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my beautiful beloved blueski @blueflyingturtleontheway has asked for my top 5 zutara moments and Wow was i excited to do this !!!! so without further ado, here are my top 5 zutara moments <3

#zutara #atla #long long post #ask #thanks for the ask!#the streets call me zutara's daughter (it's me im the streets)#they are my parents #they take up so much of my brain #i entered the flow state writing this

McLaren’s mistreatment of Oscar Piastri

So before the 2025 season gets under way let’s discuss one of the most controversial and polarising topics in F1, Oscar Piastri and McLaren.

I have been a McLaren fan for decades and can agree that the two number one drivers have pretty much always been a thing at McLaren. Senna/Prost, Alonso/Hamilton, Hamilton/Button, Sainz/Norris, Norris/Ricciardo (I refuse to put Hakkinen/Coulthard in that list due to Ron Dennis’ obvious bias). So the concept is not new to the team.

What is new is what they are trying to do.

You see in almost every pairing I have listed, there was an elder statesmen of the team, a world champion, a veteran of the sport. The current McLaren has been built on the foundations of two incredibly talented junior drivers they hope to mould into world champions.

In Lando, he is home grown, literally. Nearly a decade on the team in one form or another, served an apprenticeship with them, he is the driver McLaren built.

Oscar is the driver that McLaren bought. And I’m not sure they read all the small print!

Firstly from Oscar’s perspective McLaren was the glass slipper. Alpine was in chaos, McLaren were offering him a spot on the grid and seeing the time, care and attention they had given to develop Lando, for a young driver, could you ask for anything more?

If McLaren were looking for a compliant teammate who would have the McLaren team ethos, maybe the first warning should have been Oscar was deserting the team that paid for his junior categories and he was ousting his countryman at the team to get on to the grid. Oscar or his team would get what they wanted at all costs.

Then we have to look at Oscar’s junior career. F3 and F2 championships back to back, it sounds so impressive. Only 4 men have ever done it. However, if you were Charles LeClerc, George Russell or Gabriel Bortoleto, the field you beat along the way was super impressive. Packed full of successful F1 drivers, Formula E World Champions and regular Indycar drivers. Oscar didn’t really have the same challenges. In fact by the looks of it the only driver you would single out is Liam Lawson. Logan Sargent was his F3 vice champion and he sadly drowned in F1. Oscar was a big fish in a small pond. Honestly he should have won with the talent he was showing, otherwise F1 was a none starter. (Oscar himself admitted Baku 2024 was “the toughest race of his career”, probably the first time he had ever been tested to that level).

By comparison Lando had been a medium fish in an ocean. He had the wins behind him, he had spent his life competing against and beating Mick Schumacher, Callum Ilott, Zhou Ghanyu and he advanced past them, just to be up against George, Alex Albon and Nyck De Vries. However, he held his own in Daytona against Fernando Alonso, so he was well aware of the challenge ahead.

First season for Oscar and I refuse to heap too much criticism on a rookie. His tyre management of was an issue BUT the thing that in hindsight was a problem was his love of a lunge into the first corner. Carlos Sainz put it down to “rookie enthusiasm” in Spa, but sadly that wasn’t the case. This was Oscar’s “thing”.

What amazed me was McLaren said nothing to him. Zak who has once said Lando’s greatest strength was the maturity to know you can loose it all in the first corner, and even if you make a mistake you don’t have to rectify it in the second corner, was letting this go unchecked by Oscar.

So we rock into 2024 and boy was the situation about to get worse for everyone involved.

Earlier in the season I was one of the people who was highlighting Oscar’s new trend to go into the first corner and never give his teammate room. And guess what? His teammate did what the team needed to get both cars to the end of the race, and yielded. However I remember by May/June I was screaming blue murder about this, that Lando’s reputation for messing up the first corner was a byproduct of his teammate, and that if Oscar did that too anyone else, they weren’t going to be as kind to him!

Then there was his little habit of doing a bit of mid quali, mid race rallying. Generally the quickest way round the track was on the grey stuff, but I heard this little quirk, as one Aussie coin it, “Oscar is playing in the rocks again!”.

By the time we got to Hungary my patience with the “babying” of Oscar was near its end. That race tipped my opinion of Oscar and McLaren forever.

My argument has NEVER changed. Again we had a first corner lunge, but then after the pitstop, Oscar dropped 7 seconds behind Lando. And it’s the WHY that angers me. Lando’s pitstop was to undercut Hamilton. He had been asked to push to give the team as much of an advantage as possible. Catching Oscar, Oscar went off track costing him time. Lando pitted and there was still enough time for Oscar to come in, pit, get out, (even if behind Lando) with plenty of time to do an easy swap with both McLarens comfortably down the road.

What ACTUALLY happened, is Oscar came in overshooting his pit slightly (costing time), left the pits and almost immediately went off track again (costing more time). With dirty tyres Lewis was able to catch him up and pressure the hell out of him.

Meanwhile Lando was on plan A, get away from Hamilton and do an easy swap with no risk of losing a place to Lewis. Erm well slight problem, Oscar has made that near impossible now. But all Oscar had to do was catch Lando up. To this day, on fresher tyres, same car and clean air, I don’t know how Oscar couldn’t catch Lando.

