#but it would be intresting to see how steven has grown in that time because based on the finale hes on a trajectory to continue maturing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

im-fairly-whitty · 4 years

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Hi! Hope you’re doing well. I’m super curious about your opinion - what did you think of the SU finale?

I’m doing pretty well! Thanks for asking :)

My opinion of the finale isn’t so much that it was good or bad, but that it was that it was unflinchingly on brand and achieved its goal. If that makes sense.

The interesting thing about SU is that the show constantly builds itself a nest made of deep lore potential and tangled plot line possibilities that any other show would pursue to the fullest angst potential, but time and time again the only egg that actually ends up hatching in it is carefully orchestrated metaphor about mental health and social acceptance.

There’s plenty of shows (ie all of them) that feature unhealthy mentalities and attitudes—it’s basically how you create a character in the first place, is by combining flaws and shooing them out to cause chaos—which is why SU is unique in its goals and execution. At the end of the day SU isn’t really trying to tell us a story, they’re trying to educate us in how to be healthier and happier people and using a fun story to get there.

To say that the finale was somewhat shallow and pulled its punches would be like saying that medicine doesn’t have the taste you would expect of candy. To be disappointed that the problems of a cataclysmic situation were all diffused by the power of hugs and unconditional friendship would be to misunderstand the purpose and aim of the genre.

The core purpose of Steven Universe Future wasn’t to entrance us with an epic story, but to set up an inevitable feeling crisis in Steven’s faltering mental health. In most story arcs the looming danger is external, but the manifestation of festering unaddressed trauma was never going to be a normal feeling story problem to “fight”.

Addressing past trauma head-on is rarely if ever the point of a story, if it’s brought up at all it’s usually just treated as a new part of a character’s personality to give extra broody flavor to their story. Trauma itself is an abstract and nebulous concept that makes us uncomfortable to look at directly, especially when it’s in someone we love or, heaven forbid ourselves, since there’s no silver bullet or one punch fix. The fact that SU took it on as the focus of an entire season/small series is admirable since they didn’t have many if any real established examples they could lean on to help build their story.

If the finale feels somewhat lacking in closure, sending us off with a cheery “well, that’s certainly not solved, but at least it’s out in the open where it can be helped instead of hidden” then that’s because it’s an accurate representation of what mental health struggles actually look like in real life. You don’t get cured of depression or trauma like you do the flu or even a broken bone, it’s a part of you that you learn to manage and live with and respect. Steven is likely going to have those struggles his entire (probably unnaturally long) life, and his “success” at the end of the finale isn’t getting rid of or solving them, but having those he cares about become aware of them and commit to supporting him even when they feel unsure.

Because the true key to good mental health is having an emotional support network in your life. Doctors, therapists, family and friends who you can lean on when you’re having trouble standing, who can help you remember why sticking around is worth it, who help you have moments where you maybe feel just a little bit like someone might understand what’s going on in your messed up mental landscape.

That’s what is really important in the long term. The real danger is in trying to hide your struggles away like Steven tried all season, therefore the real triumph was in everyone coming together for his sake in the last episode to reassure him that it’s worth it to continue on through uncertainty because he will always have the support he needs to try and fail and succeed over and over.

So the fact that SU was able to accomplish communicating such a valuable and nuanced message that most shows would only glancingly dare to consider portraying? And in a positive and hopeful way with an uplifting ending instead of a lazy gritty one? Absolutely fantastic. A round of applause from me. Especially since I wasn’t sure how exactly they were going to solve what felt like such a helpless and catastrophic situation they’d set up.

But that just builds the point right? Because in real life we feel just as helpless and hopeless in that kind of situation, so seeing it perhaps not solved but certainly diffused by something that seems so simple and realistic actually builds the hope it can give viewers who find themselves identifying with either Steven or his friends and family.

SUF set out to teach us that mental health is a battle that can be fought, and they did it. So yeah I’d say that all things considered, looking at the target they were aiming for, the finale was an excellent sucess.

