#where the Doctor is painted as the Narratively Right one

[wayward-wren]

Classic Who explores ideas, New Who explores morals

classic who is like 'i see this trend, lets explore what might happen if that trend continues and let the audience figure out what it's talking about and come to their own conclusions.'

new who is like 'this trend is BAD and i'm going to PREACH A SPEECH about why it's going to RUIN EVERYTHING' and it's so much more exhausting

#wren rambles #doctor who #this brought on by me watching orphan 55 #which had SUCH a fun concept #and then absolutely FACEPLANTED with the doctor moralizing at the end #like yes doctor who has ALWAYS explored topical and political issues #but never is there a definitive I Am Telling You This Is Right message #whereas now I just had to sit here and watch 13 preaching at me? #ughghg #explore the idea but don't shove it down my throat #classic who had an episode (Ice Warriors) exploring climate change as one aspect of the story #talking about how all the plants were removed and that messed with the atmosphere etc. #but that was just a SMALL PART of the whole episode and it was never outright condemned (it was made clear it was BAD and the root problems #but that was never the BIG ISSUE the Doctor Lectured His Companions about) (not that victoria or jamie could do anything lol) #plus this feeds into my issues with 13's run (which started during 12's somewhat but less so) #where the Doctor is painted as the Narratively Right one #where when she says something that's what the narrative wants you to BELIEVE #which coming from Two and Three's run is WILD #because Two is chaotic and murderous when he thinks he's right #and he's manipulative and deceptive at times #and Three is selfish and pouty and rude #and don't get me wrong Thirteen has her issues and I lvoe them #HOWEVER. she's pretty much always RIGHT she's the Word Of God when it comes to moral things #and this more than anything is my biggest issues with Modern Who #mostly 12 and 13's eras #so i hope we move out of that somewhat in the new era but i'm not super holding up hopes (especially after star beast) #maybe one day i'll write a proper full article about it but GOSH #i don't watch this show to be preached at. I watch it for a fun/tragic scifi romp and also to see interesting ideas explored #and reflect the climate of the world and how society influences media #explore the idea of climate change turning the world into a post apocalypse! that's such a fun idea and topical!

[johannesviii]

So uh

The Power of the Doctor surely was one of the episodes of all time

Where do I even fucking start

Let's cut to the chase, narratively it was all over the place in a "let's throw everything at the wall to see what sticks" kind of way. The thing is, it was fun. It made no sense but it was still enjoyable. Why was the Master cosplaying Rasputin? Why 1916? What was the point of the Dalek traitor? Why the paintings? Who cares, I'm having the time of my life watching all this shit 7,5/10

Why Tegan and Ace, for that matter? Because it's fun to see them again, that's why. I'll take it. Tegan was especially great. Also Ace wasn't a CEO so bonus points for that

Why was Graham even here

Why the train

Why the Qurunx

Why the uh everything about the Daleks and the Cybermen and no-one getting betrayed or in-fighting in the process

Why do I care

Dan's arc started with him having no money and ends with him having no house. That's kinda bleak for a comic relief companion

I don't know how to feel about Tennant being the Doctor again? It's weird and interesting and I can't wait to see what they do with this, and I find it supremely ironic that the Doctor who was the most terrified of death is the one who will get to die THREE TIMES in this series - but at the same time, I really wanted to see Ncuti Gatwa and I feel like he's been robbed of his thunder, kind of? I don't know, it feels weird

Considering Chibnall's focus isn't usually on character arcs I wasn't expecting Thirteen's ending to have any kind of dramatic irony, but having very low expectations for this specific era was a blessing, because one of the things I desesperately wanted to see was this control freak of a Doctor, who never explains anything to her friends, being forced to rely entirely on her friends, and also completely losing control. And that's exactly what I got here. Yes. Very good

The Qurunx assuming the form of a child because it wants to be protected. The parallels with the Timeless Child. Exquisite

And that bit where she's hit by a deadly energy blast and she's carried back to the TARDIS like this?? Complete inversion of the trope of the Doctor carrying a companion and I loved it

Oh god look at Yaz. Yeah that's right, you can only hold her while she's literally dying! That's the only time she'll be in your arms! And she's DYING!! And then you have to say goodbye!! I'm feeling normal about this

I've already seen quite a few Thasmin fans screaming bloody murder and to be honest I get it but like. I'm also digging how tragic this is

I wasn't asking for a kiss but like. When they were on the TARDIS' roof. I wanted one of them to put her head on the other's shoulder. Was that too much to ask

Pretty fitting that Yaz joins the circle of Recovering Doctor Addicts at the end after that and oh god don't get me started

The empty chair for Sarah Jane?? Don't talk to me

Is Ian even aware that regeneration exists or was he just like "wait so the Doctor is trans? Good for her"

WHAT WAS THE "POWER" OF THE DOCTOR WAS IS TO LEAVE A SHIT TON OF TRAUMATISED PEOPLE IN THEIR WAKE BECAUSE IF THAT'S WHAT THAT MEANT I'M HOWLING

Here's the Doctor's power! You all need therapy now!!

"How many Doctors are there" GOOD QUESTION NOBODY KNOWS

SPEAKING OF WHICH

FIVE SIX SEVEN AND EIGHT ON SCREEN. I FUCKING SCREAMED

BANTER BETWEEN SEVEN AND EIGHT ABOUT CLOTHES?? HELLO??? THE SURREAL LANDSCAPE?? ADRIC'S DEATH BEING MENTIONED IN NEW WHO?? HELLO????

Why is Ace apologizing to Seven when he should be apologizing to HER and why am I even asking. Who cares that was so cool

Eight on screen EIGHT ON S C R E E N how am I supposed to feel NORMAL ABOUT THIS I WANT TO SCREAM I WANT TO CRY

OH SPEAKING OF WANTING TO CRY

TIME TO GET EMOTIONAL AND CRINGE ON MAIN ABOUT A FUCKING IDIOT WHO SPENT HALF THE EPISODE COSPLAYING RASPUTIN FOR NO REASON AT ALL AND MENTIONING HE USED TO BE A FURRY IN THE EIGHTIES

I turned off Anon asks so if any of you want to send me a new round of hate regarding the fact I love that Master which apparently makes me a fake fan or a Missy hater or something, you'll have to use your actual usernames, cowards. You know who you are

"Johannes shut up about that Master's supposed self-loathing that's not in the text that's just your headcanon to make him more interesting" OH YEAH YEAH CLEARLY I'M MAKING THINGS UP UH CLEARLY THIS IS NOT IN THE TEXT UH

THIS MF'S ENTIRE BULLSHIT PLAN WAS JUST AN EXCUSE TO STOP BEING HIMSELF FOR A MINUTE AND BECOME THE DOCTOR HI HELLO YES I'M FEELING NORMAL ABOUT THIS

"DON'T LET ME GO BACK TO BEING ME"

"DON'T LET ME GO BACK TO BEING ME"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA FUCK FUCK FUCK

I'm not making sense right now I'm sorry

"IF I CAN'T BE THE DOCTOR NEITHER CAN YOU" I want to scream I want to punch a fucking wall why are you like this why. are you. like THIS

The feelings are indescribable and I can't put them into words right now and I will have to make some art to make them go away, I don't make the rules I don't even have a choice at this point

TLDR this episode was a badly written narrative mess and full of fanwank and Doctor Who is terrible and I love Doctor Who with all my heart and I feel more alive than ever right now

#doctor who #the power of the doctor #dw spoilers #thirteenth doctor #the master #yasmin khan #capslock #and a lot of screaming

[penultimate-step]

Oshi no Ko 144 Reaction

After the big climax of last chapter, jumping straight into a more everyday, less tense situation is a bit jarring. I know this was done intentionally, I can see what they're trying to do here, but the part of my brain that craves the short term rush, the part of me that is desperate for answers and for the twins to actually start talking amongst themselves more and finally got a taste of it last chap is hungry....I know it needs to be pushed off for pacing reasons. I Know. But it does hurt a bit. Reading serially published works is hard.

