really liked the scene where Hesperia turned Cat Noir into Celesticat, Ladyfly and Ladybiquity (Hatsune Miku is that you?) design and Monarch & Ladybiquity interdimensional fights (the way they presented them was both epic and hilarious XD and Stephen Starange likes this). Oh and Ladyfly and Cat Noir's acting XD. Aand whole team's ,,pound it'' ❤️

And another thing - The Supreme. I really want to know who he is. After some thought, my brain made me think it was Lila/Cerise and another alter ego of hers considering what Gabe said about Supreme - it sounded like Lila to me. But on the other hand, I have a great feeling that it has something to do with the season finale and Gabriel's "read my heart". I don't think an ordinary villain would have the power to prevent Tikki and Plag from merging into Gimmi. Maybe this also has to do with the fact that Gabriel had a feeling that one day the truth might come to light (what happened in the season finale), which is why he wanted to prevent others from summoning Gimmi. Perhaps 'read my heart' referred not to one wish but literally to 'read', i.e. everything that was 'written' there. I hope it has some to do with finale and that we will find out in next season.

Anyway, it's going to be a sleepless night for me because of all these emotions, but I'm very satisfied with this special episode 😁

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug spoiler #ml spoilers #miraculous ladybug special #miraculous paris #ml paris special #ml paris spoilers #miraculous world #tales of shadybug and claw noir #tales of shadybug and claw noir spoilers

33 notes · View notes

jadethest0ne · 2 years

Text

Folks are over-using the term “AU”

I’ve added the “Canon Compliant” tag to all of my comics on ao3, because I’ve noticed a strange amount of people calling “The Brains and The Brawn” an “AU” or “Alternate Universe”, when... it’s not...?

An “Alternate Universe” story takes place in a universe completely different from the canon - think Fantasy AUs, High School AUs, or fics using the same characters as canon but a plot from a different story (which could lead into “crossovers”, but I digress).

Yet I see folks misuse this term for LOTS of fics or comics, and as someone who prides themselves in trying to get their comics as close to canon as possible, it admittedly makes me feel like I’m failing a bit at that if people are calling my comics “alternate universes” since I usually intend them to slot somewhere into the canon storyline.

I would call the main comics I’ve created so far to be “Canon Compliant” which are stories with the same characters, setting, and plot, and no big changes to the canon (examples are missing scene fics, fics based on canon character backstories (think “turtle tots”), or other general fics meant to be seen as an “episode” of the show).

There’s also “Canon Divergent” or “Universe Alteration” which are stories with the same characters, same setting, and same plot up until the plot diverges from a specific point in the canon and things after that point are altered (plot may or may not swing back around to fit back into the canon) (examples: LFLS, what if x character lived/died after a certain point, what if a certain battle was lost/won? etc.) I point out “Like Father, Like Son” here because while it is not my story, @eternalglitch has stated on numerous occasions that it is a “Universe Alteration”. It’s the same universe, not an alternate one. Some events just changed the plot in a major way. The events altered the universe, not the other way around.

So anyway, that’s my little TED talk for the day; just letting folks get to know their tags and fan stories better. I’m also trying to be clearer with my tags and how I present my stories so folks get a better understanding for them.

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day!

#alternate universe #canon compliant #canon divergent #universe alteration #media discourse #fandom discourse #canon discourse #fanfiction #fan comics #psa #like father like son #rottmnt lfls #the brains and the brawn #rottmnt bnb #jadethest0ne

192 notes · View notes

schizosupport · 2 years

Note

one time during a psychotic episode I was convinced I had did / was part of a system. I experienced what I perceived as switches and such. when I started getting better I realized that wasn't what was happening. it was very real to me while it was happening though and im just wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar. I feel bad because I dont wanna be one of those people who fakes did, but thats really not what I was doing, and I dont know how to put it in a context that doesn't make me feel bad about it. sometimes I miss who I thought of as alters at the time but I suppose were really just. delusional headspaces.

Hey there!!

Ok so I think it's important to add the context to my answer, that I have a different approach to/understanding of these questions than both many people in the respective communities, as well as many professionals. Nevertheless, since I'm not writing a research paper, but rather, providing a personal take on the question, I hope that you will bear with me!

So in my somewhat radical opinion, it doesn't much matter whether you experienced what you did because of DID or because of a delusion caused by psychisis.

Alters, as well as delusions, are products of the mind. It doesn't mean that delusions don't FEEL real, it doesn't mean that alters don't truly experience themselves as separate entities, but it IS worth keeping in mind that one of these experiences is not inherently more "valid" than the other.

Delusions are often of a negative, harmful nature, while alters are often a helpful coping tool, but that is FAR from being a universal rule.

I used to think I had something like OSDD, then a psych convinced me the 'others' were delusions of control (and as a result for a while I suppose they were), but today we just kind of co-exist somewhere on the border between psychosis, identity compartmentalization, ipseity disturbance, dissociation, method acting as coping and general identity confusion..

After years of wading through the professional and community discourse, on my own personal journey with the topic, this is what I think:

It seems to me that the discourse surrounding the acceptable causes of identity dissociation and amnesia in DID/OSDD, has ended up with a situation where DID identity compartmentalization is seen as the only "real" aka "valid" experience of identity fragmentation.

It would appear that this debate, which to me seems largely to be a matter of categorization and definition, has been warped to the point where people like you end up feeling bad for having been "faking DID" while in fact you have done no such thing, and furthermore having your legitimate grief at the loss of people/alters YOU experienced as real, be invalidated and belittled (by yourself, if not others).

Anon, I'm sorry for your loss. Jesus fuck, I'm sorry. Who cares what the others "really were" or "why they're gone"... You experienced them as people in your life, people you had relationships with, people you could rely on - ofc it hurts to lose them.

Of course you are grieving.

"Just delusional headspaces" is such a telling turn of phrase, and it breaks my heart. It really does.

So often we psychotic people are expected to be "over it" the moment we are not actively delusional. As if we don't get traumatized when we think we are going to be killed. As if we don't grief the relationship we built completely in our head, when it turns out not to be 'real'?

Identity.. personality.. headspaces.. they are no more real or no more fake dependent on their underlying cause..

