So I’ve been planning a series of posts analyzing our three resident Dark Sides by doing some character studies, comparing arcs, and analyzing the concept of “The Dark Sides” as a whole and how it works within the show.
As it stands I currently have four posts in mind:
Virgil vs Janus (Why one arc feels earned and the other feels like they did a character development speed run)
“Because I was One of Them” (Why Virgil’s confession isn’t as shocking as one would think and it isn’t because people already figured it out years before the confession finally came out)
Are the “Dark Sides” Necessary? (Or alternatively, could Sanders Sides could work without Janus or Remus? Details at 11)
What Did They Do to Virgil? (Because he’s already taken over most of the actual series so why shouldn’t he get most of the spotlight here too? Also the other two just don’t have enough for me to work with so...)
While this list could change these are the main topics I want to cover and ones I’ve already started writing. I do have other things with these three that I’d want to cover as well, I’m going to wait and see if they can fit into these posts before I decide to make them separate.
I’m really excited to delve into this since one of the main factors that caught my interest in this series was the introduction of “Dark Sides” and how it is now the thing that frustrates me the most about this series today.
And since it’s now been made public that Remus will be featured in this next Asides, why not give all the “Dark Sides” some tough love?
The first post is currently being written and will be posted soon! Let’s see how much of this series I can get out before the Asides is released, place your bets now.
So as I'm going about revamping my blog a tiny bit, I decided to compile a list of other media that I'm up for discussing outside of Sanders Sides.
Obviously that'll still be my main thing because it's like, all I can really focus on tbh. But here are a few more things I'd be willing to discuss on this blog!
Movies:
Marvel (specifically the MCU and while I love the films I've got plenty of gripes as well)
Disney films in general (there's so much that falls into this category so just assume any big franchise along with all their animated films)
Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit (this consumed my life before Sanders Sides, which means I have also criticized it harshly, I have a personal grudge against the Hobbit movies, and I love it)
The Maze Runner (books and movies, this was a secondary interest of mine and honestly, I still love it)
Shows (honestly i don't watch a lot of TV so this list is pretty short)
Steven Universe (Admittedly, I've never watched the show. But I basically know everything one needs to know about it so I'm willing to talk about it here)
Avatar: The Last Airbender (I can't believe my parents never let me watch this growing up this show is a masterpiece)
Over the Garden Wall (I just wanna gush about it)
Video Games (told you that list would be short)
Little Nightmares (theories, so many theories)
Undertale (my only experience with this game is watching youtubers play it and me playing it myself, along with some pretty cool fan animations of fight scenes)
Bendy and the Ink Machine (my first dive into horror games)
What Remain of Edith Finch (this might be one of my all time favorite games. It's beautiful and honestly I could play it over and over again)
Final category, musicals!
Honestly I guess you could put any "popular" musical here. However the ones I like to critique and analyze the most are-
The Greatest Showman (I love your music but as a movie? Ehhh...)
Dear Evan Hansen (this musical is fascinating to me in a very odd way)
Be More Chill (I have a love/hate relationship with this one)
Seeds (this technically isn't a full musical yet but from what I've seen and heard of it so far its quickly becoming a favorite of mine)
And that concludes the list, for now. More might be added on in the future and there could be some I missed.
Of course y'all are welcome to suggest new media to me! I'm always on the lookout for new content!
So I’ve been doing a bit of thinking lately (dangerous I know) since the last Asides and I’ve come to this conclusion: I miss enjoying this series.
(This gets long and is just a mess of feelings and thoughts so sorry in advance)
I miss analyzing videos and the characters, I miss looking at theories and coming up with my own, I miss getting excited for future episodes. I really wanted to stop enjoying it and move on to something else, but then this flipping video dropped and I just loved it.
This is the first time I’ve just genuinely loved and enjoyed an episode since Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts, the one where I stayed up until almost 2 or 3 in the morning to watch even though I had work the next day.
The videos that followed just didn’t really do it for me, and the whole concept of Asides didn’t help either since it’s purpose seemed to have been lost with the first episode. Heck, I hesitated to call this last one an Asides just because it feels like it should have been a main episode.
That combined with the waits (especially after Putting Others First) also killed a lot of my engagement with the series. I’ve said before that POF felt like it was set up to lead directly to the finale, only for Asides to be crammed in and forcing us to wait longer for the conclusion to that episode, and season two as a whole.
I’ve said countless times how Asides has messed with the flow of the original series, with the complete tonal whiplash that was Flirting With Social Anxiety being the follow up to POF, and how the introduction of Nico completely undid everything that happened (at least to Roman) at the end of POF by having things suddenly be happy and good between him and Thomas.