Now in the real world of F1. If you are 7 seconds behind the leader and you are there through your own errors, the race is gone. No driver is slowing down 7 seconds for you to catch them up because you were doing really well up to that point! It’s a tough lesson to learn, but it builds character and teaches you to learn from your errors. BUT on that day McLaren chose not to give that lesson. They demanded and bullied Lando to slow down to give Oscar the win.

What exactly did Oscar learn that day? First corner lunges are good? Dont worry, the team will gloss over your mistakes and give you what you want? Whatever Oscar learnt that day it nearly cost them the constructors championship.

As we moved to Monza McLaren should, by their own admissions, have made it clear what they expected. Sadly they all expected Oscar to “know” how they wanted him to behave when they had never once prior called him out on his flawed behaviour. So at turn 3, not even turn 1 this time, he lunged his teammate, nearly sending him out the race, to take the lead.

We know now, courtesy of Drive to Survive, the pitwall were instantly pissed as that had compromised their whole race. On reflection Oscar knew it was the wrong thing to do. Yet had McLaren addressed this behaviour, that had been building all season, earlier, Oscar would “know” what to do. Would see that ensuring you end the race in the best position is worth more than lap 1 glory. McLaren were just letting him develop bad habit after bad habit.

As McLaren gave priority to Lando I genuinely saw one Piastri fan claim this “was not fair to Oscar’s feelings” (can I point out, not a female either). In F1 there is one champion and Lando had earned his right to priority. All those little things, McLaren had never raised with Oscar or glossed over were costing him. If your feelings getting hurt is an important factor in how you perform, maybe F1 is not the right place for you.

Then the chickens came home to roost. In Brazil he crashed into Lawson in a clumsy overtake and gained himself a 10 second penalty and then Abu Dhabi happened. And if you’ve read this far you know why this post was so long. Constructors Championship critical. McLaren’s failing nearly cost them everything.

First corner, he kept his line, as previously Lando had just got out his way. However this time it wasn’t Lando, it was Max, doing to Oscar what Oscar had done to Lando all year, (hell Max had done it to Lando in Austria and Austin), and guess what? Inevitably they hit each other and spun. In a race where it was essential for the team to gain as many points as possible over Ferrari, Oscar had gone from 2nd to last!

Then in his need to make up for the first corner he lunged Colapinto, hit him and got a 10 second penalty. Then to complete his greatest hits collection he lost it completely behind Tsunoda and not so much went to play in the rocks more wiggled towards a wall at high speed.

Had any of those three things resulted in a Ferrari championship, was it totally Oscar at fault? Or the complete unwillingness and seeming inability of McLaren to hold Oscar accountable for his little quirks and habits over the last two years? For McLaren seemingly rewarding errors rather than saying, listen this is the pinnacle, you want the win, you need to work on here, here and here.

Because here is the flip side of this. We hear Lando every season pinpoint exactly where his improvements and gains need to come from. And I can only assume that is being lead in part by McLaren. So WHY does Oscar not appear to either be getting the same treatment OR is choosing not to work on them?

So as we go into a season where we already know the McLaren has rear end instability, which given his traits, not great for Oscar, is McLaren doing Oscar a disservice by NOT being real with him OR is there someone in team Oscar who thinks they know better and is trying to throw their weight around? If it’s the latter, you know what would really help with that? Working on the areas that need it and getting the better quali positions and race results.

Because the long and short of this is, if we have a third season of Lando destroying him in quali and the same mistakes leading to points lost, the question has to be, is McLaren’s approach with Oscar really helping him, or holding him back? Will a day in July 2024 in Budapest be the moment that could have been the failing that fired a champion on, or becomes the point we look back at where it all started to go a bit wrong.

#long long post #longread #oscar piastri #mclaren f1 #zak brown #andrea stella #lando norris #f1 #formula one #formula 1 #f1blr

Weekend Snippets: Spargus is Haunted, Final Showdown pt 2

TW blood, descriptions of injury, implied offscreen death

This is a long one 😂

The spider arrived from the north, delicately stepping over rubble and bodies. She hissed, higher and almost sweeter than any snake, and swayed on her tree-trunk legs.

Damas crouched against the burnt-out hulk that was once Daxter's pub. His son and the Precursor youngling — of all the people for Mar to have become sworn brothers with-! — huddled under his right arm, tight against his side. With his left, he beckoned urgently to the younglings who had stabilized his body long enough for his spirit to reenter it.

"Here! Quickly!" he hissed.