I understand why the dissociative community are protective of their alters, I understand the need to say "this is not psychosis! These experiences are real!" ... I truly do, and I don't think it's a meaningless distinction, either.

But it's setting up a false dichotomy. Because the truth is that ultimately both delusions and alters are a thing the brain does. It's not THE SAME THING, but they are similar in the way that they are experienced internally as very real.

And I think that accepting the existence of alters as "real and valid" is important, but I don't think it should (or needs to) come at the expense of people who experience delusions, (or identity compartmentalization for any other reason).

In my experience, identity compartmentalization, that isn't coming out as scary delusions of control, is usually among the healthier coping mechanisms, delusional or not.

And creating a culture where having DID/OSDD is the only acceptable "valid" version æ variety of this type of experience is really not helpful for anyone. For one thing, it means that people with these types of experiences will be extremely prone to assume that they must have DID, potentially to the point of delusion, potentially to the point of making themselves more ill (developing amnesia, inducing memories etc) - and when it turns out they DON'T have DID, they will be terrified that they were "faking", when in fact they were just acting according to their current best understanding of themselves..

Not to mention, they will feel the obligation to bury any hint of identity compartmentalization within themselves, to conform to a social world that insists these experiences are "problematic" by virtue of being "not real", somehow.

.....ok I think I went off on a whole ass rant...

Was this helpful at all, anon?

#answers

157 notes · View notes

rainbowmewz · 11 months

Text

edward nygma (gotham) and OSDD-1a

hi! welcome to my hellhole!! i’ve been thinking about the topic of this post for a while and i just needed to yell about it here bc yelling about it on twitter under a meme post wasn’t enough for me xD

SO! let’s talk about this. i was highly generalizing in the tweet above because i personally don’t think edward nygma suffers from dissociative identity disorder. instead, i believe he suffers from other specified dissociative disorder, specifically subtype 1a.

below the “keep reading”, i will discuss a general overview of DID and OSDD, why i think this is the case for edward nygma, and a review of the representation of it in gotham. be warned that this post has a general trigger warning for discussions of abuse, self-harm, suicide, and drug abuse. this discussion is not in depth at all, but just as a warning if you wanna avoid this post! this post also has a trigger warning for discussions of negative portrayals of DID/OSDD (such as in films like m. night shyamalan’s split and discussions of tropes such as “evil alters”).

OSDD-1 is a subtype of OSDD that is very similar to DID. to get a general gist of what OSDD is, we first have to define DID. DID (dissociative identity disorder), which used to be referred to as MPD (multiple personality disorder), is a dissociative disorder that forms in early childhood as a reaction to prolonged and/or severe trauma (abuse, for example). this causes a child’s brain to split into multiple parts, called alters, and experience amnesia/dissociation between these parts. in OSDD-1 (other specified dissociative disorder), there’s two subtypes, 1a and 1b. in 1a, there’s dissociation between parts, but their parts aren’t as distinct as someone who has DID. on the other end of the spectrum, in 1b, alters are highly distinct but experience little to no amnesia between them. as stated previously, i believe gotham’s portrayal of edward nygma/the riddler has OSDD-1a.

to avoid confusion, in this post, i’ll be referring to the two as a whole as “edward nygma”, “edward”, or “nygma”; i’ll refer to the alter we’re first introduced to as “ed”; and the alter we’re introduced to next as “the riddler” or “riddler”.

while we don’t know anything about edward’s childhood in gotham, many other portrayals of the character (arkhamverse, general comic lore, etc.) mention an abusive past, specifically at the hands of his father. in general comic lore, this abuse explains where his compulsions for showing his intelligence comes from. if this backstory is true for gotham’s portrayal of nygma, which we will assume for this analysis, this is the trauma element of OSDD.

our first introduction to the idea of edward having a dissociative disorder is in season 2 episode 1. while this is our first introduction to the difference between ed and the riddler, the two seem to have a history of co-existing before this scene (ed tells riddler stuff such as: “i get nervous when you talk to me with other people around like that” and “i know where this is going. i told you, leave ms. kringle alone”).

now that we have those basics down (trauma and evidence of a long-standing dissociative disorder), i’ll be referring to an article written by DID-Research.org titled “DID Versus OSDD-1″. this will hopefully help my thoughts be more concise, since i tend to.. go all over the place with this stuff. i tried to write my thoughts on this topic in a discord server before and it went in 50 different directions x3

DID-Research’s article discusses how the parts in OSDD-1a are different from disorders such as borderline personality disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and complex posttraumatic stress disorder. while OSDD-1a’s parts are way less differentiated as ones in DID or OSDD-1b, since individuals “are more likely to present as the same individual”, these parts can have “different skills, emotional reactivity, or ways of interacting with the world”. to me, this sounds exactly like what riddler and ed go through throughout gotham. as early as season 2, riddler is shown as more confident, brash, and witty than his counterpart. ed is more focused on living a normal life, he wants to live out this fantasy with kristen, then isabella, then lee. this is all he craves, to be seen as normal and not a freak. riddler on the other hand, isn’t as concerned. sure, he originally wants to pursue kristen, but in a way to introduce a sense of excitement and power in him and ed’s life.

this mention of ed’s craving for a normal life is something.. very interesting as well. according to the theory of structural dissociation, there’s two types of parts a person with OSDD/DID could have. these are referred to as Apparently Normal Parts (ANPs, these alters take care of daily life, often are avoidant (or unaware) of trauma, and have a need to appear high-functioning (sound like anyone we know?)) and Emotional Parts (EPs, these alters represent dissociation and trauma through memories, internalized beliefs, and learned responses). ed seems much like an ANP, while riddler seems more like an EP. an article discussing the differences of ANPs and EPs states that an ANP “might engage in self harm or use psychogenic substances in attempts to forcefully tether themselves to the present and prevent EP from intruding”. this sounds very familiar, does it not? his abuse of hallucinogens in season 3 to see oswald again, using pills again in season 4 to try and get rid of the riddler, and if i remember correctly, plotting to kill himself in season 4 as well.