#su spoilers #steven universe #that said if it were in a more traditional adventure drama my expectations would have been very different #i will also point out that my predictions were surprisingly not that far off the mark #steven has indeed become a sort of wanderer who will keep tabs on his friends as he searches for himself across the galaxy for who knows #how long #id be interested to see the timeline skipped forward a hundred years and see a thirty something looking steven or even stevonnie who is #still wandering refusing to unfuse because losing connie will be the last of his connection to his old human life #the situation is rife with possibility for melancholy #but it would be intresting to see how steven has grown in that time because based on the finale hes on a trajectory to continue maturing #and coming to terms with his situation in healthy ways #i do pity whatever therapists he has though theyre going to earn every penny if their paychecks haha

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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The Loud House: No Bus, No Fuss and Resident Upheaveal Reviews

Welcome back Loudites! And i’ts time for a round of Lincoln focused episodes.. because apparently they couldn’t just.. you know, swap one of next weeks with one of this weeks so we got a sister episode with it like last time.. seriously now I know one of next week’s episodes involves Leni running for mayor I question why that’s not an episode every week.. or it’s own spinoff. And I know I have a mounting pile of those, Stella getting one, the diffrent world one with lori and bobby, The Snakebird Variety hour.. I know.. but tell me you wouldn’t watch that. Go on tell me.. i’ll know your lying. But it was an alright week and i’ll tell you all about it with spoilers after the cut.

No Bus, No Fuss: We open with LIncoln arriving late for the bus, and Lynn not riding it because tracks starting and she has to get her workout in.. and because the writers need her not to be on the bus for this plot to work at all. It’s not a terrible way to write her out, she does do all the sports.. beacause apparently like Captain America she can do all the sports without having to train her body for each specific one because she’s in peak condition. Though I do dock a few points from the episode for not having her run past it while saying on your left.

But yeah as for why it couldn’t Lincoln takes a seat in the back not realizing it’s bat country.. and also home to a gang of 8th grade bullies. Which.. yeah assholes do tend to flock to where there’s the most plausable deniablity top notch show. Though I tended to pick the back in high school more just because it was freaking comfy but hey, who says goons can’t enjoy comfort. They can’t however let this slide, not helped by Lincoln accidently spilling soda on him or his friends trying to help. Look Clyde you mean well but they just want a reason to beat him into a coma, and you basically just offered to join him. So unupsirisngly when the Lincrew exit the bus their all in pretty bad shape. Including stella....

Though in the bullies defense at least their equal opportunity jagoofs. One of them is a girl and they bullied stella just as mucha s the males. Dosen’t make them any less of a jungle gym full of tools but I can give them credit for not being sexist asshats just regular asshats. At their age that’s a hard bar to clear. Though LIncoln, Clyde and Stella all got off better than LIam, who got his undies pulled over his head, a bullying standard and rusty and Zach who. .had their underwear tied together in a not.

Oh.. oh it gets worse. When we cut to them after school.. Rusty says the fire department had to cut them loose and Zach and I quote says “I saw too much of rusty.. and his birth mark”

I.. I do not want to think about what that entails.. both because Rusty’s 12 and i’m not a pedophile and because he’s rusty. I just.. why show.. why would you try and make me THINK about that. How is Zach being scarred for life funny?

All valid questions. But moving right along past that waking nightmare, LIncoln assures them they had to have cooled off... spoilers they have not and our heroes all exit the bus at lincolns because they tied their underwear together. Yes all of them and yes including stella.

They naturally don’t want to go back and Lincoln has the idea of just having the parents drive them, one a day. Stella has to take hers off the table since her parents leave early in the morning: Her mom goes into work early and her dad has hot yoga. Which is a disapointment as I genuinely want to know about Stella’s parents and hope we actually get to see them at some point and finding out one of them works really early and the other does yoga every day, and hot yoga at that which if your wondering what that is, and when I first heard the term I was, it’s doing yoga but in an extremley humid and exhausting environment. It is sadly not learning to do this, as i’d hoped

Someday.. someday. But that still leaves a parent a piece so as you probably expect the bulk of the episode is “Parent drives them but is terrible about it” And honestly.. it’s not the series best stuff with most of these not being very funny. Most of them. Zach’s Parents: Zach’s parents go by mighty morphin power rangers logic.. i.e. the parents look and act pretty much exactly like their kids. So the Gurdles are also discount dale gribbles who stalk a man in their van while the kids wait for death but death won’t come.. and as seen up top all are as fed up with Zach as I am. Again Rusty is growing on me, I still make fun of him because why wouldn’t I, but he at least serves a function in the group. As i’ve mentioned before: Lincoln’s the leader and one of the main characters, Clyde is also a main charater and has been fairly fleshed out at this point, Stella is awesome and provides the brains and some pep, LIam is also optimsitic but provides farm jokes and muscle, and Rusty is the group asshole every gorup needs. Zach.. is the more sarcastic and cynical one but with Lynn now going to the same schoool.. why isn’t she in that roll? Have her date LIam, since I love that pairing since last week, and have her take Zach’s place since she plays the lancer role to lincoln better anyway. Zach just dosen’t do it well and comes off like a whiny baby and when he’s not in sarcasm mode he’s going off abotu aliens again, like a discount dale gribble. And look most viewers probably haven’t seen the genuine article which.. first off allow me

And second off dosen’t mean you can slack off as i’ve seen better paranoid nutjobs with that gimmick, like Stan Pines or Andromeda. You, can, do, better. So either do it or get rid of Zach already.

