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wowevenmoreloveonearth · 5 months

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You know what? I have become a gaylor sympathiser

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Please read the full post before even thinking about commenting.

Over the past few days I’ve seen a few posts on my dash about taylor swift and her fans that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that a lot of people think that some fans of her are “trying to make her gay” and I just wanted to put the record straight and defend some people after actually looking at what’s going on. And I know I’m probably opening myself up for tumblr’s poor reading comprehension but before I start I’m going to say this:

I do not think taylor swift is a lesbian

Ok? Now let’s have a conversation.

First of all from what I’ve seen most of the fans who talk about Taylor swift and queerness do it from a point of literary analysis and learning queer history. This is a huge part of the community and lots of people have said that they never would have learnt so much about queer history without reading taylor swift’s works through a queer lens.

Adding on to that point, it seems a little hypocritical for the gay site which loves queer readings of books, tv shows, songs, musicals, films etc to be bullying a pretty small group of people who are mainly doing queer readings of lyrics. Especially when those people get near constant death threats. Instead of bullying these people (who don’t think or do what you think they think and do) why don’t you go outside and think “does this affect me? No. Do I agree with them? No. Am I going to cyber bully them because of this? No.”

Secondly, for the people who believe that any speculation on a real persons sexuality is 100% wrong. I used to think this too but I have changed my mind a bit about this recently after stopping and thinking about it properly. I’m not trying to change your mind at all I just want you to stop and think for a minute.

If you only get mad when speculation is queer in nature, then maybe think about that for a minute. Why is it totally wrong to think a person might be queer. We probably do it in our daily lives with people we know and they likely do it with us, back in the day that’s how queer people found each other-by speculating on sexuality. Would you be upset if you found out someone that you know thought you might be queer? I wouldn’t, maybe you would but if you would, why? Why is it terrible to think someone might be queer (this is NOT about hounding a person to admit to being queer like shawn mendes, this is just thinking in your head and on your small blog that the person will likely never see). Also this is literally the website where we talk about historical (real people) being gay even when they would have never said something to the equivalent.

An addition to this point before people start saying in the comments is that this is NOT the same situation as with kit connor. The issue there was people assuming that he was straight and taking that role away from a queer person. Speculating that he was queer was the opposite of what happened in that situation. So this is not an example of what happens when you speculate queerness.

Final things to say:

1) don’t believe every post you see with someone looking insane about taylor swift being gay, a lot of them are fake.

2) before anyone says “they should listen to real queer artists instead” most of them very much do. There’s a lot of fans of Hayley kiyoko, girl in red, Janelle monae, tegan and sara, zolita, kehlani etc.

3) there are some queer flags that are there. Sorry but there are. Hairpin drops, lavender, the ladder, flag colours, songs about women, friend of dorothy reference. Whether they are intentional is a different matter.

4) shipping real people is not what is happening for the majority of the people in the community. Also this comes back to queer vs straight again. Plenty of swifties ship taylor with men she’s been seen with and no one goes into their inboxes and sends death threats even when they are the ones making taylor swift all about the men she may or may not have dated.

5) taylor swift has never stated her sexuality. I know this may be hard to belive based off of how some people act, but it’s true. She has made vague statements which could have many meanings but she has never clearly stated anything. When gaylors get upset with taylor it is not because she said she is straight, it’s because they are getting death threats and doxxed and she seems to either be unaware of it (which is unlikely given how she seems to be a little terminally online) or she doesn’t care enough to tell her fans to stop.

6) if she does explicitly say she’s straight then there will probably be disappointment in her use of queer history and flags and her potential queer erasure (as we saw with lavender haze, with straight women describing their relationships as lavender) and centring herself in queer spaces (like the you need to calm down music video) but no one will be angry that she’s not gay. And a lot will probably be grateful that she actually explicitly stated for the record to absolve any confusion. The main issue would likely be other fans ramping up the death threats and bullying.

In conclusion: these people who do queer analysis of Taylor’s work are not trying to out her or make her gay etc. if you don’t understand it that’s fine it’s clearly not for you and you can go quite easily without seeing any of it. It’s not illegal to read works through a queer lens and if it means more people know about queer history then I think that’s a very good thing.

I changed my mind after looking at what a lot of people are actually saying rather than what people perceive them to be saying and maybe you will too?

Just be kinder to people online please and if you don’t like what people are saying block them and do not engage!

#taylor swift #long post #gaylor #gaylor swift #friend of dorothea #friends of dorothea #lgbtqia

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gold-rhine · 11 months

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Inazuma Rewrite part one

This is bullet points rewrite for Inazuma general plot structure, bc I think it had so much potential, but was horrifically scuffed in game. If I keep something from canon unchanged, I’ll just say so without retelling the entire thing to keep the length down, bc it’s gonna be A LOT already.

Some disclaimers: I’m not trying to fix every single problem, just what I see as major structural failures. I will reference my problems, but you can read my explanations on them more in depth in my “inazuma ranting” tag.

This is also not envisioned as free for all fanfic where I can write whatever I want, but aimed to be actually feasible to see in game, bc it’d be unfair and I want to show that Inazuma could be improved in the same constraints that hoyo writers had. So please don’t ask why I didn’t do wildly inconsistent thing that would be cool, but genshin would never actually do.

I’m aiming to retain all relevant lore and achieve basically same worldstate in the end, including character arcs, for the most part, because I presume them to be integral to the larger strategic plotline of the game. Which means I can’t drastically change characterization and major plot beats like the decrees, rebellion, Raiden has to be a sympathetic ally in the end, etc. I’m also trying to keep genshin’s general tone and modus operandi, bc like, target audience includes 13 yolds and I can’t just “make Inazuma good” by turning it into like, a gruesome and complex power struggle of political factions like Fallout New Vegas.

List of main issues I want to address: pacing in general, rebellion pacing especially, lack of impact and continuity of effects of vision loss on people, lack of setup for the stasis vs transience aka ei vs makoto conflict, character arcs: raiden, ayaka, kazuha, kokomi, yoimiya, kujou sara. And more!

Initially I wanted to make a single post, but it’s already 3k and I’m only up to Raiden’s first duel and I plan to cover post-archon quest content too, like Raiden and Yoi story quests, so I decided to split it up instead of posting like 20k monstrosity. So remember, this is for now mostly a setup.

EDIT: Part 2

Raiden’s motivations\Reasons for vision hunt

Ok, so one of the biggest principal changes is that vision hunt and sakoku decree are active Raiden’s decisions, instead of Fatui’s plot that she’s just passively allowing to happen. Raiden closed the country, but she’s ok with Fatui starting a civil war and selling delusions, bc it doesn’t “affect eternity”, like??? I honestly think that the current plot of her people dying in a civil war meant nothing to her is much worse than her starting vision hunt decree out of misguided plan to ultimately do better for people.

I mean ok, we have to have closed borders to reference Japan’s history, sure, but like, the whole point of isolationist policies like this is to prevent the outsiders’ influence on the country. So she should not be ok with Fatui schemes at any point.

I mean, if it was fallout new vegas AU, I’d keep it to show that dictator doesn’t not care about foreign powers exploiting it’s people as long as it profits the empire and helps to keep people subjugated, but like. Then raiden can’t be uwu waifu. So we gonna give her good intentions and integrity, but misunderstanding of humanity due to closing herself off instead.

Now to why would she close the country and institute sakoku decree. I want to tie this in with another plotline that is just. Kinda floating at sidelines at the moment, but I think could work nicely in tandem. The Scaramouche destroying Raiden Gokaden, the five schools of weapon smithing, which were canonically highly valued by Raiden.

I’m not gonna recount Scara’s entire plotline, but basically he went on a misguided crusade against Raiden Gokaden and managed to cause fall of 4 out of 5 weapon-smith schools.

Game says that he like, tampered with the schools and covertly led to their ruin, which like?? They never found anyone guilty, like the most prized weapon art smiths of your country fall apart and you’re like oh well, I guess Yashiro commission is just bad at it’s job?

There is a plot point in this story where Isshin weapon smiths, unable to replicate a faulty design that was Raiden’s commission tampered by Scara, were scared of Raiden’s wrath and decided to flee to Snezhnaya. I want to change it to be that there is an event, where ALL weapon schools receive same commission at the same time, and Scara tampers with it.

Just as in canon, scared smiths, but now from 4 schools, not one, are manipulated by Fatui to flee to Snezhnaya, But we add a new NPC, the most talented blade smith who had a vision. Fatui frame him as the ring leader, as if they were running not to save their lives because of the tampered design, impossible to fulfil, but that this was a betrayal because of his ambitions.

After this, Raiden has legitimate cause to feel like her eternity is threatened. She sees weapon art schools, one of the most prized country’s traditions being ruined in a moment because of what she thinks is ambitious hubris of one vision holder, who colluded with outsiders. So she closes Inazuma and declares a vision hunt, to prevent this from ever happening again.

But ironically, in truth it was the fault of not just Fatui, but specifically a puppet without a vision that she herself created and failed to supervise. This brings the main idea of the plotline from “Fatui evil, Raiden passive” to “Solipsist goddess who doesn’t understand humanity tries to protect her people by locking them in stasis and taking their ambitions, but the real case of tragedy was her negligence and lack of empathy all along, and this is what needs to be changed.”

Interlude and plot setup

We start with similar plotline. Traveler tries to go to Inazuma, learns that it’s closed, talks to Inazuman NPC to learn more. Here we’re introduced to the general idea that Inazuma was closed off due to one traitor blade smith with a vision who sold off Raiden Gokaden to Fatui.

We go to Beidou’s tournament, which goes basically the same, we meet Kazuha and watch a beautiful cutscene about his dead friend who challenged Raiden to a duel, and now Kazuha tries to find someone who can reignite his vision. I will actually add changes to Kazuha’s storyline, but it be will later.

then we arrive to Inazuma, go through the same bureaucracy loops with Thoma on Ritou, to show the barriers to outsiders and also to illustrate how Thoma is the best fixer when he manages to drop a fee from 1 mil to like 10 gold by promising to have a dinner with government official.

But we’re cutting the second part of Ritou, with the boring plot about like merchant from Mond scamming people with the local police and then Traveler delivering love letter or whatever. I mean, we can keep this as an optional side quest, if like hoyo thinks the lore about love letter is essential for the Ayato’s quest or smth, but not as an Archon quest.

Instead, we put a part of Yoimiya’s quest there. I think Yoi’s quest is relevant enough to stay in the Archon quest, unlike Ayaka’s, but it’s slapped into a place where it ruins pacing. So instead, we’re cutting it up in parts and inserting it into main storyline.

On Ritou, while doing bureaucracy bullshit, we meet Yoimiya, and play the part of her quest about her helping a guy with a vision to escape from his former best friend, who is now a guard hunting him. It helps to show the rift that vision hunt brings not only with the outsiders, but with inside of the country as well.