as i stated, the article talks about how OSDD-1a is different from an identity disturbance in disorders such as BPD, PTSD, and C-PTSD. the article specifically says that people with these disorders might feel a loss of control, but never “feel that different parts of them are capable of acting independently or that different parts of them have and express their own views or goals”. this exact quote proves that what nygma might be experiencing is OSDD-1a. our introduction to the two psyches of edward nygma show their differing goals and views. as another example, in season 5, riddler is completely unaware of ed’s plan to destroy haven and is shown as extremely distraught when he appears in different places without knowledge of what happened beforehand.

so.. it seems obvious that edward nygma has OSDD-1a, right? so... how would i, as a psychology major, someone who possibly has DID/OSDD, and someone who’s known multiple people with DID/OSDD, review this representation?

i’d say... it’s pretty good for what it’s worth!! gotham as a tv show has always dealt with terrible writing and a lot of things could have been written better, but this topic is surprisingly one they handled pretty okay. there was... a lot of room for more and it’s quite strange to see the dissociative disorder representation go to edward nygma instead of a character such as harvey dent (who’s a whole other can of worms and has been stated to have “MPD” in the past).

it’s really refreshing to see representation of DID/OSDD that doesn’t rely on played out and disgusting tropes such as “evil alters”. while it seems like riddler might play out as an evil alter, both ed and riddler are both messed up in their own ways. there’s no evil alter to stop, they’re both.. villains in their own ways (blowing up a place w/ the most vulnerable members of the city vs hiding your dead gf’s body parts over a police precinct, pick your poison). i also enjoy how cory michael smith portrays the two psyches of edward nygma and portrays the way the two switch in and out!

you’re free to disagree with my opinion as well. i’d love to have a discussion in the comments or reblogs :DD!! i just... really enjoyed writing this up. if i missed anything, just tell me :33

#gotham #got ham posting #edward nygma #the riddler #gotham 2014 #gotham fox #gotham analysis #tv analysis #osdd-1a #psychology #character analysis #psych analysis #other specified dissociative disorder #disociative identity disorder #tw suicide mention #tw abuse mention #tw self harm mention #tw drug abuse mention

49 notes · View notes

weeb-polls-with-pip · 4 months

Text

Autistic Anime Boys Prelims - Propaganda Division - Group 4

Propaganda:

Natsuki -

"He has a flat affect, especially towards the start of the series, and a strong special interest in fishing. He does not get along with Haru and Yuki at first because he doesn't think they are taking fishing seriously, but after seeing Yuki's drive to improve and growing appreciation for his interest, he warms up to them and develops, what seems to be, the first close friendships he 's had. As the boys learn to fish, he is the source of most of the very specific fishing knowledge in the series, and after the show is finished we see that he has moved overseas to continue pursuing his special interest."

Luca -

*okay I screwed up, this submission didn't have propaganda. It WAS marked 'yes' for propaganda use though, which is where the confusion came from. At this point I'm too tired to move the bracket around though, so Luca's just gonna stay here.

Adrian -

"Not a full time boy (but a boy nonetheless, bigender icon fr) but working autism overtime."

Rui -

"aside from being an adorable piano genius with the voice of an angel? he grew up sheltered and doesn't have a lot of physical stamina but he does his best to become an idol (rescuing his own black kitten along the way) and is officially considered the most cat-like in his unit. he will eat your pudding. also he grows up! he used to be like fifteen and now he's 26?!"

Hikaru -

"He's shown to have difficulty emoting since childhood. In a particular episode, a mother comes to him to alter her child's brain and remove the parts of him that make him difficult to handle. It is heavily implied that the things she wants removed is autism and Hikaru is more upset about this than most other things in the series but seems to understand that acceptance for people like him and the kid is few and far between. He also says things that could be considered rude when it comes to situations where people ask him to alter who they are as people, such as when a friend asks him to change her sexuality so that she's straight and doesn't have to suffer heartbreak anymore."

Rei -

"AUTISTIC ICON!!!!! just like. look at him. look at that one face he makes all the time. it's hard for me to name specific examples other than the obvious fixation on shoji and like general lack of social skills because i haven't gone through the whole thing in so long but there's soooo much there. i might be talking out of my ass but it's also like? such a sensorily focused story (both the anime and manga). he could even be considered a sports anime boy if you just believed ❤️ or something ‼️"

Vayne -

"Relies on his pet cat for social cues, because the cat is better at them. The saddest, most gentle boy to ever wield a cat-sword-gauntlet. Absolutely listens to all of his friends' infodumps with infinite love and interest. Completely oblivious to how everyone in his workshop adores him by the end of the game."

Ganta -

"he has insomnia (frequently comorbid with autism). once he gains an interest in astrophotography it becomes a special interest very quickly. he's sweet and kind but also gets annoyed easily and he rides a bike and works at an arcade and wants to be a nurse and he loves his girlfriend isaki so so much"

Aoi -

"He has a very devoted special interest in the idol Takada-chan, which he frequently imagines in fights and other situations… the moment someone (Itadori) expresses equal interest in something he is passionate about, he immediately declares them besties and brothers and creates a whole elaborate shared history for them that doesn’t actually exist. He’s not really interested in connecting with people who don’t share his interests. He’s seen as somewhat strange and eccentric. Though in the present he is respected because of his strength as a sorcerer, as a child he was very isolated."

Ray -

"Due to his extremely strong memory, Ray is forced to grow up faster than his best friends and gives himself up as a lost cause in hopes of saving them. He is very sharp and smart but has massive blind spots when it comes to trusting and considering others."

19 notes · View notes

coexistentialism · 2 months

Note

re: DID asks-- 1- what's something you've learned recently (about DID in general, or about your own experience) that has been interesting and that you've been thinking about? 2- any favorite stories (books/movies/etc) that have characters you relate to in a DID/system-ish way, even if they're not canonically "supposed to be" rep?

1- LMAO this question ended up being extremely ironic because I literally was like fuck I don't know, I don't remember, so I went back to look back at old messages and my journal entries and I realized "OH, I wonder if part of the reason my amnesia has been so hidden is because I didn't think I had any memory issues because it's easy to just look back at old messages and journals to try and jog my memory. Which doesn't actually mean I don't have memory problems, I think that was just some kinda coping mechanism to hide those memory problems" lmfao.

