#which is real hard bc I have.... so much trouble articulating why I like things

[bestworstcase]

can we open the box labelled "yang thoughts™"

or as i like to call them, yots,

hgsgfjdk here’s one i’ve been chewing on for a good long while now: there is a line of connection that i want to draw between yang’s anger and what the narrative appears to be doing rn with salem and to a lesser extent cinder, to the point that i almost think yang might end up being the locus of their villain-to-hero arcs from the protagonist side.

( one of the reasons i sat on this ask so long is this is a thought i’m having a REAL hard time articulating to my satisfaction, so bear with me. )

the yang we meet in v1-2 doesn’t exactly wear her heart on her sleeve, but she carries her trauma a lot closer to the surface than her teammates do. our first glimpse of the murky STRQ past comes from yang volunteering this extremely personal story about how she struggled after losing her mom and learning that her other mom abandoned her, as a way of empathizing with and getting through to blake that exhausting herself isn’t helping anything. which is, i think, presently the high water mark for yang vis-a-vis expressing this childhood trauma in a healthy or constructive way.

bc what gradually emerges after this scene is this… pattern. of yang—i think, comparing this shit she’s gone through to her perceptions of what other people have experienced. & this is a more loaded way to say this than i would like hfkfhsl but i feel like yang gets a bit of a complex about her trauma after she loses her arm, in that she develops this tendency of kinda,, tunnel visioning on herself, her pain, and it makes her worse at connecting emotionally to other people’s suffering in the way that she did with blake in v2.

we first see hints of this when she lashes out at ruby right after losing her arm, but i think the clearest illustration of it occurs in the yang+weiss talk in v5. bc two important things happen in that conversation:

1. yang sorta,, resentfully tries to shove weiss away by doing the, “you don’t GET what i’m going through, you have a huge family” thing—& is blindsided (and contrite) when weiss gently pushes back on that

2. in stark contrast with how easily yang intuited what was up with blake and how to get on her level emotionally in v2, yang CANNOT wrap her head around why blake left. she’s too mired in her own pain and feelings of abandonment to be able to empathize with blake until weiss helps her put those pieces together.

& like i want to make clear that this is not a “yang gets more selfish” / “yang doesn’t care about blake” line of reasoning bc i know that’s not an uncommon take in certain circles 🥴 but like, this is a TEXTBOOK response to trauma gkgjsshbk the erosion of yang’s empathy + the defensive emotional crouch she sinks into after the fall of beacon, thats the tip of the iceberg. she’s in acute psychological crisis on account of being dismembered and then kicked right in the abandonment issues.

anyway

what i’m getting to is this scene:

RAVEN: [Spring] was scared when we found her! Weak. No matter how much training I put her through, she never learned! She wasn’t cut out for this world, and with those powers, she would’ve been hunted her entire life! What I did—

YANG: “Wasn’t personal.”

RAVEN: It was mercy!

YANG: Which is it, mom? Are you merciful, or are you a survivor? Did you let me walk into that trap because you knew I could handle it, or because it meant you could get what you wanted?!

RAVEN: It’s not that simple. You don’t know me! You don’t know what I’ve been through, the choices I’ve had to make!

YANG: You’re right. I don’t know you. I only know the Raven dad told me about. She was troubled, and complicated, but she fought for what she believed in, whether it was her team or her tribe! Did you kill her, too?

RAVEN: …I’ve stared death in the face over and over again, and every time I’ve spat in that face and survived because I’m strong enough to do what others won’t!

YANG: Oh, shut up! You don’t know the first thing about strength! You turn your back on people, you run away when things get hard, you put others in harms way instead of yourself! You might be powerful, but that doesn’t make you strong.

RAVEN: Who do you think you are, lecturing me?! Standing there, shaking like a scared little girl—

YANG: Yeah, I’m scared. But I’m still standing here. I’m not like you. I won’t run, which is why you’re going to give me the relic.

RAVEN: And why would I—

YANG: BECAUSE YOU’RE AFRAID OF SALEM! And if you thought having maiden powers put a target on your back, imagine what she’ll do when she finds out you have a relic. She’ll come after you with everything she has… or she can come after me. And I’ll be standing there, waiting for her.

RAVEN: You don’t want to do this, Yang.

YANG: Nope. But I’m gonna do it anyway.

[She shoves past Raven, heading for the open vault.]

RAVEN: I… I’m sorry.

YANG: …Yeah. Me too.

in ANY other story, this would have been a triumphant moment of catharsis for yang, finally giving voice to all this pain and resentment she’s been drowning in for almost her whole life and getting to throw all of her mom’s fucking bullshit back in her face until she’s stripped away every justification and forced raven to APOLOGIZE. but in rwby—

this is how it ends. she gets that apology—and it’s hollow. she turns around and raven’s left her AGAIN, ran away because things got hard AGAIN, and after all of this, after yang made herself vulnerable and threw herself into this terrifying, painful, difficult confrontation with her mother, in the end all she gets is a token apology, and more abandonment. so she watches raven fly away, and then walks into the vault to collect the relic of knowledge, and the plain truth that *nothing she said* made raven care about her enough to stay crushes her.

which is a lot more true to life, as far as how this sort of confrontation with bad parents generally goes. real life does not tie itself up in neat cathartic little bows after you rake the person who hurt you over the coals.

& this is a HUGE emotional problem for yang, because getting to this confrontation has been her driving motivation for ALMOST HER ENTIRE LIFE! ever since she learned about raven, she’s been desperate to find her, to ask WHY, to get answers and closure and healing—and at the end of v5 she gets that confrontation and those answers and it doesn’t fix a goddamn thing.

all that remains is the anger and the hurt with nowhere left to go. that’s part of why things are so weird between her and blake in the first half of v6—blake is not like raven, but her leaving stirred up similar feelings to raven’s abandonment and obviously that’s hard for yang to work through, it’s hard to let herself be vulnerable with blake again right after raven sucker-punched her by running again. and patching things up with blake does put her on the road to healing, i think, but she’s not there yet—

& that brings us to THIS:

SALEM: [to Ozcar] Why do you keep—coming—back?!