Ghost of Makoto\Transience setup

another key point that I think is integral to fixing Inazuma is planting seeds for Makoto’s reveal from the start. I really like the Stasis vs Transience conflict from raiden’s second story quest, where raiden believed in eternity as lack of change, a perfect state maintained until the rest of time, while her twin Makoto believed in eternity as never-ending change, where people’s dreams constantly evolve, nature of them chasing these dreams never changes.

but it feels like it came out of nowhere and raiden just speedruns character development in like an hour, so a lot of people ended up feeling like it was just about Raiden mourning her sister, instead of raiden coming to understand makoto’s belief system and through that unlocking makoto’s final connection and then being able to let go.

so we need to first of all, introduce makoto’s ideas of transience from the start, and also empathize the conflict of them with raiden’s stasis.

and it doesn’t mean we’ll spoil the reveal about the second raiden shogun! we don’t have to ever use makoto’s name, just her title as a raiden and sprinkle her ideas throughout the land. We know hoyo area designers can do that stuff really well (guizhong’s relics being scattered all over liyue, rukkhadevata’s shadow in the aranara quest).

like, it’s strange that Makoto primarily ruled and shaped country by herself while Ei was just a warrior, yet we do not have Makoto’s influence visible. We need to add ideas of transience into fundamentals of Inazuma,

“Transience is the dream of the nation of thunder. We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish, and enjoy the unexpected silence of the dim lamp-lit nights.” - Guide to Transience talent book.

add these ideas all over the place, esp near sakura. And let’s draw player’s attention a couple of times specifically to the internal contradiction of these ideas of transience being integral to inazuma and raiden’s current hatred of change.

like, we need even 13 yolds and twitch streamers to remember this, so lets make paimon say like

“Huh, this shrine to raiden shogun says that eternity is the pursuit of fleeting dreams, but doesn’t raiden shogun fucking hates dreams?? I wonder, what made her change her mind about them to the total opposite!“

this and more subtle puzzles\locations with focus on transience for people who pay more attention will add the much needed setup for makoto’s reveal

Kamisato siblings

ok, first things first, Ayato being absent without any explanation while his little sister is plotting treason and his malewife Thoma is about to be executed on the streets is unacceptable.

like I know it’s marketing or whatever and he’s not being released but we need his model, hoyo. If we 200% CAN’T have his model, we need to come up with solid excuse why he’s not here. Like idk, he’s helping the war refugees or smth

And we need hints at his presence\influence throughout the story. Like oh, here’s group of refugees who were helped by Yashiro commissioner, they are relocating to new homes, I guess Ayato is really busy. Oh, here is Fatui’s camp where everyone is slaughtered and boba tea cups are littered around, I wonder what is up with that.

and also, Ayaka is organizing resistance behind his back, and we never meet him bc Ayaka actively tries to hide traveler from him.

bc like, Ayaka doesn’t have a development arc in archon quest. She’s just kind of there, being perfect. Like in her story quest that hoyo makes you do at gun point, you like, go on a date, learn that she’s lonely and has trouble connecting with people due to the pressure of having to project an image of perfection and societal distance, do an investigation to uncover her late mother’s fox fursona roleplay diary which she used to cope her with own societal pressure. Which like. Ok, sure, but but this wet socks quest is not an archon quest material. It should be just a normal story quest.

no, Ayaka’s real conflict is wanting to prove herself to her brother, bring real difference to the world. This is her ambition, she literally gained her vision while fighting Ayato in a training, she wanted to show him that she’s strong enough to handle responsibility, he named her Shirasagi Himegimi after she won that fight

but during a civil war, watching people suffer, her role as a cultural figurehead is not enough. She wants to help, but she’s afraid to act, because this will undermine Yashiro Commission and her brother worked so hard to build it back up after Raiden Gokaden fall. so she organizes resistance behind her brother’s back in secret, to help, but without compromising Kamisato name

this basically tracks with what happens in game, but we spell it out and expand on this later.

Getting Traveler to help

next, let’s throw out the weird edging introduction where traveler is not allowed to see Ayaka the first time. like??? bro, we’re friends with 2 archons and heads of their governments, you’re not that important. and it can’t be to protect her identity, bc like. You go to Kamisato estate! You’re told who she is! If you wanted to betray her, that would be enough already.

another awkward thing is that Traveler, who agrees to do every stupid quest they meet, suddenly refuses to help the resistance.

I think we should reframe their convo a little, like Traveler says hey I’d love to help, but my primary goal is to get info about my sibling from an Archon, so I don’t want to go against her.

To which Ayaka says oh, I totally get you, you see, I am myself a culture figurehead and a nominal princess and I can’t speak up against the decree, bc that will hurt Yashiro Commission. But I’m not asking you to fight Raiden Shogun in a duel or smth, I’m just asking you to help people with the resistance, which we do totally in secret. No one will know! Also, how are you going to see Raiden? She’s locked up and doesn’t appear in public. But my big brother is a head of the Commission, if anyone can get you an audience, it’s him. So help me help people and I will ask him to help you see Shogun!

she secretly believes that after traveler sees ppl suffering, they will change their mind and help willingly, same as in canon, but she’s more subtle about it

Rebellion connection

my other problem with vision hunt is that the 3 quests they force you to do about meeting people who lost their visions are like. not good. The concept is interesting, but they are just kinda boring and meandering. They lack dramatic impact. They could do better. So we’re not doing these 3 quests rn, but don’t worry about it, we will get to the effects of vision loss

Instead, ayaka sends us to help Yoimiya and we do the same quest we do in archon quest - help her to free someone from prison dungeon. It goes the same, we get to the dude being mistreated by cops, Kujou Sara steps up and lets us go

But then it’s like, we need to get this dude out of Inazuma city. Cops know he escaped! They will just come for him again! There is only one place that will take him and it’s the watatsumi rebels.

Common complaint about Inazuma is that other countries feel like found families and Inazuma doesn’t, bc characters from resistance and rebellion basically don’t interact, and it’s true. And like, we can get them together! Thoma knows Kazuha, Kazuha knows Gorou, Gorou in canon went to recoinsanse missions to Narukami island.

So, Gorou visits the tea house to pick up the Vision Dude, and the gang has the hotpot meet up. Everyone is there (except Kokomi bc ok hoyo, we’re saving up for dramatic battle reveal, and i think her reveal would fuck up banner schedule). Ayaka, Thoma, Yoimiya, Kazuha, Gorou. and Teppei! Who is here bc he was recruited by Gorou. He’s actually from Narukami island, not Watatsumi, and he had nothing to do with visions, but he’s an idealist, he believes in freedom, so he joined rebellion. fun times are had, Ayaka tries to play srs bsns lady host, but breaks into giggling at The Shenanigans, Gorou is overly polite but adorable and apologizes to Ayaka about The Shenanigans in which everyone but him participates, Yoi is a life of party and the Shenanigans and later has to be bodily stopped by Kazuha from organizing fireworks right here, right now, Thoma and Teppei both get sick from eating Ayaka’s nasty cakes that she threw into soup, bc Thoma is just into oral stuff and Teppei is so earnest and eager to prove himself and impress ppl, haha comic relief, look how sweet and funny this guy is and all characters get along so great with him

bc like, I think Teppei has a problem of a) not having enough screen time b)not having any interesting characterization moments to make him stand out 3)not having other playable and already likeable characters interact with him

so this scene can serve not only to bring that “unlikely bunch of people becoming friends and working together” connection to life, but also to endear Teppei to the players

Vision Loss Effects\ Yoimiya and Thoma

ok, next Ayaka asks Traveler to do that one quest about martial arts master losing their vision. I think it’s the one quest from 3 about vision loss with most drama, but the real reason is that it introduces Yae Miko and we need to do this before leaving for the rebellion. Like, in theory, it could be switched to another, better quest that lets us meet Yae Miko, but honestly, this is not one of Inazuma archon quest problems so I can’t be arsed. Feel free to imagine a cooler intro instead.

when we go back to tea house, we learn that Yoimya’s vision has been taken away. She has been recognized in that last prison raid and the guards came for her later, and she didn’t fight bc there were kids and her old father around.

She’s completely changed. Her innate optimism, her belief in people and their dreams has been drained from her like a sunshine from a dark cellar. But she’s still Yoimiya!! She came here to warn you bc she still cares even if she had her own joy taken from her. She tries to smile and reassure you that it’s ok, she’s fine, but her smile is visibly strained, she’s never had to fake it before so she doesn’t know how. She wears a vision, but it’s a fake one, because her pops said that maybe having it here would help and she agreed, tried to pretend for him that it does help, bu. It very obviously doesn’t.

Ayaka is horrified. She apologizes to Yoimiya, tries to think of ways to help her, but Yoi just laughs humorlessly. “It won’t ever touch you, princess.”

She’s immediately disgusted at herself and apologizes, tries to take it back, this isn’t her, she would never say this, and not to her friend! But also, it’s so hard to care now and she can’t remember why it’s so important to care at all.

Ayaka is shaken. Bc it’s true! She is a privileged noble, vision hunt will not come for her! She is playing at the resistance from the safety of anonymity, while people like Yoimiya actually risk themselves and pay the price!

And this is when the news that Thoma was arrested and about to be 100th vision taken at the feet of the statue comes. Tenryou commission truly strikes back.

Ayaka is in uproar. She’s ready to go herself and fight for Thoma, especially after Yoi’s words. She’s sick and tired of being a perfect princess, she can’t allow any more of her friends, her family come to harm because they don’t have her protection. Clearly Thoma being a theatrical execution is a blow specifically against Yashiro commission and Kamisato family in particular, and if Shogun has beef with her, well, she can settle it with HER instead of going after her friends!

Traveler stops her. This is what they want. If Ayaka openly moves against the Shogun, the entire Yashiro commission falls. Even if Ayaka is in the right! No, it’s the Traveler who will go to save Thoma

But traveler needs raiden’s good will for the info, they can’t confront raiden openly, it was the deal from the start!

But at this point traveler has seen too much, the divide in the country, the change and suffering of their own friends, and they can’t allow all of Yashiro commission take the fall.

This is when the Traveler decides to take a stand.

ACT 2

#rhine talks #inazuma ranting #genshin impact #rhine lore study #rhine writes

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thevelaryons · 2 months

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I’ve always found it interesting that of the lowborn/bastard women in the DotD, Marilda is the only one who doesn’t get slandered and insulted in the Westerosi history books.

Speaking specifically about the women who were rumored to have had affairs with noblemen, the women (Sara Snow/Alys Rivers/Nettles) in particular get derogatory descriptions for various reasons. The men they are linked to all either die or are unable to do anything about the rumors (Sara: her rumored lover Jace dies and her brother Cregan is far away in the North when those rumors become a thing in the South years later/Alys: her rumored lover Aemond dies and her son is obviously too young to do anything about the insults people are saying about his mother/Nettles: her rumored lover Daemon dies). Regardless of whether any of the rumors were true or not, it's still the women in the relationships who were described in a negative manner. Even men like Aemond or Daemon don't get as slandered, despite their more controversial actions.

Sara may or may not have existed (the fact that her existence alone is doubted speaks for itself) but in the history books she is described as an "unwashed" bastard. Even the fact she was a virgin at the time of her affair with Jace is called into question. Alys gets descriptors like "slattern" and "cow". She is reviled as a seductress and witch who would sacrifice her own children. Nettles gets insulted as well, both by characters around her and the maesters/septons recording the histories. Beyond the classism, there is also a racial angle to the insults with her skin colour always being at the forefront when she gets called "dirty" and "creature". It’s unfortunate but Westerosi society is unfair to women, especially those of a lower social class, and so they do often have to rely on the men in their lives, whether that’s a male lover/husband, their father, brother(s) or son(s) as a source of protection. Characters like Sara/Alys/Nettles don't get that protection.