Liam’s Parents: His meemaw takes them riding in her tractor, leanall in her bladder, cheated on her baby you can go and ask her. A pig vomits on Clyde because GET IT LIAM’S A HICK GET IT GET IT.

Now THAT my friends is a hick.

Rusty’s Dad: So yeah I was not looking forward to meeting the stygian void Rusty popped out of but turns out his dad is apparently single. Which dosen’t suprise me, he’s rusty’s dad and both looks and is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, which will never not be awesome and is not only perfect casting, as he plays dorks well, but also wonderful to see him in a modern production. I mean granted the zim movie was a modern production, but that was reviving a character he played a few decades ago.

And while Rusty’s dad apparently showed up before, in an episode I SAW no less “Back Out There” so unlike some lapses in my Loud House Knowledge I have no excuse here, it was still intresting to get an explination for why Rusty’s like this. His dad is a salesman, who practically bathes in colonge, tells the same story and stops on the street to shill to people while driving his son to school, something his son helps with. And probably Rocky just rolls his eyes at. I miss rocky. And suprisingly given I hated his son pretty quickly.. I love this guy. He’s pretty endearing: Sure he’s a schmooze factory.. but he kept the kids in the divorce meaning his wife either abndoned him, or he fought hard for htem and does seem to genuinely love his kid and have a great rapport with him. I mean it helps I have a soft spot for Schyster characters, especially Stan PInes, but I just like the guy. The fact he has a vetran voice actor whose great at this sorta roll probably helps but still, he’s just wonderful and actually makes me like Rusty better, and I was already warming up to the kid, phrasing, as it explains why he’s such a douche: his dad pumps him full of self esteem, probably well meaningly and is a grown up rusty.. which is a better application of power rangers logic as instead of groaning at Zach’s angtics, this gives an explnation for why Rusty’s like this. So yeah only one of the segments I really laughed at.

Clyde’s Dads: Since we’ve met the boys before, it’s just a saftey based gag as they wrap the car in bubblerwap.

Rita: Finally we get to Rita, who simply is a bit agressive getting parking.. btu she’s a mother of 11 and has had to deal with school parking for years and doing so for several children. So fair enough. She does cut off Lincoln’s asshole of a teacher who cuts him off in line in retrubution and then tells him “Tell your mom I said high”.. in a tone that implies he’s going to be hanging outside their house at 3 in the morning with a bat starring menacingly. Yeah not a big fan of Mr. Bohlmer anymore as he’s just your basic mean teacher sterotype. So Lincoln cooks up another way, taking a plane. So we get flip back!

What can I say he’s grown on me. And he’s hilarious here, taking the kids in a rusty plane that’s “No longer under federal investigation”, which is a SELLING POINT, has no refunds nd naturally the seatbelts are shoddy and he ejects them via trap door. I loved it.

But our heros dont and now trapped in the trees Rusty and Zach bicker with one another which.. fellas I know a way to settle this. KAL-IF-FEE!

No matter who looses thier friends win. But they instead accept they have to ride the bus and face the bullies. But they also find when getting ready OHTER kids were bullied and the three cablebastards just take turns. But Lincoln has a plan to fix that and just.. outright stands up to them.. with the entire bus backing them. And honestly.. it’s not a bad message about bullying. Generally bullies won’t backed down when confronted all the time.. but when outmatched they will.. still not the best message but still far better than season 1′s “If a girl bullies you she secrety has a crush on you”. I.. will have to deal with those episodes someday but today is not that day. So our heroes celebrate and rusty does grow an inch, proving him right. Phrasing! Final Thoughts on NBNF: This one was decent... it had a few dead spots, Zach’s parents are about as intresting as he is and given all the batshit and legitly dangerous conspiracy theories and theorists that came out of of the woodwork and were backed by the trump presdency, that bit plays even worse than it would normally and the stuff with Clyde’s dad’s has been done before.. and honestly is something they need to retire. The husbands have a better dynamic than this, let them use it. It was also a disapointment we dind’t get to see Stella’s family, especially since again the mcbride’s schitck is REALLY overplayed and it would’ve been nice ot get some fresh blood in there and we really didn’t need to see Zachs. All those problems aside though this is a pretty standard plot with an okay ending, but some good gags along the way. Not Loud HOuse’s best and especially in a bad spot considering the last episode before this “Saved by the SPell” was not only way funnier but also used the lincrew better. Still can’t say i’ts bad just.. okay. Also I apparently like rusty as a character now....