I’ve said that certain moments (like seeing Virgil having to face Thomas again after his confession) were ruined by the Asides as well since we don’t get to see them happen in the main series and tend to be, well, brushed aside.
And you know, to an extent, I still see Asides as completely unnecessary and it feels like it was thrown in at the last second because they forgot they wanted to add a love interest to the plot so had to find some way to do it without disrupting the flow of the main series but ended up doing so anyway and so far all these Asides could just be regular episodes because they were apparently necessary to have before the season finale despite Asides being a relatively new concept so why would we have to have them before the season finale unless you were planning to go this route the whole time so why bother making a “separate” series in the first place when you were just going to be telling the same story anyway???
Sorry for the run on sentence but it felt like the best way to describe my confusion.
But to summarize, the last episode clearly shows that things are being set up for the finale. Everyone is reaching their breaking point and clearly, everything is not as fine and dandy as I initially thought the series was implying. And it’s here that I get to the actual reason of this little post.
The thing is, I’ve been jumping to conclusions about the series and making judgments about it as if I have the complete picture when, that’s not even remotely true.
Like this episode clearly showed that things are being put into place, and there is more thought to the story and characters going on than I initially gave them credit for. Sure, there are things I still don’t like, but I’m starting to come to the realization that I just need to wait and see where things go before jumping to judge something I don’t even have yet.
And part of that is because I do want things to get better. Like take Virgil for instance. I hate how he’s been written lately because it feels like all his negative actions just get excused and the show never addresses how harmful some of the things he says and the solutions to dealing with him (I’m glaring at you Embarrassing Phases) aren’t actually good or healthy at all and maybe I’ll elaborate on that later.
But my point is that I need to see these things be resolved and for them to get better. It feels like all these characters flipping hate each other right now and it’s exhausting to see them like this. I just want them to work things out and start on the road to getting better because my gosh I just want them to feel like a family again.
And I understand that story-wise it makes sense as to why they’re all so prickly with each other but y’all, Virgil’s been mad at Patton for who-knows-what for awhile now and we still don’t have a conclusion to that and again, I think the waits are a problem when it comes to this series because things get left unresolved for months, or even years, only for an episode to finally drop and the issue is never even brought up because those characters are completely absent.
And that’s why the Asides bug me so much because they initially promised something (less angsty content that we’d get more frequently between the heavier longer episodes) that we never ended up getting and it gets treated like a joke.
Like I understand that so far the main thing that separates Asides from Sanders Sides is that they tend to be filmed in a different format, but is that really enough to count it as a separate series when it’s existence is deemed necessary for the series you’ve already been working on for awhile now?
I dunno, I loved this episode, I genuinely did and I’ve loved seeing people pick it apart and analyze it because there’s so much to unpack with it. And just from a technical standpoint, my inner film lover was geeking out at the use of camera angles, lighting, music, all of it.
And since I loved it so much it started to make me wonder if I’ve been being too harsh on the series, and even Thomas and the team in general. Most of my thoughts have come through assumptions made, and my own personal feelings, towards Thomas and the team, and I’ve realized that yeah, I have been harsh. And honestly, a bit unfair.
I’m not saying I don’t still have my own personal issues with them all, but a lot of the things I’ve said have just been, well, assumptions. Especially in regards to how much care and planning actually goes into this series. With all the details put into this last episode, how could they not have been planning things out?
Now part of me is hesitant to let my guard down in regards to how this series will go due to a number of things. One of them being that this could probably be the last episode that Joan had any input in, and personal feelings towards them aside you couldn’t deny that they had so much passion and love for the series. And it makes me wonder if future videos will be better, worse, or even the same without them.
Another thing is, again, the waits for videos. I still don’t understand why Thomas’s content in general takes so long to make, especially the unscripted videos which are fairly simple in terms of their content, so why do they take months to come out? And with everything they’ve talked about wanting to do or are planning to do, it makes me wonder if anything will ever get done due to them not seeming to be able to find a way to make their videos faster.
Like I don’t know if it’s an issue with finding people to work on videos, or them continuing to make things more difficult than they need to be, or maybe them just not working as much as they say, or a combination of multiple things. But again, I don’t know if any of that is the case.
All we have is Thomas’s word and the end product when it does finally come out. And yeah, this last video was really good in terms of the production, but there are still some things about it that make me feel iffy about certain aspects of the series that could come in the future, but this post is already getting longer than I intended for it to be so I’m just gonna wrap things up here.