Then you get to Marilda's descriptions in the book, and it's completely clean. Not a single insult is uttered against her despite her supposed involvement with two different Velaryon men. Whether her affair was with Corlys or Laenor, it occurred at the time when they were married men. Laenor is dead by the time when he's claimed to be the father of Marilda's sons. But Corlys is alive and well. Not to mention, he's a very well respected figure in Westerosi society. That being said, I can’t see Corlys doing any major PR control here since he does not have the means to do so.

Alyn, however, could ensure his mother did not get negative remarks. He's the one said to have fostered close ties to the Citadel and a positive relationship with the Faith. On more than one occasion, he was anointed by the High Septon himself, which is something that's typically reserved for the King or his Kingsguard. So I think Alyn might’ve used that influence to his favor.

While Alyn does seem like the type who doesn’t care much about what others think of him, he clearly respects his mother so I doubt he would want her to have a bad reputation. Even concerning the rumors of Alyn's potential affairs, the maesters are somewhat dismissive about them and call the rumors "unreliable". They don't give much credence to what third parties are saying on such matters. As for Alyn's mother, she is spoken of with nothing but respect and even flattery at times.

History is truly written by the victors.

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf #marilda of hull #alyn velaryon #corlys velaryon #laenor velaryon #sara snow #alys rivers #nettles #alyn & marilda #meta #alyn going from being a mama's boy to a girldad was a very excellent writing decision by grrm

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ciderjacks · 1 year

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I watch some of Watcher's stuff, tell me whatever you want about Shane Madej!

HOUGHHHH. OHHRHFHTHABK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOY

i think a lot of people who are aware of Shane sort of just think of him as the skeptic guy on bfu/ghost files (not saying that’s u obv just a lot of ppl bc I guess I need this to be a pitch meeting) and I think that is a shame because HOLY SHIT HES SO TALENTED AND COOL AND WEIRD AND THE SHIT HE MAKES IS SO FUCKIKNG INSANELY GOOD

Ok so going back in time for a second to b*zzfeed. Who btw did not deserve this guy. Afaik he had two major like, creative projects on there. Ruining History and The Hot Daga. Both were very good. ruining history was a fun history show he did with Sara and Ryan and there are rotating guests every episode. Shane is very interested in history, very good at teaching history, and i think in an alternate universe hes a beloved high school history teacher. Ruining History is the father of puppet history. B*zzfeed canned it and i miss it every day. and then there’s the other father of Puppet History, Hot Daga. Hot Daga is insane. I love Hot Daga, its not for everyone, but I think its so good. The lore goes crazy, he produced and made original songs for it, he animated the whole final half season by himself which is fuckinf insane. He made a ballad for it and actually i need everyone reading this to Listen to “believe me maizey” and then directly after listen to the Meteor Ballad from Puppet History. OH LOOK A SEGWAY

Puppet history is so fuckinf good. Its So Good. And especially in later seasons since hes doing so much you really start to see his improvement as an artist and its just. Its incredible. Some of the somgs are genuinely fucking masterpieces, like some of my favs are The Flower Boat Song, Asmodeus, The Horse and God song, the Emu song, Big Pile Of Diamonds, Infinitiger, The Window Song, Gay Oars Duet, Hologram Professor Song, and the Meteor’s Ballad. And more. Uhh OH the Olympic Torch is really good too. His lyrics are so smart and fun and his vocals are so impressive and he has such good range, he duetted Himself for the Oar song and managed to make the two voices identifiable as separate characters without being over the top. The lyrics range from poetic anf beautiful to weird and funny often within the Same song! Its just so good and he starts so good and gradually over the years he’s done the show you can see him getting more comfortable and better at music which is crazy causw again HE STARTED OFF GOOD! HE WAS INSANE IN HOT DAGA AND HE IS SOMEHOW EVEN BETTER IN PUPPET HISTORY LIKE! and and and ok here’s where I get crazy and a little parasocial (lol not really i am misusing that word for the bit LOL)

Something about all his work is that you can kind of see how his art depicts the world. In Hot Daga you get the line “what else can you do in the face of such monumental loss, but breath a weary sigh as the world is a little quieter now.” And in Puppet history you get uh actually you get like 20 things from the meteor song but one of my favorite parts is (read blue as the professor, orange as the meteor, pink as both) “some shit’s just etched into the stars, calamities you cant outrun/and when sweet earth we finally meet/the sky will burn and boil the sea/as mountains rend/its you and me.” i think both these lyrics and these somgs demonstrate a maturity about the world that you dont really see in a lot of people, his general kindness towards anything and everything and his ability to change perspectives on things without being forceful. (On a personal note I listened to The Meteor song after someone I knew passed, and as dumb as it maybe sounds the idea that like,, death is not cruel, you can’t always run and sometimes the best thing you can do is be there with the people you love as the world ends.) and also I think that you really can tell that he views the people he’s telling you about as People and not just like, figures. Ykwim. He shows such genuine respect and care for everyone in these stories and I’ve already like briefly in these stories but like, you KNOW if a guy can make me cry for the Meteor that killed the dinosaurs then he’s something special. i also think the way he portrays death in his work is very comforting as a whole. and another thing speakinf of rhat is that he has so much respect for other cultures in a level I think that goes beyond just bare minimum not being a piece of shit. Like especially when he’s teaching history, an example that always sticks out to me is how much effort he put into making sure people remembered and thought about Hatshepsut by having a whole episode on her history then also making an EXTREMELY (probably intentionally so though i cant be sure bc I can’t reas minds) catchy song that Told you to think of Hatshepsut and explained Why uou should think of Hatshepsut and it’s been stuck in my head ever since I first heard it years ago. Also I’m consistently impressed by his good pronunciation of things, I remember in the Tunguska event episode of mystery files there were so many ppl from tbe area he was talking about shocked by how good his pronunciation was. And ive seen that so many times w him like, idk i just think thats very cool. He’s a genuinely really mature and respectful guy I think. Wise too. So much of his work has educated me, changed my worldview for the better, inspired me. Like He’s so talented ik i keep saying that but HE IS!

Like ok so. He can write both songs and stories beautifully. he’s wise as fuck and could probably be a philosopher. He can make puppets (and just tbc later season puppet history the puppets are not him, but in the early seasons afaik they were all him, so he is definitely skilled at that.), he can sing, he can voice act, his graphics and editing are off the charts, he’s educated and smart, hes funny. He’s so fuckinf cool.

also again getting parasocial here but I just really like how much of a zest for life the guy seems to have. And Honestly im impressed that he worked in retail, had actual trash thrown in his face by an angry customer (true story) and still came out it like “man the world sure is wonderful!”. What a guy. And He’s so fucking weird and interesting and I could seriously just listen to him rant about Literally anything Forever. Anything. It doesnt matter I think he could talk about anything in a way that would make me invested in it and i’d come out of it more educated than before with a fresh new perspective on life.

This is getting Essay-like so here are some other Random Shane Things I know to close me out I guess

-he loves community was in the community fandom and has a crush on troy barnes

-he wants to be a mouse

-he’s lived 7000 years

-was DB cooper

-makes a fine ass Krampus

-actually the coolest guy alive

sorry this is almost 100% incomprehensible thank you for letting my autism loose tho

#ask tag #shane madej #Um. Yeah. Hhahaha so when insaid I had autism about rhis guy uh Inwasnt kidding #we are watcher #puppet history #hot daga

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 month

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Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what could end up being its most consequential abortion decision since Dobbs. In a case pitting Idaho’s extreme abortion ban against a federal law known as EMTALA—that since 1986 has required hospitals to provide emergency care—conservative justices seemed to embrace the idea that states can deny crisis medical treatment to pregnant patients, even if doing so means those patients suffer catastrophic, life-altering injuries. “My reaction can be summed up as ‘appalled,’” says Sara Rosenbaum, emerita professor at George Washington University who is one of the country’s foremost experts in health policy issues affecting women and families. “Will [the court] really say it is fine [to enforce] a law that costs women their organs as long as they don’t die?”

It’s hard to think of a piece of progressive American health care policy since the late 1970s in which Rosenbaum hasn’t played a pivotal role conceptualizing, enacting, or improving. That includes the federal statute that guarantees the right of every American to go to a hospital emergency room and receive medical treatment before being sent somewhere else. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires hospitals to screen and stabilize anyone who arrives at the emergency room, including women in active labor. Narrow in scope yet vast in impact, the law has been a “force field around hospital emergency departments,” Rosenbaum says, protecting pregnant patients for four decades. Now, with the Dobbs decision, SCOTUS has “blown up medical care for childbearing people,” she says—and EMTALA could be the next major health care protection that the court decides to explode.

To more fully understand the implications of the case before the Supreme Court, we reached out to Rosenbaum to discuss the history of this unique statute and why it has become even more vital since the end of Roe v Wade.

You’ve called EMTALA “revolutionary” and “the most important American health care law that we have.” Why? What makes this law so special?

It’s the only American law we have that guarantees access to care. For everybody. It doesn’t matter who you are—whether you have insurance or don’t have insurance, what color you are, how much money you have, whether or not you’re disabled. If you come to a hospital emergency department and you believe you have an emergency, they have to screen you. If it is an emergency, they have to stabilize you. The definition of an emergency isn’t that you’re in danger of dying; it includes situations that could lead to severe, long-lasting physical harm. And the decision about what is required to stabilize you—it’s up to the doctor’s medical judgment.

I would say EMTALA is really our only universal health care law.

This law is from 1986. What was happening in the ’70s and ’80s that made EMTALA seem so necessary?

A few things were going on. Back in the early ’80s, a decision was made that the United States was spending too much on hospital care. So Congress changed the payment structure for Medicare [the single largest payer for health care services in the US] to incentivize shorter stays. Pretty soon there were stories emanating from the press about a phenomenon they called “sicker and quicker,” where patients who actually had been admitted to the hospital were getting discharged too soon, when they were still unstable.

Another major problem was that indigent people were not able to get emergency care at all. There were a lot of stories of women being sent away in labor—not just pregnant patients, although that was the story that got the most play. In those days, many fewer women were eligible for Medicaid than are today and it wasn’t as generous. Only very, very indigent women could get Medicaid coverage.

Later in the 1980s, you also helped persuade Congress to vastly expand Medicaid for pregnant women, making it a federal requirement.

There’s no question that poor people bore the brunt, but they were not the only ones. For example, one of the most famous EMTALA cases from that period involved a patient with HIV—nobody would touch him. There have been many cases of fully insured people who, for whatever reason, hospitals just chose not to treat. People who were in a drunk driving accident and were out of control, for example, or mental health patients who were disruptive. Even if the patient was well insured, if they were a handful they would get sent over to the public hospital.

Hospitals are very good at getting rid of people they don’t want. And so, while indigent people were the immediate focus, there’s nothing in EMTALA that limits it to uninsured people. That’s the important thing.

Tell me about one of your pregnancy cases from this era.