#fic prompts #writing prompts #jak and daxter #dadmas #king damas #jak and damas #Spargus is Haunted #tw blood #tw injury #monster ocs #eldritch horror ocs #Derp Ottsel and Surfer Ottsel are going to have to talk fast once Grandfather shows up #especially when he finds out Ottsel Leader turned Tess into an ottsel to escape her filling him with more holes than Jak 3's plot #she was clobbering him with his own staff with the Wind-Serpent showed up #River-Elk #Mother Weaver #Foothills clan loves their giant terrible spider mom. She likes that they figured out how to use vibrations to talk to her #if Veger is very very lucky he'll die before they get to the river #he probably won't be very very lucky. he's about to join the ranks of the Forgotten Dead #Snake Grandpa finally gets enough room to shapeshift again! and immediately uses it to ensure that he's still taller than Damas #DAMAS NEEDS HUGS DANGIT I PUT HIM THROUGH ENOUGH!#Jak hasn't seen Grandfather in his full form yet. He is Not ready for that he's slightly in shock as it is #just a few epilogues after this wow i can't believe it's this long lol #long post #long long post #the Wind-Serpent's outfit is a bit outlandish because he insists on keeping his feathers as part of the look regardless of the occasion #next moonless night in Spargus is going to be fun

I ended up scrolling the Amazing Digital Circus and Gooseworx tags for a while to get a rough idea, even an inkling of what people are saying about Gooseworx. And I'm going to be real, it seems to me that the criticism about her is being used as a fandom gotcha, at best.

There are posts about her being racist in the past, but no-one's bringing up any screenshots or even implying the sort of stuff she was saying - it's just "she's racist" as a gotcha. There IS discussion about how two of the VAs on the show have said bigoted things in the past, which people have adequately explained - and while those VAs are rightfully being condemned, I've seen people transfer the fault onto Gooseworx because "she should have given everyone full background checks".

To a point, sure - a degree of accountability comes from management. If someone has a known history of being shitty and they get hired anyway, a lot of the blame does fall on the management side of things. If a person does something shitty in the past, and it comes out AFTER they've been hired? And it's some real deep-dive stuff, like pulling old tweets? That's a case where management can reasonably have been in the dark too, so I'm not going to transfer an actor's issues onto the project they worked on - given that they haven't been using their position on a show or a project to be inappropriate y'know.

Then I saw people say that Gooseworx's self-insert is Jax, and that's a red flag because Jax is an abuser and a gaslighter and all that - and this one I can't quite take seriously. The Jax character being prickly and rude and Complicated isn't a 1:1 representation of who Gooseworx is. It's likely a complicated vessel for complicated feelings - liking a character, identifying with a character or WRITING a character who does complicated emotional shit can be an exploration of personal feelings and murky themes, but it doesn't make the worst accusations levelled against that character an abject reflection of who its creator or fans are.

I've seen people strongly implying that because Jax is an abusive character, Gooseworx herself must be abusive too - and that doesn't sound like it's coming from a place of concern or genuine criticism. It sounds like it comes from a place of fan discourse, and it sounds like it's being used extremely flippantly - using a serious topic to further bury a creator who's being attacked because of drama related to their show.

It seems to me that people are attacking Gooseworx because they either don't like the show, or they don't like recent developments of the show - and if the thing is Bad Now, the people making it must ALSO be Bad Now. So now there are people spamming "gooseworx is racist" based on a vague "trust me bro" vibe than any actual, serious discussion or discourse of her bigotry, and by transferring blame over recently unearthed bigoted actions BY OTHER PEOPLE to her. Now people are saying "gooseworx is abusive because her self insert is Jax and that's Spicy and Red Flag Vibes and Jax is an abuser so that Says Something about Gooseworx". And while I think people genuinely mean what they say, I don't think they're actually taking any of this particularly seriously. This is a game to the people engaging in this discourse. This is Something To Do.

And it's something I've seen multiple times in the past few years. When a creator or a show falls from grace - like it stops being popular, it reaches a point of saturation where engaging with it genuinely becomes unbearable, or a single individual person decides they don't like it any more - there has been a movement to cancel it. It's not enough that the thing just isn't very good - it has to be Bad Now. It has to be buried.

There was a musician I follow who befriended a younger guy, and that younger guy was a fan and began to feel like there was an expectation for him to be there whenever the musician wanted him to be there. I don't think it was the musician's intent to use that guy's fandom to exploit him, but this guy was put in a position where he felt very hard done by and he had to cut the friendship off because it was fucking with his emotions.

I have sympathy for the fan. He felt a degree of pressure to always be available that the musician might not have intended, but which was still a very real experience for him. It's a good study of how celebrity status does impact power dynamics in a relationship, even one that's intended by the celebrity to be benign. I also have sympathy for the musician - again, this isn't someone who's selling out arenas, it's someone who tours sometimes and goes to the bar in their hometown. I don't think any wrong was ever intended, and I think both of these people got hurt.

Where things get murky for me is when the younger guy tried to bolster his account by going "he met his wife on AOL when she was seventeen, and I'm a younger guy, so I think this musician has predatory characteristics". And while it's especially bad on paper - the person he's talking about has been married to that musician for over twenty years. They have like three kids. They're a functional family unit over the course of decades, and the musician and his band are relatively scandal-free so I don't think he's out here trying to bed groupies and assault people.

And it's hard, because again - I think this guy has valid grievances based on his experiences with this musician! The material harm that came from that relationship is very real, and I feel sorry that he got caught up in this emotional mindfuck that left him in a bad way. But I felt an acute sense of like. I am going to take this guy down No Matter What. And that soured the intent for me, because it's "this is my experience, ALSO he did this thing so he's a groomer" - when the person he's talking about is his wife who's been happily married to him since the 2000's. It didn't feel right.