YANG: Why do you?! All this endless death, because something bad happened to you once upon a time? Nobody gets a fairytale ending! Everything I’ve lost—every person I’ve lost—is because of YOU!

SALEM: …And who have I taken from you, girl?

YANG: Summer Rose. My mom.

SALEM: …Hm. Her, again.

and. ok

i know that the general reception of this by the fandom was: fuck yeah, yang, you tell her! so my take is… idiosyncratic BUT

what strikes me about this exchange is this: salem does not make even the slightest effort to justify herself or rationalize her choices. she asks for clarification, and then she’s amused by whatever her private little joke about summer rose is—but there’s no, you know, this:

RAVEN: It’s not that simple. You don’t know me! You don’t know what I’ve been through, the choices I’ve had to make!

or this:

RAVEN: Who do you think you are, lecturing me?! Standing there, shaking like a scared little girl—

and we have that contrast happening simultaneously with yang reducing “you were abused and imprisoned your whole life, lost the one person who ever cared about you, got cursed with eternal suffering for asking the gods to bring him back, and then spent millions of years alone on the planet after watching those gods slaughter every single person on the planet besides you, after which they brought your former lover back as their loyal champion” down to “something bad happened once upon a time” which—lmao. yang had raven DEAD TO RIGHTS during the v5 confrontation, but with salem she’s scoffing away literal millions of years of being tortured by the gods as salem throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get the happy ending she wanted. it’s belittling and it has almost nothing to do with what salem’s actual motivations are!

which is to say—as i see it, there’s a reversal happening in 8.9. yang isn’t stripping away her absent mother’s bullshit self-justifications to force raven to give her the apology she deserves, anymore; instead she’s lashing out in a blind rage at the nearest acceptable substitute for raven, while salem is more or less like “…ok?” hfgdjdcfh

and that serves, i think, a couple of important narrative purposes:

1. imo it flags that yang’s arc in void wonderland is likely to turn on the goldilocksish fulcrum of confronting this anguish and festering bitterness that has been tearing her up inside ever since 5.14 and figuring out the right balance between burying it or drowning in it so she can heal.

2. it also feels, to me, like something of a who you are in the dark moment for salem: we have been told over and over again that she is narcissistic and impossible to reason with, always by sources of dubious trustworthiness and always contrasted by little emotional beats that don’t add up—and then. this happens. at the exact moment when salem’s deep, DEEP rage at ozma begins to boil over, this child screams what amounts to “who cares if your life sucks? everyone’s life sucks, but how dare you make MY life suck!” in her face, and her reaction is to calm down. she reins in her temper and offers zero apologies, zero explanation, zero justifications, just. who did i take from you. gbfhdjx like .

3. & THAT is one of many, many instances of the pattern of characters saying things about salem and those things being almost immediately juxtaposed with salem acting differently, which is all wrapped up in the big theme in salem’s arc of storytellers shaping reality for their audiences and her total surrender of the narrative to ozma throughout the centuries and so forth: the horse is very dead.

4. (i think it’s probably not a coincidence that this happens RIGHT before 1. the very weird fight with hazel that kicked off with salem releasing her own hostages and 2. the repetition and elaboration of the lost fable “salem looks away & oz braces for a fight, catching her off guard” beat—which in lost fable lasts all of half a second but HERE gets drawn out quite a bit)

5. lastly, the other thing that i chew on with this exchange a lot is—well, this:

WATTS: You know, it’s impressive that you haven’t realized this yet, but I don’t work for you!

[Cinder, furious, dangles him off the roof; he scoffs.]

WATTS: Please. You can’t just threaten me like everyone else.

CINDER: You think you’re so clever, don’t you, Arthur?

WATTS: Salem sent you to bring me back—

CINDER: Salem isn’t here right now, but I think we can still come up with a plan while she’s pulling herself together. First, I’m going to watch you plummet to an unremarkable end, and then I’m going to burn a path directly to the vault, where I will wait to tear that magical puppet to pieces, and take what is mine.

[Slowly, Watts starts to laugh.]

WATTS: Oh! Of course you are! Because that’s just what you do, isn’t it? And how has that worked out for you? You stormed into Fria’s room, thinking you could take on Ironwood’s top fighter and war machine, but you couldn’t! And that machine became the winter maiden! Oh—and let’s not forget your deal with Raven Branwen! Get all your enemies in one place so you’d have a shot at revenge; if only someone could have warned you against such a miserable idea. Oh, wait! I DID! But you pushed ahead and you lost it when all you had to do was your job! You think you’re entitled to everything just because you’ve suffered, but suffering isn’t enough! You can’t just be strong; you have to be smart! You can’t just be deserving, you have to be worthy! But all you have ever been is a BLOODY MIGRAINE!

…like the emotional overlap here with both yang’s confrontation with raven and her lashing out at salem is obvious, yeah? the context is different of course—watts has very different reasons for his rage at cinder—but it’s three repetitions of one character chewing another out for failings real or perceived, and the chewed-out character reacting differently than the first character expected; raven runs away, salem vanishes behind her inscrutable mask, cinder spares his life (for now) and cries.

and. in all cases, i think the narrative is inviting us to ask: did this really accomplish anything? was it worth it? did forcing raven to take an honest look at herself make yang feel better? did that experience change raven for the better? did throwing salem’s pain in her face and proving to her that even the lamp showing these children “everything” isn’t enough to make her not a storybook monster in their eyes actually achieve anything? did screaming at cinder meaningfully heal her relationship with watts or improve her as a person? no!!