Looking back at my recent journal entries, I am reminded that I made the realization that I think I remember my brother making fun of me for having different names on, like, my game save files or something (I particularly feel like I can remember him saying the name Raya in a mocking tone, to make fun of me, which was a name I used in my Pokemon Black 2/White 2 save file as a kid, which I'm now pretty sure was an alter) and it made me realize "oh, well that probably explains at least part of why I have such a difficult time with allowing myself to use different names"

I also wrote down "I wonder if. It’s not so much that I don’t know my alters so much as we are unaware of each other? Like I think we’re just so dissociated from each other and can’t communicate and can’t really share memories that it Feels like and Seems like I don’t know my alters, but I wonder if it’s really just a case of our dissociative barriers being so Goddamn high. I dunno."

2- Frankie Stein from G3 Monster High! I love them so much. They are so systemcore. Their whole thing is being made up of several different, what they call, "brain bits", and there's a whole episode dedicated to Frankie's identity issues because they struggle to be One - they struggle to stick to One outfit or identifying themself in One singular way - and at the end of the episode, them and their friends learn to accept that they are many different Things and that's okay. That episode was so important to me honestly. I have a Frankie Stein alter FNJDASFDS They're so important to me. The struggle to identifying themself in one singular way is something I so deeply have struggled with my whole life and seeing an episode, a character, who struggles so deeply with that, where the resolution is that they ARE several different things, made from several different "brain bits", and that's okay, and it's Awesome actually, did so much for my acceptance of myself.

#inbox #my posts

9 notes · View notes

1stthingsfirst · 7 months

Text

This is the Ray side of my previous post about the portrayal of his recovery, in part prompted by @quaintrelle17's comment about Thai rehabs (Thank you! I didn't ignore you, I just took forever to respond).

Note: I use "sobriety" as shorthand. Not everyone who abuses alcohol needs to go sober. Some can drink in moderation. Some need to abstain for their whole lives.

I originally only briefly addressed Ray drinking in rehab. So, the two general ways to stop drinking/go sober are:

Cold turkey -- You go from your current alcohol intake to zero, no steps in between.

Tapering off (aka weaning off) -- You decrease your daily alcohol intake over time until you reach zero/a desired amount.

From this tweet and Jojo's comments, I believe Thai outpatient rehab programs follow a harm-reduction model using tapering and deemphasizing abstinence unless deemed necessary.

Tapering off aims to both decrease the severity of and prevent withdrawal symptoms. Chronic alcohol abuse alters your brain chemistry. Tapering off helps your brain adjust to functioning with less and less alcohol and decreases the likelihood of severe withdrawal symptoms such as seizures and delirium tremens, which can cause disability and death.

Issue #1: Lack of Clarity

Ray is a good candidate for tapering. He carries a flask to drink on the go and his hands shake when he doesn't drink, a withdrawal symptom. It makes sense for Ray to drink while he's in rehab.

However, tapering is a systematic process. You don't just slowly drink less. A professional may determine a tapering schedule specific to you, but the general recommendation is to decrease by 2 drinks per day. When tapering, you should track what drink you're on and even measure to ensure you stick to one standard drink each time.

I would not expect to see this level of detail in the show. However, as is, we see Ray enter rehab at the end of episode 10, and then in episode 11, we see no visible change in behavior. He still goes to bars and drinks beers in the bath and has whiskey in the pool in a tense almost-threesome. We're supposed to intuit that he's changing simply because he says he is.

The show could have made it clearer without dedicating much time to it. It's as simple as a lingering shot of a handout from the rehab center or Ray saying, "last drink of the day" in the tub. Responses to Only Friends have highlighted how little the general public knows about addiction. It's unreasonable to expect us to know that people may drink as part of rehab.

This is a "show, don't tell" error. We have been told that Ray is in rehab, but we have not seen behavior indicating that he's in rehab.

Issue #2: Tone and Narrative

I'd be surprised if Ray's support team encouraged him to casually drink with his partner while trying to go sober. I could be wrong; they could be fine with it. A person could maybe healthily drink a beer in the tub with their partner if it aligned with their tapering schedule, but it doesn't feel appropriate tonally or narratively.

We have seen how destructive alcohol has been in Ray's life: his mom's alcoholism ruined his childhood; he blames himself for her alcoholism-related suicide; he nearly lost all his friends and his boyfriend multiple times; he drove drunk, crashed his car, and had to be hospitalized for his injuries; he was charged with a DUI and has to complete social service (legal consequences); and so on.

Tonally, it does not make sense to show Ray drinking casually at this point. It could make sense to show him drinking, but not in the settings shown in episode 11. Drinking should be portrayed as weightier by now, if not for Ray, at least for Sand when he's with Ray (see my original post). Sand has said multiple times that he worries about Ray's drinking, so it feels odd to see them to chat in the bath over beers while Ray is in rehab. Ray may be allowed to drink then and he may be able to drink for pleasure in the future, but week one of rehab is not the time for drinking for pleasure.

Additionally, from a storytelling perspective, it doesn't make sense to include Ray accepting that he needs to go to rehab with two episodes left unless you then show him either improved or struggling. By showing Ray drinking after entering rehab, it suggests to the viewer that Ray's drinking will continue to be a major plot point.

But I don't know if it is because we have one episode left, two other couples' stories to wrap up, Ray's already in rehab, and they just introduced Boeing to Sand and Ray's dynamic. By introducing Boeing this late in the show, with this little time left, it's pretty clear Boeing is Ray and Sand's final conflict, not Ray's recovery.

I'm normally all about nuance, but filmmakers only have so many opportunities to convey information to their audience. Unless they do want to keep Ray's recovery a main conflict, it is more logical, for both tone and storytelling, to simply not show Ray drinking at this point. Is it less realistic? Yes. But is it clearer? Yes.

TL;DR

There are scientific reasons why Ray would drink during rehab; however, most people don't know that and it was never explained in the series itself, so the scenes of him drinking in ep 11 landed poorly for many viewers. This is a problem with how the show told the story of Ray's alcoholism and recovery. The show would have benefited from prioritizing clarity over realism, unless they plan to take the time to explore Ray's recovery in detail.