A similar thing happened with a youtuber who got cancelled in the early 2020's, where a document was compiled that accused him of intentionally giving multiple women STDs and using his Internet fame to sleep with women. And the thing about this one is that I do believe he was using his minor celebrity status to hook up with women, and even to specifically have unprotected sex with them. It's a skeevy situation.

But the part that fucks me off the most about this situation is the part where people accused him of intentionally passing STDs to multiple people. That's a heinous fucking thing to do, and it's an extremely serious accusation to make.

I believe the women who say he leveraged their fandom of him into initiating sexual encounters with them in ways that made them feel pressured and gross. I saw a few initial accusations go up just as the controversy was beginning to get big. The part that fucks me off is that there were people PRESSURING THEM TO TAKE THEIR ACCUSATIONS DOWN, BECAUSE THEY WERE PUTTING A DOCUMENT TOGETHER THAT WOULD BURY HIM. AND THESE WOMEN DID TAKE THEIR ACCUSATIONS DOWN.

And when the document came out? A few of them were lies! Screenshots were doctored! Shit was edited and taken out of context, and there are people who outright accused this guy of sex crimes he didn't commit!

And BECAUSE THESE LEGITIMATE ACCUSATIONS WERE LUMPED TOGETHER WITH DISPROVABLE LIES, EVERYTHING GOT DISCREDITED - EVEN THE INITIAL ACCUSATIONS. And it bothers me so much because the real, actual accusations of wrongdoing here were impacted by people who were just Saying Shit to take a guy down that they didn't like. Not taking the shit seriously led to real material harm to people I believe did go through a shitty situation - they didn't get justice because people didn't take the gravity of what they were saying seriously.

My point being - the desire for people to Definitely Take Someone Down For Good is this sick behavior that they get in their head where they take their discomfort, their personal dissatisfaction with a person or a thing, and they turn it into a Serious Issue that Has To Be Addressed Now. A show gets bad? Well, the creators are problematic. A creator falls off? They said some irreverent banter about breasts eight years ago and it's tantamount to sexual harassment. In the case of that YouTuber, he DID do some material harm - but because people didn't take that shit seriously and they wanted to dogpile, that harm got swept under the rug.

And I'm seeing it happen now with The Amazing Digital Circus, where because the show's last episode leaked and people are divided on whether it was good or not - well, Gooseworx identifies with an abusive character and she hired bigots to voice characters and she herself is a racist who has to answer for her crimes - despite most of that last point boiling down to people just saying she's a bigot without discussing what she said. Fuck, an element to that last point is that people are peeved that she used a song written by a black person that was a cover sung by a white person, and the detractors didn't even get THAT right - the person singing the cover is an Asian man!

And it just reeks of petty fandom desperation, because they can't be sure that the time investment of their fandom was adequately rewarded - so now we have to Take Gooseworx Down.

Let me be real. I'm open to discussing bigoted statements or sentiments expressed by Gooseworx in the past if people want to bring them up and talk about them. My position on this is that I haven't seen anything - no screenshots, not even a light explanation of what she said - about Gooseworx being a bigot.

I do not think it's fair or appropriate to say that Gooseworx either IS an abuser, or is LIKELY TO be an abuser, based on her preference for the Jax character in her cartoon show.

I do not think a sheer majority of the white-hot vitriol around Gooseworx is justified, nor are the accusations levelled against her being made from a serious place - I do think the accusations come from a GENUINE place, I think people really do believe what they're saying, but I don't think people are actually taking the things that they're accusing her of seriously. I think people are more concerned with pithy gotchas than they are with the very real implications of what they're saying.

I think people are upset because they aren't satisfied with where the show has gone or how it ended, and I think this attitude of "burn it all down" has become an entrenched part of modern fandom. That's where I think the backlash is coming from.

And in saying all of this? I could easily be wrong about all of this. The point of talking about all of this - like really getting into the weeds and examining how this all makes me feel and how it reminds me of other situations - is to get my feelings out, take in other opinions and hopefully arrive at a less ignorant conclusion than I started at. I welcome discussion and discourse. I welcome criticism and new, more relevant information that conflicts with what I'm saying. I'm 100% open to being proven wrong.

But this is how I feel about this. I think people are saying a lot of serious things that they either don't fully grasp the gravity of, or they're using very heavy things as a fandom gotcha. I think people who go "oh well she's problematic so fuck her, I knew all along" are either A) lying or exaggerating to be with the in-group, B) speaking from a place where they've only just recently heard something and are taking it as gospel, or C) potentially truthful that they've known all along - but are only bringing it up now instead of when they first learned about it because it's popular now. And like how fucking cooked would it be to withhold that shit until it became popular to talk about it?

So that's my thoughts on it all.

#messyposting #toxicposting #gooseworx #the amazing digital circus #long post #long LONG post

I Think Solas Was Never Supposed to Succeed in Tearing Down the Veil

This has been sitting in my drafts for like.... weeks. And I'm kinda just chucking it out there because I want to talk about it but I also don't think there will ever be a time where this can be discussed without strong reactions. So, I'm just gonna treat this with half seriousness and be kinda general? I'm down to discuss but I'm not here to deal with the pro/con Veilguard sentiments. I just wanna talk about the game in a mostly analytical way.

