Brooke (she/her)

Profile picture art by Janitorbot.

[brooklynstrangler]

Hello! My name is Brooke (she/her) and I will be posting discourse this evening.

A few facts about me:

I'm 21 years old and in college for film.

I'm a creative writer as a hobby, not a career.

I live in New England.

This is like, my eighth Tumblr blog.

I consider myself in the fandoms of the following:

Five Nights at Freddy's

Doctor Who

Arrested Development

Seinfeld

Minecraft

Persona 5

Deltarune

Celeste

Cave Story

And, I'm sorry to say, Breaking Bad.

I may post about things such as:

Any of the above fandoms, especially the first two.

Random jokes or bits from my life.

Facts about my Five Nights at Freddy's AU I'm constructing.

Various ships from the aforementioned fandoms.

General thoughts about creative writing.

The worst fucking song you've ever heard.

I consider this blog to be 18+ and would prefer minors do not follow. Talk to me about anything, I'm a very friendly person.

[brooklynstrangler]

If I were adapting Persona 5 into a medium which would require giving Ren Amamiya a personality, I would definitely have to show what Ren's life was like before the inciting incident.

For a blank slate protag, it absolutely works to not go into that backstory because you're meant to imagine it's your own life that you are being taken away from. But if we're not making Ren a blank slate, then the tragedy comes from his life that he's being taken away from. And in order for that tragedy to land, we'd need to see it.

Personally, I'd interpret Ren's social stats in more of a reputational way. What he does at the beginning of the game already requires kindness and bravery. I prefer to interpret that he's fairly extroverted, intelligent, charismatic, kind, brave, and crafty, but being forced to move and having your reputation tank immediately would definitely make Ren less outgoing and less willing to show off those qualities of himself. He's not becoming more kind or more intelligent, he's becoming more willing to show off the qualities he already has. Because Ren's arc, if he can be said to have one in the game, is about rejecting the idea (represented by Sojiro early on) that he should just shut up, mind his business, and not stand up for injustice. Also he and Akechi make out crazy style

[brooklynstrangler]

This does prompt the question "What flaws would he have?" because of course I wouldn't want him to be a flawless character, but it's hard to avoid when I'm already making him a suave angelic courageous practical genius.

But here are my best attempts:

He's reckless. This is explicitly stated in the opening in the casino, he takes every opportunity to show off and his desire to fuck around and find out, while it can be a source for good, can also get him hurt

He's super competitive. Every time he loses at something as harmless as darts, he wishes he could just go back in time and retry the whole day, nudge nudge wink wink.

He's irresponsible with money. He buys a ton of pointless shit off of Shady Commodities and he "gambles with laundry," which none of his friends know what he means by.

He can't tell a story quickly to save his life. Even with maxed out charm, every story he tells is really long winded, charm only makes it so people are REALLY invested in his terribly structured story.

He overcommits himself to too many things and ends up not seeing as much of his friends as he'd like to.

His lack of respect for authority goes a bit too far sometimes, mostly out of spite. His spirit of rebellion also extends to like, crossing the street just to the side of the crosswalk because the crosswalk doesn't have authority over him.

I think these are all reasonable flaws that a debonair, erudite, lionhearted, angelic, transcendent character can have, especially if he's fleshed out with witty dialogue and personal preferences and two-sided relationships. Also he and Akechi make out crazy style

[brooklynstrangler]

a principle I firmly stand by is that how much you post about something does not correlate whatsoever to how important you think that thing is necessarily, even political stuff. i see people who post about the ways men suffer under patriarchy get flack for not posting about women's issues which are usually far more severe, framed as "Why are you spending so much of your energy talking about x issue when y issue is so much bigger? you must think x issue is the bigger problem" and it's like, no? maybe they just know more about that, maybe they have more to say about that - hell, even if that topic simply interested them more, that would be a fine enough reason. There are Minecraft SMP podcasts so clearly not everyone needs to be doing the most important thing at all times with their platform

[brooklynstrangler]

How do I tell the Tumblr algorithm that just because I am a trans woman, it means I want to look at naked or half-naked trans women all the time? Honestly transphobic of them to conflate those two things - "surely this trans woman also partakes in sexualizing her own existence, don't they all do that?"