Resident Upheaval: This one was also just...okay. Not terrible, and it has an actually intresting premise, but it doesn’t do much with it.

Our setup simple: Pop Pop’s girlfriend Myrtle wants to move into the same retirement home as his, explaining away her apparently living there by her just visting a lot. Sure why not. So Lincoln assures him he’s going to get her in, he’s the man with the plan.

Before we get to what the problem with that is.. gotta talk about the elephant in the room since Pop Pop is pretty absent for the rest of the episode.. and that’s that .. their STILL using him. As some of you probably know, and if you don’t your about to, Pop Pop’s voice actor Fred Willard, comedy legend and really sweet guy, passed away. So you can imagine how WRONG it feels to have not only another voice coming out of one of his characters but one that just dosen’t match. And I don’t blame Chris Swindle here, he was given a pretty unfair task of pinch hitting for someone who just fucking died, and likely because the episode was too far into production to scrap. I’m certainly hoping so because honestly.. I genuinely DON’T see why Pop Pop can’t just die with Fred. And look i’m not against replacing an actor when the worst happens: Russi Taylor’s roles all had to be replaced after her unfortunate passing, it’s not something i’m against normally... but the combination of pop pop being an older character they can write out and the fact they HAD AN ENITRE EPISODE ABOUT ACCEPTING HE WOULDNT’ LAST FOREVER, means that one comes off a bit hollow if you keep dragging him around. You’d get a good episode out of it, and this episode sets it up so that Myrtle has plenty of potetiail to stick around.

Anyway Lincoln’s problem is the OTHER applicant is Clyde’s Nana Gayle.. whose actually come up a few times before, some i’ve seen some I haven’t, a continuity nod i’m happy their following up on. They even explain why sh’es just appearing in person now as Clyde, when later snapping at lincoln, exclaims “You knew my dad’s have been trying to get her to move closer for a while now!” She’s Harold’s mom and a sweetheart. So our heroes procede to try and bribe the board, both working at it but both end up finding each other at the opera. And this.. COULD have been intresting, putting the two best friends against each other for one thing neither can both have, and both have stake in it: Myrtle is as good as grandma to Lincoln by this point and Nana Gayle is VERY close to clyde, so this isn’t great. But since the guys they’ve been bribing arne’t the end authority, they have to go to who is: SCOOTS!

As you can tell I love this old hellraiser.. and the fact she’s STILL seeing her younger boyfriend from “The Boss Maybe”. YOu get it scoots you get it. Naturally Scoots wants to see some blood, so she’s pitting both women against each other. Though neither grandma wants to do this so LIncoln and Clyde do the logical thing.. and dress up like each othe’rs grandmas, do the competition and get found out. Scoots disqulaifies both, the boys realize they were stupid and they go to apologize.

They instead find an easy solution to their problem!: Turns out Scoots as head had been hiding a double room behind a fake wall, to store both her scooters and her boyfriends motorcycle, so naturally now both grannies can move in as roomies while Scoot will just have to back her boyfriends hog into the single.. and I guess his motorbike too. The two grandmothers are instant friends, remdinng the boys fo each other and it’s.. really precious. Looks like I have yet another spinoff for the pile.

Final Thoughts: As I said this one was fine.. the Pop Pop subtistion was probably a grim neciesity, though swindle reallyd idn’t do a good job mimicking willar’ds voice and they REALLY just need to either find someone better to do the job, sound alike or no or retire the character. That tiny issue aside i’ts not bad.. it’s just not GREAT, and since we rarely see Clyde and Lincoln and GENUINE cross purposes, and last week just lying to him made clyde ill, this REALLY could’ve been intresting seeing the two go against each other and see what resutled from that. But that angle’s basically ignored and they make up pretty easily. IT’s just a wasted potetial of an episode. All in all this was an allright week. Nothing outstanding episode wise but a few good bits here and there. wehnever I get back to the loud house, Lisa becomes a teacher and Leni runs for mayor. Until then, it’s been a pleasure.