I think Solas poses a lot of cool narrative restrictions, contradictions, and irritations. He is a wonderful antagonist – easy to be against what he's doing but also you can, at points, see where he's coming from. Can still think he's smart/dumb/irrational/ect, but still see the logic. Whether its flawed or not.

That said. The endgame for Dragon Age was likely never going to maintain the Veil coming down. Now let me explain before you boo me for being right. For legal reasons this is a joke.

I've seen people talking about how it would be nice to see what Thedas would have looked like with the veil down and lamenting how a lot of things happened off-screen even though in any scenario the destruction of Thedas would have still largely been off screen.

But I always just think about how the narrative was pretty heavy handed in how it has always been characterized as a bad thing, a sort of fail state at best. Wiping out all life on the continent at worse.

Which leads me to the conclusion:

Solas was likely never supposed to succeed in tearing down the veil and it was never depicted as a good thing if he succeeded.

Now I'm going to stick some stuff under the cut, because spoilers for datv, but we get at least a sliver of what they were looking at in terms of scope prior to the switch to multiplayer, and even what they were thinking of on the heels of Trespasser before datv became Joplin.

To clarify the general timeline for datv you have: Prior to official project start (roughly 2014-2015) -> Joplin (2015-2017) -> Morrison (2017-2021) -> Morrison Single-player (Veilguard) (2021-2024)

I also, and I cannot stress this enough, concept art is not cut content. None of what is shown should be considered cut content. They were exploring possibilities and most of these came in very early in pre-production. They were not carried past pre-production for many reasons we don't know and might not ever fully understand.

Anyways, I'mma start with something I think is missed by a lot of people:

#datv spoilers #da4 spoilers #concept art #da meta #solas critical #putting that there just to be safe #long post #long long post #Also to be a little salty in the tags...#I know people really like the Sandal 'prophecy' but I cannot express how much I disliked that joke-y bit since I replayed dai prior to datv #At one point I enjoyed it lol Not denying that. But once I really dug into lore and how magic worked...#I couldn't see a world that adhered to what they built that worked and made sense. I also just don't like how that bit is played off #If its your jam its fine! Some people make the puzzle work. I just like being as written canon-compliant as I can be cause #I like the restriction due to the challenge it gives. The devs do follow a rule of cool though so they probably could have made it work IF #IF that was the goal they wanted/had the support to carry out the way they felt was fulfilling.#I also am just... not a big Sandal fan. But that's a whole other post.

ok i'm actually breaking down every song on the jax playlist (spotify) (lastfm - works with most music services incl. youtube). paragraphs and paragraphs of talking about jax below the cut. this is longer than some fics so buckle up. and have fun

narcolepsy - ben folds five

this one is a bit obvious imo. sleep being used as a metaphor for withdrawing, for retreating back into that shell where you're not happy, but you can't hurt. while i was dreaming in streams / flowing between the shores / of joy and sadness / i'm drowning / save me / wake me up. very much into his repression of feelings.

2. borstal - steel pole bath tub

in general, i feel like noise rock and the numb vibe i get from it really captures the dullness of existing as a repressed person. i throw my bottle down the tracks / it splits in half exactly / [incomprehensible] / the trees bend down around me and / i take the subway back downtown / collect the papers we drew on / address the envelope to mom. the kind of numb vibe while something miraculous and borderline impossible and totally unimportant happens straight into surreality and artful language straight back into reality, making a major decision... spbt is really good at doing a lot of storytelling with specifics that are extremely vague. if that makes sense.

3. freedom of choice - devo

small side note: this playlist used to be about 2/3s devo so that's why the live version off of somewhere with devo is chosen here. because it has a different sound that's still really good. anyway back to analysis. freedom of choice is a sarcastic song mocking the idea of freedom of choice. two ships in a collision on the open sea / nobody ever said life was free / sink, swim, go down with the ship / but use your freedom of choice. more to the point is the end of the song, though. freedom of choice / it's what you got / freedom from choice / it's what you want. i wonder if there're any characters that prefer to stay somewhere where they can convince themselves that none of their decisions matter, somewhere where they have freedom from choice... btw i had this on here before ep 7.

4. bottled up - devo

gee, how come your mother lets you have two devo songs on the jax playlist? you ain't seen nuthin' yet. anyway bottled up is about denying that you have any problems, claiming you're just stressed or something. and it's also about being bottled up.