One of the cases I worked on in the mid-’70s involved a Black woman named Hattie Mae Campbell who went into premature labor at her home near Holly Springs, Mississippi. She had Medicaid, but the local hospital refused to treat Medicaid patients. The baby was coming out. And the nurse stood at the door of the hospital with her arms spread wide, blocking the entrance, refusing to let her set one foot inside, because once a patient crossed over the line, there were legal arguments to be made that the hospital had begun the admission process. So she gave birth in the parking lot.

And we know that after the birth, the staff still refused admission. They provided a sheet to wrap the baby, then they transferred Campbell and her newborn to another hospital 30 miles away. How much of a factor was racism in these situations?

Race is always a factor—a combination of racism and the fact that people of color were even more poorly insured than white people.

Were there regional differences in how patients were being treated?

There were hospitals all along the Texas-Mexico border that would dress up [security] guards as immigration officials. They would station personnel at the door so you couldn’t come in. But this was going on everywhere. Rich states, poor states, affluent communities, not-so-affluent communities, racist communities, not-such-racist communities. It was happening everywhere because [private] hospitals felt that public hospitals or community hospitals should take care of patients they didn’t want.

You should understand that hospitals were set up to accept only the patients they want. That has been tempered a bit. In the case of emergency care, they can’t do that anymore. But it hasn’t changed that much. A hospital might want me for elective surgery but not my neighbor down the street who’s a Latina who has Medicaid coverage. I mean, they have all kinds of ways to avoid patients they don’t want, right? The type of insurance they take, the doctors they give admitting privileges to, deciding what networks to be part of.

That’s why EMTALA was enacted using Medicare, which is a national program, as the stick. If you as a hospital want to participate in Medicare, and you run an emergency department, then you must do these things as a condition of participation.

Even despite all these horror stories, I still have a hard time imagining how you and other public health advocates managed to get EMTALA passed.

There was no resistance in Congress. None. A Republican Senate, a Democratic House, virtually identical language in both bills. Signed by Ronald Reagan. It really was a different era in the life of the United States.

And then what happened?

Oh, then there was huge hospital resistance. Even though hospitals were very involved in designing EMTALA, it’s a pretty heavy-duty regulation. Over the years, there’s been a lot of resistance both to the requirement that hospitals have to do an initial screening and to the requirement that they have to stabilize the patient before discharging or transferring. There have been thousands of EMTALA cases. The federal government has brought them, private individuals have brought them.

There was a lot of resistance from attending doctors as well. The very first enforcement action was a birth case out of Texas. An OB-GYN who was supposed to be on-call went duck hunting, and when the hospital got a call that a woman had presented in labor, he said, basically, “I’m not coming in for her.”

In 1989, the language of the statute was tweaked to clarify that EMTALA didn’t just apply to the pregnant person, but also to the “unborn child.” Nowadays that goes right to the “personhood” argument of abortion opponents—indeed Justice Alito invoked it during oral arguments. Why was that language necessary then and how is it different from how it is being deployed today?

Because women were still giving birth in parking lots. Women in labor were still being spurned. That language is in there because women who literally had babies coming out of them were being sent away. Everybody understood that you had two medical crises going on here, the crisis of the mother and the crisis of the baby. Everyone, apparently, except the noncompliant hospitals. The concern was not just the pregnant woman, the way it is with some of the emergencies we’re hearing about post-Dobbs, where the fetus is utterly non-viable and the focus is rightly on the pregnant woman.

So the language was clarified: The baby was also a patient. Here on Planet Earth, there are two concerns in labor and delivery, the mother and the baby.

Was there any worry that at some point in the future, anti-abortion people might point to that language and say, as Idaho and Texas are arguing now, “See, EMTALA actually means we can’t do abortions because we have to care for the unborn child”?

That really was not ever the intent. No, no, no, no. We didn’t put that language in there because we were suddenly creating embryonic fetal rights. It’s just a complete misunderstanding of EMTALA.

The pro-choice world crabbed about the language but didn’t fight it tooth and nail because everyone understood the context was labor and delivery. And they were going to lose that [battle]—no member of Congress was willing to listen to nonsense at that point about “clean up your language.” I’ve litigated abortion cases since the Hyde Amendment [the 1976 law banning the use of federal funds for abortion under most circumstances], and I was completely not troubled by that language.

Was it always understood that in some situations, EMTALA might require doctors to do emergency abortions?

This issue of abortion as an emergency procedure has been grounded in EMTALA for a long, long time. There were already cases in the early ’90s of women coming to the hospital with a terrible pregnancy emergency where an abortion had to happen. Or they’d had an abortion that failed, or an incomplete miscarriage that needed an abortion procedure. So this issue [of whether EMTALA requires hospitals to perform emergency abortions] is not new. What’s new is Dobbs. What’s new is what the Supreme Court unleashed when it overturned Roe v Wade.

Pregnancy-related complications that might lead to emergency abortions—for example, when the embryo implants in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus, or when a woman’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive—are a lot more common than many people realize. But pregnant people end up in the emergency room for all kinds of other reasons, too.

Pregnant people are frequent users of emergency departments. About one in 500 pregnancies goes to an emergency department at some point. Most of the attention has rightly been placed on emergencies where something terrible has happened to the pregnancy itself. But there’s a whole other group of emergencies that aren’t pregnancy-related—it could be appendicitis, it could be a car accident, it could be domestic abuse, it could be COVID.

The tendency when somebody is pregnant is to send them to the emergency department right away because you don’t want to take any chances. And sometimes in these situations, you need anesthesia, you need surgery. Sometimes, unfortunately, as a consequence of treatment you may have a demise. What Idaho has done is to make every pregnant person coming to an emergency department radioactive.

As someone who has spent your whole career steeped in health policy and health law, did you see this moment coming? When hospitals turn away pregnant patients with life-threatening emergencies? When a law as important as EMTALA seems on the verge of being gutted?

It was very evident, from the moment that the Dobbs decision was leaked, that there was just a total, fundamental clash between what states like Idaho with these terrible abortion bans thought they had the license to do and what EMTALA required.

When the Dobbs decision finally came down, my daughter called, incredibly upset. All of her friends were incredibly upset. I said, “Here’s my one piece of advice. You have friends all over the country. The ones who live in any one of the states that are going to impose a complete ban, tell them that they must not get pregnant. And if they do want to be pregnant, they must move away. Because a lot of things can go wrong in a pregnancy, and if anything goes wrong, they’re not going to be able to get emergency care.”

The other thing that I realized right away is that it would be impossible for doctors to practice in these places, and there would be a huge exodus of providers. And in Idaho that has happened. So people like me, who are steeped in health policy, understood immediately what was coming. But where we are now is worse than I could have even imagined it was going to be.

#us politics #news #interview #2024 #mother jones #Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act #dobbs v. jackson women's health organization #us supreme court #Sara Rosenbaum #reproductive justice #reproductive health #reproductive rights #roe v wade #abortions #women's rights

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catubarca · 11 months

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Jon Snow’s name

I have been thinking about this non-stop for the past few days and I really wanted to share my thoughts about Jon Snow’s name.

This idea is built around the R + L = J theory, which if you’re not familiar is the idea that Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark are Jon Snow’s parents.

In the show, as we all know, they named him Aegon, which I hope we can all agree is kind of dumb. Rhaegar already had a damn son named Aegon. I understand why the show writers made this decision, being a connection back to Aegon the Conquerer and his legacy in the Targaryen family – it’s a nice and circular connection.

It’s also boring as hell and completely expected, which is not what George R. R. Martin is about. He’s all about that symbolism; doing the unexpected; going against the grain of typical fantasy into something darker.

Based on this, I have an idea about what Jon Snow’s name could be - one that has some cool symbolic links between the Starks and Targaryens; one that links to some of Martin’s history about the world; and creates a connection between the two major works, GoT and HoTD.

Jon Snow’s name should be Jacaerys Targaryen.

Not only does this create a nice link between Martin’s works - probably his two best known works at this point - it has some other symbolic connections.

During the Dance of the Dragons, it was Jace and Vermax who went to Winterfell to confirm the alliance of the Stark family; it was Jace who allegedly made some kind of pact/bond before a Weirwood tree, recognising their religion and traditions.

And, if we remember one of the North’s favourite little phrases: the North remembers.

Wouldn’t it have been very in character for Lyanna, the She-Wolf, to live up to this phrase of her House, and remember the Targaryen/Targaryen representative who came to Winterfell in alliance, and honoured their religion? Who may have (allegedly) married Sara Snow?

Kind of like... a pact of ... ice.... and .... fire?

Jace is also (legally, at least) the result of water and fire; Velaryon and Targaryen. Close, but not quite.

I think it’s probably also interesting considering it was Jace’s dragon, Vermax, that Mushroom claims laid a clutch of eggs at Winterfell. His tale is widely considered to be fake, of course, as Vermax is generally considered to be male, but it’s still an interesting connection.

A dragon who left eggs in Winterfell.

A dragon who left a legacy - a bloodline - in Winterfell.

Maybe not a literal story to be taken truthfully, but a literary device that could come to represent a dragon being left with the Starks, if Martin so choses to use it as such. He might not have written it to mean anything, of course, but it would be a fun detail if he wanted it to be.

And, of course, there is something satisfyingly circular about Jace and Jon’s stories, but in a less expected way than Aegon I and Aegon VI: two dark haired boys with Targaryen blood but the wrong surnames.

A bastard raised as a true heir.

A true heir raised as a bastard.

Let me know what y’all think of my idea :) there’s no actual telling what Martin might decide to name Jon if the books do confirm R + L = J, and I’m sure whatever he choses he will have carefully considered reasons for, but I think this is a fun option :) !

#Jon Snow #Game of Thrones #House of the Dragon #jace velaryon #Jacaerys Velaryon #Cregan Stark #rhaenyra #lucerys #ned stark #got #hotd #game of thrones theories

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kiss2012 · 2 months

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tsc thoughts under the cut cause i finished

i literally cannot wrap my thoughts around my overall opinion of it i feel like i absolutely need to reread it first

but also i need to reread tfc because I MISS TFC SO BAD ➡️ girl who reread it last may. i do think i spoke tsc into existence by doing this because i hadn’t looked at the trilogy since 2019 and then all of a sudden i decided to reread and found that unfortunately they still make me batshit crazy. what is in those books.