and with two of the three occurrences of this being YANG, in a way that is i think pretty clearly setting her up to have an arc in v9 where she grapples with this, this unchecked anger and resentment and rampant trauma that is strangling her ability to empathize and emotionally connect with other people and by extension making it impossible for her to heal properly i just—this is intertwined very deeply with yang’s personal arc but the broader connections with the narrative as a whole seem. obvious lmao

or who knows maybe in v9 she’ll continue in a downward spiral until she slam dunks her life into a flaming dumpster and upgrade herself to the VIP lounge in my head i DO love it when characters hit rock bottom and promptly pull out a drill. at a minimum i don’t think this’ll be an arc that is all said and done by the end of v9, i think it’s gonna be a ✨process✨

[firelord-frowny]

ok i have a 70% serious question omfg

is there any possible way to ask/suggest that someone who's unskilled at a thing to stop trying to give ~helpful advice~ to someone who's highly skilled without sounding rude/dismissive/arrogant/etc??

omfg like

there is a Particular Person who STAYS commenting on some of my violin stuff with absolutely wrong and useless bullshit like ~remember, you don't need to press super hard on the string for pizzicato~ which is just?? BLATANTLY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY FALSE AND LITERALLY ANYONE WHO'S A HALFWAY DECENT PLAYER KNOWS THIS, but overconfident ~amateurs~ be parroting that shit all the time because it's what beginners are taught so they don't put too much strain on their joints/ligaments/muscles/tendons before they've built up enough strength and endurance to handle it long-term. And most of these overconfident amateur players, I guaranfuckingtee you, continue to believe that ~beginner~ technique is Correct In All Circumstances, hence why they never improve, hence why they confidently butcher difficult pieces, hence why they feel perfectly empowered to go forth and ~teach~ other amateur players the same bad techniques and false information.

and i legit find myself feeling angry??? when some such person, in all their mediocre glory, posting all their lil videos of themselves being loud and wrong as they butcher a piece that's HELLA above their paygrade and play not one single note in tune or even with good tone quality, shows up on MY demonstration of a properly executed technique with some ~It Helps If You [thing that doesn't help]~

so far i just have been ignoring those kinds of comments but given that i have a really fucking personal beef with shitty players who are even shittier teachers who con people into paying them money to teach them, there's a bigass part of me that wants to call them out directly and suggest that they actually go and learn a fucking thing or two about legitimate violin technique before they have the goddamn gall to go tossing unsolicited ~advice~ at Actual Professionals, LET ALONE taking people's money to ~teach~ them all that Wrong Bullshit.

but despite my upsetness and my desire to make shitty teachers aware of what they need to improve on before they should feel comfortable taking anyone's money, i'm ALSO hellaaaaaaaa non-confrontational and am averse to initiating any kind of interaction that seems like it may result in a soured relationship or hurt feelings or just cause someone to look at me in a negative light on account of me being, idk, elitist or arrogant or condescending.

i just

want!

to be able to tell someone directly that their entire understanding of violin technique is based on the most basal, rudimentary aspects of beginner technique and is not just inadequate for, but also damaging to the pursuit of learning advanced technique, and that they're doing everyone who ever has a ~lesson~ with them an AWFUL disservice and are undoubtedly setting them up for total failure and that the fact that they even felt comfortable trying to offer ~technical suggestions~ to a player who is blatantly LIGHTYEARS beyond their skill level is a glaring and troubling indicator that they truly have absolutely no genuinely useful knowledge or understanding about classical music full stop - not just as it relates to violin technique. (bc let's be real, if you play SO BADLY that exactly 0 notes are in perfect intonation and your string crossings are jacked the hell up and your left-hand-articulation is a weak, garbled SHITSHOW and you somehow still manage to think you're doing it right, you're not just a bad player - you're also very probably tone deaf, and definitely have shitty taste, and your musical deficiencies are way more profound than just being a poor violinist.)

but all those words sound mean no matter what order i put them in or what synonyms i swap shit out for :(

#ok so i guess this isn't a serious question at all lmfao i really just needed to Vent #lmao like can you imagine an amateur tennis player trying to give serena williams tips on her backhand #somebody who used to do ballet in middle school trying to show mikhail baryshnikov a stretch to improve his turnout #imma call up simone biles and tell her how to stay flexible #also lmfao i recall a rehearsal where i was doing some 4th finger stretches while the conductor #was working with another section #and the dude sitting next to me is like ~oh you're working on your fourth finger? [ineffective practice technique] helps with that #and i swear i almost fucking choked because the first thing i even noticed about this dude during rehearsal #was that his fourth finger was CONSISTENTLY out-of-tune. #like can you at least make sure you know how to do the thing you're trying to ~help~ someone else with??? #are you even AWARE that your so-called ~super helpful practice technique~ has actually not helped you at all?? #do you HEAR that you're not in tune??? honestly??? #do you REALIZE that ending up with an incorrect result - BY DEFINITION - means you're doing it wrong???

[dirkxcaliborn]

One of the things that makes it a bit difficult for me to get back into reading is I don't really know what kind of books I like to read... Lately I've wondered if I could use my taste in other media (like anime, manga, and even fanfic) to try and pin down what I might like in books too.

#this led me to the thought: Is there homoerotic sports drama in western literature...? #and now I'm genuinely curious lmao #Honestly tho I can be such a sucker for romance manga but romance novels have me like bleh #but jeez I feel like I really need to think about what I like in a story #which is real hard bc I have.... so much trouble articulating why I like things #like idk man my heart was just like thump thump and I thought woah this slaps I love this #English classes spent analyzing text just went over my head I guess #mostly bc I rarely read the book... they'd be like you have to read chapters 1 and 2 #and I'm just like hmm no all or nothing either I read the entire book right now in one sitting or I never read a single word #I'm a little tired of doing tag essays #like obviously I don't have to i just... have thoughts

[itsclydebitches]

so ironwood was confirmed to be dead by Miles in a $42 cameo session, where the person who bought it had asked for "comforting words to soothe our anguished souls" bc she was an ironwood fan and wanted a pick-me-up after that devastating finale. miles' response was to essentially mock his fans (it really sounded like that, especially since he ended with "thank you jimmy, may you rest in pieces, crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold up above your head."

apparently the VA, jason rose, confirmed it in DMs w the same fan who sent in the cameo ask. so like, quite apart from how rude and disrespectful it was of miles to make a mockery of james in a cameo where he'd been specifically asked for comforting words regarding the character, ngl but i think that if you have to confirm a MAJOR CHARACTER is dead outside of canon bc you failed to actually show it on screen.....you've failed as a writer. and also that kind of thing shouldn't be confirmed in an expensive and exclusive interview lmao like how hard would it have been to just talk about good aspects to james' character instead of calling him a dickbag and saying 'don't do a genocide, guys!!'

it reeks of unprofessionalism and also it just makes everything surrounding ironwood's character arc even worse since apparently 'his fate was sealed' from the moment he was introduced to the show.