5. faggot - mindless self indulgence

because he's a okay okay i'll have actual character analysis. depression and repression come with this constant nagging reminder of having missed potential. i could've been someone / 'stead of falling flat upon my ass. also he's a faggot

6. the collector - nine inch nails

a song about building up feelings and forcing them all deep down inside, acting like they don't exist? and it's about dick suckin? i'm tryin' to fit it all inside / i'm tryin' to open my mouth wide / i'm tryin' not to choke inside / i am a good boy / and i will swallow it all

7. out of sync - devo

she's out of sync she's a half step behind / she's out of step her body split from her mind / she's out of orbit / she'll never connect / she'll run out of time / before she accepts / she's out of sync. works extremely well because as i see it? she transitions or she dies and currently the latter is winning

8. forward to death - dead kennedys

shouldn't the plural be kennedies? anyway yeah he's suicidal. i can't take another day / it's such a bore / gets me really sore. it's such a bore... yeah. i imagine the circus can get boring inside. how many years has he been in that thing? also generally that hardcore punk attitude i think really fits jax. he's a bully and anti-everything which is extremely punk.

9. cy/cb - polysics

oh hey it's our first instrumental song. polysics is noise rock, but more so synthrock. which lends a saccharine feeling to this song, in addition to the numbness of the noise. perfect for jax.

10. fountain of filth - devo

but then i stopped and took my time for pleasure / i was alone / i looked around / i heard a voice so i buckled up for safety. so. this song is about uhh. i tried to run / i couldn't move / frozen stiff while the thoughts of men attacked me / out of my head / the fountain shot / and drowned me in a serum that i couldn't put a stop to / it was me / myself and i / locked in a struggle with the talking head below me. MASTURBATION ITS ABOUT MASTURBATION JACKIN OFF. but it's also about being driven by forces outside of your control, forces that in the end are not only powerful and far-reaching, but also appealing. he's just a victim of filth

11. huboon stomp - gerald casale

not technically a devo song, but this is a devo song. you can look up the history of the band formerly known as jihad jerry and the evildoers evildoers on wikipedia if you want to know why. this one's about being mad at society for making you what you are, for making you a horrible person that you hate. well lookee here i been hurt / gonna hurt you. and especially for the sadistic tone of it all. it's almost unbridled joy in hurting others. that's jax baby

12. rabbit season - machine girl

well it's called rabbit season. laugh track, i'm committed to the bit / encore, yeah, i'll take another hit / rabbit holes and smoking carrot sticks. the rabbit motif and the comic motif? not only that, but escapism in substance abuse and gambling? feel like shit, but not tonight / cause i'm young and said fuck this life. this is also fairly noisy breakcore; so again with that numbness stuff.

13. shrivel-up - devo

well first of all there's a decent chance he doesn't make it so. it's one of these with a very sadistic vibe to it; you can hear mark almost trying to hold back the laugh as he tells you that you'll grow old and die.

14. private life - oingo boingo

this is my private life / i've got no friends to fear. again about withdrawing; avoiding everything for no pain and no pleasure. it's better this way because it doesn't hurt. i've got no problems, no cross to bear / if you can find me / come and get me out of here

15. modern life - devo

you had a different idea, but now you're just out of luck / you hunt a bargain just to save a buck / now you're still on the job and it looks like you're stuck. ok it's tough for me to justify this one outside of vibes and "i like this song". but the vibes are good. an empty life that's not what you expected it to be? man...

16. entrapment - consumer softproducts

another instrumental. ok minor cruelty squad spoilers: this song plays after you kill the avatar of death, thus condemning everyone on earth to an empty, endless existence. can you believe i had this song on here before episode seven???? this song fits the show so well tbh

17. errant dog - ben folds

levity time! this one's here because i'm in love with that stupid rabbit and also because it's like that one fic i have linked in my pinned. that stupid bitch is mine

18. dmso - dead kennedys

another one like shrivel up; this one's on here for its very sadistic vibes and reveling in chaos.

19. 37 - devo

that's gotta be the shortest title+band name on here. i think in many ways he envies the other members of the circus for not being able to see what he sees. he's envious of what he perceives as their lesser intelligence that enables them to be happier in the circus. he's envious of them not constantly working to fit into their archetypes...

20. cigaro - system of a down

alright i admit it i threw this one on here just for some variety back when it was 2/3s devo. but again this projection of machismo and ego is vital to jax's character so i was right yet again.

21. sib (swelling itching brain) - devo

this one is very intentionally sandwiched between to songs that are dripping with machismo. it's about slowly being driven insane by something inside your head.

22. i need a chick - gerald casale

as i said this one's about projecting machismo. also i need him to suck

23. my sharona - polysics

this one is probably one of the worst offenders of "i like it so it fits". but it's really good. and once again the polysics slightly paradoxical combo of numbness + high energy strikes again. and the roboticized voices i think do also fit that idea of him projecting an identity.

24. stealing people's mail

this one's about being a chaos agent. just reveling in fucking up other people's lives and being hated by society. again why i feel like this is very much a jax song.

25. pity you - devo

but there's some big fat point / that you seem to be missing / and it's driving you to destruction. he's gonna die or transition. or ig if you don't buy into that reading then he's gonna die or accept himself as he is and stop feeling the need to project a false identity. looks directly at camera

26. ignore the vore - machine girl

once again i had this on here before episode seven. smug grin. he's being eaten alive by something he refuses to acknowledge plain and simple.

27. psycho killer - talking heads

i added this after watching the video. it's all about going insane, and believing that you're about to hit a breaking point and everyone around you will notice, and stop to help you. but it's not that obvious, is it?