however i do like tfc better 🤷🏽‍♀️ so if i did reread tfc after this and read tsc again i would just want to read tfc again

this is not fair to say at all because tfc is a whole trilogy and this was only book 1. and i rlly need to start saying aftg instead of tfc cause it’s getting confusing because like i do think tsc is better than tfc (the first book). however i just…like aftg better? i feel like it’s more fun which is probably a weird thing to say considering it’s a lot More than tsc is. and obviously this book was more about jean’s recovery. but more happens in aftg. idk we’ll see tho

i do love jean and the trojans but i miss neil and the foxes every page. i feel like it’s harder to connect to the trojans because there r so many of them. and idk sports so the three coaches is probably normal for a team of this size i really wouldn’t know lol but i couldn’t keep the coaches straight in my head either

point is the foxes r my everything 4ever. i love jean jeremy cat and laila and i see what she was trying to do by introducing the floozy line (cute name) however i dont really have a strong feeling about them because we met them for like 5 minutes

i do love nabil tho why is he not part of the floozy line :(((((

i think cat and laila were absolutely perfect. they’re given a lot of depth especially cat and they’re so important to me. they’re better here than in fanon i think but i feel like fanon did get their personalities and relationship down mostly right. apart from cat not just being called alvarez LMAO bless neil only calling her that and fanon having no choice but to do the same because no one agreed on one single name. i remember sara was one that i saw a lot but i like catalina way way better i love cat <3 i love laila <3 their friendship with jeremy <3

an evening breeze rainbows open roads friends 😭😭😭😭😭😭

bi jean is so dear to me

also jean rooming with cat and laila (and then jean) literally perfect omg. no one ever put that in fics but i think it was the best thing to do. sorry for having to compare tsc to fanon im not trying to say one is better than the other at all but what you have to understand is how many fics about jean post tkm are out there and how many of them i read so my mind is going to go there. i wasn’t rlly obsessed with jerejean but i was (and am) a jerejean girl. and i had (have lmao) very high standards for fic so i stand by a lot of those fics WHILE still standing by everything tsc is

by which i mean i cannot get poc jean out of my head thanks to that one fic where he is moroccan. in that same fic jeremy was also spanish and i sort of adopted that into my image of them so i am trying to let go of it but i mean even the hatfords being pakistani still lives in my head despite how unlikely it is. and most of the time i pictured jeremy with golden hair (sometimes curls) so even though i think nora’s compromise being to have naturally brown-haired jeremy bleaching his hair is hilarious and iconic. sort of impossible for me not to picture him with golden hair.

however when jean was all startled and went “blond” when he saw jeremy’s hair. reader i died

english major jeremy is still a gift to me personally

kevin bargaining and arguing for his history major..my baby…the mentions of kevin and kevin’s actual appearances in tsc are everything. the postcards and magnets…kill me

every time neil showed up i lost my mind i love him SO MUCH!!!

see my problem is i wish the foxes showed up more even though it makes no sense for them to. i want kevin jeremy and jean in a room together. i will kill for jean and allison interaction especially if they talk about renee (yes i am holding onto renison still). i want jeremy and cat and matt and dan to hang out. i need laila to meet andrew. i need more renee I LOVE RENEE we did get a good amount of her though i think. she was everything.

genuinely think the way jean and renee was handled here was so perfect. i totally see the merit of it if they end the series together. i also see why jean might end the series without being with anyone romantically. but narratively i cant help but feel jerejean is what makes the most sense. the reason i liked them in the first place is their narrative appeal. and they were genuinely so good in this. so. idk. can’t think about that too much.

i have some problems with the writing like i did with the og series but um the thing is i cannot view these books objectively because they impacted me so much at a young age. i will say i wish tsc could have had a professional editor lol.

i also have some issues with the pacing tho because i did not expect it to end there at all? im so glad she started it where she did but when it ended i was like WAIT WHAT

i have a feeling the reason riko did what he did with the backliners is because he saw jean looking at kevin. could be wrong here but judging from how often jean talks about learning his lesson about looking at guys too long. well.

the main thing for me is that i don’t see how we’re going to get to championships in 2 books if this book only covered till the summer. you could argue exy games arent that important for jean’s story but i do think they are insanely important for jeremy’s story. and if he’s a pov character i want more about him!! that man is keeping his issues locked up (I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THEY R) but we can tell he loves exy and he needs to win his last year

my memory of the extra content is so dim and some of it i have voluntarily chosen to forget or just not consider plus i think some of it will/has changed. but i think i remember reading that trojans win for their last year and i Need that to happen. cause in my head it went: foxes win neil’s first year and trojans win neil’s second year and jeremy’s last year. idc for the rest i want neil to have won championships twice or at least once as captain so that’s what happens in my head.

like i need more about jeremy teaching jean to love exy again and more about jeremy’s apparently complicated family issues with exy???? jeremy let me in.

anywayy. this book feels like a fever dream and im going insane

#tsc lb #tsc spoilers #THIS IS SO LONG #sorry i keep adding more things when i think of them

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indianchindian · 2 months

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Curly Hair in Young Royals

This is another Young Royals word dump that I constantly think about, and it is about Felice, who is my favorite character in the series. Felice is mixed-race girl with a Black father and a White mother, hence part of the racial minority in Hilleska. In the first season, she was obsessed with the idea of a façade of perfection, as shown when she posted a selfie of her and her horse Rousseau and captioned about having a great time at the stables, and that she has a good relationship with Rousseau while the opposite was true, as it was Sara who truly bonded with Rousseau. She was always shown posting selfies on her Instagram account. However, one thing I found interesting is her hair.

In the first season, Felice straightened her hair because she wanted to "look" perfect and fit in with her white counterparts (who have, I'd say, racial blindness). She would wake up really early just to straighten her naturally curly hair, and it took hours. Throughout the first season her hair was straight, and according to me, it didn't suit her enough. With straight hair, she didn't look very authentic, and that is the point. Her hair is a symbol of authenticity, and initially she didn't accept that she can have flaws, whether physically or personality-wise.

However, in the first episode, when Felice was throwing up in the back door of a party was when Sara met her, drunk. She asked Sara if her hair looks curly, to which Sara, being Sara, said that it did. This caused Felice to be anxious about her looks, and explained Sara about the amount of time it takes to straighten her hair. But Sara was unfazed, and instead complemented the way she looks in curly hair. In the third season, Felice stated to Sara in the last episode that this remark meant a lot to her. That was because she internally never liked herself in curly hair and wanted to fit into the crowd of majority white students.

However, in the second season, there is a change; Felice stopped straightening her hair, and it continued in the third season as well. It was during and after she became friends with Sara and Wille, and it indicates that she has come to terms with her flaws. With the curly hair, we see a more confident and supportive Felice, especially when she's around Sara and Wille, her closest best friends.

This continued in the third season as well. And that's where racial discrimination in subtle but also no subtle ways starts. Felice was cold out for her open hair, unlike her white counterparts. She stated that there's a clear hierarchy here and in the initiations, only for one of her friends to say that she's pretty. It's evident that her friends live in a racially blind environment. They never understood what Felice had to go through as a black girl because of their shared economic and social privileges. They never understood that she woke up an hour early so as to straighten her hair. It was maybe because of her growing friendship with Sara that she started to embrace her natural hair more. Her no longer straightening her hair signifies that she's close to becoming her authentic self.

The fact that she stated that Sara saying that her hair looks pretty when curly is already evident when she stopped straightening her hair. This remark by Sara was the first step to embracing herself and her identity. This is the reason why she missed Sara even though she was very angry and hurt by her actions with August, because she was the first true friend she had, and still deep inside was grateful for the kind of impact she made. This didn't cost her self-respect though.

The impact of her curly hair is more with her conversation with her father about his experiences at Hilleska being the only black student there, and for him the hierarchy was even more evident. Curly hair is seen in mostly African people, and considering the history of racial discrimination in Europe, her hair was seen as undesirable, which is why the headmistress would tell her to tie her hair up when it was opened. And this is the reason why she straightened her hair. However, I'm glad she stopped straightening her hair because curly hair really suits her :)

#felice ehrencrona #young royals #young royals season 1 #young royals season 2 #young royals season 3 #young royals spoilers #boys love

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

I was just reminded of the time in college when my professor tried to insist that King Minos and King Midas were the same person and I corrected him automatically before realizing what I'd done. I expected him to explode at me, but he was like, "Huh I'll look into it." The next class, two days later, he opened class with, "Sara was right, actually, about Minos and Midas. They are two different people."

And the reason I was able to correct a man with a doctorate when I was 19 was because of the fucking Muppets Classic Theatre movie and a mythology book from 2001 my mom bought for a tattoo reference.

#that's when I decided he would be my history advisor #He also made me the secretary of the history honor society because I took good notes and he knew I could hold a conversation #While also writing down what was heard #And doing something entirely different #in which Sara is a historian #in which Sara is a history major #Oh Germana the first man in academia who did not immediately dismiss me because I knew more than they did #Also fuck Wilson I could have done that independent study and killed it #Thank you for your time

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addictedtostorytelling · 3 months

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Hi! Would you be able to talk a bit about how you see Sara's relationship with Abby Fisher?

hi, anon!

so i will warn you up front: i am a great hater of the later seasons of csi and don't really have anything nice to say about them. that so, this answer is pretty critical of the writing of episode 15x12 "dead woods" and its depiction of sara and abby's relationship.

to give a "desalinized" short version of what i say below here: i actually like the impulse behind the whole "sara has a relationship with a foster kid" storyline; i just don't think the writers executed the idea well. logistically, the whole thing has more than a few holes. also, the vibes are off. ultimately, i have a difficult time emotionally investing because the implied depth just isn't there.

for a much saltier (and longer) explanation, click the "keep reading."

so here's the thing: one of the many skills which the writers of the later seasons of the show lacked was the ability to imply depth in their narratives.

while most of the time, this deficiency manifested in the form of them failing to provide any kind of contextual details about the characters' lives outside of work—would it have killed them to have sara occasionally mention visiting grissom or to every once in a while show her on the phone with him past s11?—it also sometimes did so in the form of them attempting to shoehorn in biographical information for the established characters that either contradicted or at least didn't mesh well with previously related canonical facts (e.g., when they accidentally changed sara's birthday, only to later change it back again).

and, to me, the whole abby fisher storyline falls into that latter category.

don't get me wrong: on paper, i think having sara connect with a foster child and mentor her is a really wonderful idea. executed properly, it could have been a source for some truly interesting character development for her—which, god knows, in the later seasons, she was severely lacking!—and may have even been something healing for her.

it's just—

to my mind, the way the storyline was written is so unbelievable and ultimately incongruent from sara's previously established character history that i can't really buy into it, either intellectually or emotionally.

problem #1 is the supposed timeline of it all.

within the episode, we learn that sara works the fisher case and first meets abby on 08.20.04, as is shown by the dates on the evidence photos taken at the original scene. however, that date falls right during the same interval when sara is supposedly on vacation between s4 and s5 (see episodes 04x23 "bloodlines" and 05x01 "viva las vegas").

and i know, i know! really, that discrepancy is such a small thing that only a truly nitpicky fan like myself might even notice!

i should probably just let it go.

but the thing is, it's not just an issue of sara not technically being in vegas or around to work the case at that time but also one of her not being in the right mental/emotional state to be able open up to a traumatized child then, either.

more on that point below.

furthermore, it's also not the only "fudge" of its kind.

in fact, it's actually indicative of a more general inattention to detail on the parts of the writers.

anthony zuiker took the lead writing credit for this episode, and, honestly, he's somewhat notorious for not knowing his own show's canon. he prides himself on being a big picture "ideas" guy, not a minutiae/details guy, and sometimes, the fact that he isn't the latter thing is really, really obvious. i mean, this is the same man who had to crowdsource major story arc recaps from fans on twitter to remind him of what had been going on on his own show before he wrote the series finale, for chrissake! and even then, he still got a bunch of the "fine print" stuff, like grissom not knowing who russell is, wrong.

this error being just one among many makes me less willing to ignore and/or gloss over it.

beyond the issue of sara's initial meeting with abby not fitting the timeline of the earlier seasons, equally as improbable is the notion that sara maintains regular contact with abby after they first meet.