Me, who received the first Moderna shot yesterday (🎉 🎉 🎉 ): Ugh I feel too crappy to answer asks today

Me, upon hearing this news: You know, I have suddenly found an untapped source of energy

Okay, all joking aside, I watched the vid and it’s definitely a lot. I don’t have any information about the request itself except for what Miles mentions in the recording, so I can’t speak to what the fan may have been looking for outside of that, but some highlights include: 

“This is for the filth in my degenerate discord server” - Yeah, that’s how a lot of us (fans) talk about ourselves. It sounds like someone who really enjoys Ironwood and makes joking, self-deprecating comments about their love of a character. That’s familiar to me and speaks to the expectation that they hoped for something other than what they got. At least, if I’d sent in a request like that I wouldn’t be happy with the vid, but that’s obviously my own perspective and not this fan’s. I’d be very curious to know their own thoughts though... 

“Sometimes a character we like doesn’t make it, does something we don’t agree with... or both!” - That is indeed how characters work! The real question is whether their death/actions make sense within the story, which is not addressed here. Many fans who enjoyed Ironwood don’t have a problem with him dying or turning into a villain  — I’ve been honest about my acceptance of either/both, regardless of personal preference, provided it was written well  — and that was always the issue. Not what happened to Ironwood, but how it happened. 

“James Ironwood’s fate was sealed the moment his character was conceived many years ago.” - Personally, I don’t believe this. RT makes a lot of grand, sweeping statements about what’s been planned “for years” or “since the beginning” and too often we’re faced with writing that directly contradicts that. Though it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth, neither option paints the writing team in a good light. Either they’re straight up lying about what’s been planned (or twisting tossed out possibilities into assurances after the fact. For example, someone once suggested Ironwood might become a villain somehow at some point and now that’s presented as, ‘We’ve deliberately been working towards this specific ending for years’), or they’re being truthful and just... can’t write what they want to write. It doesn’t sound good when a writer says, ‘I’ve planned this the whole time’ and a good chunk of the fandom responds, ‘Then why couldn’t we see that planning this whole time?’ 

“When James was introduced we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag, but then we realized that dickbag had a heart and was also half metal, and that was pretty cool!” - I don’t even know what to make of this. I’ve deconstructed his introduction before, but to summarize here, he’s presented as no more of a “dickbag” than Ozpin who may not be doing enough to protect the people, Winter who allowed herself to get taunted into a fight on campus, or Qrow who deliberately started that fight while drunk. Glynda is the only one who is arguably innocent here. The implication seems to be that obviously Ironwood became a villain because “we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag” but then... does that mean Qrow will become a villain too someday?? 

The comments about them realizing he had a heart and was half metal just speak to that lack of planning. No, you obviously didn’t plan this downfall from the start if you “realized” something as basic as him caring for others partway through writing him and then allowed that care to drive his character for so long that the decent into villainy read as OOC, rather than inevitable. You obviously weren’t writing him with a backstory that influenced his character  — of which his semblance is a major part  — if you “realized” he was half-metal... whenever that happened. The fact that we never saw that backstory, or the semblance on screen, or returned to his half-metal nature outside of a ‘That’s coding for evilness’ theme again speaks to the fact that either a) none of this was actually planned or b) the execution is seriously lacking here. 

“Let us all take a moment to thank General James Ironwood for his service to the Kingdom of Atlas, but... at the end of the day, don’t do a genocide [laughs]” - I’m having trouble articulating why I dislike this. I’m really too tired to be unpacking this right now (lol), but it has something to do with  — as you say, anon  — that mocking tone. Something else to do with the surge of purity culture in recent years. The tone feels like it’s tied up in an unsaid, ‘You like the character who tried to commit genocide?’ accusation when, you know, he’s a fictional character. People can like characters who do bad things. More significantly, he’s a fictional character Miles wrote. There’s something particularly distasteful about writers who feel like they’re laughing at fans for liking something when they created the thing with the intent that we would like it. And many did. So they gave attention, time, money, passion, etc. to the work and then when that part of the work finished, the creator appears to make light of that investment? Idk, I’m speaking about more than just this one line  — the tone of the vid as a whole, really — but it feels much less like “You enjoy Ironwood! 😄” and more “You enjoy Ironwood...  😬” Like yeah, fans enjoyed the character that you wanted them to enjoy who you wrote to have a heart and then suddenly commit genocide instead. There’s definitely nothing complicated in all that. 

“Thank you, Jimmy. May you rest in pieces crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold above your head. Amen.” - All of the above x2 with the added issue that this was never shown on screen. Miles presents Ironwood’s arc like this seven year long plan when in fact they couldn’t even manage the basic move of telling the audience what happened to the character in his final hour. The fact that a fan had to pay to find out whether Ironwood is dead is not a gold star for the writing. 