Anyway. So the big theme of the movie arc is taking a look at how people are viewed in the eyes of others, right? That's why we have this whole setup of a movie within a manga - Ai's life, her real thoughts and personality, cannot be recovered. Even we, the semi-omniscient audience, aren't actually getting real flashbacks at her life, but rather her life filtered through the extremely biased eyes of Aqua (and Gotanda) with edits for marketability made by people who never knew her, like Abiko and Yoriko. This movie is likely going to become the definitive version of Ai for the general public, millions of people who never spoke to her at all - to those with no connection to someone beyond knowing their image, the constructed self is all that exists. The fact that this arc is the backdrop that we place Ruby's infatuation with Gorou is fairly intentional, I think, and if I wasn't 100% confident in that before than I absolutely am after last chap.

Which leads us into 144 - right after we had the dramatic chapter in which Ruby talks about how she views Gorou to Aqua himself, telling him that she sees him as a fan sees an idol, we cut directly to how Gorou is being portrayed in the movie. Melt and Ruby are both constructing images of of Gorou, but for very different purposes - while she cares for him and wants to idolize him, Melt is aware he never knew him, and is coming up with his interpretation solely for work purposes. This is the direct contrast being explored in this chapter - the different ways of seeing someone's image.

Ruby gets upset when what she sees as Gorou's charm points are not being fully expressed, that the movie's view of him won't match hers. Gorou needs to be painted in the best possible light, so that everybody else will share her image of him.

This is very amusing to me, considering that Gorou himself, as Aqua, couldn't even match up to her image of Gorou before she was outright told that it was him, but let's put a pin on that for now.

Melt, on the other hand, has no personal or emotional attachment here. He isn't trying to glorify Gorou, nor slander him, nor even really get to know him. For him, The Doctor is a role, a story, a character.

This is why he refers to the pin as a "character symbol," while he is doing his best to get a feel for Gorou thirdhand, his priority is not the man, but the role. He papers over gaps in his knowledge with story tropes, things that would work best for the narrative of the movie. From the perspective of an actor, this is probably the correct way to go about things. Abiko and Yoriko are probably satisfied with his interpretation of the role. But for Ruby, who has a personal investment, his image is not the same as her image.

(as an unrelated side note, this bit was funny. I can't believe they're having an adaptation vs source material debate about RPF of Aqua of all people.)

Ruby comes around to Melt not because of any change in him or his acting, or because she approves of his interpretation of Gorou, but because he starts talking about her:

Ruby accepts Melt's interpretation because so long as it maintains the connection between them, this is the most important element for her; she is satisfied. Her opinion of Melt then does a 180, just as her opinion of Aqua did in chapter 123.

This is where I will uncork the pin from before and say - one thing that I am kind of unsure about is what Ruby's image of Gorou actually is, at this point. Usually she seems to see him wholly positively, dissociating all of her criticisms about his behavior from the image she is idolizing. But last chap she started talking about his flaws, so she clearly knows at least some of them...but here she's right back to talking about his radiant inner strength. Leaves me a bit uncertain where she stands. However, I'm not the only one - I think she herself doesn't fully understand her own image of Gorou right now, to be honest.

Also, side note: the way Melt's "Gorou" act in this chap parallels Aqua's own in 143 was super cute.

But after thinking about that for a bit, I realized that it's deeper than a cute shot. while the movie arc has been giving more focus on Ruby's view of people than Aqua's, there's the interesting side note simmering in the background that Aqua, too, has a constructed image of Gorou at this point - even if he actually IS him, it's been over 20 years since he's been Sarina's doctor. Ruby, Melt, and Aqua all have very different ideas of who Gorou was - and none of them match the man himself.

I don't have very much to say about the last third of the chapter tbh. The supernatural elements of this story very much confuse me, I am not sure where they are going or what it's doing and don't feel confident speculating anything. Crow Girl is a cool character and I want to see more of her, but I suspect I'll appreciate her a lot more if I reread the series once it's done and we actually know what her deal is.

Overall, solid chapter, I think does a good bit to contrast and deepen our understanding of Ruby's views, and even if part of me really wants them to narrow in the focus on the twins a bit more after last time, I am content to let Aka keep cooking.

#i know tying all the threads together is needed for the story to work and it would be worse if it rushed #but i crave the high impact payoff chapters like the previous #oshi no ko #step.live #step.animanga #oshi no ko spoilers

[spoofymcgee]

Rating Various Companion Exits in Terms of How Objectively Sad They Are

because if we do my personal opinions it'll just be donna donna donna bill rose jack everyone else

Least: Martha

i don't think it's an unpopular opinion that martha's exit was the least sad. like, she retires to take care of her mental health and for her family's sake, gets her doctorate, continues being an absolute badass who is also in touch with her emotions and super nice. she finds a partner who sees her for how incredible she really is and appreciates her.

personally i do believe that she and the doctor clear the air at some point–though i don't think martha holds anything against him still–and she'll just call up the TARDIS when she's having a bad day and one of various doctors will come do a girls night with her and paint their nails and talk about the wild shit they've each been up to lately.

(i don't think martha ever stops being in love with the doctor a little bit. but it's not a tragic kind of love–it's a comfortable one, the kind of love you can have once you understand that love will never be perfectly symmetrical and it can be nice without being reciprocated. in the same way that the doctor loves their companions in a way that they can never fully return for how vast and unending and universe-ending it is, martha can love the doctor in a small and quiet and steady way that never fully goes away even when she does hate them.)

(and if you keep to canon with mickey as her husband you get some fun angst about that! okay, martha digression over.)

Second-Least: Rose

look. i know this is an unpopular opinion. i know the doctor is haunted by rose leaving and the narrative is haunted by rose leaving and everyone and their grandma is haunted by rose leaving.

but. girl got sucked into a parallel universe. she got to say goodbye to the doctor, even if he had a stick high enough up his ass that it kept him from saying he loved her. she moves to a different world to retire in a mansion with her mom and her dream guy and has a baby and spends the rest of her life being awesome and cool and saving the world.

yes it is sad that she left. but her method of leaving itself is not sad. she gets a happy ending and the doctor knows about it and no one dies! so i think maybe that's my hot take. first of a few.

Third-Least: Clara

idk how unpopular this is but i'm not entirely certain it's correct because.

look. clara does technically die. the doctor watches her die and spends four billion years smashing diamonds with his fists to save her. as pissed i am that those two episodes basically made her retroactively superfluous before getting rid of her, i can admit that that's a pretty epically tragic way to go out.

but the thing is, she spends the rest of time running around the galaxy with me in a TARDIS, and the doctor only forgets her for, like, seventy years and then he's fine with it again.

so her exit is sad but it's undercut by the fact that she gets at least a bittersweet ending and also that she should have left a season before she did and also the episode after she dies establishes that the doctor hasn't needed her for a while.

so worse than martha and rose who have a happy end and don't die, but better than everyone else.