17 notes · View notes

all-seeing-ifer · 5 months

Note

Wait I really like ats s5 it has some banger episodes, why don’t you like it?

oh man. season 5.

so, in theory, there's a lot about season 5 that I should like. I think it reinvents the show in an interesting way and I love the themes of never stopping fighting even in the face of the knowledge that the good guys are never going to truly win and that the deck is always going to be stacked against them. the fucking dialogue between gunn and anne in the finale? "I'd get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here"? holy SHIT it is so good!!!

I totally get why people like season 5 I do think it genuinely has a lot going for it BUT you DID ask so I will now be presenting Isabel's List of Varyingly Serious/Petty Beefs With Angel Season Five. In No Particular Order:

Spike's a good addition to the show and god knows angel season 5 does more interesting stuff with him than buffy season 7 ever did but it is fucking insane to me how much focus and development he gets while gunn fred and lorne, who have been mainstays of the show since like season 2, continue to get absolute jack shit to do

just generally let's be honest. anyone who isn't a white guy this season is fucked. harmony gets no development despite being granted main cast status illyria gets nothing to do despite being set up as a super duper important addition to the cast I don't even know what they were fucking thinking with eve. etc.

THEY FRIDGED CORDY AND FRED WITHIN THREE EPISODES OF EACH OTHER. AND AT NO POINT DID ANYONE IN THE WRITERS' ROOM THINK THAT MAYBE THE FACT THAT THEY WERE WERE STARTING TO RUN OUT OF WOMEN WAS PERHAPS A PROBLEM

speaking of cordy my best girl of all time, I know people love you're welcome but i'm sorry i remain deeply ambivalent about that fucking thing. like yes it's nice that the cordy we know and love gets to come back for one last hurrah but also the episode basically never treats her like a person with feelings of her own and instead she's just there to motivate angel and then die so he can be sad about it. i can't believe it only took 40 minutes to set feminism back 4000 years

also sorry but did they really think you're welcome was going to be enough to make up for what they did to her in season 4? have you seen season 4? one episode where cordy looks hot and has her tits out and swordfights will NOT undo the damage that has been done

and then they proceed to set feminism back even further by just refusing to acknowledge the existence of their show's secondary protagonist for the basically the rest of the season and also fridging fred in an arguably even more horrific way three episodes later so wesley can be sad and so they can introduce a new character who does nothing

like seriously nothing makes me more rabid in season 5 than the scene in power play where the characters all vote on if they're gonna go through with their suicide mission against the circle of the black thorn and it's just all the men voting on it bc illyria's been incapictated bc I guess in angel season 5 women don't get to have agency even when they're literal godlike demon lords

on the subject of the illyria plotline i fucking hate how gunn gets treated. like sorry all the men on this show (sans lorne. unproblematic king) have done awful shit why does gunn get singled out as having done something uniquely horrible just for a shady business deal he couldn't possibly have known the consequences of. like we know why but still

and on the subject of gunn.... the fact that they wrote a storyline implying that the only way for the only black main character in the show to become smart and capable is for him to have his brain magically altered and NO ONE in the writers room was like HM MAYBE THIS IS A BAD LOOK ACTUALLY. christ i would feel way better about the whole "gunn feels like he's just the muscle" conflict if the show more consistently came down on the side that players does where gunn does actually have way more to offer than being the muscle but has just come to see himself as just The Guy Who Fights. but unfortunately they spend at least as much time writing gunn as Actually Just The Muscle. usually to make wesley look better (i promise i'm not bitter about it)

and perhaps i'd be less annoyed about all this if gunn also got literally anything else to do this season but this is truly all he gets until not fade away

which i guess is still better than fred? like fred just dies. that's it

guys i don't think we shit on the girl in question enough. like it's bad. it's really bad. i'm so glad we're currently in the shit talking lies my parents told me renaissance but can we also start bringing that same energy for this piece of shit

nina's an art student so i hate her by default (<- guy who went to art school <- i am allowed to say this)

despite spike being intended to serve as a replacement for cordy they just straight up don't give him relationships with any of the characters other than angel (and fred for like. one episode) and it results in him just feeling incredibly out of place

just in general actually it feels like the writers kind of stopped caring about any of the character relationships aside from angel and spike and fred/wesley (which they only care about bc it's a reason for wesley to be sad anyway)

the pacing is a nightmare and i do not give a shit about the circle of the black thorn. sorry

and just as a disclaimer i would like to acknowledge that like. ats was always fairly shitty about race and gender this isn't unique to s5 but MAN does it feel like season 5 in particular is just. saying the quiet part out loud constantly every episode

anyway thank you for giving me free rein to just bitch about angel season 5 for an extended period of time this was fun. still i'm honestly glad that you enjoy it like really truly I wish that were me

#ifer rambles #asks and stuff

7 notes · View notes

autisticbokutoenthusiast · 8 months

Text

halfway point only friends character rankings

(i am bad at rank so i tiered them, also i don't dislike any character this is more a scale of how many hours i lay awake thinking of them)

tier one: ray

ray: I think anyone looking at my only friends posts can immediately guess who my favourite character is and why. ray is THE character for me, i knew in the first episode before the title sequence that he'd make me extremely unwell (his "being known as a burden who is either professing his love for anyone who cares to listen or begging people not to leave him in his drunken desperation" captivated me ok) . besides relating to parts of his characters and story, i am thoroughly invested in this man and his emotions. like will he fall victim to the cycle he's already convinced he's doomed by? will he find a way out? will he continue living as self-fulfilling prophecy purely out of spite for himself and everyone around him? will he get better? can he get better? will he ever want to????????? i think i always had the potential like ray as a character but i also think the actor plays him in a way that has altered my brain forever (like i am not good at reading faces but the look on ray's face sometime feels like im looking into his thoughts, its thrilling) deciding to play ray as layered and complex and oosing with pain no matter the circumstance was a choice that made the character for me, and i also think it takes a lot of skill to have an asshole insult everyone close to him and ruin relationships he has no buissness ruining for most of his screentime and have the audience come away with "wow that guy is absoultey dripping in pain, i feel so much for him"

