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twinsunstars · 1 month

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Thoughts on The Bad Batch Episode 12 - Juggernaut - A Discussion Post

This episode had a lot of action, feelings, and a very unexpected return. Let's return to this week's episode filled with exciting moments and moments filled with worry!

(SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEE THE EPISODE YET! all screencaps from www.cap-that.com! https://www.cap-that.com/starwars/the-bad-batch/312/)

CX-2 returns to Mount Tantiss with Omega, Hemlock coming by to pick her up. He tells Omega to follow him, and CX-2 lets her go of her handcuffs, returning to his ship.

I'm being so serious, we have three episodes left. If CX-2 doesn't get unmasked by the next episode I'm going to lose it. If it ends up happening near finale or even in the finale, it's gotta be a character that's so important to the plot (*cough* Tech) that we had to wait so long for this. But I also feel like if this is Tech, shouldn't it have happened by now at least? I'm so confused.

I saw someone post about this and I didn't notice it at first, but if you zoom in on this shot above, you can see that Hemlock's glove is missing, showing both of his hands clearly. I rewatched the episode and noticed the error, but the second they go back into Tantiss he has it back on.

Hemlock immediately takes Omega to Emerie, wanting her to keep testing Omega to make sure she has the whole M-count thing. Emerie seems reluctant for a bit, but keeps doing her job. Omega tells her that she doesn't have to do this, but Emerie says she has to. But she is happy her sister is safe at least. Omega questions if she is truly safe, and she really isn't. Emerie likely knows this too, but she's still trying to open her eyes more to all the wrongs around her.

Hunter (with Batcher) gets back to Crosshair and a now awake Wrecker, feeling better after getting knocked out in the explosion from last week. Wrecker is upset Crosshair let Omega go, but Crosshair understood her choice and the fact that she let the Empire stop hurting the locals of Pabu.

I got so sad when Crosshair's hand started shaking again, he's so terrified of Mount Tantiss and what he went through. He tells his brothers that there is a way of trying to find Tantiss, and that is through the former Vice Admiral Rampart.

Phee shows up with AZI, having gotten here secretly away from the Empire's eyes. She finally meets Crosshair, and tells him that Tech has told her about him. My heart-

I would have loved to see all of the off-screen interactions Tech and Phee had, he really liked to talk with her, and she loved listening. Lula and Tech's goggles being visible behind Phee and AZI made me even more sad.

Phee goes with the boys to the Imperial labor camp on Erebus, making her ship fall to sneak into the planet undetected. Girl was over here driving in heels; she's such an icon. Wrecker and Crosshair were struggling in the back, and Hunter was worried. His helmet just flying freely when the ship is falling was so funny. Tech would adore Phee's flying since she drives like him. Phee manages to get them in and drops them off to access the prison and find Rampart.

The boys manage to obtain control of a tank transporting prisoners, which Rampart is in. I was not expecting to see him again after what happened in Season 2, as I kinda just left the character behind ever since he got arrested and Hemlock replaced him as the new reappearing villain a few episodes later last season. Someone joked that they Agent Kallus'd him because they added more hair to Rampart, which is just funny. Rampart manages to recognize Crosshair under his armor, and Crosshair was so sassy with him too, I loved it.

The Imperials on the prison base notice something wrong with the tank the Batch stole and go after it, leading to an action-packed chase. (And Hunter drives insanely.) Phee manages to rescue them just in time, shooting down one of the Imperial ships chasing them. Rampart had gotten stunned after trying to shoot the boys, and it was hilarious how they were just throwing him around like a potato sack.

The Batch ask Rampart where Tantiss is, but not even he knows. He says it was designed like that so it wouldn't be found. I was spending some of my free time on Wookiepedia and I wish we could send the Batch the information that Mount Tantiss is on the planet Wayland. It's not coordinates, but it's something.

Meanwhile, Emerie continues to test Omega's blood, and it comes out positive again. She looks at Omega, seeming deeply worried. She doesn't say anything, but Emerie has something on her mind. Hemlock comes back and Emerie tells him about the results, and he wants Omega to come with him. Omega goes to the same place he took Nala Se and Emerie previously, taking her down to The Vault. Omega asks questions about the M-count situation, to which Hemlock gives her vague answers and direct answers about what the Empire has been doing with M-count subjects.

Omega sees the kids in The Vault, frowning. Eva sees Omega and lifts her head from her game, and I just know that she and Omega will be besties. Omega asks who the kids are, and Hemlock replies that they are the pieces of the puzzle that they are trying to solve.

He says, "...this is your new home", and the doors immediately shut behind Omega. The chills I got; and Omega looked scared. The episode ends there, and Omega is locked up again with no direct escape yet.

There wasn't much that I wanted to discuss from this episode, but there are only 3 episodes left, so we are now truly in a big anxious countdown. How will Omega escape this time? Will the Batch manage to obtain coordinates to locate Tantiss? Where's Echo when you need him? Will Emerie wake up soon? Will CX-2 unmask himself soon? There's still so much to unpack, and so little time.

#star wars #the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #the bad batch season 3 #tbb #sw tbb #tbb s3 #tbb spoilers #tbb season 3 #the bad batch omega #cx 2 #the bad batch tech #royce hemlock #the bad batch hunter #the bad batch crosshair #the bad batch wrecker #admiral rampart #phee genoa

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tired-reader-writer · 4 months

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Arslan Senki Chapter 125

So I meant to do this last night but apparently I had accidentally hit the daily tumblr post limit, and was stuck unable to post or reblog anything up until now! I AM FREE, MUAHAHAHAHA.

I will be cannibalizing the discussion @innerchorus and I had in our DMs since all of that was what I meant to put in the post all along, though I'm running a bit low on energy so I won't be weaving screencaps into the post.

One of the first things that stuck out to me was how humble the residence of Arslan's birth parents was, when I read spoilers and it said “knight”, I had assumed something... a little larger than that. Nothing grand, not a mansion or anything, they weren't prominent knights, but... not this. I wonder what the social standing of “knights” in general are? Zaravant also described himself as a knight, iirc. Though it's likely that knight in this case was used to refer to a warrior in general than a specific caste/rank? Maybe cavalry officers of any rank were deemed knights?

I apologize for jumping backwards but oh, oh man I want to hug Arslan so bad. His face! The way Arakawa took the time and panel space to really show how he tried to hold his reaction back. He's trying to be composed and he succeeds. Even something of this caliber (even if he did suspect it all along) didn't make him lash out. He has incredible self-control, or maybe he's just too used to setting his own feelings and reaction aside. I don't think he's repressing it here though, rather he's facing it head-on.

(I wonder how Andragoras even managed to find Arslan, and that swiftly, too.)

Turns out the marzban thing was a translation error, which is good because I was raising my eyebrow skeptically at that panel when I first read it.

Man something about the memory and deaths of a family who were basically exploited just vanish away, paved over and buried. There's just something so relevant to my interests and the themes of Wolfpack about this all. The clan is all about remembering and protecting those the world would've deliberately chosen to forget, after all.

Also, Arslan's father wasn't prepared to raise his own child? Boo. Wolfpack!Shapur was twice the single father by age 22, LOL. (I jest, it would've been harder for him than it would've Shapur, considering the financial situation and the fact that he doesn't have people he can leave the baby to when out at battle or something. It's natural for him to be worried. I'm sure he saw this as the best path possible, and hey, his son will be a prince! Surely a better life than he could ever lead as the son of an insignificant knight.

Arslan considering the notion of Andragoras possibly planning to sire another male heir... I don't have any intelligent commentary to give on the matter but I found it interesting. Perhaps another king in Andragoras' shoes might've done it. Gotarzes certainly did.

Tahamenay sure did go through a lot, and the dehumanizing lenses everybody saw her through meant that she was villified and demonized for just trying to survive (or just existing, period! the things that happened to the shitty men in her life was NOT her fault) She's not my fave, no, but I do feel for her. Like, her homeland got annexed! As someone from a country that got occupied by both Britain AND Japan and suffered under them, that really resonates with me. And while Pars fights for its freedom (and it should, I'm not arguing otherwise), Badakhshan???? Still under occupation for more than sixteen years, if I'm correct. There's just something heartbreaking about it.

Arslan confirming that his wet nurse and her husband being purposefully murdered to tidy up loose ends! And he's rightfully angry at the answer— we don't see his face in full, his eyes are shadowed when he asks the question, he clenches his hands when he hears the answer, and grits his teeth too. I may be reading too much into this but the agony on Tahamenay's face being replaced by cold distance when she said “They were. To avoid any complications later.”, the almost clinical way she delivered it, it's such a stark contrast from her emotion mere moments before. Maybe, just maybe, the delivery of the truth on top of the truth itself was what set Arslan off (though of course, he still does not act on it). Maybe there's something to be said about the disregard of “insignificant” lives.

I think Tahamenay has shut her feelings down, and her daughter is the only thing she'll let herself feel anything over. The sheer trauma and the constant bombardment of such vitriol from all angles meant that completely shutting down all emotion was... probably the only way to cope. Conceal it, don't feel it.

The thing is, though, even if he were to “Arslan: exit stage left” out of this conflict, where would he go? I'm sure he'd have little problem finding happiness in a humble life, he's never been one to care about stuff like birthrights and status, but where would he go???? The people he loved before his life as a prince are gone. Wet nurse and husband, dead. Everyone else? The kids he played with? Probably don't even remember him anymore due to the distance (I assume they didn't know he was the prince). Would he even be able to recognize them anymore? And would Team Arslan follow him into exile? There is technically an out, yes, but it's not a meaningful one. Just like how Hilmes is trapped in his own identity, Arslan also is, though Hilmes chose to build his own cage and Arslan was unknowingly put into it. And there's something to be said about how both their claims/identities were laundered. Hilmes is not the son and heir of Osroes. Arslan does not possess royal blood.

@innerchorus pointed out that Tahamenay was offering Arslan what she would have chosen herself (and this lines up with novel canon where she retreats to her homeland and distances herself from court), and it makes sense, this was a game she never asked to play. Still, it's just really sad that Arslan can never truly go back to who he was before all this.

I also loved the way his dialogue was paired with the internal monologue in black panels, even if I can't quite put my finger on why. That part was brilliantly done. (Maybe the way the “camera” comes closer and closer to his face as he proceeds?)

And the way that Tahamenay was prepared to receive angry words and even physical violence as a matter of course, it either speaks to her own guilt about the situation, OR the way she was treated so shittily by all the men and people in her life. Or maybe it is both. A brilliant moment of characterization, where she is shaped by her experiences and is in turn, blinded by them. Arslan is not that kind of person. He bows to her, and then leaves.

I have nothing to say about Kishward's worried face, but Arslan declaring his will is such a powerful moment. I'm reminded of a very early Narsus moment that's very relevant, I went and dug this out from my reread tag:

Here's what I had to say about it back then:

“What Narsus basically means here is: State a concrete vision, a cause, a goal, and people will naturally gather round to support it— to garner allies, you must basically broadcast what it is that you wish to achieve.”

And Arslan here is doing just that. Fantastic.

I know I said no screencaps in this post but I couldn't help it! It's such a powerful moment.

Arslan has really grown into his role and he's embodying the counsel Narsus gave him all those chapters ago!

And Hilmes, I see, is having a not-so-spectacular time.

The way Osroes spoke of Hilmes makes my skin crawl. He doesn't even deign to refer to the boy as “he”, and “send the thing to meet its true father” is just. YIKES. It's not the child's fault he was born into shitty circumstances, Osroes! How could he have raised Hilmes all those years (eleven!) with no outward sign of contempt, and just. Never develop any sort of attachment to him? No hesitation? Maybe it's the fever that's making it worse but I don't believe it was all delirium which just makes it worse. I hate Osroes.

Andragoras really did it as revenge, which seals the deal that he is, in fact, speaking the truth. It's just like him, and loathe as Hilmes is to admit it, he does realize that. This boy too deserves hugs. SOMEBODY COME HUG YOUR PRINCE.

And even still, even as his world is crumbling around him with no preamble, he still has enough headspace to process and start piecing the pieces together. Hilmes has POTENTIAL, he's a good commander and this right here shows his intelligence and relative ability to keep it straight in stressful conditions (relative, because of his whole consumed by revenge thing). If only he wasn't led astray perhaps, he could've made a good Shah. He unfortunately harbors some very typical biases about social class or whatever, but perhaps it could've been given a chance to change. But as things are now, his chance of being a Shah at all is...

Another Arslan-Hilmes parallel: they're both refusing to back down even as their lack of claim is revealed, and though the refusal stems from very different emotional roots there's a commonality in that they keep at it because if they stop now then what did all those people fight for? Though, Arslan's motive is selfless (he's doing it because it's his duty to the people who gave so much for him) while Hilmes' is selfish (it's tied to his sense of self-worth).

And Hilmes putting things together (so close, so close!) signifying his refusal to give up, that's what spurs Andragoras into action.

Man, what a fucking chapter, amirite?

Now with all that out of the way—

ITTY BITTY BABY BABY BABYYYYY HE'S BARELY LARGER THAN A COIN POUCH (and if we remove the swaddling cloth he might actually be smaller oh godddd) like I would've made infant Areyan tiny anyways but ohhhh god I'm about to cry. He's so huggable. I WILL SOB.