Third-Most: Amy and Rory

this is why i wasn't sure where to put clara, and i'm sure this is not a popular opinion but. i don't think amy and rory's exit was so sad.

like, i can acknowledge that the course their story was going to take was amy having to choose rory over the doctor. i get that now. i understand that.

and their exit is sad! it is! it is mathematically engineered to be sad. but. and i don't want to go cinema sins about this. is there a really the doctor couldn't have picked them up and brought them home a year later? like, the year is the problem, yes?

and maybe if i didn't have spoilers and also had no media literally or ability to understand foreshadowing i might have been more affected by the real death right after the fake-out death, and the doctor running across the bridge to the book is a nice scene and the bit with river is excellent but.

i just think it's missing something. i think it feels like it's designed to put them in an impenetrable plot prison in a way that was totally unnecessary because they want to leave anyway. it feels like it wants me to be sad–and then move on right away.

Second-Most: Bill

first off! bill dies! because if you really think about it. nearly none of the nuwho companions do? and bill technically becomes space oil yes but

a) the entire downslope of world enough and time and the doctor falls is so fucking sad. she dies and she wakes back up and she has to live in a body that is clunky and awkward and painful and doesn't fully feel like hers and is slowly failing her and that everyone treats as not having a chance despite the fact that its doing its best. and eventually even that gets taken away from her and she is being slowly deconstructed, everything that makes her who she is sawed off piece by piece until she can't even get angry because it's too dangerous, and everyone is scared of her, and she is clinging to the edge of herself because the only thing worse than being a walking rotting weapon is hurting her friends.

b) the doctor only like, 50% knows that she survives as space oil. the glass people don't fully know, so he might not trust them and from his perspective she's dead and he got her killed.

c) no other companion's death affects the doctor's next regeneration so deeply. thirteen throws herself between people and guns, she drops the monologues and the arrogance because her overconfidence is the reason why bill died. what the fuck is that. insane.

anyway bill is so high up and it's been weeks since i watched world enough and time and i'm not over it. bill potts my beloved you made me so happy and then crushed my heart to bits.

Most: Donna

i mean this is just canon. what can i say here that has not already been said.

the doctor has to take donna in his arms, donna who is finally seeing how brilliant she is, who saved his life and her life and the universe, who is brilliant and ruthless and burning.

her takes her in his arms and he kills her while she's begging him not to, begging him to let her go because she'd rather die as herself than die knowing that (from her perspective) the shallows cruel, self-hating voice in her head will replace her and talk like her and look like her only she'll be dead and that will be all that's left.

donna knows who and what she is without the doctor, without her memories, and it is her worst nightmare. and the doctor sends her back to that because he can't bear to lose her, because she is donna even if she doesn't show it, because he thinks that she will figure out how to do so again–and it's so easy for him to make excuses for the fact that he cannot stand by and let her die in his arms when he can do something about it.

god.

#that's a wrap folx #doctor who #rose tyler #martha jones #amy pond #rory williams #clara oswald #bill potts #donna noble #honorable mention to jack harkness because i did cry when he died bit i haven't watched most of martha's season #so i think i can't really talk about him yet

[crusherthedoctor]

While I'm here, there's something else I'd like to clarify. With how harsh I can be on the Eggman getting usurped schtick, some folk might get the impression that I only dislike it because it means Eggman is not the (true) final boss of whichever games. I know this because it's an accusation I've had to deal with on occasion.

While it's true that I will always prefer an Eggman final boss over a non-Eggman one, being the shameless Eggfan that I am, my lack of complaints towards the Black Dragon's status in Superstars should prove that I'm not inherently opposed to a non-Eggman final boss in a game that has Eggman in it (as in, not counting Black Knight, cause he's not in that one lol). I don't think a non-Eggman final boss is inherently set up to degrade the doctor, I think it can be done without coming at his expense.

But of course, that's where the real issue lies: 9 times out of 10, it is done at his expense. Because 9 times out of 10, there's an usurp, betrayal, or some other obvious form of showing up involved.

Which leads to issue #2: when Eggman gets usurped once, it's unfortunate, but can easily be compensated for in the future. When Eggman gets usurped twice, particularly so soon after the first example, it becomes a little more concerning. When Eggman gets usurped constantly, with some examples more tacked on or blatantly humiliating than others, it's guaranteed to paint Eggman as an incompetent fool who can't efficiently serve as the main villain of a serious plot from start to end, who deserves to be showed up by "better" villains, so says the fandom at large.

Now you might say "But Crusher, you shouldn't care about what those fans say", and you'd be right... if it was that simple. But that leads to problem #3: fans in the Sonic fandom can be very influential. Sometimes, too influential. When they hype up the narrative that Eggman exists solely to sit by the sidelines while the real villain makes their power play, that can convince certain influential writers who are eager to show their fandom rep, and potentially affect the course of how the doctor is utilized in later official material... like IDW and Frontiers, for example.

So yes, while you can say I'm too much of an Eggman Eggthusiast for my own good, the fact remains that I have legitimate gripes surrounding the trend that go much further beyond "wahh he's not the final boss".

#Opinion #Dr. Eggman

[rweoutofthewoods]

hey there, sorry to bother you. i just finished reading ppp and you said in a chapter’s notes that you have bpd yourself, and you wrote james’s experiences based on yours. i just wanted to ask, and you really don’t have to answer if you don’t want to — how much does james’s character relate to real life? like, how much does it relate to a real life person? (i don’t know if i got the message across)

i got told by a doctor that i display bpd symptoms myself, but this was several years ago and eventually the diagnosis turned out to be something else. after i realised i relate to james’s character a little too much, i started to wonder if maybe that doctor those years ago was on to something. so, this is my first step i guess.

thank you for what you wrote, anyway.

Hi!! So sorry if I’m misunderstanding but I think what you’re asking is how accurate is James’ character as a portrayal of a real life someone with BPD?

Yes I do indeed have BPD, ppp James touches on a lot of the experience BUT it’s not perfect. The main aspect of BPD I kind of focused on is something that I have heard a lot of other people describe too. The feeling of emptiness and like there’s just some black pit inside of you, trying to consume you. That’s just one aspect, and my biggest regret in writing pathological people pleaser is that I didn’t capture some of the obsessive and relationship aspects. That’s why I really want to write more BPD James actually, because I want to represent the like hyper awareness in every relationship that happens. I want to write a scene where reg texts James back weirdly or says something and James thinks his tone is a little off and he just spirals and loses his mind only to come to later and be like… oops that was a little dramatic wtf.

There’s also a lot of other experiences like the impulsivity that I touched on a bit but not quite enough. Like the way you can convince yourself during an episode that your narrative is 100% correct and your feelings are how you’ll always feel only to snap out of and be like damn what the fuck was I thinking 😭 (usually AFTER doing something stupid and impulsive). BPD really does not stop until ur in treatment and working hard, and I don’t think people quite understand it unless you’ve lived it. EVEN I have made decisions IN FANDOM (😭) like impulsively taking all my fics down during an episode and after, I did have people be like yo what was that?? and the truth is you have no proper explanation because during the time it 10000% feels like this is what I NEED to do. This is the right decision I’ll never feel okay again or change my mind. Then oops, the episode ends and you’re like haha WHAT WAS THAT 😀

So I hope that helps paint a picture of what BPD is actually like and some of the gaps James’ character does have in properly representing BPD. It is only my own experience of it, and I’m not really the violent aggressive kind of BPD, it usually turns inwards (aside from some pretty awful road rage, ngl that’s when the anger episodes rlly comes out and that’s EMBARRASSING) so it is very influenced by my own lived experiences and I can’t speak on how anyone else experiences BPD. If you’re wondering about yourself I implore you to talk to a medical professional!! Even if you don’t have it, it doesn’t hurt to find out for sure. Wishing you luck and lots of love 🫶

#mere answering things ;) #fic: pathological people pleaser

[variousqueerthings]

Vincent And The Doctor! an episode that is both bad and good! but the good outweighs the bad, because Vincent is just so good!

but there is in fact an alien in this story as well, sooo...