Every time the RWBY crew speaks about the story in supplementary material the canon itself gets worse. Hyping Clover/Qrow on social media pushes the canon closer to queerbaiting. We’re way closer to that with them hyping Blake/Yang. Long ago comments about Ozpin’s cane suddenly make Volume 8 a retcon. A Q&A about Ironwood’s semblance makes his arc a thousand times more confusing about how we’re supposed to read his character  — to name just a few. Now this. When a friend first told me this info had dropped I thought, “Thank god. He’s not coming back then. I don’t want them writing Ironwood’s character anymore,” but really... can we believe anything the crew says? “Crushed beneath the weight of his kingdom” doesn’t mean Ironwood won’t show up in Volume 9 if it’s a spirit world type adventure. It doesn’t mean he won’t show up three years from now with even more metal in his body and a, “We said he was crushed, not that he was dead ;)” explanation. Hell, it doesn’t even mean he won’t show up with no explanation at all because, as established, what’s said in supplementary works and what happens on screen are two entirely separate things. Iffy as the vid may come across to those who did like Ironwood, I was initially happy that it at least gave us some closure... but now I’m not even sure about that. 

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #Anonymous

[sotorubio]

hi if it’s not too much trouble do you mind elaborating on the post about the cinematography being better in s7? bc i 100% agree and have been thinking the same but also haven’t really been able to articulate why? like if someone asked me this anon i wouldn’t be able to give them specifics but i KNOW it’s different. sorry 😅

it's definitely not too much trouble i already know this is gonna be long as shit bc i have so many Thoughts on the matter

it is indeed p hard to articulate so i'll give some examples & comparisons n share my thoughts based on that!

first i think it's important to recognize the context of a show like skam. it is made to represent every-day teenagers who might enjoy but not ever relate to characters & stories on some fantasy/murder mystery shows abt teenagers. the very core of skams is realism n accuracy to real life. we as the audience are not only supposed to be onlookers of the events we're meant to feel connected to the stories n relate to the main characters.

skamfr has some VERY beautiful shots if u look at them independently. if someone just showed me a screenshot of one of them i'd be like wow! that's stunning! but that's not what i'm supposed to feel when it comes to skams. if i go watch an artistic full length movie at the theaters i Do want to see beautiful shots that look like art n have a lot of symbolism behind them but when i watch skam i'm supposed to think "that could be me. that looks like my life" i'm not a lowly spectator who could never have such a beautiful life but instead the audience should see their lives directly put on screen.

skam france has been rly consistent w it tho! it's been their brand since like season 3.. but it did get worse in s5 & 6 i think bc they started to try too hard for original storylines. i think it's very intentional n if they were making another show i wouldn't say it's bad rly (altho sometimes it is that too bc they try too hard fmgjkd). out of context a lot of their cinematography works bc they usually tie it into the plot to represent the events but they just picked the wrong style for a web series. like babes u are not submitting this to the academy pls chill.

now let me introduce u to the most despicable shot in skam history (in my humble opinion)

HELLO??

now before anyone says. yes i know this sequence of shots has a purpose. this is exactly what i mean that if it was some other show w different goals it wouldn't be such an issue bc yeah this looks great right? it's a "sensory clip" we r supposed to "hear" what it's like to be deaf n specifically what it's like for arthur. but.

let's put this into skam context. we as the audience should see ourselves in arthur, not necessarily entirely but we should feel he's just like us, a teenager w his own unique struggles & life experiences. now tell me, when u feel depressed or sad or have had the worst week of ur life n u must drag urself to the shower... is this what it feels like? first of all do u take the shower in the fucking dark???? just for the aesthetic?? do u stand DIRECTLY in the middle letting the water hit u exactly on the top of ur head forming a symmetrical shade on u while u just... stand there. do u feel like ur ascending in the shower as u dramatically raise ur chin literally what the actual fuck is this. don't get me wrong sometimes u just actually do stand there doing nothing bc u just feel so horrible but that's not rly the feeling this clip awakens?

this leans a bit into the romanticization of arthur's season which wouldn't be as bad (still cringy but not as bad) if arthur had already accepted himself at this point but no he's basically suffering in the shower n we are looking at him like wow that's so pretty. let's imagine how we could make this clip feel more real n how we could actually see ourselves in him here:

stop making ur main characters of the season the main characters of the world. just bc arthur is feeling terrible doesn't mean the whole world imitates his feelings. in a symbolic movies masterpiece it would but not in a concept like skam. one of the worst things abt feeling terrible is seeing how the world just goes on around u. imagine how real it would feel like if he was in the shower w the generic yellowish light on that a lot of bathrooms have. we could see his silhouette slouching in the shower through a shower screen. or maybe a shot similar to the example pics but the ugly lights are on n the water is annoyingly dripping in his eyes & he doesn't look like they're trying to give him a halo n make him into a jesus archetype. the bathroom would look the same it looks on a rly happy day or a boring day bc this day only sucks for arthur n the universe isn't gonna come to his house to give him a cool background bc of it

same w this comparison

two underwater shots, both rly pretty & heavy on symbolism but the other one is literally waiting for those "this looks like a renaissance painting" comments n the other is rly pretty but still looks like real life humans who r not doing a photo shoot for vogue. which do u find more relatable? which situation makes u think Yeah that's real life?

like look at this camera position of "barely above water" this is like.. almost "ugly" but it's so fucking real n probably closest to the feeling of a first person point of view shot that u can get to

now the s7 camera decisions seem sooooo much better compared to all this. they have a lot of time to still make super dramatic shots that distance the viewer from the story line but so far so good. maybe they'll pick this up again to make the world revolve around tiff as she faces hardships but let's hope not 🙃

i genuinely love this shot like it's super down to earth & feels real but they have still easily kept in the symbolism. like tiff is literally putting walls between others n herself. jo feels like she's literally talking to a wall. tiff feels alone & secluded even tho someone is in the same room as her. yet they didn't have to make it look like smth out of an obscure indie film whose purpose is to have the audience in awe instead of representing them.

yeah the first person point of view of jo going in and out of frame while doing sit ups mightve been weird or cringy but 1. that's skam for y'all & 2. i'll choose that any day over arthur ascending like jesus in the shower.