for one thing, in the early seasons of the show when sara supposedly first meets abby, sara is a notorious workaholic who maxes out on overtime every month. if she's working 70+ hours a week on a graveyard schedule, when is she making time to have visits with this kid—and especially considering that said visits likely have to be scheduled long in advanced and supervised (because there are very strict rules in place regarding how noncustodial adults interact with kids in the foster care system), meaning she can't just swing by for a quick hello after a double shift?

considering that catherine can barely find the time to see her own biological daughter, of whom she has sole custody after early s3, when is sara fitting in hours and hours with abby, to whom she has incredibly restricted access, as per the rules and logistics of the foster care system?

also, for another thing, how does this relationship fit in with all of the canonical events of s5-15?

for example, when sara is recovering from her injuries following her abduction by the miniature killer in s8, what does she tell eight-year-old abby? does she see her during that time or do they go several months without any contact, until sara is healed up enough not to have to explain anything to her? if they don't see each other, what kind of excuses does sara make? if they do see each other, how does sara explain the situation? does she admit she nearly died at the hands of a murderer, knowing how triggering that information might be for abby to hear? or does she lie? or tell some sanitized version of the truth ("i had a bad accident, but i'm okay now")?

and what about the grissom of it all? do he and abby ever meet? if so, when? do they ever spend quality time together and/or develop any kind of relationship, especially after grissom and sara get married? if so, how does sara break the news to a fourteen-year-old abby of the divorce? does abby get any kind of closure for grissom not being a part of her life anymore?

for yet another thing, how does this idea (of sara being a regular presence in abby's life for ten years) fit with sara's nomadic lifestyle in the later seasons of the show, plus abby's general status as a foster child?

not only does sara spend significant amounts of time away from vegas between 2004 and 2014 (especially during s8, s9, s10, and s11), which would make it difficult for her to keep in touch with abby just on her side of things, but based on some of abby and her foster mother's dialogue in episode 15x12 "dead woods," it also seems that abby has only come into her placement with the higgins family fairly recently, perhaps within just the past few years or so, which means that prior to living with them, she likely moves around a lot.

the idea that sara could even keep track of this girl over the years—especially given the privacy laws surrounding foster kids—isn't particularly realistic.

one of the main things former foster kids (and especially those who are in "traditional foster care" as opposed to "kinship care") complain about is the inconsistency of the lifestyle and the fact that people are there one day and gone the next.

while the child protective services agency (cps) does their best to prevent foster kids from having to move placements, over a third of foster kids experience changes to their living arrangements at least three times per year (and some experience even more).

and, again, while cps generally tries to keep kids from having to move schools/districts when their placements change, if they can avoid it, they often don't have a choice; if the kid has been living in and attending school in henderson and the only available placement for them is in reno, then there's not much to be done but to uproot their whole life and ship them 450 miles across the state to their new home.

furthermore, to protect the privacy and safety of foster children, neither cps nor foster families are allowed to give out personal information about foster children—including their placement addresses—to anyone who doesn't have direct "need-to-know" involvement in their case (which would mostly just be custodial caretakers, school officials, and medical professionals).

all of the above so, it would likely be very, very difficult for sara to maintain a relationship with abby, especially over the course of a decade.

that girl has likely been in multiple placements in multiple locations (some of them not in clark county) since sara has known her, and since sara doesn't—even as law enforcement—fall into any of those "need to know" categories of persons who legally receive updates about abby's whereabouts when she gets reassigned, she probably wouldn't be able to follow her movements.

however, even if sara were somehow to (improbably) maintain contact with abby between 2004 and 2007, once sara skipped town and went "off the grid" circa episode 08x07 "goodbye & good luck" and/or later episode 09x02 "the happy place," the second abby moved placements, she likely wouldn't be able to find her again (and especially considering that, at the time, abby would be just eight or nine years-old and wouldn't have a cell phone or email account she could use to reach out to sara on her end of things).

the whole scenario lacks veracity, even with what sara herself has previously said about her own experiences in foster care.

for example, in episode 07x16 "monster in the box," sara remarks to grissom on how hard it is to keep up with foster kids due to spotty record-keeping.

—and that's the main problem, really.

beyond the whole "how would this relationship even work?" of the thing, there is also the issue of characterization—a question of "would sara even behave in this manner?", the answer to which i think, ultimately, is no.

i could forgive all of the logistical errors and the farfetchedness of the situation if the story itself didn't feel so antithetical to sara's character history and jar with everything we know about her development.

see, episode 15x12 "dead woods" suggests that sara sees abby very regularly and plays a prominent mentoring role in her life, enough to know who her boyfriend is—and have beef with him!—and to understand her complicated feelings about her foster family. they supposedly go to concerts together and hang out with some frequency. theirs is an emotionally open and socially intimate connection.

the implication is that sara is almost like a mother to abby—someone abby is even closer to and more highly esteems than her current foster (and soon to be adoptive) mom, joanna higgins; the first person she thinks to call for when she's in trouble.

but that implication doesn't fit with sara's character arc.

see, it's not that i doubt that the sara of 2014 could be open enough to bond with a traumatized foster kid over their shared life experiences and serve as a touchstone for her.

it's that i doubt the sara of 2004 would.

the sara of 2004—and especially the summer of 2004, six months prior to the events of episode 05x13 "nesting dolls"—wouldn't respond to seeing a little girl whose trauma so closely mirrors her own by reaching out to her, forming a deep connection based in mutual disclosure, and involving herself as a surrogate mother-figure in her life.

i'm not saying sara doesn't have the capacity to be nurturing—i mean, i am the person writing a huge geek!baby au series, the latest installment of which is all about sara discovering just how strong her maternal instincts actually are—or that she wouldn't feel for the kid or want to help her.

rather, i'm saying she just wouldn't be able to bring herself to get that close.

think of the analog situation: brenda collins in episode 01x07 "blood drops."

sara has such a difficult time even being around that kid and looking her in the eyes to start off with, all because she knows, on a deeply personal level, what it feels like to be her.

it's not that she's not empathetic toward brenda and her situation.

to the contrary: she can feel her pain all too keenly! she cares all too much!

that's why it's so painful for her to even acknowledge brenda's existence.

her feelings are still too raw for her to really force herself to interface.

though in that case, she does eventually end up dropping her guard and stepping up to advocate for brenda as needed, she only ultimately does so because grissom compels her to act as brenda's chaperone.

had he not given her that assignment and she instead been left to her own devices, she wouldn't ever have gotten close to the girl.

not of her own volition.

she only starts to show that external level of care because she's made to.

and what's noteworthy is that even when she does show it, she still conceals the reason why she is doing so—from grissom, from the rest of the team, and even from brenda herself.

though she behaves very compassionately toward brenda, she never makes their interactions personal. she never lets on that she understands what brenda is going through. she never transgresses the boundaries of what would be considered the expected behavior for any safe and caring adult looking after a traumatized child under the circumstances.

while we as fans can retroactively read her backstory into her actions throughout that episode, she as a character still plays her cards so close to her chest that no one else within the universe of the show can even think about reading them.

indeed, no one but grissom even really notices she's holding them.

and that's because she isn't ready to go "all in" in that way yet.

she isn't to a place where she is ready to face her own trauma, much less confess to it, much less process it—which is what would be required of her were she to allow herself to get any closer to brenda than she actually does.

—which brings us back to abby.

the sara of 2004 hasn't yet reached a place where she is ready to reckon with her childhood trauma yet.

though she wants to—desperately—and will eventually get to the point where she is willing to at least talk about it with grissom (see episode 05x13 "nesting dolls"), honestly, it will still be years before she is finally able to lay her "ghosts" fully to rest (see her letter in episode 08x07 "goodbye & good luck").

and that being the case—

well, i just can't imagine her being as emotionally available to abby as episode 15x12 "dead woods" suggests is the case.

not early on.

not when she would have initially been forming that bond.

that flashback scene from the hospital room where she ends up hugging five-year-old abby?

i can believe that moment could happen.

all but taken by surprise as she is, sara could and would be unguarded enough to open her arms to that little girl and offer her some comfort; she wouldn't reject someone that vulnerable, no matter how scared she was herself. she would recognize all she needed to be right then was a steady shoulder to weep on and a soft voice to reassure. she could hold abby for that moment and validate her cries for her mother.

but beyond that initial instance of connection?

i just can't see 2004 sara continuing to have contact with abby after the case had concluded.

watching that girl be absorbed into the foster care system while grieving the loss of her parents and grappling with the nature of her father's (alleged) crimes would just hit too close to home for sara—and especially at a time when she is herself really struggling with her own trauma.

lest we forget, during the summer between s4 and s5, sara is attending mandatory peap sessions, spending significant time away from the lab on much-needed vacation, and struggling to get her life/career back on track in the wake of her s4 depression and problematic alcoholic usage.

she's not exactly doing hot™ herself.

she doesn't really have much water in her emotional well to draw from in order to share with somebody else.

moreover, she still, to date, has never told anyone about her childhood. she doesn't even yet have the words to talk about it (see her speech to the mirror in episode 05x01 "viva las vegas").

so for as much as her heart undoubtedly goes out to abby, i just can't see her incorporating abby into her life to the degree that episode 15x12 "dead woods" suggests that she does.

it's a "please secure your mask before assisting others" kind of situation with her, you know?

she's still dealing with her own issues and isn't in a state to help someone else at that point—and especially not an incredibly vulnerable child.

and, honestly, i think she'd recognize as much.

she'd know she couldn't be what abby probably would need her to be at that time—and that being so, i can't really see her purposefully inserting herself into abby's world.

she'd figure abby would be better left to "the professionals."

i think the story we're told in episode 15x12 "dead woods" forgets just how jagged the sara of 2004's edges are; it acts as if she has the same emotional capacity back then as she does in 2014, and the fact is, she just doesn't.

had sara met abby in s10 or s11 when she a) was mentally healthy and emotionally stable; b) had gotten some closure on her childhood trauma; and c) had lots of free time on her hands given her whole "long-distance marriage" situation with grissom, then i could see her being able to open up to abby and thrive in a mentorship role with her in the way canon implies she does.

but that's not the story episode 15x12 "dead woods" tells.

it insists that a much younger, much more mixed-up, much less self-actualized sara somehow manages to step into the role of surrogate mother for a physically and psychologically-wounded child whose trauma closely mirrors her own and is able to say and do all the right things, to the point where that child comes to trust her implicitly.

and to me? that's a hard story to believe.

it requires an almost insurmountable suspension of my critical thinking and understanding of sara's character arc.