28. soul cannon - steel pole bath tub

i'm going so damn fast now / and you're so slowed down. look at him, he's happy, he's fine, he's ahead of everybody else, going so damn fast, fitting into his archetype so damn well! he's fine! you're just moving too damn slow!

29. i'm a worker - polysics

sooner or later, the day will coming / i will go to heaven and work as before / day by day, day by day my life is like this way / i'm a worker and it's not too bad! again, i read (that's read, not read. current tense) that he hated his life prior to the circus. and maybe he thought of the circus as a way to escape the drudgery. and it was, in a way. but in too many ways everything he hated is still here. he's in heaven, and he works as before.

30. back in flesh - wall of voodoo

wall of voodoo has a very tense vibe to their music. like cake if the singer had anxiety instead of depression and the vocals were changed to match. which i think fits the constant stress of holding up the identity that jax is under. and also back in flesh is about going to work and not wanting to.

31. candy gun - melt-banana

another noise rock band. we can start with just the title here: candy (something sweet, childish, happy) gun (something violent, dangerous). the dichotomy there matches jax's character to a tee. i can keep myself sane / because i've got my candy gun

32. whip it - devo

a deeply sarcastic song of idiotic blind positivity where positive motivation is represented by violence typically known for its punitive nature? c'mon. c'mon now son. c'mon. try to detect it / it's not too late / to whip it / whip it good. < that was all taken from an earlier post but. tldr transgember

33. the hand that feeds - nine inch nails

can you get up off your knees / are you brave enough to see / do you wanna change it? he's not willing to fight back that repression, because he doesn't have to deal with the pain. why should he bite the hand that feeds him comforting numbness?

34. strange pursuit - devo

why do i like this mangy shithead so damn much?

35. let's go - devo

now i don't personally agree with this theory that he killed someone. but once again: i had this before episode 7. a saccharine song about keeping it up and violence toward women? that could even be interpreted as internal? hoo boy

36. the good times - steel pole bath tub

an ironic, very numb noise rock cover of the cars' let the good times roll. well, partial cover. just this very ironic, barely intelligible "let the good times roll" through so many layers of fuzz and noise? more of this constant self-denial.

37. good times - wall of voodoo

ey see what i did there? you know she's gone now / are these not the good times / good times, good times / leaving them pretty soon / when i'm over the pain of missing you. i interpret this not as a former lover, but his mother. i think he had a complex relationship with his mother. but i knew it would hurt you / if you knew you were hurting me. she hurt him, but she wasn't intentionally abusive. and he couldn't just stand up and tell her that. he runs away from his problems, or he hides. that's a key aspect of his character.

38. growing pains - devo

simply a problem of biology / it's a choice you never make. obvious trans allegory is obvious, but what's interesting here is i think the way this is about being ruled by his emotions. which jax is, despite his believing otherwise. he's very much a fear-motivated character; he's all about avoiding pain at any cost to himself. it's a problem of biology, of fear chemicals, not a choice he makes. (well, it is his choices. that makes it that much worse! fun!)

39. space girl blues - devo

the empty vibe off the hardcore devo compilations also fits repression, i think. i haven't mentioned this on any of the easier ones though. this one's pretty vibes-based, though. sado-maso is the rule / you want them, they don't want you.

40. wheel of fortune - consumer softproducts

again, it's an instrumental. i could go on about the "vibes" but that doesn't sound very rigorous to me. just know that this plays in a casino and. i hear that progesterone makes you better at gambling.

41. sloppy (i saw my baby gettin') - devo

i did lean towards songs with sexual implications in this. and this one is also pretty vibes based. three in a row here is a bit rough i'll admit. but the next one makes up for it. a song about empty commercialism and being bad at sex. i do headcanon him as being bad at sex thanks to being totally unwilling to be vulnerable and being very emotionally unavailable. although those are kinda the same thing. i think he'd also buy into empty commercialism, to an extent. for elaboration on this point read marx's capital

42. best imitation of myself - ben folds

and if my mind's somewhere else / you won't be able to tell / i do the best imitation of myself / yes it's uncanny to see / you'd really think it was me / the best imitation of myself. do i even need to say it. this bitch is fake as fuck

43. time out for fun - devo

please rise for the dissociation national anthem. something's funny at your expense again / don't you lose it now listen to us / everything's gonna be alright / take a break, take some time / don't you lose it, remember to take / time out for fun / time out for fun. this is the song that plays when he does the thing. y'know. with his eyeballs. especially with the simplistic and cheery synths and melody? oh yeah

44. social fools - devo

this one's another ironic song. about society... he's not where he wanted to be in life, and his mind won't go where he wants to take it. he's got a ride, but he's not gonna make it...

45. what - polysics

what is my favorite polysics song. the title being "what" recontextualizes "what makes me complicated / what makes me destructive". like it's something, you have a name for it, but if you tell someone that "what" makes you destructive, they'll shrug and answer "i dunno". you know? he's identified it, and it is what. what is it, it is what. what has cursed me. what is my favorite polysics song. and the ending is "what makes me say so what". eugh

46. you know what you are? - nine inch nails

you better take a good look 'cause i'm full of shit / with every bit of my heart i have tried to believe in it / you can dress it all up, you can try to pretend / but you can't change anything / you can't change anything, in the end. very much repression. to me, deeply transgender repression.