#arslan senki #the heroic legend of arslan #heroic legend of arslan #arslan senki spoilers #lil tufts of hair! so adorable #those cheeeeeks #arslan #tahamenay #andragoras #hilmes

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atopvisenyashill · 3 months

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that post reminded me that got actually did something spartacus did that i thought was an amazing choice for a visual medium.

both shows are about two hyperviolent societies and a specific war those societies wage, so both shows are full of violence - blood, gore, gaping wounds, grotesque injuries, you name it both shows have it. but one thing that spartacus was deliberate about was bruises. in the whole show, very few characters are ever shown bruised. i believe it’s just three out if a cast of several dozen - naevia, ilithyia, and pietros. i’m using naevia as the biggest example bc she’s the only one i can find enough pictures of rn (rip the websites i used to get my screencaps from, they are unusably filled with ads now). if you look at the scrapes naevia takes throughout the series (pls note the actress was replaced) you see she’s got blood, scabs, scars, sometimes even light swelling but no bruising.

EXCEPT. FOR ONE SCENE. background - naevia is a body slave to a domina, meant to stay a virgin until her mistress finds her a proper (slave) husband. naevia falls in love with crixus, her mistress’ gladiator lover, and he with her. they are found out, and naevia is shaved and beaten then sent to various other masters to be “punished” (raped) and finally sent to the mines to die, while crixus is whipped, poisoned, and sent into a fight to die. but when lucretia (the domina) is confronting naevia over how she’s been sneaking around, we see lucretia use her own hands to slap naevia around (before handing her off to be tortured). and here, we have the only bruise naevia ever wears:

it was very much on purpose, to drive home the interpersonal violence, and naevia’s helplessness to stop it despite her intelligence and strength.

they do this twice over. the very first time is actually with pietros, a young slave (glossing over a lot here) forced to share a room with a man who rapes & beats him. the first time it happens, the only evidence is a bruise on pietros’ face. not a cut, not a break, not a split lip. just a bruise.

the second is with ilithyia, the wife of a roman general. though she does her fair share of harm throughout the show, in s2 ilithyia finds herself at odds with her husband, culminating in him slapping her across the face. ilithyia is shown with a bruise - just a bruise! - the next episode. what’s more, it’s remarked on. background - ilithyia’s husband, claudius, was the general that left the thracian’s to die, then captures spartacus and his wife and sold them into slavery for disobeying his marching orders. another slave, gannicus, kidnaps her right after she’s struck to give to spartacus - he wants to end the war with an eye for an eye, sura died so spartacus kills ilithyia. except spartacus notices the bruise. he figures out right away her husband gave it to her, and sets her free with a haunting line while touching the bruise on her cheek - he does not love you.

it’s meant to be more personal, to evoke feelings of domestic violence. to show us that these characters who are brave, powerful, strong, intelligent, cunning, all find themselves through no fault of their own on the receiving end of ipv and no way of protecting themselves, because society is not set up to allow them protection from their “betters.”

and then we have cersei.

i know this scene is in the book but i think the decision to have it be a very common looking bruise was amazing - it’s not super purple and green, it doesn’t take up half her face, it’s just a palm sized, pink and red bruise on her cheek. such a small little thing and yet the humiliation of it, of what it represents, says so much more than some overdramatic injury ever could. the lioness of house lannister but even cersei can’t stop her husband from beating her if that’s what he wants to do.

#getting on my soap box #bro season 1 was so fucking good.#anyways watch spartacus.#i. actually think naevia has a similar bruise just under her eye when they find her in the mines?#i can’t be sure tho and i can’t find any caps of the scene

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arcplaysgames · 1 year

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Actually, no. lemme recap now because I bet once I meet the Big Bad and beat them it'll be like 2 hours of cutscenes and dialogue.

Where did I leave off-- REALLY? THAT LONG AGO? FUCK ME.

Okay SOMEONE remind me LATER to sum up Empress, because I completed it. Note to self, it's around 12/2 in your screencaps.

So Shido wins the elections because it turns out that no one saw the Thieves' big calling card for him, and those who did didn't remember it. There is obviously Some Shit going on with people's mass apathy syndrome.

Because Persona only has one theme and it's "people will be too lazy to pay attention to the truth, fucking sheeple," I guess.

/clucks tongue. I'm not really impressed by this turn of the story, I'm kinda Over the slow increase in apathy that winds up being the undoing of the world until we beat up a god and save everyone. This is the third time, I would have shaken shit up by having the Hidden Big Bad send the Thieves a calling card, demanding they come protect their Treasure, and then you meet the Big Bad and just gimme a villain with a motive, goddamn. It's a supernatural story, the sky's the limit!

I shouldn't kvetch too much yet. Anyway, Shido admits to his crimes, but the populace doesn't seem to care and still supports him.

Shido's lackeys basically go "okay Shido had a major meltdown buuuuuut we can still carry his agenda forward bc if we don't, we're all going down with the ship here."

Excellent question. In P4G I had a pretty strong idea what was doing that and here I do not, can y'all drop some hints?

Morgana points out that the general public has a Palace and has a Treasure. It's Mementos. So if the crew wants to force a mass shift in the world's perception, they can do that. But like all other Palaces, when the Treasure is taken, Mementos will collapse, to be replaced with new, corrected cognition.

In the process, the crew will lose their powers. Oh and Morgana is gonna die.

The game hasn't said that part yet but if they didn't kill Ryuji, they're gonna kill Morgana, fucking bet.

I love you, Morgana Notacat.

This was actually where I got my idea of what Morgana is. Morgana's upgraded Persona is Mercurius/Hermes. Yanno, the god of messages, of thieves, of swiftness, and well-known classic psychopomp.

Morgana keeps remembering himself being born in Mementos. He's without a doubt some manifestation of humanity's rebellion against systems, the literally cognitive patron saint of Phantom Thieves. He's a mascot in the most literal sense, an emblem of good luck for the Thieves' work.

Even the fact he's a cat kind of fits in nicely. Cats are free spirits who opt-into being it other people. They are creatures of choice.

I'm gonna be big sad when Morgana fucking dies lemme tell you. I'm pretty sure he's, like, sustained by Mementos and the plan is to collapse it? Yeah, Morgana is fucked.

Goddamn HERMES, that's so cool. Morgana, our psychopomp into the bowels of the collective unconsciousness.

GODDAMIT NOTIGOR WHAT DO YOU WANT, IT IS CHRISTMAS FUCKING EVE, YOU BETTER GIMME PRESENTS.

I know that you know that we all know that this isn't Igor but sometimes it fucking floors me how much he isn't Igor, jesus fucking christ. Who tf is this guy. I hope he's the Big Bad somehow bc there ain't anyone else at this point.

Please don't pull another It Was The Gas Station Attendant, Persona, I'm fucking on my knees begging you.

lmao i love the game poking the player to ensure they noticed Morgana is acting odd

Deep in Mementos is... this..... uh..... thing. A bunch of otherworldly veins flowing down into the core.

/looks nervously around

so uh. is it a hot take to say that, uh, the last segment of this game here, the Mementos Depths, is the ugliest place in the game? Just wondering because wow working through this place, I was struck by how completely aesthetically unappealing all of this is. It should be mysterious and eerie but mostly I am finding it.... blurgh. I thought Kaneshiro's Palace was pretty unappealing too, but this is bad enough I feel the need to remark on it.

/gestures at screen. What is all this????? oh god it reminds me of the Collector Base in Mass Effect 2. Except that game came out in 2010 for the previous generation console. /winces

Anyway.

The Depths of Mementos is a prison of complacency.

All of the Shadows the Thieves defeated are in the prison cells. They are relieved to be there, where they don't have to think. Everything is taken care of for them.

Man, remember back in Persona 3 when it turned out that defeating all the Full Moon shadows was actually the thing that doomed the world? Wouldn't it be hilarious is the Thieves fucked all this up the whole time? l m a o.

I honestly don't know if that's what's happening here yet, I haven't reached, like, the Explanation, but it does feel a bit like alllllllll the way back at the start of the liveblog when I was contending with the ethics of the entire idea of stealing someone's heart and what it does. The game went out of its way to justify doing it with Shido's attempted suicide, but the bridge to far for me (and thankfully for Ann too) was killing these people.

But now what happens seems to be akin to ego death instead, and.... I dunno, man, is that much different than murder?

SIGHS LOUDLY

okay is that true or is this another fucking situation where Izanami is like "WELL REALLY when you THINK ABOUT IT all I'm doing is giving humanity what they really want soooooooooo it makes you think huh, doesn't it make you think"

MAYBE THE GAME WILL PROVE ME WRONG, I DUNNO YET.

oh my god. oh my god.

IGOR!!!!!!!! IGOR IS IN THERE!!!!

LEMME IN!!!!!! LEMME IIIIIIIIN I NEED TO SEE HIMMMMM I NEED TO TALK TO HIM I MISS HIM sobs

yeah no, bet, it's igor's cell. which means Notigor locked him up? maybe Notigor is the final boss, that'd be great, it'd slot in perfectly with this place being a prison and Reverie having been stuck in the shitty Velvet Prison this whole time.

please igor help me, i'm so tired of the edgelord execution shit.

PSYCHOPOMP MORGANA!!!!!!!!!!

me pressing my face against the bars whispering I'll be back for you igor i love you

lol what if it isn't even igor in there can you imagine

#p5 #persona liveblog

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measuringbliss · 1 year

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Glee Rewatch 1x15, Faberry and good lighting

Becky deserves a much better haircut, what is this atrocity?

(Are you wondering what's up with this post? Here's an explanation!)

You can see Sue's obsession with Madonna in two ways: the first idea is that it's earnest. She explains it herself: Madonna is an important part of her.

Or you can go the cynical way: "oh. this show is actually popular. we need to sell music and so far we've had quite a few bad numbers for comedy and also a bunch of unremarkable ones. we need to speed up the sales. By the power of Grayskull... Madonna has the power!"

Quinn seems eager to make fun of Rachel, but she also insists on drawing a lot of hearts... Yeah okay that's it, I'm convinced! Faberry shippers, rejoice! You have one more faithful in your ranks!

I completely forgot how much of a jerk Artie could be! That flashback is harrowing.

The cheerleaders's act is incredible but so outlandish that it becomes ridiculous, as I'm sure is the intended reaction. But I've never actually seen IRL cheerleading; do numbers ever get this complicated and audacious?

Loving their outfits (+ Rachel and Tina's faces). Those hearts on Mercedes's shirt? Rachel's tartan and green? Puck's effortlessly fitted shirt? Artie's cardigan? Quinn's bright red with blue/purple outfit? Quinn should wear red more often (note from later: oh boy just you wait!), it fits her skintone and hair color really well I think. And Kurt's odd yet charming getup is a beast of its own.

A scene between Sue and Emma! And this time, Emma looks much more submissive and breedable gosh don't make that joke than previous times, where she seemed ready to fight her. Was it because she felt safe with Will, whereas now they're not together anymore so her insecurities are partying big time?

FINN WHY DID YOU PUSH THOSE BOOKS AND MADE THEM FALL ON THE FLOOR? I understand the Finn hate now.

"Mercedes is Black. I'm gay. We make culture." is such a fun line but I'm biased

"Vogue" is one of the multiple covers I added to my playlist after finishing the show and watching a +2hours Youtube video where somebody ranked every Glee performance. It's a strong performance and the clip is absolutely hypnotizing, very satisfying to watch. It just makes sense.

"Like a Virgin" is also a nice performance and I particularly appreciate the beautiful lighting in the Finn/Santana section. The other two sections are nothing special, but this one? Hypnotizing too. I also like all the couples seem to worship each other's body. It's beautiful to look at. With that said, I find it weird how much importance is given to losing one's virginity. It's very ceremonial in the Gleeverse, apparently! I wouldn't say losing it didn't change anything for me, but it was just... something. It happened. End of story. Finn regrets that it didn't mean anything whereas I rejoyce in the fact that *it doesn't mean anything*.

Meanwhile Emma keeps on cosplaying Daphne from Scooby-Doo and while it's a very fine color scheme, it perplexes me.

I also added "4 Minutes" to my playlist, but the original version. I think if Blaine had replaced Kurt in this song, it would actually be great!

...Damnit, he's still not here yet. At least Mercedes's performance is good. And visually the choreography is nice.

This is a gratuitous screencap of Quinn smiling because she's a ray of sunshine.

Matt's sweat refers to the fact that he only has 48 seconds of screentime left on the show.

Tina absolutely losing her cool when Artie is an asshole to her is one of her finest moments. You go, Tina!

Don't you love it when the local church choir suddenly sings alongside you?

Overall I think it's one of the best episodes of S1. It's a fun watch!

#glee #faberry #rewatch

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rizahawkais · 3 years

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Hi Nia! You're gifs are so pretty! Is it possible for you to show how you get your WandaVision gifs too look so clear and hd? And how do you do your colorings too? (specifically the wanda maximoff in episode 3 gifset ITS GORGEOUS) I'm new to giffing and all the tutorials are kind of old. It's okay if you don't want to though! I understand it may be time consuming.

omg no! never feel intimidated to ask!! i don’t mind at all!

so, i’m going to show you how i made and coloured this gif

mostly bc it’s the only gif in that set w text and i’m going to share my text settings too!

tutorial is below :)

WHAT KIND OF VIDEOS ARE BEST?