—especially considering how many needs abby likely has at the time when sara is first getting to know her.

traumatized children require a special brand of tlc.

one of the most important parts of having a relationship with them (as an adult) is to offer them as much stability as possible—meaning if you say you're going to see them, you have to show up; you can't miss the appointment, even if you end up getting pulled onto a double or triple shift; even if you're maybe having a shit mental health day yourself. failure to follow through can result in an erosion of their trust in you and cause setbacks for them in their recovery.

you also have to be very patient and help them regulate what are sometimes some very big emotions. traumatized kids will frequently throw tantrums or act out. they'll oftentimes be whiny or clingy. they'll enact age-inappropriate behaviors. and as the adult in the relationship, you have to meet them where they are, soothe them, and redirect those behaviors once they're calm enough. to do so, you must yourself manage your own emotions. you have to have awareness of the situation and be able to offer them what they need, whether it be cuddles or verbal reassurance or cognitive tools to help them process what they're feeling.

while of course if you as a caretaker or otherwise invested adult can apologize if you make mistakes and do your best to make amends, the point is that you need to be consistent and selfless and place the needs of the child first. and if you're struggling a lot yourself, then you need to make a judgment call about whether your presence will ultimately hurt the child; if so, you need to remove yourself from the situation and get your shit together before you resume interacting with them.

it takes a lot of energy and insight to navigate those kinds of relationships.

again, i'm not saying sara isn't empathetic or that she is incapable of being there for someone who's been traumatized—her ability to step up for members of her team (like nick and greg) after they go through various hardships proves she is more than equal to the task of offering support as needed—but i am saying that i'm not sure the sara of 2004 would choose to voluntarily place herself into that role; not when she has herself been that kid and knows what the stakes are.

realizing how she tends to react in situations where she's triggered, and realizing that just being around abby triggers her, i think she'd opt to stay away (probably more on a subconscious level than a conscious one).

she wouldn't want to screw up.

she wouldn't want to hurt abby because she was "too in her own feelings."

—which i suppose brings me to my last major objection to the whole sara and abby dynamic, which is just how the dynamic itself is written.

like i said: i'm not at all opposed to the idea of sara acting quasi-maternal; i think she probably does have that capacity in her, however deeply sublimated it may be.

i just feel like—once again—the execution in this case is flawed.

the sara of episode 15x12 "dead woods" seems almost strident in her "mama bear" role with abby. apparently, she has lectured abby about her ne'er-do-well boyfriend on more than one occasion. she even serves as a kind of liaison between abby and joanna, confident she has a better read on abby's feelings than joanna does. which, albeit, is a view with which joanna herself seems to concur. she doesn't hesitate to chase abby's shithead boyfriend down the hall at pd and all but assault him or to take abby out on a saturday night, seemingly without asking anyone's permission. though of course concerned about abby's feelings, she's noticeably forward in all of their interactions. she doesn't hesitate to offer advice or even to try to lay down ground rules.

—which, on a superficial level, could be a valid interpretation of how sara tends to love.

i mean, sara has always been a "heart on her sleeve," "in with both feet" kind of gal, just in general. she does tend to love fiercely and be protective of "her people."

right?

i mean, kind of.

in a "broad strokes" sort of way.

but when you take a slightly more nuanced view of her and how she expresses love, her behavior toward abby actually feels somewhat off. it's too aggressive, in a lot of ways. too "in your face."

just like so much of her characterization of the later seasons, it comes across as inexact, like a flattened-out version of her actual personality, with all of the details and complexities of her sanded off.

yes, sara loves deeply and is very emotional by nature. yes, she has a strong sense of what's right and doesn't back down from doing what she thinks is needed. but she also gives the people she loves space and doesn't typically impose on them.

see, for example, the scene in episode 07x06 "burn out," where she both protects greg and redirects grissom's misplaced anger off of him and is very subtle in how she does so, showing great tenderness toward both parties.

she also tends to "know her role."

see, for example, in episode 10x01 "family affair": when she points out that catherine is lacking a "right-hand man," she doesn't attempt to install herself in that position, realizing it's not hers to fill not only for logistical reasons (i.e., because she is only in town temporarily) but also because she and catherine don't have that kind of dynamic with each other; instead, she just gently encourages catherine to seek out someone she trusts and is ultimately very glad to see her eventually select nick.

i have no doubt that sara loves abby and cares very much for her well-being, but i've also got to believe that even for as much as she loves and cares about her, she would always remain highly aware that she was not actually her mother, either foster or adoptive.

and to me, that awareness would cause her to act differently than what we see in canon—less vehement and imposing; less "in the driver's seat" and more "in the passenger's."

there'd be if not some reticence on her part—though maybe that, too—at least some deference.

sara would realize: the people who should be setting rules for abby and finalizing major life decisions with her are her foster (soon to be adoptive) parents, who play a role in her daily life that sara herself doesn't.

and, yes, sara has known abby for ten years while they've only known her for a few years at most, but that's why it would be all the more imperative for sara to make that demarcation very clear for everyone involved, particularly as the higgins family intends to adopt abby and will be her full-time guardians for the next several years.

based on her own experiences in foster care, i think sara would likely understand the importance of setting boundaries and making it clear to abby that though she is her friend and is happy to offer both a listening ear and advice, she is not her parent.

this delineation would have been especially crucial for sara to draw when abby was younger, so as not to inadvertently get her hopes up that sara was going to foster or adopt her.

again, while she could still be (and likely would still be) very nurturing to abby, i just don't see her having that much of an authority role in abby's life.

it just feels like too much of an overstep with a kid she probably only sees a couple of times a month at most* and who, given that she is a foster child, probably needs clearly-drawn relationship boundaries with the adults in her life in order to feel secure.

* even ignoring all of the real life logistics that would make it impossible for them to remain in such close contact.

the last thing sara would ever want to do would be to confuse abby or give her unrealistic expectations or to impose on/complicate/undermine her relationship with her foster family.

so, to me, if it were actually written with sara's core characterization in mind, then sara's relationship with abby would be one with a lot more gentle questioning in it as opposed to brash pronouncements. it'd be less "i told you you have to dump that guy!" and more "what exactly do you see in him? i'm genuinely interested to know." there'd be a pinch more "well, why don't you ask joanna?" and maybe some self-conscious awkwardness at the realization that, yes, in some situations she does know abby better because she's known her longer (but that still doesn't make her "mom").

above everything, sara would be very conscientious about not screwing up™.

she'd remember just how vulnerable being in foster care makes a kid. she'd understand abby was traumatized and likely has attachment issues galore. "sometimes i look for validation in inappropriate places," anyone? she would have doubts about her own capabilities to be as selfless and emotionally available as she would need to be for abby's sake, and, even though she would ultimately find both the strength and the wisdom to step up, she would always remain just a little bit cautious of herself.

she'd consider there are reasons why, even for all the love she has for abby and all she wants to be a part of her life, she never does foster or adopt her herself; that there are certain things she can't give or be, whether it's the time or just the "totality" of that kind of parent-child relationship.

even after ten years, she'd be careful not to cross the wires between "friend/mentor" and "parent."

so.

all of the above said, for as much as i want to like sara's relationship with abby in episode 15x12 "dead woods," to me, it just ultimately doesn't hit.

it feels like something poorly contrived and even more poorly executed.

like so much of the characterization of the later seasons, it falls about two inches to the left of who and what sara actually is and how she would really behave.

in a better world where the later seasons' writers actually knew what they were doing, i would have loved to have seen this storyline done differently.

instead of trying to retroactively insert a relationship with a foster kid into the already established show canon, why not show it develop in real time, starting in s15?

rather than saying, "sara has had this kid in her life all along. you just never knew about it before now!", let the audience watch her meet the kid and slowly get to know her.

let us observe that initial awkwardness. let us see sara's struggle with how much she ought to say regarding her own situation and how much she should keep submerged. let us be present for the moments when sara summons her courage to step up and be vulnerable in ways she didn't realize she was capable of. earn the emotional connection between them. allow the love to grow up organically.

and, yeah, i know, doing things that way would make it impossible to play out the "ten years later, abby's dad gets posthumously exonerated!" storyline of episode 15x12 "dead woods."

but, honestly? that plot was not very well done anyhow, so i don't think it'd be a great loss to sacrifice it in favor of giving sara some actual long-lasting character development.

make sara's interaction with the foster kid into a full-on arc. it could be really good—much more so than what we actually get in canon, which, frankly, just falls flat on multiple levels.

the writers tried to imply depth that just wasn't there and didn't succeed.

anyway.

enough salt out of me; we've got a whole mine here by now.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: sara #csiverse #later seasons #15x12 #let's talk shop

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my-past-disgusts-me · 3 months

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Your turn to be asked ship edition

Yttd: what is your opinion on Naosara, Q-Kai, Ransara, KeijiAlice and Naoshin?

Ace attorney: what do you think about Wrightworth, Franmaya, Phoenix and Iris, Godot and Mia?

Great ace attorney: you already asked me nearly all major ships, so I want to ask about the same thus Asoryuu, Susahao, Susagina and Homumiko. (Also maybe Hosonaga and cure from whatever allergy he has, guy should stop coughing up blood)

Alright! Starting with YTTD ships we have

Q-Kai: I love these guys together. This is one of those ships where as I was watching a playthrough I thought “oh. Oh they are in love I think. Oh these bitches gay.” Q-taro’s actions in ch. 2 are so tragic yaoi it’s amazing, how do you do it man. I think, in a non-death game universe, they would have a very compelling slowburn romance where they grow to respect each other unconditionally and that, I think, is romance. Idk I’m aro.

Naosara: GUH. TRAGEDY. SORROW. Two girls supporting each other through their trauma. I think Sara would become a muse for Nao. I think they’d have a tumultuous but ultimately healthy relationship. I think these two deserve each other’s support. I think they should kiss and cuddle and watch shitty movies together. 10/10.

KeijiAlice: I don’t have strong feelings either way. I think they could make each other happy. Good for them.

Naoshin: it’s cute but I think they’re better as besties.

Ransara: This one I dislike. It feels weird to me. It’s compelling in a “depths of human depravity” kind of way but also it’s far too real to me. Not a fan but I see why people like it.

Now for Ace Attorney!

Franmaya: I love wlw so much tbh. I want them to be happy. No thoughts only girls in love

Wrightworth: what can I say on this that hasn’t already been said? Nothing. Moving on!

Godot/Mia: I haven’t played/watched the later games so I don’t know much but what I have seen of them is cute and I think they make a nice family tbh. No complaints here, Godot makes a pretty good big brother for Maya

Phoenix/Iris: another idk moment. Also Feeny is annoying sorry. I’m not a fan but also they really seemed to love each other which I respect. On Iris’s part. I can’t respect Feeny I’m sorry he’s such a little bitch /affectionate

And now for DGS :]

Okay so mayyyybe I just like dgs ships a lot. Maybe it’s maybelline.

Susahao: childhood friends to lovers 100K slowburn Susato transitions and Haori loves her the whole time. We love a failgirl who is tripping over herself because her friend looks so good in drag. We love a competent girl getting her girlfriend out of jail. We love women in general tbh. I think they are so cute and also Susato deserves all the girlfriends.

Susagina: Speaking of Susato deserving all the girlfriends, I really like Susagina. Neither of them are afraid to get their hands dirty, both of them are stubbornly supportive of their friends, both of them want justice and truth, they’d be great. Power couple honestly. They deserve the world. Love em to death

Asoryuu: these fuckers got me writing nonsexual omegaverse fanfiction wtf is wrong with them (me) anyways

Homumiko: I haven’t finished the games so I don’t know their whole history but I love me some middle aged man yaoi. Also Iris deserves extra dads since her first one. Y’know. Died or whatever. Also Sholmes needs someone reasonable to keep him from going off the rails and it can’t be Ryuu because he’s barely holding on himself. Classic Ace Attorney defense lawyer behavior.