#the loud house #lincoln loud #clyde mcbryde #howard mcbryde #harold mcbryde #gayle mcbryde #liam hunnicutt #stella zhau #rusty spokes #zach gurdle #lynn loud #pop pop #albert loud

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dachi-chan25 · 7 years

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The Shining 1977

This is one of my favorite books of all time so here I go:

What is it about?

Jack Torrance, reformed alcoholic, it’s dealing with the aftermath of the problems caused by his alcohlism which costed him his position as a teacher and caused a strain in his relationship with his wife and his son Dany. One of his friends gets him a job as a caretaker of the Overlook Hotel during the winter season and he takes it thinking it might be a restart for him and his family, unfortunately the hotel has different plans for them.

Thoughts: Simply fantastic, the alcoholism of Jack was dealt with such a realness that makes the reader uncomfortable at times but gives the book an honesty that is very appreciated. Dany, I love him to bits, he’s such a smart cute little boy that loves his parents (but specially his dad) SO much and it’s so unfair how scared he is of the hotel’s influence in his mind and his dad through his gift (the shine).

Wendy Torrance is such a strong woman and a fierce mom, I Love her a lot more than I expected (I’ll tell you why later) and I liked how complex she is.

The concept of a place charged with the energy of the things (good and bad) that happened there has always fascinated me because I’m very sensitive towards people’s energy, it drains me to fight with people, be in crowded places or going to parties so it was very intresting reading about this place chanelling Dany’s shine to materialize the bad energy imprinted there and manipulate his dad. So scary, because for me it feels kind of real in the sense that I’ve visited places that feel wrong, I haven’t seen or heard anything paranormal but it’s just a feeling that won’t go away, some kind of uneasiness that makes me wanna get away from that place, I don’t know if I’m making any sense.

Also probably my fave it’s Dick Halloran, such an awesome character, plays both the role of mentor to Dany and the savior to Dany and Wendy, and gosh how many people would risk their lives from someone they barely know?? Plus it’s a character of color and he is very well written.

Movie/ TV adaptations

There are 2: The very popular Stanely Kubrick’s “The Shining” from 1980 and the ABC miniseries produced by Stephen King himself in 1997 (fun fact: I was born that year!).

Let’s start with Kubrick’s version, I am very fond of this one because my family it’s a horror-movie family, we all huddled up in my grandparents’ house and watched The Exorcist, or the 1990 IT miniseries, or Kubrick’s The Shining in the living room (my mom never forgave my granddad for spoiling her the ending of the Shining) so yeah I have lots of childhood nostalgia with this movie, that being said as an adaptation it falls very short.

I had heard rumours that King didn’t liked it but I couldn’t understand why… ‘Til I read the book. The movie it’s visualy amazing: the shots, lighting, music, etc. Everything was lit af, BUT the story gets completely muddled up in there, there’s close to none humanity in Jack (he is an ass to Wendy all the time) and well casting Jack Nicholson in the role didn’t help a lot because he has that crazy face that works so well when Jack it’s possesed by the Hotel but with JN one almost doesn’t notice the change, Wendy’s strenght and whole personality gets ereased for no reason, Dany is so gloomy when in the book he is a normal happy 6 year old cracking jokes and playing with the snow that happens to understand very grown-up things thanks to his shine, and the whole background of the hotel is barely skimmed over, it’s a hot mess tbh.

The 1997 miniseries though, they are mostly unknown by the general public but they are AMAZING and I admit I liked them a hella lot more than the 80’s movie, there are three episodes and it’s mostly accurate to the book.

Steven Weber’s performance as Jack Torrance it’s Óscar worthy, the frist episode he seems like a good man, a man that loves his family who knows he has made many mistakes but he is trying SO hard to be better for them the ending just breaks my heart and his physical descend into corruption is unbelievable he looks like a total different person and he needs more appreciation to this wonderful performance.

Rebecca de Mornay it’s book! Wendy in every aspect, she is charming and resourceful, and so very strong, also little Courtland Mead as Danny was adorable af and accurate to a boot to book!Dany, the incorporation of the Overlook’s Hotel gruesome history, and most of all Dick Halloran is ALIVE at the end (like it was supposed to be). Also it was filmmed at Stanley Hotel, the building that inspired King to write the book in the frist place.

Anyway I totally recommend the 1997 miniseries.

Quotes:

“Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters”

“Monsters are real. Ghosts too. They live inside of us and sometimes, they win”

“The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge”

“She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life where there was nothing physically wrong”

“Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are”

“We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand for all the things we fear in our lives”

“That’s our job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.”

Next book: "The Stand"

#The Shining #Stephen King #Stephen King's Challenge #dachi rambles #dachi reads stuff

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