tier two: nick, boston, mew

nick: i love nick so much, maybe its my thing for pathetic little guys but something about him makes me scream throw shit whenever i see him. i'm obssessed with all the crime he commits, because he's such a cutie about it. like watching him get all sad listening to the topboston tape fully sympathizing with him and his little sad face to the point i forget he only has the tape cause he WIRETAPPED BOSTONS CAR. just excellant character, i hope his crimes being revealed leads to him looking more pathetic and then becoming 5x more evil but 10x more cute about it (i also am desperate to know what comes of him chasing after a man who has made it clear so many times he doesn't want him only for nick to fall harder like what is up with that)

boston: boston has always been a favourite character of mine because he may not be a good friend and he may not be a good person but one thing he will NEVER not be is entertaining. like if he is on screen your ass will be tuned IN, and for that reason i love him. what i want to see from boston in the rest of the series? i think he is an interesting case of how far is to far when it comes to friends doing you dirty, and im interested to see what the lasting impact to his relationships are and then the impact to how he views relationships in general. i think it'd be nice if there were consequences that made him reavaluate the way he treats other people, but i also find it absolutely necessary for him to retain his sluttiness. like it doesnt hurt anyone else, and i think he genuienly enjoys it, so i hope he keeps it along with his love for photogrphy (would love to see him get more into getting consent of people before he records them and spreads that around tho) stay messy my king 🫡

mew: mew was my designated little guy after watching the first episode but kinda got lost in all my love for sandray. i will say he shot back up towards the top after seeing this one post (i cannot find it now its lost under the thousands that have been posted since) about mew, control, and bdsm (and all the new meta that has come out since too tbh). also realizing around epsiode 4 we knew absoultey nothing about him as a person had me watching everything he did like there would be little clues left. i think its safe to say after episode 6 that the relationhip between sex and control will continue to be interesting as well as WHATEVER THE FUCK HAPPENS TO MAKE HIM ACT UP LIKE THAT IN THE BATHTUB anyway... i am here for his villain?? era

tier 3: top, sand, cheum

(again i tiered them cause im not good at straight ranking and this doesn't mean i like them any less its just they make me personally a little less insane then the others do)

top: i think he needs to be topped by mew and that it has the potential fix him, i've thought about this a lot (A LOT) and thats all i have to say.

sand: i am still kinda obsessed with him, like don't get me wrong. i like the way he mirrors the other characters while still maintaining traits that are specific to him. the fact that he has his heart broken by the belief that ray didn't truly care about him and only saw him as a distraction, distinced himself from ray, took insults and physical attacks from ray, and STILL chased after him because he knew ray was in an unsafe headspace speaks to how strong this guy is, cause you saw everyone else in that bar abondon ray to whatever self-destructive thing he decided to do next but not sand, never sand. anyway maybe its because i relate to ray so much that whenever i see sand on screen or think about him my mind gets overtaken by hearteyes (this is my way of saying i don't have many coherent thoughts about sand in my brain theres just 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰) anyway i can't wait to see how he develops, if we meet the sandtop mutual ex and what chaos that brings, and whatever the fuck happens with the sandray codependency dynamic and i am dying to know if he does indeed have something in his past related to driving under the influence and what it is about ray specifically that made mr "i can seperate love and sex" into the character we see now

cheum: my girl isn't in the show as often but whenever shes on screen with april i have to smile. anyway i wonder if we'll get an explaination as to why shes always presurring the rest of the friendgroup into monogamous relationships or if thats just who she is (i do think her lying to april about how she feels in order to keep them together at all costs was an interesting detail in all this, like is she scared of what it means to be single/alone, does she feel intense pressure to be in a certain type of relationship, etc)

anways this is inspired by @thatgirl4815 and my autocorrect broke so sorry if this makes now sense

#only friends the series #only friends meta #this took me so long cause i was trying so hard to have thoughts about these characters but i love them too much #my brain turns to vaccuum noise and flashing lights

8 notes · View notes

fromriches-tosin · 1 year

Note

hi could you recommend some anime? pls🥺

hello kk! of course 💜

I'm going to list some titles I watched and liked the most this past year. If you're looking for some specific genre/vibe, do let me know and I'll try to come up with a more coherent list, hehe. I put links to trailers under the titles:

Jujutsu Kaisen The first anime I watched after a very, very long break — however, I started with the prequel movie (Jujutsu Kaisen 0) that had been released after the first season (S2 coming this year). It's a typical humans with powers vs. demons scenario, but it lacks the usual main character vs. main bad boy rivalry trope, instead introducing a very heartwarming and, ultimately, heartbreaking friendship. The characters are awesome and the animation itself is absolutely gorgeous. Even though I'm a big fan of the rough 90s style (DBZ, Berserk etc.), I fell in love with the JJK aesthetics. If you want to give it a try, the movie is definitely worth watching.

Chainsaw Man Another take on the whole demon fighting thing, but it’s different and darker from what JJK has to offer. The very concept of this series might seem funny (the main character has a chainsaw on his head most of the time), but in truth it's a pretty disgusting and heartbreaking story about debasement and fragility of human life. It hits all the right spots. One word I could use to describe this series is psychedelic. I love the animation and the soundtrack has some real bangers. There's only one season out so far.

Attack on Titan I doubt there is anyone who hasn't heard about AOT, but no matter how many people recommended it to me in the past, I just couldn't get around to watching it. Now I know that it was advertised to me in a wrong way — which, ultimately, was a blessing in disguise. I thought it's a typical humans vs. monsters scenario, with a body count similar to that of GOT, but in truth it has much more in common with All Quiet on the Western Front than, let's say, Pacific Rim. It's brutal, anti-war and pretty eye-opening when it comes to human nature. In general, the series is trying to answer this question: if to defeat the monsters you have to become one, is it still a victory for humanity? I'm positively obsessed. Four seasons in total, the last episode will air in October.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (that's a fan-made trailer) My friend called me one day and said "I was sick and had a fever, and I found this weird show, and I think you might like it because I couldn't tell if what I was watching was really happening or if I was hallucinating". If you survive two episodes of S1, you'll probably get hooked, but it might be too much at first. This show has everything: vampires, nazis, serial killers who look like David Bowie and a lot of 80s music references. It's spanning generations, continents and universes. You won't know what's coming next. It's even hard to say what this show is about, but someone summarized it this way: "a British bisexual lawyer becomes a vampire and torments a family for generations". I won't lie if I say JJBA has altered my brain chemistry. It did wonders for my creative process and for my writing in general. Araki is a genius and an absolute inspiration for me, hands down. Six seasons out for now, at least several more to come. let me know later if you tired watching any of them :3

13 notes · View notes

xiexiecaptain · 1 year

Text

Shadow & Bone rewatch live-commenting that was started on twitter and is being moved/continued here!