And that’s all! Thanks for asking bestie (and also for telling me my asks weren’t open OOPS anyways)

#ask game #rosehipfield

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undergroundbillions · 7 months

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Hii hope ya don’t mind but do you guys have any info on understudies/alternate casts in Rag Dolly?

we do!

each production of the show had slightly different casts, as some ensemble and minor characters were replaced between productions, but most of the major characters stayed the same! Ann, Andy, Baby, Camel, and Mommy/Witch were the same actors through every production (Ivy Austin, Scott Schafer, Carolyn Marble, Joel Aroeste, and Elizabeth Austin respectively). once the show was broadway-bound, about half the cast was replaced, likely because many of the actors in the original ESIPA productions were resident actors at ESIPA.

here's a history of the recasts of the major characters!

Marcella: Tricia Brooks (ESIPA 1984/85, Moscow 1986) -> Lisa Reiffel (Kennedy Center/Broadway 1986) (Tricia had aged out of the role, as she was 15 turning 16 in 1986. Lisa was 13 when she took on the role, just as Tricia had been when she first played the role in 1984) Poppa: MacIntyre Dixon (ESIPA 1984) -> Gibby Brand (ESIPA 1985, Moscow 1986) -> Bob Morrisey (Kennedy Center/Broadway 1986) Panda: Jeanne Vigliante (ESIPA 1984/85, Moscow 1986) -> Michelan Sisti (Kennedy Center/Broadway 1986) General D: Paul Haggard (ESIPA 1984) -> David Schramm (ESIPA 1985, Moscow 1986) -> Leo Burmester (Kennedy Center/Broadway 1986) (Paul Haggard was battling cancer when he played General D, and unfortunately passed away less than 2 years after the 1984 ESIPA run) Bat: Pamela Sousa (ESIPA 1984/85, Moscow 1986) -> Gail Benedict (Kennedy Center/Broadway 1986) Wolf: Tom Pletto (ESIPA 1984/85, Moscow 1986) -> Gordon Weiss (Kennedy Center/Broadway 1986)

there was also a version of the show that was staged in 1983 that had a completely different script written by a different playwright and different songs by Joe Raposo (basically a completely different show). we don't have a full cast list, but we do know that Ivy Austin still played Ann, and Mark Baker (yes the Mark Baker from the movie) played Andy, with Scott Schafer as his understudy.

for the broadway production, the understudies are listed in the playbill (which is available online), and we have a scans of the kennedy center and moscow programs in our archives! the understudies are the same for broadway and kennedy center.

i'll put the lists under a cut, but most of the understudies are raggettes/ensemble.

the only one that i'd like to draw attention to is Gordon Weiss, who played Wolf, as he was the understudy for General D during the kennedy center and broadway runs. looking at Gordon's resume, it makes sense-- he's basically a professional understudy! but within the context of the show it makes a bit less sense lol. if Leo Burmester were to be out for a show, Gordon would be bumped up to General D, Joe Barrett would go on as Wolf, and Steve Owsley would leave the ensemble to take Joe's place as a doctor. there would be a lot less shuffling around of actors if General D's understudy were one of the doctors like previous productions.

Gordon would also be bit silly visually as General D because he is quite small. All of the General Ds were very tall, each over six feet. Gordon Weiss is not. in photos you can see Gordon only comes up to Leo's shoulder!

as far as we know, from our research and interviews with cast, none of the understudies ever had to go on.

- mod wowf 🐾

Kennedy Center and Broadway (1986)

Joe Barrett - Wolf Kenneth Boys - Andy, Panda, Swing Melinda Buckley - Bat Sara Carbone - Marcella Dick Decareau - Poppa Anny De Gange - Mommy/Witch Susann Fletcher - Raggedy Ann Steve Owsley - Doctors Richard Ryder - Camel Gordon Weiss - General D Andrea Wright - Baby Helena Andreyko - Swing

Moscow (1986)

Nina Hennessey - Marcella, Mommy/Witch Joe Barrett - Poppa, Camel Scott Evans - Andy, Panda Neal Ben-Ari - General D Michaela Hughes - Bat David Bunce - Wolf

#meowydoe #thanks for the ask!#i had a lot of fun compiling all this info hehe #raggedy ann musical #rag dolly #raggedy ann broadway #rag dolly musical #mod wowf

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aparticleinthewave · 2 years

Text

Young Royals chronology

I created some chronology variations for YR, there are three major variations that happen from the start dates of classes to the first kiss so I left those three options separate, the other variations are minor and put the options together with the explanation.

[correction] As noted by @youngroyalsnshameless here there is a conversation between Henry and Walter at Wille's first dinner in Hillerska where they say that Wille's initiation party will be the next day, as we know the party takes place on a Friday so the Wille's first day at school could only be a Thursday. I made changes to the timelines.

1st Option

8/17 to 8/20 – Start of the school year in Hillerska

10/1 Thursday – Wille starts school in Hillerska (Simon tells August he's been at school for over a month. Henry and Walter talk over dinner that Wille's initiation party will be the next day)

10/2 Friday morning and afternoon – Fuck Monarchy, conversation over lunch, Simon goes to his father's house.

10/2 Friday night – Initiation party

10/3 Saturday – Wilhelm on the table (hc Simon is at school Saturday to rehearse with the choir)

10/5 Monday – Wille talks to Simon in class

10/6 Tuesday – Bro tap, Simon plays videogames with Rosh and Ayub

10/7 Wednesday morning – Wille and Simon run with the rowing team and then study together

10/7 Wednesday Night – Rosh Football Game

10/8 Thursday morning – August talks to Sara and then Simon in the library.

10/8 Thursday late afternoon/evening – Simon goes to his father's house and steals medicine

10/9 Friday morning – Rowing team practice and August speech about Simon

10/9 Friday night - First kiss

10/12 Monday – Piano scene “we should forget about that.”

10/14 Wednesday morning – Talk in gym class “I take it back.”

10/14 Wednesday Lunchtime – Simon sees the invoice for tutoring, issued 10/10/20 and due 10/21/20 (for some reason he and Sara have lunch at home that day)

10/15 Thursday – Parents lunch

10/16 Friday - Erik's death.

There are two possibilities for Erik's wake, if we keep the fall holidays at week 44 (from 10/26 to 11/1) like is in the real world, Erik's wake would have to be between 10/19 to 10/23 , (most likely 10/23 a week after his death) because we see the Hillerska students watching the funeral on TV and that means they are not on vacation yet. But if we put the fall holidays in week 45 (from 11/2 to 11/8) this gives a longer window of time for the funeral, which could be any date between 10/23 to 10/30 being most likely the 10/26, ten days after his death.

10/23 or 10/26 – Erik's Funeral

10/26 to 11/1 or 11/2 to 11/8 – Autumn holidays

11/16 Monday – Wille returns to school. (This gives him a whole month that he doesn't see or talk to Simon which is quite a while, but I believe it makes sense within their history and also shows that Erik's memorial was not just because Wille returned, but also because it's been a month since Erik’s death.

11/16 Monday afternoon – Simon goes to his father's house and steals more medicine.

11/17 Tuesday – Simon gives August the drugs to sell

11/23 Monday - Simon receives money from August, Wille tries to ignore Simon while talking to Felice.

11/23 Monday night - Simon goes to his father's house to pay him, Wille goes to meet society at 11:30 pm. (I know a lot of people put Wille's back to school and society party in the same week, but I think even August would wait a few days for Wille to readjust before dragging him to a party with alcohol and drugs and a week fits better in chronology.

11/24 Tuesday from dawn to afeternoon – Wille on the soccer field, Simon rescuing him, first time, golden morning, breakfast, lake ride (this was an emotional day)

11/28 Saturday Night – Wille at Simon's, Fish Scene

Here again we get into another date dilemma, it all depends on whether the person wants Wilmon to have spent more time together or apart. If it's more time together the society meeting and the discussion in the music room took place on 12/07 that means that Wilmon got some peace and happiness for almost two weeks, but it also means that Alex's suspension went well longer, but I believe it still makes sense it was a complex issue involving possible drug trafficking and a wealthy heir with good lawyers. But whoever is on the “misery suits you good” team, the society meeting and discussion in the music room took place sometime between 10/30 to 11/04 and that means Wilmon was separated for over a week.

12/7 or between 10/30 to 11/4 – Society meeting and discussion in the music room.

12/11 Friday – Wille throws Alex and August under the bus.

12/12 Saturday – Society lies to the director

12/13 Sunday – Santa Lucia “I just didn't want to lose you.”

12/14 Monday – The Queen goes to school, Rosh and Ayub visit Simon

12/15 Tuesday – Simon and Wille reunite “We didn't do anything wrong.” “No, we didn’t”

12/19 Saturday – Wille denies the video

12/21 Monday - Simon breaks up with Wille "I don't want to be anyone's secret", Felice finds out who made the video, Wille confronts August and discovers the Queen's betrayal.

12/22 Tuesday – “I love you” “I hope you have a nice Christmas”

2st Option

8/17 to 8/20 – Start of the school year in Hillerska

9/24 Thursday – Wille starts school in Hillerska (Simon tells August he's been at school for over a month. Henry and Walter talk over dinner that Wille's initiation party will be the next day)

9/25 Friday morning and afternoon – Fuck Monarchy, conversation over lunch, Simon goes to his father's house.

9/25 Friday night – Initiation party

9/26 Saturday – Wilhelm on the table (hc Simon is at school Saturday to rehearse with the choir)

9/28 Mondayy – Wille talks to Simon in class

9/29 Tuesday – Bro tap, Simon plays videogames with Rosh and Ayub

9/30 Wednesday morning – Wille and Simon run with the rowing team and then study together

9/30 Wednesday Night – Rosh Football Game

This is where the biggest changes happen, all the scenes after the football night until the night of the first kiss can be fitted between 10/1 to 10/9

10/! – August talks to Sara and then Simon in the library.

10/! – Simon goes to his father's house and steals medicine

10/! – Rowing team practice and August speech about Simon

10/9 Friday night - First kiss

From here onwards, the dates are the same as in the 1st option.

3st Option

8/17 to 8/20 – Start of the school year in Hillerska

9/24 Thursday – Wille starts school in Hillerska (Simon tells August he's been at school for over a month. Henry and Walter talk over dinner that Wille's initiation party will be the next day)

9/25 Friday morning and afternoon – Fuck Monarchy, conversation over lunch, Simon goes to his father's house.

9/25 Friday night – Initiation party

9/26 Saturday – Wilhelm on the table (hc Simon is at school Saturday to rehearse with the choir)

9/28 Mondayy – Wille talks to Simon in class

9/29 Tuesday – Bro tap, Simon plays videogames with Rosh and Ayub

9/30 Wednesday morning – Wille and Simon run with the rowing team and then study together

9/30 Wednesday Night – Rosh Football Game

10/1 Thursday morning – August talks to Sara and then Simon in the library.

10/1 Thursday afternoon/evening – Simon goes to his father's house and steals medicine

10/2 Friday morning – Rowing team practice and August speech about Simon

10/2 Friday night - First kiss

10/5 Monday – Piano scene “we should forget about that.”

This is where the biggest changes happen instead of taking just a few days between “we should forget about that” and “I take it back”, in this option Wille takes more than a week to change his mind.

From here onwards, the dates are the same as in the 1st option.

I'm sure there are several holes in this chronology or I forgot something, it's also good to remember that YR is a work of fiction and therefore has creative freedom. Also, English is not my first language, so sorry for the mistakes, I can't remember the last time I wrote more than two lines in English.

#young royals

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