.mkv files (the bigger the better BUT i usually think anything above 5 gb is excessive and unnecessary for an episode of television BUT for a movie worth it) itunes downloads (logolesspro on twitter, hd-source on tumblr, live-action-raws on tumblr have some DEPENDING on what you’re looking for) (also, there’s a chance that if you search "show/movie hd download tumblr” you’ll find a tumblr with its itunes download available)

THAT IS IT NO OTHER TYPE OF FILES MAKE YOUR GIFS LOOK GOOD

- my suggestion is always if its new (like just came out the past month) t*rrent it! it’ll be downloaded quickly and .mkv files look the best! BUT if not check the sources above see who has the BIGGEST file if they even have what you’re looking for and then if not then you look to t*rrenting!!

here are the wandavision files i use so you can see!!

SCREENCAPPING

-if you have windows use potplayer! i have a mac so i can’t show you how to use it and it’s not available for me :( HOWEVER back when i had a windows potplayer was the best method in screencapping!!

-I HAVE A MAC! so i use mpv!! (go to mpv.io and follow the directions) BUT DON’T DOWNLOAD THE LATEST ONE (it has a bug that skips frames) try each before the latest one bc from what i heard different ones work differently for everyone!! and i don’t know which one i use (yikes!) THERE ISN’T THAT MANY I PROMISE AND IT’S WORTH IT BC MPV IS THE BEST (i used to use adapter but they didn’t take impressive screencaps in my opinion and it was evident in my gifs you can see it too! )

create a folder for your screencaps! and make sure to rmb the directory order! now we want to create a text file on our built in textedit app on mac! type up all this down below (i like jpg but you can replace jpg w png if you want) AND SAVE THE FILE AS mpv.conf THIS IS IMPORTANT SO DON’T FORGET IT! save it somewhere you’ll find easily and NEVER delete it until you don’t use mpv anymore

just in case you don’t know what to insert after, go to your screencaps folder

now you want to open mpv and go to the corner towards mpv -> preferences and they’ll tell you that there is no .conf file SO GO LOOK FOR THE TEXT FILE WE JUST MADE AND DRAG IT TO THE FOLDER THEY OPENED FOR US AFTER SAYING THERE IS NO .CONF FILE

(i learned all this from @kylos tutorial!! so if any of what i just said about setting up mpv makes NO SENSE to you check out their tutorial at kylos(.)tumblr(.)com/post/178497909311)

now we can screencap!

so let’s find the scene we want RIGHT BEFORE and MAKE SURE SUBTITLES ARE OFF

i pause and then press (option/alt + s) and then SCREENCAPS ARE BEING TAKEN!! and to end the screencaps being taken you once again press (option/alt + s)!!

now we want to delete the excess frames! and put it all into one folder!! DO NOT DELETE FRAMES IN THE MIDDLE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO GIF!! WHEN YOU SKIP FRAMES IT WILL BE NOTICEABLE!!

MAKING THE GIF

this method isn’t used that much BUT I LOVE IT so this is how i put my frames in! first i check to see the size of my frames: 1920 x 1080

so i create a NEW file on photoshop with those dimensions w these settings

now i set my tool on photoshop to path selection tool bc if you have it set on smth like move tool or crop tool at the end you might end up moving or cropping frames you don’t want to!

ok so now we select ALL our frames and drag it on top of our new file on photoshop and the MOMENT we see our first frame in photoshop JUST KEEP CLICKING ENTER until all the frames are loaded!!

you can do file -> scripts -> load files into stack but it is WAYYY slower in my opinion!

now i crop out the excess BUT i don’t resize the gif yet! the dimensions wandavision is filmed in is 4:3 so i go to crop and set the settings to this:

MAKE SURE IT’S ON RATIO SO WE’RE PRESERVING THE ORIGINAL SIZE JUST CUTTING OFF THE BLACK EDGES!! We are going from 1920 x 1080 to 1440 x 1080 this is the dimensions after i cropped

WE ARE KEEPING THE QUALITY BY NOT CHANGING THE DIMENSIONS OF ANYTHING INSIDE !!

now we want to go to actions and create an action!! open up actions w one of these two depending on what your dash looks like!!

so we create an action with this button on the bottom of actions and we’re gonna title it making a gif and hit record!!

NOW LET’S GOOOOO!!

1. make sure you have timeline on your dash!

2. create frame animation (if you see create video timeline just click the arrow next to the button to see your other option which is frame animation!!)

3. now let’s meet our best friend!! the little bar in the top right corner that has all the commands for making our gifs and MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS

4. WE HAVE TO SHARPEN OUR GIFS NOW BUT TO DO THAT WE NEED TO CONVERT TO A SMART OBJECT SO NOW WE ARE GOING TO CONVERT TO VIDEO TIMELINE there are two ways: the button in the bottom left corner or the button in the top right corner w all the other commands!

5. select -> all layers DON’T MANUALLY SELECT THEM ALL BC THE ACTION WILL ONLY SELECT THAT SAME NUMBER OF FRAMES SO IF THERE ARE MORE FRAMES YOU WON’T GET THEM IN THE SMART OBJECT!!

6. filter -> convert for smart filters

7. NOW WE SHARPEN!! (filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen) i sharpen twice!! first, make sure we are on legacy w more accurate and remove gaussian blue! the first sharpening will be 500% with 0.4 px radius. NOW SHARPEN AGAIN (filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen) also w legacy, more accurate and remove gaussian blur BUT this time 10% with a 10.0 px radius!

8. it’s hd now!! so let’s flatten frames into clips!! go to the top right magic button again!! and you should see a pop up saying layers are being made

9. now we convert back to frame animation w either the bottom left button or our magic top right command center!

10. make frames from layers

11. select all frames w our magic command button

12. set the animation delay to 0.05 THAT IS THE BEST ONE ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS only use 0.06 when the character is moving really fast in the video itself and it makes the gif itself look awkward BUT NEVER GO ABOVE 0.06 it’ll look slow and laggy and we don’t want that and don’t go below 0.05 bc then it’ll be tooo fast and we don’t want that either!

13. now delete the very first frame on the timeline bc it is an oversharpened duplicate of the second frame! end the recording w this button!

this is what your action should look like expanded! if you made mistakes on the way and it shows up you can just click the specific step and press the trash can on the action tab to delete in from the order!!

NOW AFTER LOADING YOUR FRAMES AND CROPPING THE EDGES OF YOUR FRAMES IF YOU NEED TO JUST PLAY THE ACTION AND THEN YOUR GIF WILL BE MADE FOR YOU!!!!

now i delete some unnecessary frames in the beginning and end and this is what my gif looks like (the size was 46 mb and the limit is 10 mb so the dimensions of the gif are 540 x 405 to get it to 5 mb BUT I HAVEN’T CROPPED IT YET SO THIS IS ME CROPPING JUST TO SHOW YOU WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE)

CROPPING THE GIF

in my opinion if you want your gif to look hd you shouldn’t crop before you sharpen!! i believe that if you crop before you sharpen you don’t allow photoshop to sharpen all the pixels whereas if you crop beforehand there is less to work with!!

dimensions is all up to you!! just make sure to go by tumblr rules!! 540 is the max width and if you want to make two gifs per row then my suggested width is 268 and for three gifs per row my suggested is 177 px! Just have the right width and the length can be whatever you want!!

now i’m going to crop my gif to 540 by 590!!

NOW THIS IS WHAT MY GIF LOOKS LIKE!

COLOURING BASICS

let me show you the best adjustment tools in my opinion and a brief explanation for what they do!!

brightness/contrast: pretty simple increase/decrease the brightness/contrast BUT one of my techniques for when i first start colouring a gif is i select all my frames and do nothing to the settings of the adjustment but i set the layer to screen LIKE THIS

curves: ik others use curves to change brightness/contrast w the squiggly thing BUT i like it to set a white point and black point, this is also a technique i use when i first start colouring a gif when screen doesn’t look good for me SO you use white point to select a pixel on the gif to set as the lightest color on the gif (setting the white point) and you use black point to select a pixel on the gif to set as the darkest colour on the gif (setting the black point) usually the white point makes it TOO bright and that’s why we use the black point to counter it and same goes for when i use screen with brightness/contrast, it gets too bright so i use black point to counter it below is the button for white point and the button for black point, respectively they are shaped as color picker tools

vibrance: generally, i never use this except for color p*rn sets but they work really well in making colors seem more strong

hue/saturation: like vibrance, i never use this except for color p*rn sets but this adjustment is to help change the colors or hue of a color for example: turn blue into purple or turn a blue into a little lighter shade of blue

color balance: I ALWAYS USE THIS!! except for in black and white gifs BUT THIS IS MY GO TO AND IF I DON’T USE IT MY GIFS ARE JUST BLAND i feel like color balance is what essentially balances the colors on your gif and adds dimension to it, it makes your gif go from looking way too yellow to a more golden neutral look and it is an essential adjustment in my opinion

channel mixer: i rarely use channel mixer BUT it is so so useful when you are working w a dark scene just play w the settings and all of a sudden all the blue in a dark scene will be a little more yellow and red and your scene will kind of just look brighter and more visible

selective color: THIS IS ALSO AN ESSENTIAL this helps SPECIFIC colors pop you’re working on a scene where there is too much red on someones face you use this tool to remove the magentaness from the yellow section OR when you feel someones face is TOO yellow and needs more blush you add more magenta in the yellow section of selective color

gradiant map: gradiant map is perfect when you’re lazy if you feel like your gif looks more neutral and you want some red in it but you don’t want to mess with any other adjustments just set a red to black gradiant on soft overlay with a very low opacity and BOOM slightly red but not too much red added!

NOW TO COLOR THE GIF!

today i have decided to start with a brightness layer set on screen

and this is what we got!

now that’s a little to bright and washed out in my opinion SOOOO to counteract it, i’m going to use my black point tool in curves and i’m going to select this point on the gif (it’s better to choose smth in the background and not smth that’s paid attention to such as monica’s hair or either of their eyelashes)

now my gif looks like this! the base color is complete!

now i think i need to balance all this yellow and red! SOOOO WE GONNA USE COLOR BALANCE!!

i think the best way to use color balance is to keep swinging the balancer until you see what you like and then keep going midtones i think i want more red and i don’t want a cyan midtone and then for shadows i think i want more cyan to counter the redness of the gif but highlights i don’t touch that much NOW HERE ARE MY SETTINGS SO YOU CAN SEE

and this is what my gif looks like

now you can stop here if you want but in my opinion i think the gif looks a lil too dead still SO IMMA USE SELECTIVE COLOR

i think there needs to be a lot lot more RED so i amp up the yellow magenta and black in the red! but i also think the yellows need to be LESS RED so i remove magenta from the yellow! and bc there’s some cyan and blue bc of monica and the flowers in the background im going to make the cyans more cyan and the blues a lil more black! i’m going to remove some yellows from the magenta!! and i add more black to the neutrals and black!! i think it’s always important to add more black to neutral and black bc it adds more depth to the gif by not just making it a bunch of bright colors and having dark colors to contrast to!! my settings are below!

and the result!

now let’s see everything together!

and the before and after!

I HOPE MY COLOURING EXPLANATION MADE SENSE!! if not you can always ask me more questions i don’t mind!!

ADDING SUBTITLES

we want to grab the text tool!

make a text box from anywhere in the middle from the left to right edge. this is so we can make sure our text is centered and will be in the same place for when we have sets w more than one gif w text!

type your text out and make sure you highlight the whole text so that all the settings apply to EACH character! you can find the alignments (for center) in the paragraph tab!

now lets right click on the text layer and go to blending options! add stroke and drop shadow!

now drag it to the desired height you would like and make sure to keep it in mind for when you have more than one subtitled gif in a set!

NOW TO MAKE SURE THE TEXT STAYS IN PLACE AND THE BLENDING STAYS YOU HAVE TO CONVERT TO SMART OBJECT!!

if you want to only have the text applied to certain frames instead of all frames, select the frames you don’t want by clicking the first frame in ur don’t want section ON THE TIMELINE and WHILST HOLDING SHIFT click the last frame of ur don’t want section and then toggle the eye switch next to the text layer

now you see the text

now you don’t

tip: use opacity to fade the text in and out!

the text is going to be on all my frames so i don’t need to toggle the eye but i just wanted to show you just in case!!

now here’s my FINAL RESULT

save for web (file -> export -> save for web)

your gifs have to always be under 10 mb! so, if your WAYYY overboard YOU HAVE TO DELETE FRAMES! or you can divide the gif in two and have two gifs instead of one! however, if you plan on going the deleting frames route MAKE SURE YOU DELETE FROM THE BEGINNING OR END OF YOUR SELECTION i promise you that most of us won’t notice that your characters dialogue is being cut off BUT WE WILL NOTICE IF FRAMES ARE BEING SKIPPED so, don’t delete frames in the middle of ur gif!! idc how little you do it IT WILL RUIN YOUR GIF AND I SAY THIS FROM EXPERIENCE i would delete every fifth frame to cut down my gifs and that may seem like not that big of a deal BUT IT IS my gif looked choppy and poor so it is way better to cut from the end/beginning of the gif

ANOTHER LAST PIECE OF ADVICE in the bottom left of when the save for web menu shows up THERE’S A PREVIEW BUTTON click on it! it’ll show you your gif on your default browser and show you what it’ll look like once uploaded! this is perfect to check the speed of ur gif and the colouring and to notice if there’s a problem with your subtitles or maybe there’s an obvious jump in frames you never noticed before!! i always use preview bc the built-in photoshop viewer of ur gif shows the colors differently and the speed is NEVER ACURRATE!