This is the post for EP 03: The Making at the Heart of the World

[Episode 01 post] [Rewatch Commentary Links Masterpost]

((There WILL be spoilers mentioned for the books in the Grishaverse including the Crows duology & King of Scars duology! This is basically from the perspective of watching the show as someone who knows the books well.))

I like that we're getting to hear her letters to Mal in voice over because it returns some of the interiority we've lost through the translation from 1st person narrative to screen

bUT immediately my brain supplied the hilarious AU that Mal runs one of those Dear Abby advice columns

*sob laughs in Book 2*

GENYA!!! SHE'S HERE!

God I love Genya

And the way Daisy Head carries herself here, the polished demeanor, all of it is so Genya

This was such a great moment between them

And even though Genya had to do what she does later on, you can tell she's really earnest about how quickly she warms to Alina

THESE TWO BICKER LIKE AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE AND IM LIVING FOR IT

["Good to know Van Eck didn't cure you of sentiment."

"Glad to be back, Kaz."]

SHE'S HERE, THE GLORIOUS, THE INCOMPERABLE NINA ZENIK

Lmao right "despises"

As in "the two people I'll fall in love with in my life will both be Fjerdans"

That fight scene !!!!!!!

What a fckin badass I absolutely adore Nina

Everyone needs a Nina Zenik in their life tbh

This is the SECOND time I've noticed Jesper randomly helping himself to food/drink from other people's tables/houses and I fucking love it (he also did it in Dreesen’s basement)

Kit Young is a gift

Wraith mode: activated

The way his gaze lingers and he stays turned toward the window for a solid few seconds after she's gone-!!!

He tries to stop himself, he really does!!!

Can we just appreciate in general the nuanced and compassionate, yet realistic way addiction is portrayed with Jesper's character???

(Not to mention the fact we see TWO portrayals of addiction in this series--psychological addiction with Jesper and physical addiction with Nina)

Like, it's not a comic relief bit--it legitimately has life-altering consequences for both Jesper, all his loved ones, and those he works with.

We see Jesper both deny to himself and others he has a Problem, yet also struggle against it

["Why didn't you just stop?" Jesper wanted to laugh. He had pleaded with himself, screamed at himself to stop.]

He fucks up and hurts people he (and we the readers) love because of it. Yet the narrative remains continuous in its portrayal of Jesper as someone with steadfastly good intentions and a good heart who is struggling with unhealed issues

["There's a wound in you, and the tables, the dice, the cards--they feel like medicine. They soothe you, for a time. But they're poison, Jesper."]

Listen, I just have a lot of Feelings about Jesper Fahey

Alina Starkov is truly a woman of the people

SA mention////

"Ah, our shitty monarchs: The rapist king, the queen whose focus on appearance trumps any real issues, and the vapid entitled weasel of a prince. The only decent one among them, I've disguised so he could go play pirate to help Ravka by doing Ocean Crimes."

Yes, I hate him

Yes, he is occasionally funny

Yeah this was fckin shitty of her and I’m definitely not excusing it ever

But its interesting seeing this understanding where it’s coming from re: Zoya’s heritage.

Zoya's got so much internalized racism and fear around being mixed race herself because of her upbringing, seeing how not only just her father was treated but Suli in general

She's lashing out because she's afraid and conflicted

And she's also feeling jealous and uncertain about her place being favored by the Darkling (which he has fostered because he's a manipulator of the worst kind)

Kaz carrying Milo the goat and looking absolutely Done will never not be funny to me

More show-added worldbuilding appreciation from me

The posters styled after Bolshevik revolution/soviet propaganda posters is such a wonderful touch by the props/set folks

And again, the invented script for written Ravkan (and all the languages, but we’ve mostly just seen Ravkan and Kerch written so far) makes my linguist nerd heart sing

Kaz: initiate mastermind scanners for useful information and/or potential blackmail

Kaz: BEEP BEEP impending betrayal detected

Kaz: initiate 5-D chess-level planning consisting of labyrinthine layers upon layers of traps, feints, and manipulation

I love that they gave her a physical object for Inej related to her family.

In the books (again, because of interiority) we get literal flashbacks of them, as well as many phrases from her parents she repeats or hears internally ("The heart is an arrow...", "Climb, Inej")

But that’s not easily translated to a visual medium. So instead we get this great little physical/visual token of that.

It does such heavy lifting not only in that it shows us how deeply Inej's faith directs her morals (like how torn she was when Arken connected over their faith), but also shows how much she still holds the memory/hope of her family close to her; that she's never accepted that her life in Ketterdam was just it now.

Good, good storytelling work

ARE YOU TALKING TO HER OR TO YOURSELF, KAZ??????

That little glance down and then away-!!!

And then immediately he's harsh and cruel about it to try and push her away from him--to push hIMSELF away from her!!!

Fucking helllll

I'm so glad they basically got to keep Nina's and Matthias' story the same (aside from minor details obv) down to exact lines

Danielle Galligan and Calahan Skogman breathe such life into the cores of these characters and all their nuances

[Matthias had always fought his own decency. To become a drüskelle, he’d had to kill the good things inside him.]

All through this episode, even in this first scene, you can see Nina's words start to scratch away at him

He's gonna have her in his head for the rest of the night

Jesper Fahey, everyone

LOVE THE WHOLE CONCEPT!

Love this addition to the world, love how it's not finished/is kinda ramshackle with sliding between the two tracks, love the weird systems set up he's developed to cross multiple times with the sound of hitting the metal, love it all

I'm so happy Nadia is a black woman!!!

We get so many queer characters of color! I can't wait until we get Tamar (and Tolya ofc) introduced in the show so we can have the badass wlw couple we deserve

BOTKIN!! So glad he makes an appearance!!