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 7/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored): 6/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 6/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 6/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 4/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 9/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 8/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 8/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 7/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 8/10

FULL RATING: 69/100 (if I can count….)

this episode we watch Matt Smith as a British man very seriously say "Vincent van Goffff" over and over again, but Bill Nighy did it right so that's good

and Amy screams a lot and doesn't remember the past

OBJECTIFICATION: Amy is not wearing a miniskirt! yay! she is wearing short shorts under a long jacket and scarf, so idk. not shorts-weather I guess, but at least she can run in this (although she doesn't do much running on the whole this episode)

PLOT-POINT: Soooooo I rated this one quite high, which I think is a bit generous of me, but the thing is that in this episode the reason that Amy isn't exploring what happened to her last episode is because she doesn't remember it happening!

and the Doctor is trying very hard to protect her from those feelings. but Vincent recognises them. there's a bit of "the body remembers" happening here, and so I think this is acceptable. Especially the bit where the Doctor says "Amy- Rory" out of habit and she asks "who?"

I also like that she's excited to see more Van Gogh paintings and is someone who fails to consider how mental health can have good days and bad days. Prompting this quote of all time:

"the good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant. and we definitely added to his pile of good things."

COMPLEXITY: the plot is kind of two things, one of which is obviously stronger (Vincent) than the other (the Krafayis). they never quite come together, or specifically the latter is underdeveloped. I guess it has that speech at the end where Vincent is saying that it lashed out because it was afraid, like people do (the people who are terrible to him for being different), but I'm not sure that's what it should be about. especially when they discover that the Krafayis is blind, which happens right before it's killed. the Krafayis is disabled, like Vincent is

it's kind of a messed up story. right before it dies it goes "I am afraid." They just killed this being, which was abandoned for being disabled. that is the failing side of the episode

However simply as a story about Vincent van Gogh it's pretty lovely, and what it's remembered for. I don't agree with the bit where he talks about being left utterly alone and that framing, because historically he had people who cared for him, and he wasn't anti-doctors either, but I understand why it works for some of what's being said -- Amy and the Doctor are there, and Vincent is still suffering from serious mental health issues and feels alone in that

So in that sense the complexity works -- complexity of emotion

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: the underlying thing here is how Vincent recognises Amy's pain as someone who is also in pain, and Amy of course has no idea what he's on about

overall though it's meant to be -- and works as -- a standalone and doesn't need to be more than that. also as a character Thing, the Doctor's hyperactivity and of it all is a fun detail

COMPANIONS MATTER: Amy doesn't do much outside of her chat with Vincent, which isn't bad. She's ostensibly the emotional anchor to the Doctor's doing stuff. however, am noticing that this scores consistently a bit lower on most episodes and whether I should be getting harsher about it, because at this point Amy is apparently super With It, she knows time travel, she's confident, etc. So why is she still mostly just hanging around?

I do wish she had more... opinions on things. they lie there and see the night sky and she says nothing. the script struggles to make her anchoring Vincent have much to do with herself, or to tie it into the plot. Why is she not the person who suggests taking Vincent to the present, for example?

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor is there to admire Vincent van Gogh, as is right and good!

I do think it's bold that the Doctor is so bad at relating to Vincent's issues though, considering the Doctor is the posterboy for mental health issues

I kind of wish the Doctor had been more able in this episode, specifically with the Krafayis. he's so helpless until the end and then it dies, it seems kind of odd for him

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: Hartnell and Troughton visuals! Nothing special in it, but again, it's a standalone

"SEXINESS": we almost don't have this, and it's frankly because the actor for Van Gogh is so good that he doesn't make it seem creepy that Vincent is just hitting on her from moment one. there's also some quite dorky flirting (Richard Curtis style) which is much more charming

INTERNAL WORLD: I guess this is fine. Again, some of the characterisation of what was happening around Van Gogh is shifted to suit the episode, and I don't think it needed to be, but it's suitable for purpose. also the casting is so good!

POLITICS: so the bad is as mentioned above, the alien portrayal, when we discover it's abandoned and disabled

On the flipside the things about Vincent's mental health, and how that's presented on the whole, famously, is considered pretty good

it's not about "fixing" him, or about mental illness as necessary for the sake of good art, or about covering up the fact that he committed suicide, it's simply presenting him as a man

and of course the famous scene at the end -- what if someone who wasn't convinced that they were any good or much worth in their lifetime got to experience how they were remembered? not everything is about legacy of course, but in this case it works precisely because it doesn't work as a "fixer," but it does provide some solace

so in the end it's really about moments of solace

FULL RATING: 69/100 (if I can count….)

I actually thought this story would rate higher, but where it lets us down is in everything around the admittedly wonderful portrayal of Vincent van Gogh. Especially, again... Amy doesn't do that much. And the quite unfortunate implications in the way the alien of the week is portrayed

on the flipside it's a wonderful little exploration of mental illness and a portrait of a wonderful painter!

#im watching nu!who #im watching eleven who #the measurement #vincent and the doctor

[crippleprophet]

so im going to the doctor in 2 days (i go on the 30th and im writing this on the 28th) and im physically disabled, and this is the first time ive gone to the doctor since late 2019 when i caught covid, and the doctor im going to is our old pcp's son, and our old pcp constantly brushed my dad off and i have all the same stuff as him and m o r e, so i need advice on how to not get brushed off since im 14 and my dads side has a past of drug seeking and shit. ive already made a list of all my symptoms but other than that i straight up dont know what to do

oh, god, i’m so sorry. my medical neglect journey started at 16 (aside from psychiatrization starting at 14) & i had no language for what i was going through so this ask really makes my heart ache, for you & my past self. on the one hand, you knowing to expect & prepare for this kind of shit puts you leagues ahead of where i was at your age; on the other, no amount of understanding the systemic ableism behind your pcp’s behavior will erase the pain & trauma of not being believed.

here’s some general appointment prep i do + other advice, as always with the caveat that i am Just Some Guy on the internet & you know your circumstances best:

think about the narrative you want to craft. i’ve got a primer on how to lie to doctors if that’s the route you want to take. try to group things by category (autoimmune symptoms together, neurological symptoms at a separate point in the conversation, etc) without saying that that’s what you’re doing to like set up the paint by numbers for him & hope he picks up the brush.

in that vein, lead with the symptom you want to prioritize. doctors are trained to build a diagnosis around the “chief complaint,” so burying the lede—or even listing it second—is more likely to get those symptoms ignored.

in addition to listing symptoms themselves: when they started, frequency/duration, intensity, how it impacts your daily life. framing things through the lens of “i want to be a good little normative student but X keeps making it difficult to do Y” usually goes over better.

if a supportive adult will be with you, talk to them about what you’re going to say & at what point you’d theoretically want them to intervene / push back against the doctor’s response, & how so.

determine your goals for the appointment. do you want a referral to a particular specialist? certain testing to be done? a prescription for a particular medication? the more you’ve thought about what you want out of it, the easier it is to advocate for that outcome.

ask leading questions, invoke other authorities, & act like you don’t know shit. for example, if i was trying to get bloodwork of an ANA panel from my rheumatologist, i’d be like, “my pcp was really concerned about this face rash that i’ve been having along with my joint pain, he said there’s some sort of blood test to check if it’s, like, lupus or something?”