I USED THESE SAVE SETTINGS!! many say to use selective pattern but i DISAGREE and i think these save settings are the ✨ best ✨

OK NOW THAT IS THE END OF THIS VERY LONG GIF TUTORIAL!! I HOPE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!! IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK I SINCERELY DON’T MIND!! JUST DON’T BE RUDE OR ANYTHING BC PPL HAVE BEEN RECENTLY :(

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK AND FUN IN YOUR GIFFING ADVENTURES !!

#tutorials #asks #sourceblog #allresources #completeresources #itsphotoshop #dailyresources #resourcemarket #chaoticresources #onlyresources #hisources #sibylresources #dailypsd

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transastronautistic · 3 years

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Tips from an ICU nurse to treat (mild) COVID at home: a thread.

See below screencaps for an image description! And here’s the source link.

ID: tweets from Jessica @bassbarbie182 from January 9 2021 reading,

First, purchase a pulse oximeter online or from your local drug store. There are several trustworthy brands for under $15 on Amazon. Monitor your oxygen saturations every few hours, and if they drop below 87% and stay there... it’s time to go to the hospital.

Sleep on your belly whenever you can. This provides more room for your lungs to expand without taking on fluid.

Get up and walk, even if you don’t feel like it. At least once an hour, walk up and down your steps, do a few laps around your living room, whatever you can manage. This prevents fluid from settling in your lungs.

Sleep as much as your body tells you to. But make sure you get up and move around as often as you can.

Eat when you can. High calorie, high protein. Stay away from dairy products like milk and ice cream. Drink fluids like gatorade that have electrolytes in them. With a fever, you can become dehydrated quickly and will feel worse.

Treat your symptoms!!! For fever, body aches and chills, alternate taking 200-800mg of ibuprofen and 500-1000mg of Tylenol (acetaminophen) every 6-8 hours. Cough medicine (without acetaminophen) for dry cough. Cough drops, hot tea, hot lemon water with honey for sore throat.

For example: 6AM- 600mg of ibuprofen with some mucinex.

12PM- 1000 mg of Tylenol.

6PM- 800mg ibuprofen, repeat dose of mucinex.

You can disinfect your home with 1 cup of bleach to 1 gallon of water. Lysol, Clorox, etc. wash off frequently touched surfaces like fridge/microwave handles, faucets, doorknobs.

Don’t get retested!!! You can still test positive for months and you are no longer shedding. Consider yourself positive and contagious for 10-14 days after your first symptoms. If you still have any symptoms, after 10 days, consider yourself contagious.

Taste and smell may not come back for months. Contact your physician, local healthcare center or CDC.gov if you have ANY questions on whether you are safe to return to work or school.

A few points before I mute this:

1. Yes, I am an ACTUAL ICU nurse and recommending gatorade. Imagine being so elitist and thinking that everyone who needs to treat COVID at home can afford coconut water or electrolyte alternatives?

2. I have neither seen nor heard any evidence that ibuprofen is harmful. If your doctor tells you don’t take it, don’t take it!

If you have any questions, concerns or are unsure if you should go to the hospital, just go :) we are happy to check you out and will tell you if you don’t need medical attention. It’s better to be safe than sorry. These tips (as I said in the beginning) are for MILD symptoms.

This tweet is also not affiliated with my employer, and does not replace directly tailored medical advice given to you by a provider. These are merely tips to help ease some discomfort while recovering at home. :) when in doubt, seek medical attention immediately.

#covid19 #COVID-19 #covid19 treatment

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Pinky and the Brain: A Pinky And the Brain Christmas Review or I Just Think Schotzie’s Neat

Christmas Continues on this blog... and getting away from one set of Christmas commissions and into another, I offered my friend Blahdiddy three commissions as a present. The other two we’ll get to eventually, but with Animaniacs on the brain, heh, due to the reboot, he selected two Pinky and the Brains and one Animaniacs for me to cover. And while I intended to cover this one sometime this month anyway, my friend’s recent and sad covid diagnosis meant i’m bumping this one all the way up to the front of the line so he has some christmas cheer during this rough time. So with that in mind let’s talk about pinky, pinky and the brain brain brain brain brain shall we? Of course we can’t really talk about pinky and the brain without talking about Animaniacs. I absolutely love the series, I grew up with it as a kid and reconnected with it as an adult when it ended up on netflix. It was smart, well animated and most importantly really fucking funny. I highly recommend checking both the original and reboot of it out some time if you have Hulu. Speaking of the reboot while I might go on in full about it at some point it’s pretty good, with some creatvie jokes, some nice updates, with Rita Anita Anrita being a great new addition to the warner side of things. It’s only real flaw is it gets a bit reptitious as for the most part there’s only really the warners and pinky and the brain with a few exceptions one of which DAMN well deserved at least two segments and we all know which one that is.

Bring.. this.. to series. The warners and pinky and the brain segments weren’t bad, but as is inevitible in a screwball comedy some just weren’t as good as others and those fell harder when you’ve already seen 2 or 3 better versions of this sort of skit in the season. They did really find their groove towards the end and if you like both Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, or even just one or the other, it’s worth checking out. But enough about the reboot let’s talk about those labratory mice whose genes have been spliced. Thanks to wikipedia, I now know the duo were based on Eddie Fitzgerald and Tom Minton, who worked with Tom Rutgeter on Tiny Toon adventures, with menton being the one who came up with Narf, even saying it in one episode of Tiny Tunes. During the creation of animaniacs, Bruce Timm, yes THE Bruce Timm, sketched the two, and Ruetger added mouse ears and the rest was history. Maurice LaMarche was the one who added the Orson Welles to the character, as LaMarche saw the Orson Welles in Brain, ran with it and got the part and a long and storied career in voice acting as a result. In a nice and fitting bit of contrast, Rob Paulsen got the part.. because he was already on the show. Not to downplay Paulsen’s clear talent, I just find it hilarious.

That’s about what I could dig up on the behind the scenes of the show. From what I can tell it was greenlit because Animaniacs was a massive it, and Pinky and the Brain was the most popular segment, so it just made sense. The show would likewise be a massive sucess with both adults and kids, and go on for three seasons and what should legally be considered a war crime.

For those of you blissfully unaware yeah, that happened, no no one people actually LIKED from Tiny Toons was in it. And yeah if you want me to talk about it commission it otherwise not going near this one. While I do need to tackle more bad animation... I’ve successfully avoided watching an episode of this show for 22 years next wedsday, I’m not breaking the streak for free.

But some.. things aside I remembered liking the series as a kid but just never got around to seeking it out as an adult. I had nothing against the animaniacs segments and I even still have a stuffed brain doll I got at a garage sale.. the pinky is sadly missing and persumed dead. I just wasn’t as bit into it as I was the slappy bits rewatching animaniacs and didin’t really see reason to watch the show. Watching this though made me realize I was wrong and I probably watch more of it in the future This special is damn good, i’m pleased ot review it and to revive and old childhood memory. So with all the exposition out of the way let’s talk Pinky, PInky and the brain brain brain brain christmas edition after the cut.

This was indeed a special: while it was presumably produced with season one of the show and is packaged with it both on DVD and on Hulu, where I watched it, the special was aired in prime time and even put on it’s own VHS.. which I found out and of course, like with my review of the Darkwing Duck Pilot, had to use as the art for old VHS’ tapes for cartoons.. was really fucking beautiful and it’s a nice break from my traditional screencaps. So we open with a clever Christmas rendition of the theme, frequently sprinkling in bits of other christmas stuff, utterly fantastic. The intro animation is less impressive as it’s literally just the regular intro but with a stock snow effect over everything. In case you thought Ducktales doing that was a new thing. I do not blame the team however, as apparently they only had a week to get the scripts out, so I highly doubt warner was forking out more cash for the animation than they had to. They still forked out enough to make it LOOK really good mind you, something I wish they’d do more often with their DTV Movies but do do with their animated shows still with certain exceptions so good on them, i’m just saying they clearly cared more about money than having a memorable christmas opening. Given a budget to actually make one, i’m sure the animators would’ve come up with something lovely, and i’m sure the same is true of Ducktales and other shows and like i’ve said, i’m highly in favor of shows actuallly doing unique openings for the holidays, especially since Holiday episodes tend to get reaired every year as long as the show is in circulation on the network. Sometimes even if it isn’t. So it’s fully worth the effort to fork out a little extra for this as while you’ll most likely only use it once, you’ll be using the special for years. You can afford to treat yourself networks come on. It’s...

Just like Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain. But onto the episode itself after 80 years. We find Pinky writing his Christmas list to santa, complete with Narf, a gag I like. As usual for a comedy show, I will try to gloss over as much of the gags as possible, to avoid repetttion but yeah this episode is really damn funny and reminded me just how good these characters are. Maurice and Rob just have perfect chemistry. It’s like Tom and Jerry: It’s a very simple premise, that one being “Cat chases mouse and Mouse beats shit out of mouse”, and pinky and the brain of course being “Super genuis mouse and dimwitted but loveable sidekick try and takeover the world eveyr night”. But a simple premise can be used just about anywhere and adapated for anything. To me a cartoon’s premise only has to be as complicated as it needs to be to work. Sometimes you have a vast complex tapestry behind the world like She Ra, Steven Universe or Avatar with lots of planning and ins and outs and deep character stuff.. and sometimes you just have two mice who get into shenanigans because one is a would be dictator who sounds like orson welles and the other’s a loveable british weirdo/moron. Sometimes simple just works.

Anyways, Brain, noticing Pinky’s distracted and replaces himself with a horrifying poorly made doll of himself called Noodle Noggin, which is both an excellent name and not the only time they’d use the name either, as there was an animaniacs short about Brain making himself a fad to endear himself to the children of the future with the same name. It’s just an inherently funny set of words, but also shows Brain’s genius in a subtle and clever way as he never spells it out, but despite sounding kind of ridiculous for such a buttoned up intellectual like brain... he knows that’s the kind of name kids will eat up. His schemes may often fail, but he’s an objectively brilliant schemer and i’ts often either PInky’s incompetence or his own miscalculation of humanity, either over or underestimating them, that undoes Brain. Back to the plot, so Brain’s plan is to distribute noodle noggins around the world, make it the hot new toy, and as always, take over the world. Problem is naturally two Mice simply don’t have the resources to make the billions of dolls. But PInky stumbles upon the solution in the paper: a want ad for elves! Everything about that sentence except “pinky stumbles upon the solution” has not aged paticuarlly well, but point is they have a plan and we have our christmas special. This does bring me to my one problem with the special.. Brain’s weird inconsistency towards Santa. What I mean is he spends the portion doubting Santa can do anything he’s claimed to despite being proven frequently he can. That part is not all that annoying as it’s in character with him and while yes, he is a talking mouse, he’s also a man of science and reason and Santa is the opposite of that. That would be fine... IF it wasn’t for the fact that said magical bollocks weren’t constantly part of his plans. Despite Brain constantly throughought the special doubting Santa... his plans FREQUENTLY rely on everything we’ve heard about him being right. His initial plan here ENTIRELY runs on the fact Santa has a massive workforce to make the toys yet even if that’s true by Brain’s own logic, he wouldn’t be able to deliver them. Later when the boys need to escape, They hide with the Reindeer despite Brain just saying santa can’t be everywhere in one night.. which if he can’t then the odds are slim he’ll wind up at Acme Labs isn’t it? It would be fine if the special acknowledged any of this outside of one bit we’ll get to, but other than that one bit.. they don’t. IT’s just really frustrating and really sticks out since the rest of the special is perfection, so this one failing bit really grates. That being said, it dosen’t last long enough to really drag the episode down as a whole, just to annoy me a bit every so often. It speaks to the episodes quality that the bad part ONLY drags so much because everything else is so well put together. So our boys head to the north pole with the help of a kooky pilot and a santa dummy, this pilot is voiced by Tress MacNeile and is easily one of the best parts of the special. And naturally given their luck, she asks them to take the wheel so the plane instead jerks and causes them to fall out. Luckily they end up near Santa’s workshop and soon apply for temp work with local head of things and gruff type Shotzie, played by Jeff Bennett. And yes that is his name. I like Shotzie: he’s a goateed elf and Bennett just plays him well.. hard to explain honestly I may just like his name and Bennett’s voice for him, one he used before in animanaics for various bit parts and in shows after this, it’s just a voice i’ve always liked.