[brooklynstrangler]

Pre-transition me always had it in his head that even though he was overweight and ugly, if he were to transform into a woman he'd magically become skinny and conventionally attractive. I blame all the Bowsette fanart I looked at

[bayanin]

The Paper S01

[brooklynstrangler]

That "0" is the most hopeful thing I've ever seen

[brooklynstrangler]

I have never seen any of the Purge films but please tell me that there is at least one set during a time of year other than purge day and it's about some menial problem caused by the outstandingly low crime rate, like a bored police precinct or something.

[brooklynstrangler]

Pro-tip: you don't need to add a clarification like "I think" or "in my opinion" when your sentence already uses opinion words.

Opinion words, as I learned in second grade, are things like "good," "bad," "better," "best," etc.

If I say "Michelangelo is the best Ninja Turtle," you can tell that it's an opinion by the use of the word "best." If you can't tell that, and you for some reason try to interpret it as me asserting a statement of fact, then that is on you.

[brooklynstrangler]

I just started watching a show with a massive Tumblr fandom and I will not be posting about the show as to not attract posts about it to my feed before I've finished it. I also started wearing this foul blouse

[brooklynstrangler]

Jim and Pam finally get together after 53 episodes (3 years worth of television)

Ned and Mare finally get together after 10 episodes (3 years worth of television)

[brooklynstrangler]

Esmerelda Grand from The Paper is trans, by the way

In episode 2, she says she has balls.

Her presence at the Pride Month pitch meeting is not questioned, whereas Mare's is, even though she's definitely straight.

She performs femininity way harder than any of the other women in the office.

[brooklynstrangler]

The Office (US) famously started out bleak and gloomy, both in the writing and the lighting and set design, and then in the first couple of seasons it got slowly brighter and more exciting. But that was always because of forces outside the show. There wasn't meant to be a reason, in the story, why it was happening.

The Paper takes the same shift, from gloom and doom to shining optimism, and makes it the point of the story. It's the point of Ned's character, it's his motivation. It's a core theme.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[brooklynstrangler]

The Paper finally proves we're at the point where the title of the next episode popping up at the end of each episode is now an intended experience which can include deliberate jokes

You can't tell me you weren't meant to go "oh no" when Ned was staring at Mare through the window at the end of episode 6 after their fight, and episode 7 "I love you" popped up in the corner.

[fillingthescrapbook]

Let's Talk About: The Paper

I like the show. And I think more people should give it a chance. Even though it's already been renewed for a second season. It's just…

I think this show could grow into something really special.

It's not perfect. It's not always great. Especially with the decision to drop all the episodes at once, it becomes easier to pick up the inconsistencies and the dissonance in how different writers are writing for the characters. But the charm is there. And charm is enough for this first ten episodes to, hopefully, hook a lot of viewers.

What I really like about The Paper is the fact that the villains they chose are low-stakes. They don't really have the power to ruin the lives of our protagonists. At least not in a permanent way. They're the perfect level of nuisance that can help characters (even themselves) develop into more complex creatures. And while most of the characters start as inept at the jobs they're choosing to do (not the jobs they actually have because they're decent there), they don't stay inept. Because the writers knows that there's more to them that just their ineptitude.

With that said, I do wish they'd figure out what to do with The Truth Teller's managing editor Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore). Because from what I've seen online: a lot of people think she's too much or just plain don't like her. And I understand where they're coming from. Because Esmeralda IS too much. But she's also the first character we've seen complexities from, and it would be a waste if the powers that be decide to either (a) tone her down, or (b) get rid of the character completely.

Esmeralda works because she is over the top. But if there's no plan for where her character will go, she will become one note and annoying. She needs to be the Dina Fox (Superstore) or Ava Coleman (Abbott Elementary) of The Paper. She needs growth. Even in very small increments. She just cannot remain static.

I like that the romance between Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mare Pritti (Chelsea Frei) didn't feel strong-armed because of their chemistry. And I like that most of the ensemble are also given their own storylines. The only one who I felt got short-changed was Adelola Olofin (Gbemisola Ikumelo). But hopefully that gets rectified in the next season.

And I hope The Paper becomes successful enough that it gets to do as many episodes as they would like.

[brooklynstrangler]

So much of this post reads like it was written by Ned

[brooklynstrangler]

I will never be normal about Mare insisting that Ned share a single root beer float with her and he picked up on none of the signals.

We need more root-beer-float-oriented sexual tension in TV.

[brooklynstrangler]

I was worried that The Paper would give us Jim and Pam 2.0, but it gave us Ben and Leslie 2.0 and that's a pleasant surprise.