do your research, but never ever mention that you have. if you’ll have an adult with you & this would be a safe conversation to have / they’d listen to you, it’s worth mentioning to them that a lot of doctors get dismissive when patients mention having googled symptoms.

this post on finding + navigating specialists might be relevant, especially if you want to get a referral or try to find a new pcp (obv decisions affected by insurance or lack thereof, whether your parents are supportive, etc)

i’ve also got this post about coping with medical neglect & trauma if you want to plan for / set up any of those coping mechanisms in advance.

i really want you to know that no matter how your appointment goes, your disabilities & symptoms are real, & you deserve quality, compassionate, comprehensive healthcare. unfortunately, under an ableist healthcare system it’s impossible to earn our way out of medical neglect—fucking tragically, doing everything “right” at an appointment doesn’t mean we’ll get taken seriously—& equally, folks who don’t know or bother to play this bullshit game are still just as deserving of care & shouldn’t be victim-blamed for neglect they’ve experienced.

i hope some of this is helpful! feel free to send a follow-up ask if there’s any other info or support i can provide. i’ll be thinking about you on the 30th & hope things go as well as possible 💓💓

#asks #faq

[96percentdone]

Is Shouma really the trans rep y'all want? Someone who had no agency in their metaphorical puberty blockers and was forced and threatened into 'taking' them, hated it for years, and eventually decided 'yeah i guess it's pretty neat i'm still youthful but also but also fuck that guy who did this to me?' Is this not just a right wing talking point about how doctors are abusing innocent children with irreversible surgeries to trans their genders being with trans-positive paint? I think reclaiming transphobic narratives them can be powerful, but the context of Nirvana Initiative canon this doesn't feel like 'reframing conservative beliefs' so much as just. Doing their arguments beat by beat including the medical abuse part and saying 'its good actually we want this.'

I haven't seen works transformative enough that change the text so Shouma wasn't abused into the early stages of her transition, or that she was actually willing to take the abuse and deception once she learned about it to see if it could get her what she wants for her body, and her grievances are with the abuse alone. It's just treated as a given that canon is exactly as we know it to be, and the ends justify the means.

Maybe a controversial take, but I just think a lot of transcanons are poorly considered, genderbent or no. This isn't specific to aitsf, and I'm also not saying anyone who likes them are just as bad, even for the ones I don't like at all like this one. They are popular with trans people first and foremost, that would be a bizarre claim; I'm not your dad, fandom should make you happy, do whatever. My beef is that as far as I have seen, a lot of the popular ones in trans fan communities are done by picking some part of the text, ignoring the context it exists in, and then using that detail to justify the hc, even if the context flies against it, and without providing any new context to supplement or even replace the old one. We're just left to assume that everything else is the same still, and transitioning is often the focus of genderbent ones making it stranger. In the case of transfem!shouma, this style of creation just like accidentally leans into transphobic ideas, but even for characters where it's not doing that, they're still similarly thoughtless. Transmasc Kuranushi Mizuki has its own popularity, to distinguish her from Date Mizuki, but like...that's it. No one posts about what it would mean for his character, their life, it's an aesthetic decision alone. It means nothing other than the petty fan grievance or wish-fullfilment that inspired it.

That laziness is what I hate the most. Fandom is transformative, those transformations have the power to be extremely beautiful and compelling and meaningful. They can elevate the text into something more than what it was. I love that. I am a trans person who loves good art. That's why the way trans headcanons are made and portrayed is so irritating to me, because they feel low effort. People will say they have thought about them a lot, and maybe you have! But if all of that consideration is in a private discord server, that means nothing to me. I refuse to consider the merits of context I have no access to. If the context exists, put it in your work!! I just want better art than that.

Fandom wants to be taken seriously. It wants to be treated as art, and yet it also wants to be treated as just a fun hobby unworthy of criticism, but I don't think you get to have both. You cannot position your creations as art, your community as an artistic one worthy of respect, and yet its immune to the treatment all art and art communities get: criticism. I just want more thoughtful and considered fanworks. I want transcanons, even if they exist for a ship, or out of spite, or for fun aus and comedy fan-comics, to be taken just a bit more seriously and with more effort.

#hope.txt

[nalyra-dreaming]

But why mislead the audience so blatantly? They made Antoinette spying on them as the big plot twist, I bet the 99% of the viewers would never imagine a theory like this one. Bad writing?

Not really.... (imho) It probably depends from where you're coming from, background-wise. It's... maybe a big spoiler (I said it in another ask, too), but Claudia hated them both. And used Louis to kill Lestat. In the books at least.

This is something that Louis learns later. And which makes him want to talk to her, and he rips out the pages from her diary to conjure her spirit with the help of a witch, and a ghost appears, and... it's harsh. He tries to commit suicide after. So. In the show we are not quite at that twist. Claudia loves Louis, right. She's his sister. They are off to Europe together (Daniel pokes at that narrative already, in the last scene. It will further unravel imho). But that is part of season 2.

As with a lot of little things in this show... they do not really mislead though imho. They... hint. And if you know... you know. That may be a bit unfair? I guess? But like with the setting, Marius' painting, the Armand hints, Lestat instructing Louis after turning, the comments re technology and the fire gift. The doctor. ... :/

It's breadcrumbs. And Sam connected a series of them with that comment.

(Maybe he got an angry text from Rolin *laughs* Who knows.)

#asks #iwtv #interview with the vampire #thank you nonny #ask nalyra

[popentertainment-moviereviews]

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (2023)

Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, Kathryn Newton, David Dastmalchian, William Jackson Harper, Corey Stoll, Katy O'Brian, Bill Murray, Randall Park, Gregg Turkington, David Bertucci, Clément Osty, Leonardo Taiwo, Paul Fairlie, Milos Bindas, Younes Rocks, Mike Wood, Tianyi Kiy and Ruben Rabasa.

Screenplay by Jeff Loveness.

Directed by Peyton Reed.

Distributed by Walt Disney Studios. 125 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Ant-Man has always held a slightly odd place in the MCU. Goofier and more overtly comic that most Marvel superheroes – partially due to star Paul Rudd’s good-natured affability, partially due to his slightly silly superpowers. He’s not really a big important name like Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America or Thor, but he’s not one of the weird also-rans like Shang-Chi, The Eternals or the Guardians of the Galaxy.

And now he has been tasked with kicking off Phase Five of the highly mapped out MCU saga, following up a slightly underwhelming and confused Phase Four. (While that phase had a few very good films, it was mostly made up of overly complicated and uneven placeholders like Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, The Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder.)

Ant-Man’s sweet goofiness should be a good place to reboot the saga, right?

Well, sort of.

This uncertainty is not even so much a fault of the character, it’s more about how Quantumania is the most rigidly standard MCU adventure of the Ant-Man trilogy. In fact, to a large extent Quantumania felt more like a Guardians of the Galaxy film than Ant-Man. (And sorry, I’ve always found Guardians to be one of the most overrated branches of the MCU family tree.)

This is because the best parts of the Ant-Man template – slightly silly adventures in modern San Francisco where the character of Scott Lang (Rudd) changes sizes willy-nilly during crazy fight scenes – is ignored here. In fact, the great majority of the film does not take place in the real world, but stuck in the Quantum Realm, a dystopian sci-fi hell-scape alternate universe. (This was where Michelle Pfeiffer’s character was rescued from in Ant-Man and the Wasp.)

After the amiable silliness of the opening San Francisco sequences (scored by John Sebastian’s Welcome Back, Kotter theme), getting tossed into a pretty typical overblown Marvel adventure slightly diminishes the Ant-Man. (Shrinks him, I suppose….)