They get put to work in the mail room, which is the bit I mentioned: Brain earlier scoffed at Santa answering all the letters with Pinky simply suggesting that Santa had his elves go through all of them. Turns out Pinky was right... while he may be a BIT stupid, one intresting thing i’ve found about Pinky after watching the reboot that ironically the friend who comissioned this and I discussed is that he’s not ENTIRELY stupid, it’s just , much like Dan from Dan Vs his knowledge is just random.. he can not know how a lot of things work, but sometimes like in this instance Pinky generally just GETS something. It’s part of why he and Brain are such a good team despite their failures: Brain is all about planning and thought and research, Pinky is about intuition and gut instinct. He just does things and it often works out. This also makes their recently added backstories all the more brilliant as they explain this well: Pinky started life just being told to find the diffrence in cheeses and thus was taught form childhood to trust in himself and his weird brain. Brain was cruelly torturued with an experiment on learned behaviors via electroshock, and was taught to never give up control again, to always know what’s going on and to always control it. It perfectly sums up who the two are and why they are that way. Brain however quickly pivots, as the mail room ends up being the perfect location to start his plans. Since their job is to file away what each person wants Brain simply adds Noodle Noggin to it and plans to put his plans into the workshop. While Santa and Schotzie are suprised and baffled, Santa quickly adds it to the list. However things hit a snag when Schotzie gets supscious when the two try to sneak into the blueprint room to drop theirs off and he accidently yanks off their disguises leading to a REALLY fun chase scene, as the boys end up in a toy wherehouse and thus try out various toy cars: a barbie dream car that dosen’t have a working motor, a toy truck that dosen’t go very fast, and finally an rc car that while fast naturally just means Schotzie can grab it and capture them. It’s easily my faviorite scene of the episode just for how clever it is and as someone whow as a kid around the time this came out, I applaud the accuracy.. granted I didn’t have any of those personally but I had lots of friends so yeah.

So our heroes are interrogated.. and again Brain brilliantly pivots. Schotzie assumes since they have the blueprints their spies for the easter bunny or the tooth fairy or Herschel, the Hanukah Goblin. Why Herschel never got his own Hannukah special trying to stop Pinky and the Brain from using it to take over the world, I genuinely do not know and that’s something the reboot really needs to adress in the future. Seriously Hannukah needs a mascot and it’s either Herschel or the Hannukah Zombie. Kwanza already has Kwanzabot. I want to see more of Herschel the Hannukah Goblin dammit!. I love goblins. Especially this one.

And this one

And most of all this one

I likes goblins. It’s a thing. So anyway, point is Schotize has the blueprints taken in while our boys slip out and sucessfully make their way outside, though they have to find a way home to turn on the mind control device. They see Santa and brain being a dick refuses to let pinky hand in his letter.. but does as mentioned earlier have them pose as reindeer. So our heroes make their way home and in time to be able to activate the device once santa’s route’s finished!

And.. then land directly on the mind control device thing, meaning they now have to scramble to repair it. Oh and Pinky is inconsolable after realizing Santa didn’t get his letter and Brain is a HUGE dick about it. Easily the worst i’ve seen him just far more focused on his machine than his friend’s wel lbeing especially since ALL he needs from pinky is for him to throw one lousy switch.

But we then get easily the best part of the entire special. As Brain scrambles to rebuild his device while abusing his best friend we get a really nice tense sequence as Brain rebuilds while kids all over the world warmly receive noodle noggin. I mean.. it’s not the creepiest doll I’ve seen a kid enjoy.

Also Bill Clinton gets one because the series apparently really likes “Bill Clinton is stupid jokes” Oh you poor innocent dears who haven’t had to suffer through the president being revealed to be a sexual predator, the one after him being even dumber if not a predator, the one after that being easily one of the best people around, and the outgoing one being a waking nightmare whose both a preadator and dumb beyond all comprehension ina dangerous and soul crushing way.

But yeah onto the good part, Brain, for whatever reason, reads the letter.. and finds Pinky asked for nothing. He just wanted to give Brain the world at long last, recognizing his friend really and genuinely means well for it and that he’s worked hard to conquer it. And with that goal in reach, with the very thing he’s always wanted his... Brain instead uses the device to wish a merry christmas. He sees through his friend’s kindess and selflessness that he himself.. has been selfish once again turning something into a world destroying plot and being cruel to his best friend... when all his best friend wanted was to selflessly make sure he finally got what he wanted. It’s then that Brain, for all his cold and cynical logic and superiority complex, realized the true meaning of christmas, which i’ve said before and i’ll say again: it’s about giving, about giving someone something with your heart and soul just to be nice with no expectation of something in return. It’s about being selfless for once instead of selfish. I’ts about love. And Brain loves his friend too much to destroy his faviorite holiday. For once the world can wait.. and for once they all join in saying merry christmas to one another and in love and camradire. And I know not everyone celebrates christmas, there are other winter holidays and not everyone in the world would willingly do this. I know all that.. but the special has such a well meaning message, I really can’t be mad at that or get into the weeds too much> This isn’t some jackass making an entire movie, of which there have been several, saying “There’s a war on christmas” which instead equates to them just bitching about not everyone celebrating HIS holiday. It’s about a mouse for one moment truly being selfless and putting ihs loyal and faithful friend over his greatest want to give him a nice christmas and to do something nice for the world instead of trying to take it. And that.. that’s really damn heartmelting. So we end on the two exchanging presents, with it being a little extra heartwarming as Brain likely already got Pinky something meaning even before his big revelation, he really does care beneath all the dope slaps. Pinky got him a keychain of the world and rather than be frustrated like you’d think.. Brain just takes it in stride. It is christmas after all.. the world.. it can wait. For now it’s just the two of them having one moment in time, this merry christmas. Final Thoughts: If it wasn’t obvious, I loved this freaking special. It’s funny, clever and has one hell of an ending. There isn’t much more to say other than go watch it if you have Hulu.. you will not regret it and a sepcial thanks to Blah for comissioning this. it was an amazing time and is now a competitor for a spot on my best christmas special list. For now though it’s just really good and I say go check it out. Merry christmas, happy holidays and later days.

#animaniacs #pinky and the brain #warner brothers #pinky #the brain #santa claus #christmas #blahdiddy #christmas specials #reviews #animation #kids wb

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zirkkun · 3 years

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Yo you have every right to be upset about things! You're still a person with your own feelings and deserve to be treated kindly. No one should come at you for making things you enjoy or for misunderstandings. I hope things get better for you even if I wasn't here for when all the drama happened (or maybe I was and just wasn't aware of it? I tend to avoid drama as much as possible tbh)

I didn't really post about it much. I think I answered about 4 asks about it (three of them in the same post because i was sure it was the same anon due to the similar string of seemingly continued messages) and the rest I just deleted as soon as they came in, but I got... A lot. A lot of mean things said too. Kinda hurts when you wanted to make something because you knew this work was highly criticized and wanted to let people give it a second chance only to be shot down by the people you were hoping to defend lol

In short, and a lot of it I missed because I was blocked by a lot of people so my friend sent me screencaps; someone took I believe only the old ask box post I had for ULR, which at the time was called "Underlust Rewrite," and was disgusted at the fact that everything was revamped and "made for kids" (because it's not 18+ explicit content, but as I've said before, it's just cause I'm too scared to be horny on main, and I've literally made a whole different biological system for ULR so I can write the necessary story ""sex scenes"" without it being human-like sex or otherwise uncomfortable or too explicit for me to draw, but I still consider it a mature story overall), so they blocked me instantly here and on twitter and then made a callout post on twitter itself. People were telling me originally to stop calling the AU Underlust, and I didn't really get it at first, because like, what's the difference between my spinoff and, say, Underlust Gold, Swapfell Indigo, TS!Underswap, you know, names that have add-ons from the original title to differentiate it but still connect it to the source. So that's what I said, as well as if I removed the Underlust name, it would be considered stealing to me, because I'd be disconnecting it from the source. But apparently, instead, what had been the concern was that it was just being called "Underlust" and the "Rewrite" aspect was implying I was replacing the original story, which like, had never been my intention and I've made a bunch of things with both the ULR and UL cast together and love the idea of Lust and Ace meeting up and just being a disaster duo of not working together at all. I just adore Underlust like it's in my pinned FAQ, Lust's been in my banner for months now, and he's practically my staple pfp character on every account but here atm.

It took like 3 days for it to actually click what was going on, because once I finally got the chance to have a conversation with someone where they weren't telling me I was the scum of the Earth -- which, honestly, bless the three people I talked to, they were so sweet (which actually included someone from the Japanese side of the fandom whose art I loved too... yeah it got pretty far. Once I sent them a message though it was cleared up quickly and they did post a clarification post about ULR and me, so that was nice to see.) -- I finally got the chance to realize that this was a misunderstanding from the beginning, from both sides, where people coming at me were saying I was doing all of the stuff above and probably more but those stuck the most, while I was confused as to where this information and accusations were coming from and what they were referring to in the first place. They probably never explained it in the anon asks because, well, they probably assumed I knew what I was doing, but when they came at me about something I didn't do with vague context of something I did do, I was very confused, and got really defensive really quickly, and really honestly snapped pretty hard. After my first initial explanation post and people were still trying to tell me to stop ULR/don't call it Underlust/whatever else there was, I just got tired and told people to block me if they didn't like it. But that didn't really stop anyone and honestly made it worse because that's when I started getting really nasty messages. I like... Specifically remember one where someone called me a lowlife and a thief, and that one stuck the most, but I tended to not read through them before deleting them for my own sanity. I actually did this to one of the people who'd later talked to me calmly about it at first too, because I had just woken up, and really didn't want to read an essay lecture on everything everyone's been telling me at the crack of 7am when I was borderline ready to delete my account and start over lol

Some people I do remember were accusing me of trying to censor nsfw content or erase it as well because ULR isn't 18+, and I'm out here on my horny ass like "wh. What are they talking about, where did you get that idea, have you SEEN my ao3 recommended list," /j but in all seriousness I really didn't understand that accusation at all because I've never been against nsfw content in the slightest and lowkey? This is very dumb -- but like, you know how they say when you get hate mail, you know you've made it? Well, for me, my thought has always been, "When there's 18+ fancontent of my OC's, I'll have finally made it." This is... Not a joke, some of my friends think its very weird LMAO oh well. I've been on the internet for far too long at this point -- like, definitely since I was far too young, probably, and being with a family of the next youngest being 12 years older than me, I really dove into stuff pretty quickly I definitely shouldn't have, but hey that's life -- I'm really unfazed by mostly anything now. Hell, me making ULR was honestly half motivated by me wanting to make others more comfortable with this kind of media, discussing sexuality and otherwise sexual-considered topics, without really being embarrassed or bothered by it. Because, people talk about death and killing and whatever other gorey stuff just fine, but the moment sex comes up, people just gasp in awe, y'know? I kind of grew up that way myself but like... ironically, in being more comfortable with my asexuality, I realized that it's honestly not that big of a deal. Sure, we don't need to hear the details of everything. We don't need to hear the details of a murder either. But I will never understand how murder is always the lowest on the "morally wrong list of things to not to" to so many people and that it's fine to mention, but even consider bringing up anything else and it's like, a sin and you're a bad person. Even racism is like, higher up on there for a lot of people, which it's like... this is an issue that needs to be discussed, or it can never be solved. You can't just kick that away and hope it goes away on its own, that's never how it works.

Ah, well, now I've gone off tangent lol. Sorry to make you read a blob of text lmao but having things in a cohesive format of what I've been thinking does feel a bit better. Thank you for the support regardless, and I do want to keep making what I really enjoy, because frankly, I really want to make things that make people take a step back and think for a moment, y'know? Things that invoke like a realization in yourself about something you didn't even know. That's how fiction's always been for me, so I want to give back by making it that way too. ... maybe my horny content is exempt from this however. That's just. Self indulgence LMAO.

Probably helps that I'm actually talking this all out for once, too, since before any of this I tried to keep as much of the situation contained to myself as possible in hopes I could clean it up before it got too bad. That was, in hindsight, probably a terrible idea lol. But I didn't want to be a source of stress for anyone following me or become the new creator-to-defend that like, 50% of people hate and 50% of people love and that you're either on one side or the other and there's no where in between. (I feel like Arin Hanson comes to mind for me every time I think of someone like this.) I know I can't please everyone and I knew internet hate would come eventually, but like, didn't expect it to be over a name or tag choice. I thought that would be a simple enough DM or clearable thing but apparently not, especially since I saw someone a few weeks ago delete their blog over a similar thing (though, the opposite, in a way: posting nsfw in a sfw tag by mistake). It wasn't in the UT fandom so y'all probably weren't following them (tbf I wasn't either, I just witnessed it happen from start to finish), but it was still disheartening.

Anyway, thank you, and sorry to make ya read all of that (if you actually did vahdbs don't blame you if you don't it's a lot of thought dump lmao)💕💕

#zircon answers #anonymous #all this happened like the DAY i got accepted onto the bhc team to and i was like #alright guys am i being kicked out day one lol #like i was expecting the worst from this whole thing #but im still kind of happy with how i worked it out #i really wish more people were like #willing to talk things out rather than just spit in a general direction and hope youll listen #because like even the people i talked to calmly some of them were pretty rude at first! but!#theyre not bad people #they were just scared for their favorite thing #i cant blame them for that and honestly i do consider the hatred justified under the circumstances that they knew #but they were all really nice after we talked things out #and were like 'i hope your series does well' and that really meant a lot honestly #death mention tw//

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kaninchen-reblogs · 3 years

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I don’t know if I can properly articulate this but does anyone else feel like tumblr feels … different? Like it’s been slow but over the past few years it seems like these changes have been happening, especially in regards to the top/funniest/most viral stuff.

Like I remember when “tumblr funnymen” were a thing. When we had this uncool kids club of people making dumb posts that would always make the rounds. And corporations would make their own blogs to try to advertise and we’d ridicule them constantly.