#inbox #anon #skam france #long post

[hyperfixationtimego]

Alright we’re trying this angst thing again

Diamond Brothers Angst because I said so

Both Daiya and Mondo have huge self esteem issues bc of the crash

Both think stuff along the lines of what the fuck I could have prevented that

Neither Daiya nor Mondo can sleep very well because when they hear vehicles driving past and the occasional screeching tires they’re back at the scene of the accident

They hear a semi truck rumbling past? Suddenly neither of the brothers remember how to move or breathe properly

They both survived the crash but they were both injured severely bc fuck dude that was a truck that hit them

The Crazy Diamonds witnessed the whole thing and they were Worried™️

And we all know how the Owadas hate being vulnerable

Neither of the brothers could actively ride their motorcycles for a long time after the crash because they couldn’t handle it emotionally

They played off their mental recovery time as time in the hospital

Daiya made Mondo promise not to get back on his motorcycle, much less the road, until he was 100% sure that he was prepared to handle it because what if there’s another freak accident that neither of them have control over

Mondo made Daiya promise the exact same thing because He Cares™️

Mondo has reoccurring nightmares about the crash and often sees Daiya dead in those nightmares

The gang shows up in the nightmares too and they’ve all been hit and it’s all Mondo’s fault and he couldn’t be a good leader because he wasn’t strong enough and why couldn’t he just be more like his brother god fucking dammit

Sometimes he sees Taka or Chihiro in place of Daiya and the Diamonds and that Absolutely Terrifies Him™️

Daiya has reoccurring thoughts about hijacking a truck to hit the driver who hurt him and his little brother

He wants them to feel all the same pain and more that they put the Diamond Brothers through

Daiya has breakdowns over this because even if he is a gang leader, he would not go that far

cue the Am I A Bad Person Complex™️

Mondo does not let himself stim

He doesn’t think it’s manly and it definitely doesn’t fit the Tough Guy™️ act

This leads to worsened focus and next thing you know he and Daiya are having a yelling match at home because if Mondo’s grades drop any lower he’ll be expelled soon and Daiya just wants the best for his brother but nothing works out the way it was planned

One time Mondo received a popsicle stick and paper heart from Taka

He was extremely happy

When he got back to his dorm he was that happy that he was shaking and then oh shit

Mondo broke it

He snapped the popsicle sticks in half

the note that Taka wrote,, it got ripped in the process

Mondo full on sobbed over this for an hour at the least

Like

Actual

Real

Tears

He broke something that Taka— not just his bf, but his best friend— had worked so hard on to make just for him and he fucking broke it like a shit for brains idiot

Mondo is terrified of hurting his friends

Because what if he forgets to take his adhd meds one day and his emotional dysregulation is all fucked up and he has an outburst again and actually hurts his friends

Or what if he takes 2+ doses by accident and focuses too hard and is left staring at one (1) spot and everyone hates him and what if they think he’s a creep

Mondo hates going out of his dorm at night because what if someone else is out and they have a flashlight and now they’re pointing it at him and it’s bright and those are headlights and that’s

that’s his brother

on the ground

not moving

Mondo will start shaking and he’ll break down hyperventilating or freeze on the spot

Either way, he hates being vulnerable

Whaddaya think? :D was that enough angst?

also can you tell that i kin Daiya on the dl bc i too got hit by a moving vehicle to save my young mer sibling from being hit /lh but also srs lmfo

HEY TINK??? HEY TINK????????

GodDAMN make me cry over this shit oKAY-

also sorry this took ✨forever✨ I had to gather my Thoughts™️ and my brain did not want to work today 😌

also before we get into my things, tw for trauma (obviously), unhealthy coping mechanisms, underage smoking/drug relapse/smoking as a crutch, and suicidal ideation (passive, but still there)

First of all, y e a h oh my god?? There is literally so much internalized guilt for both of them,,,,,like they rlly do have episodes sometimes where they just. Play over the events of what lead up to the crash in their heads and fixate on what they could have done differently,,,,,even though in the moment they both did their best? Like “well, I shouldn’t have taken us down this street” or “if I had acted quicker, maybe it wouldn’t have happened” and.....yeah those thoughts really fuck with them, y’know?

and 100% that unexpected/overwhelming vehicle noises and/or presences are nearly debilitating. Honestly, I imagine that Mondo can’t go hang out with Leon and Taka or whoever else if said people are hanging out in Kaz’s workshop. Owada’s only ever been in there once and immediately had to leave when he heard Kazuichi starting an engine he was working on. Not to mention being surrounded by a shit ton of vehicles, even if they were idle, had kept him on-edge the entire thirty seconds he was able to handle it.

They both deal with a lot of phantom pain, as well. Like something triggers them and suddenly, even if they’re able to remain in the moment and keep conscious of their surroundings, they somehow feel every ache, every twinge of pain, every breaking bone, or bruised patch of skin that they felt on that day. It’s a lot more prominent in Daiya than it is with Mondo, but they do both experience it!

And neither one lets the other know when they’re feeling like shit or having an episode because 😌 Daiya. wants to be strong. for his little brother. and Mondo. sees his brother basically functioning like a typical person. and figures that there’s something wrong with him. because he can’t get over what happened.

Takemichi is absolute shit with Emotions and being vulnerable or getting people to open up to him, but he’s like..........internally these bitches are Not Okay what the fuck am I supposed to do about it???? So he kind of...tries to hint to both of them that he’s worried? Without making it obvious or embarrassing them, but he’s like.......fuck these assholes.......making me be the one to make them realize they need help goddamnit........

And michi exhibiting a change in behavior is pretty 👀 because. it’s michi I mean he’s not just gonna change the way he talks in front of u for nothing, u know? So both Daiya and Mondo are actually able to pick up on it, although their reactions differ pretty greatly.

Like Daiya’s first thought is “wow, he’s worried, that’s really sweet of him. Better convince him everything’s okay.”