Not only that, but Evangeline Lilly’s character of The Wasp also has really pretty little to do here, as does Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym. On the other hand, Pfeiffer’s role of Pym’s wife Janet (which started in the second Ant-Man film) is significantly beefed up here, as is the role of Ant-Man’s daughter (now played as a young adult by Kathryn Newton).

None of which is to say that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a bad film. It’s just a lot more paint-by-numbers MCU world-building than the character’s offbeat worldview would suggest. It slips a bit too easily into the Marvel mold of megalomaniacal baddie (in this case, Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror), the fight for a powerful orb and the rebellion of a downtrodden populace of the fictious realm.

So yes, even though it is a mostly self-contained narrative (no guest cameos from other Avengers), perhaps Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a good place to take the MCU saga into a new phase. It’s not as effortlessly enjoyable as Ant-Man’s previous adventures, but it’s still a good amount of fun.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: February 15, 2023.

#Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania #2023 #Movie Reviews #Paul Rudd #Jay S. Jacobs

[mdccanon]

Post #1: Amber's Idea of Photo Evidence

I want to thank the literally ONLY Amber Supporter to make a response! All the responses will be broken up so that the conversation of each individual topic can be better understood. Any questions I ask that are similar to others will be in the same post.

The first post features my criticism of Amber Heard for lying to her expert witness psychiatrist with pictures she took meant to make Johnny look like he was on drugs at a time he was struggling with sobriety, but in every photo, upon cross-examination with Johnny's lawyer Camille, Amber had to admit that none of the pictures actually showed the information she told her psychiatrist witness, meaning the doctor was forming his conclusions with incorrect information meant to make him have an unfavorable bias against Johnny.

To me, this is the action of an abuser and not an abuse victim.

Amber supporter @recognize-abuse say its wrong for the quality of Amber's evidence to be scrutinized, regardless of if she is the abuser or the abusee because society should not have expectations on how much or how damning of evidence a person has when they make an accusation. The mind is too traumatic to make such logical decisions in a hostile living situation.

Much of my rebuttal is pointing out that Amber is literally lying about her evidence and so, by damning her own character, it becomes more difficult to believe that if she could take pictures that can't prove her accusations and didn't take pictures that could prove her accusations, it becomes more difficult to believe her narration. Also, the legal system requires scrutiny of evidence to function.

Full Discussion below:

Me: If Johnny has cut Amber more times than he has even punched her, then why doesn't she have an photo evidence of that? Why did she take a photo of Johnny sleeping on the floor as evidence that he passed out after cutting her in a drug-fueled rage and when Camille asked why she didn't take a picture of the actual puncture wound, all Amber could do was stare blankly and say that didn't occur to her...

recognize-abuse 1) This is what we mean when we say the scrutiny AH gets is a reflection of how society expects a perfect victim. It's not easy to figure out the perfect response when you're actively going through trauma. It's not hard to believe that something that seems obvious as a neutral third party is something that didn't occur to a potential victim. Its the same as how SA victims are criticized for freezing (not screaming out or fighting back). Our bodies and brains are not primed to operate normally during a traumatic event. This is important because (and I must sound like a broken record here) scrutinizing this kind of thing hurts all survivors and victims even if Amber Heard is an abuser. Criticizing documentation, how good it is, how bad it is, if there's too little, if there's too much, is a huge problem. Yes of course you need evidence, but when it comes to the documentation the victim has, it will never be perfect.

Me: Actually, no, it’s not unfair to question this, because this isn’t about what “society thinks” it is about what two lawyers asked Amber to testify to and the civil right that both Johnny and Amber have to build narratives supporting the evidence they have. That’s how court works.

Amber, with her lawyer Elaine, painted a narrative that she took pictures of Johnny sleeping as proof that he was knocked out after a drug-induced rage where he cut her. (It is her right to make whatever narrative she wants.)

On cross-examination, Johnny’s lawyer Camille asked why if this incident included him cutting her, why didn’t she also take pictures of her wounds. Amber said it didn’t occur to her. (It is Johnny’s right to question her narrative and present his own.)

Amber presented more pictures of Johnny sleeping as proof that he was on drugs, the logic being that in one picture he had vomit on him. In cross-examination Amber admitted this was more likely to be ice cream, but her point still stood that Johnny falling asleep with ice cream in his hand was PROOF that he was on drugs. (Amber had already told her expert psychiatrist witness that the picture was of vomit, so when HE testified this evidence as part of his conclusion on Johnny, Camille had to tell him that Amber already admitted that it was actually just ice cream. He really was confused and frustrated by this. He was also told other things by Amber that other witnesses testified against, such as that Johnny was so brain-damaged that he needed his lines read to him by ear-piece and a co-worker testified that wasn't the case at all and Johnny liked to listen to music while taking shoots.)

Another picture he was so unconscious from drugs that “he didn’t notice the cigarette burning him” In cross-examination Camille got Amber to admit that there is no cigarette OR cigarette burn on Johnny because she “took it out of his hand before it burned him” and THEN took the picture… Camille pointed out to her claiming it DID burn him was therefore untrue.

Amber presented a picture of freshly placed cocaine and an unsmoked cigarette and presented that as proof Johnny was using drugs again. (In cross-examination Camille got Amber to admit that the drugs were unused. Camille then asked if Amber had any pictures of Johnny actually using or even in the same room AS cocaine and Amber said no…)

That’s how court works. You are supposed to scrutinize things. You are supposed to object to hearsay, speculation, and unfounded claims like a picture of Johnny sleeping MEANS it was because he was drunk. Johnny's legal team has asked time and time again why Amber takes so many pictures that imply drug use and domestic violence and so few pictures that show drug use and domestic violence. (And why she lies about what her photos implying things actually show.)

I am surprised you are using vague generalizations and stereotypes instead of the facts of the case. It’s a month-long case, being broken down and analyzed by lawyers, psychologists, and domestic abuse experts all over YouTube. What outlets are you using to following the due process of evidence, witnesses, and proper legal counsel of this case? Feel free to link anyone analyzing the testimonies, too!

Anyway, here is the testimony I’m getting this from:

Amber’s Testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Ku-sN4Q8s

The Cross Examination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od3VhTd8r4A

#believe amber heard #believe all women #believe amber #pro amber heard #pro johnny depp #anti johnny depp #anti amber heard #depp v heard #depp v heard trial

[aliassinvestigations]

ZERO HOUR

24 HOURS TILL ZERO HOUR

Child investigations were the worst for her. The depravity and secrets under the veil of a loving family always revealed themselves to her. You didn't have to dig deeply to find them either, you only needed to know where to look to find it.

Jessica sat in her apartment reading over hospital records she gathered. Broken wrist, concussion, cracked rib. It was a telltale sign of domestic violence, at least the doctor wasn't stupid enough to brush it over as "kids being kids." Child Protective Services did little to help the situation, their involvement seemed to escalate the dangerous homelife.

Now the mother was in the wind and the dad was a drunken mess trying to find the bitch that killed their son. Here she was, doing just that. She'd find the woman and turn her in. Jessica went to pour another drink, not even a buzz and she was half way through her Jack. They were either watering down their product or her tolerance was getting stronger, either way it sucked.

Picking up another a list of bank records, she looked between two notes made on a strange transaction. Her brows furrowed and she reached in her pocket for her phone. It didn't make sense, why buy three plane tickets for only one person? The dad said he went out on a business trip...