But as always there’d be drama ranging from the petty to the downright serious, and the funnymen got canceled for various reasons. And even the ones that didn’t get canceled just became less popular because a lot of the userbase decided that they were cringe and just doing things for clout (and also for, y’know, legitimate reasons — like how parasocial relationships with random people online is unhealthy). And so we all basically decided “we don’t want tumblr funnymen anymore”.

And then the finger curled on the monkey’s paw.

Not all of the funnymen are gone — some are still here on tumblr! But again, they’ve seem to have lost their original popularity. I’ve noticed most barely make their own posts anymore, and they rarely pick up any reblogs. And they most certainly never cross my dash anymore (and yes, I know that could be because folks have been curating who they follow, but still). Other popular blogs either moved to Twitter entirely, or mainly post on Twitter and occasionally come to tumblr to reblog a handful of things now and again.

But again, the monkey’s paw. We lost the funnymen (perhaps for the better?), but something had to take their place.

And now it seems that the “funny” is back, but without the “man” behind it. The majority of the posts being recommended to me are from blogs that just crop pictures from Twitter. A good portion of my dash is Twitter. Blogs with ‘safe’ names like “funnytumblrtweets” or “folksontwitter” or whatever — I made those names up, but they sound real, right? And that’s all they do: no soul, no presence, no personality. Just cropping screencaps of Twitter, posting them here, and they get passed around by nearly everyone.

It feels like how I watched YouTube go from a “Wild West” of content — unpolished … and often “cringe”, for sure! — to absolute soullessness. Videos are made for the algorithm. The trending page on YouTube is almost disgustingly boring in how much each video tries to grab your attention. Over-the-top thumbnails, video titles that are like, fifteen words long, half of which are in all caps and with several exclamation points, all clickbait. Always at least 10 minutes long with at least one sponsorship, and five ad breaks slapped on throughout. It doesn’t help that YouTube’s ad policies have gotten less and less in favor of the user, and more in favor for the companies.

And it feels that way here on tumblr now. Were things better back during the “funnymen” era? Probably not. But now ads are actual ads, breaking up your dash to show you something completely unrelated to what you ever like, rather than back when companies had to stoop to our level and make a blog and create posts that we could reblog and ridicule. So many of the posts I see are from Twitter! Sure, some are genuinely good, interesting, and/or funny — I’m not saying Twitter doesn’t have some good content on there. But … the funnymen have been replaced with screencap blogs. Just reposting content, endlessly.

And yes, I know this is affected by how you curate your dash. I’m well aware that I can follow and unfollow at will (and believe me, I do!). But it also doesn’t help that there was a mass exodus of creators on here. So many artists I follow that rarely post, if ever, because of things ranging from the infamous “female-presenting nipples” ban to the horrendously skewed ratio of likes to reblogs.

I know I’m not the first person to realize this. Plenty of other people (and smarter people) have made posts on how originality is dead and how social media has become more predictable and corporatized. And I don’t really have any answers, either. The sheer drama and discourse surrounding funnymen was awful (and, again, toxic parasocial relationships). But now it feels … safe. Cold. Rigid. Am I just jaded now? I don’t know. Maybe.

I just needed to ramble, I guess.

#kanny says things #sorry about the long post I just needed to say stuff

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shesawriter39049 · 4 years

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|Got Me Loosin All My Cool| M|

Pairings: Jungkook X Reader | Jimin X Reader( Smut) FT- Side Tae & Yoongi

Note: Kook is in 80% of this but he’s “new” to the dynamic...so the smut is with Jimin and the OC...not Kookie!

About- Jimin and yourself take Jungkook shopping for a new suit to wear to the “Spectrum” launch party! OH, and Jimin fucks you in the backseat of your truck in the parking garage of the mall…..

OR: You know Kookie still in that “Broke college grad” phase only being with the company barley a month, and you don’t want him to feel self-conscious at the event! You’ve also been too busy to really check in with him to see how he’s adjusting! So, you thought something like this, in a more laxed atmosphere, would be a good solution! Oh and Jimin, honestly he’s just nosey as fuck and inched himself along, like nobody really invited him he invited his damn self! Also Jungook can’t underatand why the fuck your all so damn attractive...like...why!?

Jungkook’s a sweetheart and lowkey confused and whipped for everybody

Tae’s kinda being a spoiled asshole

Yoongi’s over it!

Jimin’s being a brat, he’s not use to having to “Behave” around others, espeically while your wearing “that” dress.....

-Song Reference- COOL- Dua lipa

WC: 6K

WARNINGS: Semi-public sex/Top OC/Power bottom Jimin/ Spit play/ Cum play/ Fingering (F receiving) Cockrings/Lube (yes ppl actually use that IRL )Dirty talk/ biting, finger sucking

FINAL NOTE: This little excerpt is the prequel to the next full-length one-shot “All Eyes On Me” which is Hoseoks official ‘Intro” if you will. The full Summary for that can be found in the Masterlist which is linked below! Also if you’re new here..this is a stand-alone one-shot within my OT7Poly AU called “7 Deep” Short version: Your husband Namjoon and yourself run a successful Adult Film Entertainment Company called “Onyx” with your 5 best friends from college who you also happen to be in an open relationship with!