On one hand, I don’t want to get my hopes up all the way due to one video that exceeded my expectations (which I had zero expectations to begin with) when the rest of the series could end up going downhill. On the other hand, I want to let myself try and enjoy the series again and find things to love about it instead of constantly focusing on the negatives.
Negatives that, technically, aren’t even real negatives to begin with.
So what does this mean for my blog? Well like I said, I still have some issues with the series and other things that I’m not gonna push aside (I use that word a lot don’t I?) just because of one video. However, I’m going to try and stop making harsh conclusions about the series before I’ve gotten the whole picture.
And of course, my blog is still open to anyone that has their gripes with the series because that’s what it’s for. Even if we don’t agree I like to get other perspectives from people and a lot of y’all really do bring up some good points. And the last thing I’m gonna do is turn around and start saying that y’all are wrong for feeling a certain way about the series.
This is all personal here. How I’ve been thinking and feeling in regards to what I’ve been personally saying. And you know what? This could all completely change by the time the next episode finally comes out because who knows what could happen between now and then?
When you’re presented with a new perspective or new information, sometimes you’re just bound to change your own and that’s just the way it goes.
I’m probably going to start delving into the fandom and series again. Maybe write a fic or two or just some simple analysis. I do have one passion project of mine that’s been in the works for awhile and I’m finally getting closer to making it a real thing so I’m excited about that.
But I also really wanna start branching out into other media as well. Talk about movies or shows that I like, dislike, or have some kind of connection to. Whatever it is, I just wanna start having fun again, in whatever form that takes.
So, yeah. That’s the long and short of it.
I am gonna make an actual post talking about the video because oh boy there’s a lot to unpack with that one. But this has been pressing on my mind quite a bit since the episode and I just needed to get my thoughts out. If y’all stuck around to this point I’m sorry for the emotional spiel, and I’m also sorry if anything I’ve ever said has made anyone feel bad or ashamed for liking the series because really, there’s a lot to love about it and I don’t want people to think they shouldn’t like it just because of what some random person thinks.
I mean heck, I love movies and shows that are considered “bad” by most and who cares? As long as it’s not my family hating on the things I love than I don’t care.
*laughs in family issues*
Alright, gonna atually close this out now so... see y’all and hope y’all are going okay.
Getting that triggers list finished up for the new video. I'll be making two versions of it, one with just the time stamps and what triggers are being shown, and another that will include small descriptions of the scenes as well.
Hey y'all, I'm gonna be absent for about a week as I'm headed out of town. Gonna take a break from here as well to give myself some rest but you're still more than welcome to send in asks and I'll answer them when I get back. Take care y'all!
Sorry for my absence. Work has been killing all of my energy lately and on top of that I've started to get a little sick. Nothing serious though but I've been making sure to rest up and I think it'll be over and done with soon.
I will get back to answering asks and hopefully write up some more essays, thank you all for your patience in the meantime.
Then again I don't know if anyone has been waiting for anything from me...
As stated above, this is the post where I welcome you to my blog and explain how it all works. Formerly, this was meant to be an “Unpopular Opinions” blog, and while it technically still is I wanted to broaden my horizons a bit. While unpopular opinions will most likely still be a thing I wanted to also provide some other content as well, things others can enjoy that aren’t always negative because, lately, I think there’s been too much of that going around. However! It is important to have a venting space (in my own humble opinion) which is why I will still be accepting any unpopular opinions sent via asks. The only difference is that I won’t really reply to them unless they cover a topic I want to address, which I will then save for an actual full length post instead of a short and not very well thought out response.
With that being said, to help keep things more organized I have come up with a little tagging system for my future posts (this system does not apply to old posts) these tags are as follows:
#dukeofannouncements (Important announcements)
#dukeofasks (The tag for all asks)
#dukeoftheories (Theory and analysis posts)
#dukeofcritical (Critical posts critiquing things in a mature manner)
#dukeofrants (Critical posts critiquing things in an immature manner, these posts will most likely be deleted later unless I’m too lazy to go back and do so)
#dukeofreblogs (Used for reblogging my own posts that others may have added onto or reblogs of other critical posts that I agree with or want to discuss)
#dukeoframbles (Just little musings from my mind, usually more lighthearted while still relating to blog content or just my daily life)
#dukeofwritings (for any creative writing I might happen to post onto here)
And if there is ever anything you specifically need tagged on a post feel free to let me know and I'll include it. And if I ever do a series of posts I'll create a specific tag just for that.
And that is the gist of it! I hope you enjoy your time on my blog and I hope I can actually start producing some quality content.