"Hello, this is Sarah Jane with Think Tech's accounting department," She forced a cheery tone, with just a hint of pep. "I'm going over Mr. Smith's books here, and I want to confirm a couple of transactions. It shows here on his statement last month he purchased three plane tickets for five hundred and sixty four dollars, were those tickets for wife and child?" Just as she thought. She thanked the airline receptionist and hung up. So, the bastard still had contact with them after all. She got up from her desk and finished her glass in one swig. Time to go have a little chat with the alleged "grieving father."

She found him at his home but made no move to engage. Instead she sat on a wall across the street, binoculars in hand, watching his behavior through the window. He was laughing at some shit on TV, a petite redhead snuggled up with him having the time of his life. Had the mother been beating the kid as he proclaimed? Doubt it. Watching the couple on the couch painted a different narrative to Jessica.

She had to find the mother, the sooner she did the faster she'd know what happened to the boy. Should she confront him now or tomorrow, the thought rattled in her head. Jessica hopped off the wall and walked down the street; now wasn't the time. She didn't have enough to corner his ass with. If she was going to nail him for child abuse, she wanted it to hurt like hell. She took a couple of shots of him and the redhead kissing, then, left for home.

Her walk home was peaceful, the night air wreaked of smog and filth, in a way it was tranquil. Jessica popped into a liquor store as she turned right at one of the intersections. Might as well try something other than Jack, it wasn't giving her the same warmth and haze as it did six months ago.

She walked up to the counter and placed a twenty down. "Give me the cheapest 100 proof shit you got." Time to up the anti. The guy gave her a dirty look but turned and grabbed her some vodka. Jessica scrunched her nose, practically tasting the astringent bitter taste. She could clean her tub with that paint thinner. She paid for it no less, it got the job done right so what did she care?

A scream ripped from an alleyway across the street, Jessica rolled her eyes and cursed. So much for going straight home, she turned on her heel and ran across the street. A mugger shoved a young girl to the ground, she clung to her purse screaming.

Jessica came up behind him and grabbed the back of his head slamming him face first into the wall, his nose popped and he cried in pain. She looked down at the terrified blonde who sat there wide eyed, "Go! Run!" She bolted leaving the asshole for her to deal with.

She spun him to face her, his nose gushing down his face. Jessica wanted to give him some quip about praying on kids, instead she reared back and with the totality of her strength smashed a fist-sized hole in the concrete next to his ear. Her look deadly as she sneered, "next time, I won't miss." She dropped him, watching him scurry off into the depths of the alley. Jessica growled and looked down at her torn up hand, he wasn't worth her bloodied knuckles yet she was still pissed. Sick of taking teen and child cases, yet they were pouring in and paying her bills. It made her sick some nights, thinking her income came from those cases. She was helping people, that's what she told herself as she downed herself in the liquor. But it making a difference? No, not really. Those families would still be haunted by their tragedies, they'd never be the same no matter how hard she worked to close those cases and make things better.

The moment Jessica's door closed, she pulled the bottle from the brown paper bag and twisted off the cap. She tossed in the trash with the tower of empty liquor and beer bottles. Instead of grabbing a glass, she drank from the bottle, a glass would slow her down. She paced her apartment and went to the bathroom to tend to her scrapped knuckles.

The next night was like the last. Working day and night with one thought in mind, where was the boy's body if he was dead.

[legionofpotatoes]

the only truly innovative thing the new doctored strange does in the context of the em cee you is that it really really really doesn't try to be likable or charming, and it sucks how much that stands out and feels "fresh" now

spoilers from this point on. my usual disjointed thoughts

I sort-of like the bookending. the "are you happy" stuff. roping in the issues of consequence and guilt, pitting that against wanda's baggage, folding in his ego and shitty interpersonal relationship skills, managing to sponge out some form of character catharsis, passing it on to youth. almost great. it was broken up and dramatized super unevenly, but his final pep talk as a rotting zombie with a fully locked emotional close-up was peak raimi and almost exactly the type of camp and tonal flexibility these genre films lost over time

but it's the simple, non-grandiose stuff that really works and gets to the heart of very-very basic storytelling. admitting love and fear to mcadams, the bowing to wong, the choice to transcend ruthless calculus. and all of it actually motivated. elemental two-step arcs! none of this is in any way groundbreaking, but I'd need extra limbs to count all the marvel films where protagonists don't really change in meaningful ways. again, it genuinely sucks that basic shit like this feels fresh

and it mostly works on the other end as well but eurgh the wanda stuff. I get how on a story level it foils with strange but I have such a personal bone to pick with narratives painting motherhood as madness and didn't wandavision deal with all this crap already. jesus christ give that woman some meat on her lines she tries so hard to work with the scraps

sam raimi said shallow cameos are meaningless fodder and treated them as such. king shit

there's always a high caliber woman being wasted in every marvel movie huh? rachel mcadams you deserve so much better than this

you also deserve a nicer wig. no one agrees with me but it, uh. stands out?? my kingdom for due appreciation towards makeup departments in these films, but likeee

I really want to say danny elfman killed it but I can't recall a single motif or memorable musical moment. yes, even the literal musical moment was mostly, kind-of, sort-of musical in various chopped-up bits

and really most of the magic in these films is just conjuring up medieval-style tools it feels like. or fireballs! this isn't really a nitpick but more of a symptom - I understand how maddening it must feel to keep thinking up creative ways to maintain people in Disney-aliveTM states as they face literal gods and sorcerers

I truly believe that pacing - ergo structural editing - is only bad if you simultaneously care about and suck at it. And I feel like there's a tangible difference between someone who understands craft and is deliberately wheeling the ship into stormy waters to end up getting away with and having way more fun, and someone who's barely managing to keep it together to get the bow pointed north. Incredibly convoluted metaphor but I think it gets there

somewhat related to this - always a big thumbs up from me when a movie squeaks by at 2 hours of runtime. respects my time, nerves, and bladder

felt like sam raimi made this for sure. in aesthetics mostly, and partly in its gnarly, horror-esque ethos to punish and exact swift consequence on characters both deserving and not - right up to the closing shot with the eye. it's a fun way to approach superhero movies, but something the fancam crowd will certainly hate. it attempts some textual horror as well, but it don't work that well when you know exactly who the monster in the shadows is (evil soccer mom with seven movies and a tv show)

I appreciate the totally deliberate references to doom eternal nobody correct me on this. wanda had hell barons in her single-room fortress! and they totally glory killed that cacodemon in the beginning! yeah! cool! I have no clue what exactly happened to captain marvel but sure, that too!

briefly amending the danny elfman comment because I just remembered the x-men cartoon jingle when xavier first rolled in. Goofy, inexplicable, why not just throw that in there, yeah!

I've seen token characters expanded into full ones through sequels, but mordo truly innovates by somehow doing the opposite

In conclusion: okayest superhero movie of 2022. not too interesting. won't watch again

#text #I really hope this avoids falling into any tags #it has spoilers in the full thing #dont click it! if you dont want em

[sigmadecay]

ngl id love to hear what you have to say about the wristwatch factories because i only know a little bit but im guessing as the radiation guy you know alot

The Radiation Guy, I’m honored ☢️ !

So, the US Radium Corporation started mining/extracting radium in the 1910’s and used it to make radium paint. This paint was used to paint the faces of wristwatches, specifically the numbers & the hands. Problem is, hand painting such small things requires a really really fine tip, which you were only able to get by “lip-pointing” the brush, or molding it with your lips.

These watches were decently popular, but the popularity exploded when they were advertised for use in trench warfare because the face of the watch glowed, so you could see the time even in the trenches. The factories ramped up production and more and more women were hired to paint the watches.