(Sneak peek)

~~~~~~

ONXY ENTERTAINEMENT 10:45 AM

Jungkook’s happy I guess almost surprisingly so, I mean yeah Yoongi and yourself seemed cool in the interview, and when he did is work interview the vibe was chill. But let’s get real, we all know shit always seems better than it actually is in the interviews!

For one he honestly wasn’t expecting to be given such free reign already which is also why he’s happy as hell he didn’t listen to his roommate’s Mark and Ten and lie on his resume. Granted, everything still had to go through Yoongi first but he wasn’t just... I don’t know editing thumbnails like he thought he was actually doing real work. He’s been here barely a month and he already has reels he can add to his portfolio! Learning new tips and tricks, believe it or not, even through his internships he’s learned that some people are stingy when it comes to sharing knowledge. Yoongi however was far from that, thankfully he was well aware that just because you teach someone your “secrets” doesn’t mean you’re essentially replacing yourself! What makes you good at your job isn’t just how it’s done its how you do it!

If only Kookie could stop internally fangirling over Yoongi his life would be a little easier! He’d seen hundreds of your companies films before and being the production major he is..of course, he’d watch it the first time to jack off..then the second time he’d find himself just as if not even more turned on for the production quality. That’s something Onyx is always praised for..”Aesthetically pleasing porn”. Every morning, Yoongi would sit him down and show him something new and for the first time he finally understands what people mean when they say that someones mind is..attractive! Not Yoongi himself though, because that’s his boss and that would be weird but like his brain, ya know? Yoongi’s brian is sexy in a broboss way...I don’t know just go with it!

Anyway, Kook’s current project was actually one of his favorites so far because it was forcing him to actually challenge himself! This was something actually requested by Hoseok, who he learned was 26, the head of marketing, always bouncing around like he’s had 6 expresso shots and somehow manages to make streetwear look professional…. But anyway the task is creating trailers for films that are pc enough to not be blocked on platforms like IG but spicy enough to get ppl to wanna watch the full thing. Making a climax without the actual climax if you know what I mean. So he’d have to sit there and watch the films, try not to get hard and wanna jack off while watching said films...then take notes and screencaps of the best moments and compile them together without showing “too much”. He’s never been so thankful that he could wear sweatpants to work….because…..yeah it was hard..literally and figuratively hard...but like I said he’s happy and can pay his bills so that’s cool too!

Don’t get me wrong he still feels a little out of place at times and surprisingly enough not for the reason he expected! Two months shy of his 21st bday he assumed he’d feel a type of way because he’s the youngest but that’s not the case! Hell, they went to Nobu for lunch last week and Jin actually slid him his drunk so he wasn’t the only one not drinking! Flashing him a cheeky little wink and whispering “Don’t tell mom” in reference to you once Kook looked back at him like a deer in headlights! It seems as though they care more about his talent than his age which is the way it should be because he knows he’s good at what he dose!

However, Onyx is kinda like those offices you see on TV, the kind he never thought where real, behind closed doors the environment is far from pc! It’s not a normal morning unless somebodies cursing out there computers! This morning he swore Taehyung told Jimin he had a shrimp dick…… There’s “that’s what she said” jokes being thrown out left and right, people cracking jokes on one another. And it’s not that he feels uncomfortable by any means again he’s a 20 y/o kid from LA it’s just ...he’s new...ya know? So he doesn’t know if he’s “allowed” to do that! So in the meantime, he just spends his days laughing until his chest hurts!

But besides that everybody’s chill , he’s still trying to learn people, regardless of how laxed the office is everybody’s busy as all hell especially Namjoon and yourself! The two of you are actually his biggest mystery, he’s never thought of marriage being something that he’d want. He’s always heard that people change, and shit gets boring, but even in a work environment that’s far from the vibe he gets from the two of you! You actually make marriage seem exciting, worth it, like a gift, not a task…..

Something else that he can’t truly wrap his head around is that your his boss, like legitimately his boss! Somebody that looks like you,I mean fuck your not even 30, you sway around the office in your little dresses and designer heels! Always dolled up hell sometimes he questions if he’s the one in some upscale porno! Actually, not just you all of you why the fuck are all of you so effortlessly attractive and put together?! To make it even worse you all know your shit too! Two days ago for example Kook went to Yoongi to ask if there was a certain way he wanted the ending credits to come into frame, and instead of Yoongi responding you did! Using terminology that had him ready to run home and pull out his “Intro to production” text box! Shit don’t make any Goodman sense...even Yoongi sitting in his office looking like he could be in one of the films he’s editing and no, god no why is he thinking this about his higher-ups?! No, no, nope try again Jeon!

However, now that we’re on this topic, there is one person that he can’t quite wrap his head around...I mean yeah he’s nice but he just seems more reserved around Jungkook than everyone else. Which is odd considering he’s the one Kook meet first, he’s actually the one that encouraged him to even submit his resume, to begin with! What makes it even odder is Yoongi and yourself actually told him that Tae was the most outgoing...it’s not that Jungkook nessercally thinks Tae dislikes him it’s just ...I don’t know, I don’t know…I guess he was just...warmer when the two of them met at Starbucks then he is now that they actually work together!

...And I guess that’s why he almost shit himself when his phone rang and the incoming name rang though as….”Taehyung Kim”...he kinda hoped he pocket dialed him and would just hand up! But wait, I guess you can’t really do that from a landline can you?? Fuckkkkkk

“I know technologies come a long way Kook, but phones don’t answer themselves ya know…” Eyes fluttering over to see Yoongi smirking at him, tone blatantly amused as he flipped through a file he had in his hands.It’s like he could sense how nervous he is too “Don’t worry about Tae, he’s more bark than he is bite, he’s literally a puppy dressed in Gucci…” Flicking his chin in the direction of the phone with a reassuring smile.

With a timid nod and shaky fingers Jungkook picks up the call on the final ring “H-hello??”

“Jungkook? Can you come to my office in the next 5 or so minutes?” His tone wasn’t rude by any means but it also wasn’t the most inviting. Eyes fluttering overly timidly in Yoongis direction because he knew Tae was loud enough that the elder could hear and he smiled fondly, nodding in approval. Arms crossed firm against his chest, head cocked to the side, eyes squinting slightly from under his black baseball cap, as if he was now purposely trying to hear the conversation.

“Umm, yeah, yeah of course…” God, why does he sound like he’s still going through puberty right now!? Voice fluttering ina and out of an octave!

“Great!”

Tae just hangs up, no goodbye ...promoting Yoongi to roll his eyes, with an exasperated sigh...Jungkook just sits there for a moment, not too sure what to do!

“You’re free to go, Seok dosen’t need these until Friday and your deifiently far enough along, a little time away from your desk wont hurt! Oh, just save your stuff first though! The systems moving slow as fuck and I’m about ready to break my damn computer so I’ll probably do a system reboot while you’re gone!”

Jungkook nods timidly, swallowing so hard he’s sure Yoongi heard it, fingers scattering to do as Yoongis instructed, he literally feels like he’s going to throw up! Why does Tae make him so nervous? I mean no offense but Tae isn’t even his boss why is he more freaked out of Taehyung than is actual boss!

He hears a heavy sigh fall from behind him, as Yoongi invites himself to take a seat, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder ‘First off, you’re doing fucking great, and I mean that, so step back...and breath...” Squeezing his shoulder slightly, tone calm yet stable enough to ground the younger!

“Second, I’m ordering lunch from that coney up the street, Hyungs treat” He watches Jungkook go to open his mouth in protest and Yoongi just groans, loud and obnoxious, eyes fluttering to the back of his head more times than he can count!

“Don’t even try and give me that “Your not hungry bullshit” Eyes narrowing in the youngers direction challangingly “So let’s try this again, what do you want? And yes Tae can wait I already texted him and told him so you’re fine! Now go to google and pull up Leo’s menu and lets order lu-”

“Yonngggggiiiii!!!’ Whines through the studio, which only promps the man in question to slowly sink into his chair as if he was trying to make himself dissapear! And before Jungkook can even make heads or tails as to what’s happening...a pair of skin-tight leather pants, a florial silk shirt, that was sitting so low it mideswell not even be buttoned, flashy shades and windswept pastel pink hair comes strutting in... Looking like something straight out of Vouge so again he asks why the fuck does everybody look like this!?

Not even botherng to ask if he’s interupted anything, just flinging his arms around the production manager’s neck, propping his chin on top of his head,

“I need like...20 headshots edited...in the next half hour” Jungkook watched Yoongi go completely ridgit a scowl on his face as he tried to pull away but the casting manager only held on tigher “...and before you kill me even though I drunk some of it this Amerciano is for you soooo, I feel like I’ve made it worth or while, please and thank you! ” Smiling so big his eyes dispered into his face it took everything in him not to coo and swoon all at the same damn time!

Jimin fucking Park......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heyyyyyyyy,

That’s all she wrote for now, don’t know the post date yet, I’ve written up wo when they actually go to the mall so it’s like halfway done.....

MASTERLIST FOR THIS AU IS DOWN BELOW, I’M GLAD PEOPLE ARE ENYOING THIS “UNIVERSE”!

7 DEEP

#jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook au #jimin #jimin smut #jimin x reader #jeon jungkook #park jimin #jimin au #bts #bts au #bts smut #yoongi #yoongi au #bts poly #bts poly au #kpop #kpop smut kpop au

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amelia-pinches · 4 years

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TW// SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RAPE

I found some things that I find to be extremely disturbing and wrong today, and I wanted to address them. These posts have content containing rape and sexual assault. I included the posts because I think it’s important to talk about, however, if they are too upsetting or triggering for anyone, let me know. I blocked out the usernames in those posts because I do not want any hate going towards those accounts. Most of those accounts are deactivated or inactive anyways, but there is a chance that the people who contributed to those made new accounts. If that is true, I want to say that I like to believe people change and grow for the better. I do not hate the people who posted this, despite the fact that I am utterly disgusted. I do not know these people. I do not know how old they were, nor do I know what they were going through when they made this. I do not know who they are today. I like to think that they look back on that, and they are disgusted at it. I like to think that they have changed and are a different person now with different beliefs. If you are one of the people, please know this isn’t meant to be a “cancel” post or a hateful post. However, I cannot see that, and pretend that I am not utterly bothered. I cannot pretend how it hurts me, as a sexual assault survivor. I cannot pretend that it doesn’t paint a damaging image of sexual assault and rape. Therefore, I think it is necessary to talk about it and address it to the fandom. The HOA fandom has done wonders for me since I recently joined. I genuinely consider some of mutuals as friends. The people I have met in the HOA fandom have been some of the best people I have ever met in my entire life. I do not think that these posts accurately reflect anything for the HOA fandom, in the past or present. Please note that this post contains very heavy topics and may be extremely triggering for some to read. It is triggering me for me to write about it. The pictures included may not be graphic, but they are upsetting and disgusting.

I was trying to find screencaps of K.T. for a twitter mutual when I came across this account. The account seemed harmless enough; some of the posts I found to be quite amusing, actually. Then, I came across this photo of Rufus holding Patricia by her arms with his hand over her mouth. In the corner of this photo was a “Brazzers” logo. When I first saw this, I froze. I couldn’t believe my eyes. To implicate that would be consensual in any way is awful. Furthermore, it brings up the question on how this person feels about rape and sexual assult. Often times, in porn and in media, there is this perspective of rape that makes it seem like it is just another form of sex. I will not hate on anyone if they have a headcanon that Rufus raped Patricia. If I am being honest, that headcanon helped me cope in a way. Seeing my favorite character being able to heal, and for my own personal headcanon/hoa world, to see her become a strong woman who has healed from her trauma has helped me cope and heal with my own trauma. If you are someone who does not like this canon, I respect that and think that is 100% valid. What I will NOT stand for is the glorification of this headcanon.

I decided to look at the reblogs on the post to see what people were saying. What I found made me sick to my stomach.

“Is there something you need to tell Eddie, Patricia?” To suggest that would be something other than rape and that is something to tease someone about, like it is a dirty secret, like it is an embarrassing hookup story or a crazy night. The response was by an account acting as Patricia, to which it said, “I think I’ll leave that to ‘your uncle’”. This frankly boggles my mind. I do not know how to describe it, if I am being honest. There are so many things wrong with this that I don’t know where to start. I do not know what the perfect sentence would be to explain why this isn’t okay, or how damaging it is. I do not how to concisely describe my thoughts and feelings on this. This sad part is, this wasn’t even the worse thing I read. When someone is raped or sexually assaulted, it makes them feel worthless, dirty, cheap. It changes your life. It affects how you view others and how you go about situations. It affects how you see yourself. It affects your entire life, and some people never truly recover.

For “Patricia” to blow it off like it is nothing, worries me. I am worried because I am afraid people don’t understand how ruinous rape and sexual assault is on a human being. It worries me because I know first hand how it can destroy you, and others see it as nothing or as if it just a variation of sex.

It is common in media to have this portrayal of rape. It is glorified and romanticized. It can be subtle or direct; sometimes it is just a slide remark made by a character or person, or sometimes a rape victim will be shamed or ridiculed for being raped. We take in this perspective as we grow up, and consequently, it shapes the way we view people. It causes us to dehumanize the victim rather than the rapist.

Its why I want to reiterate that I do not hate the people who made this, nor do I see them as bad people. They probably were young and didn’t understand the gravity of this. They, like many of us, were ignorant because of what we are told and what we see. I think many people forget that the support towards victims as been very recent. The Me Too Movement may have started in 2006, but it didn’t become viral until 2016. Before then, survivors coming forward with their stories were very rare and people almost never believed them. A vast majority of people blamed them and/or shamed them for coming forward. It wasn’t really until 2017 with the Me Too Movement that we, as a society and culture, really saw a shift where people were coming out with their own stories, and where they were seen as valid. It is important to note that while today there are many people who are supportive of rape and sexual assault survivors, there is a still a good portion of people who belittle them and try to invalidate them.

With that being said, I will talk about the next post I saw. This post made nauseous. My heart when I saw this because it is clear whoever made this did not truly understand rape. They did not truly understand how serious rape is. They did not understand that rape is not a joke. I think the best way to describe it is ignorance.

In case y’all do not remember, Nick did a season 2 interactive web where they made connections to everyone in relation to their involvement with the mystery and sibuna/secret society. This person changed the relationship of Rufus to Patricia from “Kidnaps” to “Rapes”. The caption was “fixed the connections.”

I know it may be hard to understand because I blocked out the usernames, but I’ll explain what each reply is. “WHAT EVEN?” is a blog acting as Eddie. “...” is a blog acting as Jerome. “..uhhh...” was a blog acting as Patricia. The one asking what the picture is about is a random blog as far as I can tell, probably genuinely asking what is about, but since so much time as passed since this post, it is possible the url changed. The last one is another blog posing as Eddie.

There was another set of replies which was this:

The first comment is supposed to be “Eddie”. The second one was supposed to be victor, or it could have been another url at the time. The last one was supposed be Eddie again.

I don’t know what the first one is. At first, I took it as they all saw it as a joke, and were responding as they would imagine the characters would respond. (NOTE: No character accurately written would respond to this in manner). However, looking at it again, it could have been their way of maybe being uncomfortable or disagreeing with it. Except for the last one posing as Eddie, that one I know they took it as a joke and were making fun of the situation.

As for the second one, I am once again lost for words. The casual use of “rape” scares me for the same reason it worries me. I think it is obvious who made this and commented on this saw rape as a joke and/or saw it as sex. Sex and rape are not the same. The second comment talking how its a small world because “Jerome’s uncle” raped Patrica and how it somehow all leads back to Eddie really angers me. The thing is, if you took the use of rape and replace with “Had sex with” or any variation of that, it would have the same meaning and tone as the original. That is very dangerous. Then the final comment where Eddie is upset at Patricia for not telling him about being raped is just tacky beyond words. It is cheap and ugly.

The overall tone of rape being a joke and the use of the word acting a synonym for sex is poisonous. It disparages what rape really is. It shrinks it down and changes its meaning. I do not blame the people who made this and commented this. Instead, I blame the way rape culture as taken over media and our lives for decades, centuries, generations. I blame the rapists who have power that put that attitude out there. It would be negligent for me to say these people had no responsibility or liability for posting this. However, I feel it would more negligent for me to say this is just them; that these people are the only ones who have made this jokes and who have believed these misconceptions about rape.

There were other posts made by the account that I considered posting, however, I don’t want this to be a callout or an attempt to barbarize. The accounts that made that and commented were people. People with flaws, and people with assets. People who were susceptible and vulnerable to harmful media.

I don’t know who made these posts. I do not know if they ever faced backlash or consequences. I do not know if these people are still even in the HOA community. I didn’t scourge 2011 HOA posts to see if anyone else made posts similar to this, or if anyone called them out on it. I didn’t ask anyone who is was in the fandom at that time if anything happened. I don’t know if they still hold these beliefs. I don’t know if they even remember making these posts. It is why I blacked out their names.

The people contributed to this are both culprit and victims of a much larger issue. On one hand, they were manipulated by media and rape culture. On the other, they help perpetuate it. It is why it needs to be addressed.

I am fairly new to the HOA community. I know that some day my blog will become a lost blog deleted by bots. I know some day people won’t remember a lick of what I posted or who I was. I know this. I know also that behind the screens, we are all just people, with our stories and lives. I know that we all have made mistakes and have said things that weren’t okay because maybe we didn’t know it wasn’t okay or at the time, we were too stupid to care. I know in 5 years none of us will be the same person we are today. I know none of us are the same person we were 5 years ago. We grow and change, sometimes for the worse, but I like to think we eventually change for the better.