Meanwhile Mondo’s is “wow, he’s worried. my stupid emotional turmoil is that obvious. he must think I’m some sorta fuckin idiot for not being able to get over it. or selfish. or both. yeah, probably both.”

Also I think Daiya’s pretty perceptive in general? Like he can Tell™️ that something’s going on with his brother, but........yeah emotional conversations....vulnerability......that’s rlly neither of their strong suits. + he also figures that if it were something mondo were really really really having trouble with, he would come talk to him!

And so Daiya has absolutely no concept of just how Not Good his brother is doing right now hbbvvvv

So he settles for being like “I’m just gonna stay strong and act like the memories and intrusive thoughts aren’t affecting me in any way because I want to be a good role model” (which. is not healthy obv)

oh g o d the nightmares

they are so horrible and vivid and concentrated at times that Mondo simply.....refuses to sleep. He’s exhausted, both mentally and physically, and yet he can’t bring himself to close his eyes because he knows what he’ll see if he does.

And of course it affects him to the point that his friends start to become worried. Like Taka notices a stark increase in tardiness or general absences, and, after an initial assumption that it was simply Mondo choosing not to care about his academics again, realized that there was probably a lot more going on than he realized. He really, really wanted to bring it up and let his boyfriend know that he’ll always be there for him no matter what, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate it properly. The farthest he gets is with the question, “is everything okay?”

And as much as Mondo wants to respond to him by saying that no, in fact, everything is not okay, everything sucks and everything hurts and he’s tired and he hates himself and sometimes he wishes that the crash had killed him, but that’s selfish so he should shut up- he just.....can’t bring himself to open himself up like that. Yes, he and Ishi are dating, so logically he should be able to tell him all this, but.....it’s so much. It’s too much. Too much to think, too much to feel, let alone try to explain. So he shuts himself up with a quick, curt, “Yeah.”

And....Taka knows he’s lying. He’s not sure how he knows, but he does. And it hurts to see someone he loves so much in such a state of anguish, and basically be unable to do anything about it because....how is he supposed to respond? What is he supposed to say? Navigating everyday interaction is difficult enough without having to improv something that could affect his partner’s mental health indefinitely. So....he does his best. Which isn’t enough, really, but it’s something.

“You can tell me anything.”

Mondo wants to believe him.

—

Another side of that same coin is Mondo skipping class a lot more than is typical for him. It’s almost always with Leon, but he’s also begun slipping away on his own, occasionally, as well, now.

And....y’know, at first, Leon thought it was super rad that Owada and he were skipping more! Like it used to be that Kuwata would offer for them to miss the next class, and Mondo’s usual answer would be ‘not today,’ and then Leon would keep bugging him about it until Mondo either gave in or told him to fuck off.

But....there’s just something about how it went from Leon being constantly shut down, to being told yes around the first few times the idea was brought up, to how, suddenly, Kuwata wasn’t even the one asking, anymore. It’s....depressing? Uncomfortable?

There’s also the fact that hanging out while they’re cutting just....isn’t as fun as it used to be? Leon’ll crack jokes or come up with stupid dares, and Mondo’s responses will be noncommittal at best. And Leon’s had enough experience with sleep deprivation to know it in his friends when he sees it.

He’s never been put in this situation before - usually it’s kuwata having some sort of stupid episode and usually it’s owada who’ll tell him to chill the fuck out and think rationally about things, but....Mondo acts a lot different when he’s upset than Leon does. He smokes more. Cuts himself off from everyone. Doesn’t engage with anything.

It’s different with people like Toko, or Makoto, or Kaz, because Leon knows what they need. He knows whether or not they need vulnerability, or a physical presence, or tough love, or tactile grounding, or a willing ear or shoulder to cry on, but with Mondo......he just isn’t sure.

So Leon doesn’t comment.

——-

Chihiro’s probably the one to get him to open up about it ngl.

ANYWAY-

y e a h Daiya intrusive thoughts?????? fuck yeah???? absolutely??????

god yeah I rlly feel him on that ngl hbhdbdbdbbb

and MONDO DARLING 🥺

god okay it SUCKS because????? he doesn’t judge his friends for stimming????? Like he sees his friends fidgeting or repeating phrases or rocking back and forth and he’s like???? Hell yeah you go u funky kid ilysm

But when it comes to himself????? he’s like if I do anything aside from stay perfectly still, I’m weird and bad and a failure so I simply Will Not

he’s wrong but it doesn’t change the fact that he feels that way ❤️

hhhvhvvdd I’m also a slut for daiya doing his best as a makeshift parental figure,,,,,,,like fuck dude okay,,,,,,as an older sibling who also loves and cares about their younger sibs but often finds emotionally connecting with them to be difficult,,,,,,,,,mood??? And having all of that amplified by rlly being his younger bro's only support in his home life,,,,,,,like ok mr. owada go off

he feels a lot of pressure to get it right and make sure that Mondo's doing okay, so the grades really worry him. but, of course, grades are a touchy subject with mondo regardless, so as u said it devolves into arguments and yelling and a lot of defensiveness!!

and god okay,,,,,,,the heart rlly got me,,,,,,,like that hurt. it rlly hurt man okay damn

honestly??? I think that might be the thing that gets him to break. like that might be his final straw.

because when they meet up again, Ishi asks him about it and whether or not he liked it. And Mondo just.

fucking.

breaks.

down.

He’s shaking and he’s crying and there’s snot running down his nose and this is so ugly and so not manly but he can’t stop. he can’t stop. Because there is this sweet, gentle, kind, sweet, beautiful, darling, sweet man before him who did something so nice for him, something he didn’t deserve, and he destroyed it.

Like he destroys everything.