Radium had only been discovered recently and its “medicinal qualities” had become something of a pop-culture phenomenon. At no point was this actually supported by the Curies’ findings, by the way, but corporations continued pushing this narrative so they could continue profiting off radium, which was incredibly expensive to mine and therefore pretty rare. But the popularity pretty much ensured they made their money back, on top of a handsome profit.

Radium is interesting. There was not enough in the paint to be actively dangerous—in fact, it was an incredibly small amount, but it didn’t take much to make the paint glow. (The girls & women, the watch painters, literally glowed in the dark when they came home at night, but like. People didn’t know how fucking scary that was at the time. It was cool. The factories paid well, radium was new, everyone wanted to be a radium girl.) Everyone told them it was safe. They even painted their faces with it.

And nothing happened. For a while. It’s not like fissile uranium; you don’t get radiation burns from contact with it. The problem is, they ingested it when they lip-pointed. And they ingested it every day, all day, many of them for years.

And then, maybe three or four or even five years later, long after they stopped working at the watch factories, a bunch of the dial painters became…symptomatic. One had a toothache. One had a persistent ache in her hip. One had shoulder pain. Symptoms so innocuous and common they couldn’t possibly be linked. But the symptoms didn’t improve. Soon, they sought out doctors & dentists. Dentists pulled tooth after tooth, the pain getting worse and worse, the gums and mouth becoming necrotic, the jaw shattering on contact. The dentist was able to pull fragments of bone out of this radium girl’s mouth without operating, because the skin was already so damaged there was nothing to cut into.

Women who received treatments for arthritis and were put in braces and wheelchairs eventually were diagnosed with massive sarcomas, some of which required amputation. Many women died. Many more became horribly, progressively sick. And the only thing linking them was the watch factory.

You see, radium, when ingested, acts like calcium. Which means it travels through the body and is deposited in the bones, where it lies dormant for years and years. Until, one day, it begins to decay. Your body is literally being attacked from the inside out, from your own bones, and where it settled was different for different people. Jaw, legs, back, hips, could be anywhere.

The radium girls brought the USRC to trial, and publicized the effects of radium poisoning on the body. They were able to prove that a radium girl who had died years ago had been killed by radiation after they exhumed her & sampled her bones. But, notably, her coffin, years later, glowed in the fucking dark.

They changed the course of worker’s rights and hazard protection protocols. Many of them lost everything—the last few months of their lives, all their money, even their reputations—in choosing to battle some of the greediest corporate ghouls in 1920’s-1930’s America. Every worker today, especially those that work with potentially hazardous chemicals, owe a lot to them. Remember, these regulations are written in blood.

Source: The Radium Girls by Kate Moore, & Wikipedia to confirm some details :)

#ask #kenny.txt

[the-woman-who-was-lili-elbe]

Sometimes it can be easy to forget that LGBTQ+ identities are not new to the past few decades. Finding LGBTQ+ histories can be very difficult either because it wasn't recorded or it got lost or destroyed or rewritten. A piece of queer history that we do have though is the story of Lili Elbe, the semi-autobiographical narrative was published after she died in 1933 under the title Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex. The story of a transgender woman and some of the first recorded gender affirming surgeries.

This book consists of memoirs that were written by Lili during her lifetime. Before her death she had begun compiling these into a narrative with the help of Ernst Harthern. After her death the novel was published first in Germany with the help of an editor friend that published under the name Neils Hoyer. A story like this was sensational. It was so revolutionary for the time because for the first time an international  general audience got an insight into transgender lives and struggles. In Germany (where Lili got the surgeries done and where her doctors came from) there were some transgender publications such as newspapers and magazines but they were few and far between and weren’t widely circulated. They functioned more as a way to spread information between who was already in the community rather than outreach to the world. 

Whether or not going in the readers supported transgender rights and movements, lots of people had a burning curiosity about the medical aspects of a procedure like this. Which again, was REVOLUTIONARY at the time. There had been a rising interest in gender affirming procedures since the beginning of the 1900’s. Most of this audience wanted to know about the medical advancements rather than the psychology surrounding transgender individuals at the time. 

So to get into who she actually was: Lili Ilse Elvenes was born in 1882 in Denmark as Einar Wegener and was a moderately successful painter married to fellow painter Gerda Gottlieb. She began her transition in the 1920’s. By the 1930's this woman was not only able to transition socially, but was able to get gender affirming care. She managed to get her name legally changed, she got her passport changed to reflect that she was a woman, and she was one of the very early cases of a medical sex change.  Lili had the first recorded uterus transplant as she wanted to become a full woman and be able to bare children. (As was the social expectation and ideal of women at the time) Not long after her surgery she died due to complications relating to organ rejection.  

The beginning of Einar’s transition into Lili actually began because of her wife. Her wife was basically like “hey I need a female model and I think you would be beautiful as a woman. Here dress up as a woman to model for my paintings” Which Einar ended up greatly enjoying and discovering this other side of themselves. One thing led to another and Einar started to go out in social settings cross dressing and trying to pass as a woman. The couple moved to France as it was easier for Lili to exist there. France being what it was at the time masculine fashions and silhouettes were IN so that helped her fit into society. Lili felt this war and dichotomy between her male side and female side, probably so harshly because of the social gender divide that was wider than ever following WWI and the tensions between women who had stayed on the home front and men who had gone to war. She felt like the woman had won and if she couldn’t live as a full woman she didn’t want to live. 

Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld was the guy who really made Lili Elbe’s transition possible. He was a German doctor and sexologist and literally wrote the book on transgender people and coined the term transvestite. He was the one who introduced Lili to the doctors that would perform her gender affirming revolutionary surgeries. In Wiemar run Germany where she got her surgeries you could cross-dress in public and get cross dressing certificates, as pre Nazi Germany was surprisingly progressive and was even looking to decriminalize homosexuality until the Nazi’s took control. Germany had housed Hirschfeld’s research institute which held Lili Elbe’s medical records, all of which were lost due to Nazi students burning the institute down.

Now because of the loss of these medical records, we can’t be certain of the realities of Lili Elbe’s medical history and therefore what parts of the narrative presented in her biography are factual and what was edited to make a more compelling and acceptable narrative for the general public. As much as I want it to be, this book isn’t a perfect representation. Many of the actual medical details have been obscured and put into euphemisms. Everyone involved in this story was given pseudonyms so it's hard to cross reference accounts. It was made for a larger audience and likely wanted to reflect the sort of ideal scenario that didn’t push the boundaries or what they believed was moral. We don’t know for sure if Lili was intersex or not or the exact details of her transition due to her medical files being destroyed. It is likely they over exaggerated the biological aspect of her story because that was the only way being transgender could be accepted in those days. Performing gender affirming surgery on someone who was already halfway to the opposite sex biologically was much more acceptable than changing a fully biological man into a woman. The psychological reasonings behind and studies of transgender identities was less accepted and explored at the time. 

Most importantly, nothing was published until AFTER she had died so she didn’t even get final say on anything got left in or taken out of or edited within the narrative. This book has also been translated many times so even if her story was more or less accurately depicted at first, the translators writing for an English speaking British and American populous likely took liberties to censor and reword to fit the expectations of the audience they were writing for. 

When examining LGBTQ+ histories, it is so important to understand the context of what we are researching and how that changes how we interpret the source material. Lili Elbe’s story is an important part of history that deserves to be known and explored, just with an awareness of its context. She was able to open many peoples eyes to the transgender experience and her story inspired the well known 2000's novel, The Danish Girl, which was later made into a film of the same name.

To end off here is a portrait of Lili Elbe painted by her wife:

P.S Once Lili was legally recognized as a woman her marriage with Gerda had been made null and void, both went on to marry men