These comments and posts made are just small flecks of similar posts made during that time, before that time, and still today. Rape jokes, pedophilia jokes, sexual jokes about a person’s body are all jokes that are made today. And they will be unfortunately made tomorrow. The way we make change is by informing people of what the true nature of these crimes are. We share stories, and support survivors of sexual assault.

I mentioned that I was sexually assaulted. It is very hard for me to talk about, and I try to avoid it. However, today, I was reminded multiple times of how I am still traumatized by what happened to me. Yesterday, I planned on never really speaking out about it except for once in a blue moon. Today, my plans have changed. The truth of the matter is, I have been sexually assaulted many times. Many of those times I didn’t really realize what happened until much later. Even recently, I am now remembering something that happened to me as a child that I blocked for 14 years. Recently, I am now realizing how all of these have affected me and made me who I am today. I don’t think that if the Me Too Movement took off in 2017 that I would have ever realized. I don’t think that if I didn’t see other people sharing their own sexual assault stories that I would ever have the courage to post this.

This is my own personal story and journey. I debated posting this because I still hold the fear that I would be judged or hated for speaking out. However, the things that have happened to me today have caused me to want to overcome that fear. My goal of sharing my own story is that it either helps anyone who is debating sharing theirs or to anyone who may need to hear someone’s story to be educated on rape culture. In the end, I talk about the events that happen to me today leading up to me discovering the posts, and why I felt it was necessary to talk about it. I know for some people it could be triggering or harmful to read this, so I put in italics, if anyone so chooses to skip over it. If you have made it this far and you don’t want to read my story, that is fine. I urge you to however to skip it and read the ending.

When I was 14, I was desperate for friends and well, attention. I never had many friends growing up, and I never was considered attractive. I know it seems so trivial and ridiculous to care about something like beauty. Growing up, I had a lot of body image issues and self esteem issues - its something I still struggle with today. I didn’t have many friends, either. I was either too abrasive and weird, or in some cases, I didn’t have much in common with kids, thus boring or uninteresting. I was the weird kid in elementary school, then the emo kid in middle. My last year of middle school, I really started to want to be seen as a “girl”; I wanted to be seen as “sexy” or “attractive”. I wanted to be seen as someone who was someone you wanted to be around. I felt that before, nobody had seen me as such. I don’t know if that is necessarily true or false. However, that is how I felt.

When I entered high school, for what seemed like the first time in my life, people were paying attention to me. People were complimenting me, and I was making friends. They weren’t all good friends, but, in my mind, they were friends. People who I thought liked me. I was getting hit on, which didn’t happen much before. I became addicted to the feeling of being liked and desired. For the longest time, I blamed and hated myself for that. I beat myself up for years because that strong desire to be desired led me to awful situations. For a while, I saw myself as what others, mainly men, saw me as: an object. I saw myself as a tool for entertainment, and I genuinely thought that I was here for the pleasure of others, not my own.

I didn’t realize at the time that those boys weren’t into me because they liked me. They were into me because I was an easy target. I was an incoming freshman who was extremely insecure. Within the first semester, I was manipulated and tricked into many situations, most of them being sexual. I gained the reputation of being a “slut” or a “whore” by some of the people in my school. I was miserable. However, towards the end of the semester, things were starting to get better, or so I thought.

A boy(I will call him R from now on) who had been a mutual friend of my friends asked me to hang out, I said yes. I honestly wasn’t looking for a relationship or a hookup, but rather, I was looking for a friendship. I had just started dating a guy, and we had been two or so weeks in. That night, he sexually assaulted me. After that, it happened two more times in the days following.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell people the details of what happened or the full story. Partially because I have blocked so much of it out that I don’t remember that much anymore; I remember bits and pieces, but not everything. The other reason being because of what happened when I eventually spoke out.

A week later, I had told my boyfriend at the time. He had accused me of lying, and he told me that I was just saying he that so I wouldn’t have to admit I had cheated on him. After that, everything is a big blur. I remember R would text and call me constantly, demanding that I tell everyone I was lying. He harassed me constantly. I remember that many people who were my friends had turned against me. Almost everyone I had met had told me I was lying. When I went to a guidance counselor, she told me that I should be more careful hanging out with boys alone. There had also been people who had criticized me for not wanting to take it to court. They had told me that if R was guilty, he would be charged. When I told him that a court wouldn’t charge him (something the guidance counselor told me), they used it as proof to me “lying”. There were also people telling me that I was asking for it, and I deserved it.

Eventually, they left me alone, for the most part. There was a group of people who had “supported” me. I started to pretend like it never happened. I quickly got a boyfriend, and acted like everything was fine. I thought that if I pretended like it never happened, everyone else would just forget about it. However, internally, I was seriously struggling. I was extremely suicidal and depressed. I found out months later the group I thought were my friends were actually the ones telling everyone and spreading rumors. Every action I made was used as proof of my supposed guilt. There was only one person who believe me at the end of the year.

Over the summer, I begged my parents to let me be home-schooled, which they didn’t let me. I didn’t go on any social media because when I did, I would see posts about me, talking about how “I lied about being raped”. I felt worthless. When I returned for my sophomore year, I remember I walked into my Algebra 2 class, and one of the main girls who had bullied me was in it. I remember she looked at me and grinned then walked over to a friend of hers and loudly whispered in his ear, “That’s the girl who lied about being raped.”

That year, I did everything I could to try and mend it. I attempted to become friends again with that group, including the girl. I did my best to forget it; however, nobody let me forget. I remember I was on a class trip with the best friend of the main bully and R, and we talked about it, briefly. I remember I was saying answers very vaguely, hoping she would eventually give up,I remember her saying, “Well, I heard it was because you lied about being raped by R.” I don’t remember what I told her after that. I honestly can’t remember what happened after that at all.

I was constantly making friends then losing friends that year. I became defensive; I was constantly attacking anyone who I thought threatened me. I really began to have trust issues, and I ended up assuming the worst of some of the only good people in my life. Everyday, I came to school so anxious and scared. Towards the end of the year, I found a friend group, to which I was friends with for practically the rest of the my high school experience. I was known to be a hothead (which to be fair, I am) because the moment someone would insult me, I would go off on them. I figured that if I couldn’t defend myself then, I would do it now. I also never spoke about my assault again, until recently. I told two people from my high school friend group; over the summer I told one person, and a few months ago, I had told the person to which I had been closest to since sophomore year. I have never told the rest of the group. I was always afraid that they secretly knew and they thought I was lying. I also was afraid that if I told them, and they already didn’t think I was lying, they would.

Truth be told, I don’t know if everyone I knew thought I was lying. I was told everyone did, but that could have just been a way to make me feel powerless. I assume everyone does though .Even people who would have no idea that it happened, I assume they think I am lying about my assault despite the fact there is no way for them to have known. I’m still paranoid.If I see people who were in the same group of friends or who knew the people who hurt me, I become 14 all over again. The trust issues I got from that experience I still struggle with today. Because of my experience, I have self image issues. For the longest time, I assumed that if something happened, I would get blamed. I assumed that everyone was against me. I am working on that, and I have gotten a lot better, but it is still something I struggle with. Speaking out is very hard for me, and I don’t know if I could ever speak out publicly.

The reason why I included about my life beforehand, how insecure I was and how I wanted attention because for the longest time, I blamed myself because of those reasons. I felt like if I hadn’t been like that, none of this would have happened. I blamed myself that because I had sex prior to my assault, it somehow was my fault or that I somehow deserved it. I was a 14 year old girl who was scared, insecure, and lonely. I was manipulated and demonized. The people who hurt me were hurting themselves. I know this, yet I still question my experience and blame myself.

The reason why I wanted to call attention to these posts is because earlier in the day, I had been scrolling through my Facebook. I was trying to find something from my past, and I ended up going through my old feed. Reading posts I made during the time I was assaulted brought back old feelings. I found myself feeling so scared and powerless again.

For some reason, I was compelled to look at the profile of the main girl who told everyone I lied about my assault and saw she came forward with her own assault, and how many people thought she was lying about her assault. I debated reaching out to her; I knew how she felt, but that was also because she made me feel that way.

Two hours later, I came across those posts. I was already shaken up by relieving my trauma, and when I was those posts, I felt numb for a second. I was shocked, hurt, disgusted, and angry. Since HOA came out, I have always gone to it during times of need, even during the time of my assault. Some nights, I would reread fanfiction and look at any tumblr posts I could find. Doing this helped me cope with my life at that point.

When I saw those post, I felt like I had to say something, as a HOA fan and as a sexual assault survivor. The tone and content in those posts makes rape to appear to be the opposite of what it is. They glorified rape. The act as if rape means the same thing as sex.

Awareness of sexual assault and rape victims along with their validation is improving. However, rape culture is still very ingrained in our culture. Many people do not know accurate facts about sexual assault and rape. Many people try to debate what is sexual assault. In order for change to happen, we need to recognize how rape culture has influenced our society and start making the victims and facts a stronger influence.

#house of anubis #hoa

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arctimon · 4 years

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My thoughts on “Hyper-Potamus Pizza-Party-Torium”

Normally I don’t give my thoughts on individual episodes until after the full block has aired, but this is sort of a special case this season with the format change and all. Thus, we’re doing this now. Spoilers for “HPPPT” are following (and no, I’m not typing it out every single time).

Ready?

OK, then.

I thought that the episode was very good. It doesn’t hurt that we have been waiting very patiently for new episodes since February (and even longer because of the pandemic). And given that this is the only full-length episode this season, that makes the details all the more fine. The main premise of the episode is what I assume is going to be the main theme of the season: Go Go, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi going out and joining the workforce, thus leaving Hiro, Baymax, and Fred “alone” on the team. And while I do appreciate the moments with Hiro and the team (and also with Aunt Cass) saying that they’ll always be a family, it sort of falls flat for a few reasons.

One, we know from the screencaps and summaries for future episodes that the team isn’t going anywhere. Heck, “The Dog Craze of Summer” has them all in the Lucky Cat Cafe minding over Granville’s dogs. Honey Lemon works with Krei in “Friendly Face”.

Two, they’re not going to get rid of someone in the first episode. Yes, we know that there’s going to be a lot more Hiro and Fred (and we saw that in this episode), but those three are still there. Why tease the fact that one or all three of them (citing the BraggTech example) are going to leave when you know they’re not going to pull that trigger one episode in?

Is it possible that someone does leave? Absolutely. But it’s not going to be until much later in the season, if not the end of it. You can also tell the tonal shift to this season by the large increase of jokes, humor, and sight gags in the episode. That was to be expected; we were told that by Schooley and McCorkle. That’s not to say there weren’t any serious moments in it. On the contrary, the team and Aunt Cass were highlight of the episode, in my opinion.

The ratio is what worries me. And when you cut the runtime in half, the ratio is going to be even more apparent.

But again, we’re in an unprecedented situation. And the show always seems to have little surprises in the background for us, which is the next thing I want to talk about. Hiro and Fred, in a conversation at the base, have a bunch of people pop up on Basemax’s screen as possible replacement for Go Go, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi. It’s meant to be another one of Fred’s crazy rants and a joke frame, but wouldn’t you know it as to who is the first person on the giant screen in the middle? Karmi. Why not someone else? Why not Megan, the person who actually knows your secret identities? Why not Chief Cruz? The fact that both of them are conspicuously absent from this is something that I’ll bring up later. As many people have theorized and brought up on here, I also suspect that Karmi is in the process of being set up to either join the team or be brought into their inner circle. Remember, beside five seconds at the end of “Legacies”, we haven’t seen Karmi since the end of the first arc of Season 2. There was no reason to put her there. Unless there was.

It’s unlikely we’re going to see her again until “Big Chibi 6″, where she’s get her autograph session hijacked by Hardlight (which is a mystery in and of itself). How is Hiro going to react to seeing her for the first time in months? Is he going to be ticked about her obsession with Captain Cutie, but in a new light this time? And is an offer going to be made for membership into the team in that episode?

Don’t know. We’ll just have to find out. The last thing that I want to point out is one that I’ve softened on since the episode aired, and that is in respect to continuity. Going from the first arc to the second in Season 2 featured next to no continuity between the two. It got a little better here with the graduation and the job search and whatnot, but I’m concerned that things are not going to flow as well with these short episodes coming out. We just got finished with Chief Cruz and Megan; why not show them, even if it was for just a second. And giving an example from before: Karmi. I’m very interested to see how they’re going to bring Karmi back into the fold after all this time. Is Hiro going to bring up SFIT? Sycorax? We still don’t know what happened to the company. Are they going to talk about her parents? Are we going to see her parents? We have all of these questions but not a lot of answers. And maybe that’s the intention. I’m not intentionally trying to be a downer in this writing. Again, I liked the episode a lot. But I still have misgivings about the format change and the flow of the season as a whole. But who knows? Maybe by this time next week my worries will be alleviated. Or maybe I should just take a chill pill, dawg. ...Or whatever you kids say these days. (Also that feel when you said you were going to abbreviate the episode title after the first time and you don’t mention it at all in the rest of the writing.)

#big hero 6 #big hero 6 the series #bh6 #big hero 6 season 3 #hiro hamada #baymax #big hero 6 karmi #karmi #karmiro #honey lemon #go go tomago #wasabi #fredzilla #big hero 6 spoilers

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monotonous-minutia · 3 years

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Don Carlo (Munich, 2011) reactions, pt. 5

y’all this was SO GAYYYYY like I’d heard going into it that this was one of the gayer productions but seriously, words (and screencaps) just can’t do it justice. I died. I died five million times.

I really like the cast for this one. I forgot that Harteros and Pape were in it, so that was a pleasant surprise when I saw them walk in. Pape’s Filippo goes back and forth from being sympathetic to complete dick so frequently I felt like I got whiplash. I feel like I’d have to watch it another time or to to get a better grasp of his portrayal.

I love Harteros’ Elisabetta so much; she’s so sweet and genuine and heartbreaking, starting out with such wistful, youthful energy and just tumbling headfirst into despair. This is my third time seeing her in this role and I love her every time.

This is also my third time seeing Jonas as Carlo, and while he’s very good, this isn’t my favorite performance of his (that would be the Salzburg 2003 one, where he’s a little less mopey and also there’s a little less Floor/Wall action). And, of course, his portrayal is quite gay in all three, a great match for his Rodrigo, which brings us to...

I hear that Boaz Daniel was a somewhat last-minute replacement for Mariusz Kwiecien, and while I’d love to see Kwiecien in this role too I really love Daniel’s portrayal. Obviously because of the gay, but also because he seemed really sweet and genuine and I seriously just wanted to give him a hug. The way he died just destroyed me.

once again I want people to stop criticizing Smirnova’s Eboli because she is seriously not that bad? Idk if I’m biased because she’s also in my favorite production and was the first one I saw (though not the first full one; that would be Grace Bumbry, who is still my favorite Eboli, and possibly always will be). I really don’t think she’s bad, though; she has a lot of expression and interacts really well with the rest of the cast--it’s obvious all the ladies-in-waiting love her, and she seems to have a really sweet friendship with Tebaldo, and it’s clear she and Elisabetta are (were) close, and she and Rodrigo probably were too (did you see how his face lit up when he saw her? They obviously really enjoy each other, at least before all the drama went down).

Halvarson basically is the Inquisitor and honestly I think I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen him in this role, but that’s okay, because he’s always super creepy and a powerful singer.

last but not least, my little T! Laura Tatulescu is such a cute Tebaldo, bursting with energy and running all over the place. Very interested in what all the grown-ups are doing. He obviously wants to be a part of the court one day. Hopefully he either moves on to something better or manages to avoid corruption. He’s so sweet with Elisabetta (who doesn’t really appreciate him) and Eboli (who, fortunately, does). Also all the ladies love having him around and you can see them teasing each other throughout the garden scene. He’s very sad when the Countess is sent away and seems really disturbed by the events of the auto-da-fe, but tries really hard to keep himself together so he can do his job. Poor kid shouldn’t have to deal with all this.

I was kinda annoyed at how dark the stage was; I’m guessing it’s unique to this production, though, because the Hoffmann that happened on the same stage the same year was very well-lit. So it’s not like the WSO where bad lighting is just a thing. On one had, it really lent itself well to the overall spooky, ominous feel of this opera. On the other hand, it would be nice to see what’s going on more of the time. Might also have been the not-so-great video quality, but that actually wasn’t too bad. Lighting aside, the set really intrigued me. It was kind of sparse throughout, which made it versatile, but also kind of emphasized the feeling of loneliness that a lot of the characters had. I like the various uses of the trap door.

I also liked how the costumes were fairly simple most of the time. I’m really bad at being able to tell what period costumes are trying to portray, but this gave me a kind of timeless vibe, as did the vague scenery, which is okay for me because a) it suits the overall ambiguity of the piece, and b) it’s not distracting. Like, we can obviously tell who’s royalty and who’s more low-key, but it’s also clearly not set in the time the original story takes place.

overall I very much enjoyed it, but even if I didn’t, I would be watching it over and over just for the ridiculous amounts of gay.

#Don Carlo #Don Carlos #opera #opera reactions #opera reviews #opera tag

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