And so when Taka panics and asks him what’s wrong (yes Ishi gets worried that he did something bad and yes ishi also gets worried that his boyfriend didn’t like the present because hdbdvdvd kin 💛) owada just. spills everything. and he doesn’t even begin with the gift??? he starts with apologies upon apologies, many of them incoherent, and many of them with Mondo not even certain what he’s apologizing for, just that he knows he needs to

and ofc Taka is like o-o because wow ok

but after his initial shock, and after Mondo has thoroughly cried himself out and explained everything he could stand to explain at that point in time, Taka just......holds him. And strokes his face, brushing away the tears that have not yet dried, simply offering his body as a weight, as something for Mondo to ground himself with. And it works.

And Taka insists that Mondo has nothing to apologize for, only that he wishes Mondo would have told him what was going on sooner. Because he wants to help. And hearing that just gets Owada’s waterworks going all over again, but he’s still got Ishi there with him. He hasn’t scared him off.

And it’s more than enough.

—

and UGH yeah????? yes absolutely absolutely okay okay so,,,,,,,,mondo comorbid adhd/depression/anxiety

like sir 🤝

got me fucked up smh

honestly he’s probably not diagnosed with the depression or anxiety, either, until something like the incident with ishi prompts him to realize oh wow I’m not okay actually

so yes he 100% does???

he constantly has all of these what if situations swirling around in his brain about what might happen if he fucks up, or does something that he doesn’t qualify as fucking up in the moment, but leads to something awful or painful or harmful for someone else, and he’s just??????? g o d

#sorry this took forever and i doubt it’s even legible my god #but yes angst 🥺 #mondo sweetie......I’d die for u.... #also not me getting distracted every fifteen minutes or so by spotify playing a song that reminds me of a headcanon for a different char 😳 #took me all day to write this I’m sobbing #danganronpa #ask box #mondo owada #car crash #car crash tw #trauma #trauma tw #angst #dr #ishimondo #daiya owada #the-human-sharpie #non despair au (danganronpa) #crazy diamonds #diamond brothers #kiyotaka ishimaru #trigger happy havoc #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #thh #dr thh #dr headcanon tag

[soshimon]

f e e l s  t o w a r d s  l i f e

I really need to stop having mental breakdowns at work or just in front of people in general because I must look super pathetic everytime I do...

Long story short....I got my birthday off! Yay! Which is not normally possible with my job title but the obstacle before was the dumbass spoiled girl that has to be my step in....and she just does not get it. in multiple ways...not just my notes...not gonna get into that....but this summer I had to give up my week off to her even though I submitted everything beforehand fair and square because she’s going to Mexico with the fam for the 4th....this fucking family I swear. I cried a bit about it with my boss and he knew it was unfair but she didn’t really acknowledge it until he bought up what happened in the summer. Which I’m grateful for! I do still have mixed feelings about him but most of it is because of my dumbass taking things too personally and just still sucking. Some of it is him not being very professional....therefore sorta supports this culture of getting too personal But why do I still feel really upset? especially if I got what I wanted this time...?

1. I think too much, now I made it in my head a much bigger issue than just work/vacation and me crying...at work.

2. Now in my head, its:

feels overworked= want a vacation/relaxation/travel/happiness boss says NO bc Amy - work = who will do my shit when I’m gone....= him. But he doesn’t want to so he wants me to train paris hilton = frustration at her lack of interest/work ethic bc I SHOW her but still doesn’t see the importance to remember for our department benefit.

3. this = me feeling upset at how unfair my boss is despite how grateful I am to him = mixed feelings. my unhappiness with my career, my home life situation, my lack of love life, lack of social life then somehow relates bc I don’t have time to live my life and do the things I want bc I’m a corporate slave now.

4. Now I am in a worse situation? NO. Do I live a hard life/had traumatic things in life? NO. Now am I unhappy and should express my feelings? YES. but then I’ll seem too ungrateful....too entitled...too spoiled...too selfish...etc. So I say nothing or push it off....only to blow up like a volcano at work with frustration tears bc I can’t articulate how I’m feeling because business degree gave me Professional Filter™...or at least taught to follow such a concept.

5. Then its like when did I go wrong? When or why am I so unhappy? For like....almost a decade. Like when I got that one bad grade in 7th grade(the most rebellious thing I’ve done tbh) and got in so much trouble that from then on it was getting good grades, be a good daughter, go to college for my family, get a degree I don’t want, do something even if I don’t know what I wanna do in life,  work when I have no idea how to work and have no skills. I cared too much, I compared too much, I overthought too much....was too insecure, not confident, nervous, shy, couldn’t maintain friendships, felt ugly, felt not good enough. but the issue is I never grew from that...I never dealt with it. It got pushed aside I needed to just hold on and graduate & job hunt like everyone else. I had to go through the motions of life that I was told to do, JUST SUCK IT UP and then found out how to fix myself afterward

6. But here I am...not feeling better. sorta just existing...like a jellyfish floating around not doing anything. I don’t think I need therapy bc that shit is expensive and I don’t think talking to someone will really make it better...I have to think differently. I need more serotonin, more positivity, more things to be excited about. Yes, those were my temporary fixes in life; my hobbies/obsessions with anime, the internet, and Kpop. Or maybe I just need to stop thinking about how all my expectations are not being met, my disappointment in my life and myself. How I’m never gonna be as great as someone else or how no one really wants to be around me. I don’t fucking know.

7. I’m the definition of a spirialing™ hot mess....Like this HAS NOTHING TO DO WHAT WITH ACTUALLY HAPPENED TODAY, in fact, today something positive came out of it! YET WHY AM I THINKING ABOUT ALL OF THIS? Have thoughts of the past few months and year just collectively brought me to this conclusion?! I GUESS.

8. As much I would like to start taking steps towards improvement I don’t want to change so much of myself...I like my personality and aspects of myself and I don’t want them to all change...IDK FAM I THINK TOO MUCH AND THEN CRY OUT THE FEELS AND then an hour later I’m laughing at some dumb vid or a funny tweet. I’m already such a fucking dumbass crackhead I might as well start abusing substances for real!!!!! WOW OK BYE

#personal #work #post grad #wtf is this tho #like wtf #the largest vent of all vents ever made by me