I could so easily him being cut from another version of an adaption so this makes me so happy

Part of what endeared Botkin to me in the book was how, even though he is a harsh teacher, he always treated Alina like every other student and demanded her best work

Like "idc you're the sun summoner, your right hook is pathetic!"

ALINA KNOWING HOW TO THROW A PROPER PUNCH BC MAL TAUGHT HER IS 🙏🙏🙏

Like I know this is supposed to establish character dynamics and how Zoya has this social position she's defending and how Alina is gaining credibility

But me & my gay-ass brain just went like "Ok but I would let Zoya punch me in the face and I would say THANK YOU"

If only I were so lucky 😔💦

Somewhere, King of Scars!Nikolai getting shackled to his bed by Zoya every night for his own safety just liked this^^^ as a tweet

See, Nadia gets me

She's pickin' up what I'm puttin' down

This also establishes Nadia’s type is women who can knock your lights out and smirk, which is good news for future Tamar

And we here see in Alina's face the echoed experiences of women, femmes, and assumed-women everywhere having forced unwanted interactions with creepy dudes

Zoë Wanamaker is soooooo good as Baghra, hot damn

A fellow Zoë out there making us proud

Another character I can’t wait to see interact with Nikolai on screen because their relationship is hilarious to me

I've mentioned it before, but the show more heavily leaning into the idea that Grisha power can sort of be drawn out or kicked on by sudden pain and/or fear is such an interesting one

Because it implies about the nature of Grisha power that it developed similar to other unconscious survival mechanisms--like adrenaline numbs out bad injuries or allows muscles to surpass normal limits, its something that helps keep Grisha stay alive in a life or death situation

"I WISH I WERE WITH Y- ...WITH THE FIRST ARMY"

I'M-!!!!!

SEE? THIS IS THE SHIT I LOVE

The worldbuilding always contains all these tiny details that realistically reflect how humans build clever systems over time to address issues and get what/where they want to

Alina's fuckign face-

I CANT GET OVER THIS

Yes, the emotional support goat was Absolutely Mission Critical

I'M FUCKIN EMOTIONAL BC I just noticed when Arken says the situation is dire, please take note of how Kaz isn't even looking at him, he's staring diRECTLY AT INEJ sitting across from him?????

[That sound--the swift, shocking report of gunfire--called the scattered, irascible, permanently seeking part of his mind into focus like nothing else.]

[...Jesper could feel himself coming alive, the worry that had been dogging his steps ... falling away. He felt free, dangerous, like lightning rolling over the prairie.]

[He'd knew his guns better than he knew the rules of Makker's Wheel. Jesper focused on the bullet, sensed the smallest parts of it. Maybe he was the same. A bullet in a chamber, spending his whole life waiting for the moment he would have direction.]

So I just want to examine the Crows' "we were pretty sure we were going to die but we actually pulled through and are somehow still alive???" reactions for a minute:

1) Inej, ofc, her first reaction is prayer which makes me emotional

And then, she looks over at Kaz because she wants to see if this finally shook something loose from that cold exterior (because tbh, at this point, it's probably the first time she's ever witnessed Kaz escape death first-hand)

2) How fucking beautiful Jesper looks?? 😍😍

[Jesper's hair was mussed, his pupils dilated. He seemed almost drunk, or like he’d just rolled out of someone’s bed. He always had that look after a fight.]

3) And Kaz, of course as always, is looking at Inej (and then looking away from it all)

It's gonna get you in big trouble one day, Kaz

AND how Inej and Kaz hold eye contact for a moment before they both look away???

And I feel Malina in this chili's tonight

Oh! Something I forgot to add I noticed during the train fight scene, Arken has these depictions of saints hung up on the walls!!!!

Again, major major ups to the prop/set people for adding all these small details!! It makes the world feel so full and lived in!

So that's the end of episode 3!

Wheee I fuckin' love the Grishaverse and my beloved Crows and we're so lucky to have this cast

[Rewatch Commentary Links Masterpost]

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #six of crows #alina starkov #mal oretsev #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #genya safin #nina zenik #matthias helvar #zoya nazyalensky

20 notes · View notes

ordinaryschmuck · 5 months

Text

Once thing that KIND OF bothers me about modern Rick and Morty, aside from the weird incest jokes, is this:

The show made it explicitly clear that Rick's origin story in the Season Three premier wasn't real. The line of dialogue goes...

"This is a memory. You can't alter a memory."

"True. But you CAN alter the facts of a completely fabricated origin story."

It was kind of disappointing that this origin they gave Rick was never real to begin with, but at the same time it was pretty funny AND brilliant. Instead of slapping Rick with a semi-generic origin, they turned it into a way for him to escape space jail. Plus, it leaves fans wondering what his REAL origin story is. If losing his family to an eviler version of himself was fake, then what was the REAL reason Rick became Rick? It was an interesting question and made me wonder what could be the truth...And then the writers said, "Screw it, that WAS the truth."

Don't get me wrong, there's some interesting stuff that comes from this origin being real. The montage of Rick becoming the broken man he is today, the season six premier that showed how messed up he got after losing his wife and daughter, and the scene where Rick beats Rick Prime to death are all fantastic moments. The problem is that my mind keeps going back to Rick saying "completely fabricated origin story." Not only was that origin treated as a JOKE, it was a plot point that was used to help Rick escape. Even if you say that "Oh, well, the montage showed how it took time for Rick to make portal travel! That makes it fabricated," that's ALTERING THE MEMORY. Something the show said you couldn't do.

It also brings up the question: If this is supposed to be the one Rick who cared, why doesn't he ALWAYS act like that? Yeah, we have tidbits here and there that prove he still loves his family (except Jerry), but he acts way more like he hates them. And that's because Rick and Morty NEVER had this origin in mind when the show started. It was a primarily episodic show until it decided to have some plot relevance, much like Adventure Time. But unlike Adventure Time, the show did a bad job at properly retconing an idea into the show in a way where it still works and feels like it was ALWAYS planned when it wasn't.

Rick's origin causes more questions than answers. Even though it explains EVERYTHING, it pokes holes in the story and show. They tried to make something good with it, gosh DANG IT, they're trying. But it doesn't matter how hard they try, because no matter how good the scene is, the back of my brain will always say "Completely fabricated."

#rick and morty #rick sanchez

5 notes · View notes