47. a plan for u - devo

keep it up / like a pup / your battery will go before you know what's up. once again. transgender. and he's gonna abstract before he realizes.

48. two minutes til lunch - wall of voodoo

it's about waiting for a break from your job that you hate, but. remember the books i bought ya, but ya / never really read them / you just don't remember much inside anymore. he's numb. he's not doing anything outside of that job. depression song number five billion

49. what i must do - devo

so much of jax's behavior is dictated by pain avoidance and by internalization of social structures of transphobia. why do you / think that a man / jumps out of / the frying pan / into the fire / when he can / find a way not to get burned? he's driven by his emotions so much more than his rational thoughts.

50. buzzbomb - dead kennedys

a song about being empty inside and alone in an empty society, so you take joy in the shallow pleasures of your car. which you drive extremely fast and dangerously. and it ends in a car crash. now imagine this next sentence in the most insufferably smug voice you can muster. and yes, i did add it before episode seven. ok that was pretty smug good job. although once again i don't think he actually did anything in particular in the real world.

51. the distance - cake

it's about striving for something that doesn't matter. about policing yourself for things that no one can know. about being totally committed to an eventual failure. about emptiness...

52. disorder - polysics

basically this one's like swelling itching brain. fine i'll do real analysis. again, noise rock + synths vibe. this song is about going insane. feeling senseless. if he ain't doing just that

53. explosions - devo

this one's about orgasms which is why it's here. but also it's about lying to yourself and everyone around you that there's nothing to be found. there's nothing but the ebb and flow / there's nothing but the stop and go / there's nothing like some in and out / there's nothing more than what you know. and yeah that is supposed to be in and out like sex. not burger californians get away i don't have any water for you

54. what i need - this one. is mostly on here for the noise rock vibe. i like it a lot though

55. red eye - devo

this is a song about caffeine addiction and staying awake. i think that's some of the exact type of stress that jax has struggled with #projection

56. get got - death grips

exmilitary isn't on spotify except the version uploaded by someone other than death grips. so this is the only death grips song on here. it's a lot like rabbit season; revelry as an escape. losin' myself, get the stares / what i'm lookin' at, wasn't there

57. gates of steel - devo

half a goon and half a god / a man's not made of steel. gates of steel is a bit of a pep talk song. a man's not made of steel. or a woman wink wink nudge nudge she said knowingly nudge nudge wink ITS TRASGEDGER AGAIN

58. deep sleep - devo

narcolepsy callback. 100% intentional trust. this one focuses more on the comforting aspects of sleep (which is still a metaphor for withdrawing). also. again this one was added before episode 7 and the song makes several mentions of clowns. grins

59. every day is exactly the same - nine inch nails

gee what do you think it's like in the circus. i sure wonder. i can't remember how this got started / but i know exactly how it will end. this bitch gonna die

60. gut feeling (slap your mammy) - devo

this one is one of my favorite songs so it goes here. furthermore, um. ok it actually does represent what i read jax's relationship to his parents as. kinda i mean it's obviously jilted about a lover but you take what you can get. centered round long time ago / on your ability to torment / you took your tongs of love / and stripped away my garment / i looked for silver linings / but you're rotten to the core / i've had just about all i can take / you know i can't take it no more. and also the ending is funi

61. each life each end - polysics

the lyrics here are half ripped from the day my baby gave me a surprize, but this is half in here for the title. because this is where the abstraction arc starts. it was kind of inevitable, wasn't it?

62. live forever - devo

denial denial denial. he's fine he's managing himself perfectly. he's young and strong. he's gonna live forever.

63. they don't want me - wall of voodoo

now i'm all alone / no one left to help chip the stone / and this awful weed begins to grow / because they don't want me

64. a growing boy needs his lunch - dead kennedys

nibbling like an earwig winding through your brain / bound like lawrence harvey spread-eagle to a bed / migraine gets worse when you find out we lay eggs / and no one in all of borneo / can hear you scream

65. turn around - devo

a little posthumous, i suppose. this was the first ending song, originally. and then i added more. take a step outside yourself / then you turn around / take a look at who you are / it's pretty scary. think of all the people you hurt, to end up like this. take a good look / you're no big deal / and you're so petty / it's a laugh.

66. regrets - ben folds

the last one. a nice bookend with narcolepsy. thinking back to all the things he never did, all those things that he now regrets. so many things that he's built up guilt and shame for. it's all gone now, isn't it?

'cause i still believe in miracles, i swear i've seen a few / and the time will surely come when you see my point of view / i believe in second chances / and that's why i believe in you

67. pollyanna (i believe in you) - catherine warwick

ah, i never was a pessimist. you can call me pollyanna but. i believe she will make it through.

and no i did not realize that there were exactly 67 songs before just now. well. it's a good thing there aren't. 19. 19. what's 9 plus 10? 19. at least there aren't that many

woo boy. the later you get, the less comprehensible it gets i think. 🔌 anyway this is half quotations but it's more (4k words? what the fuck. i guess it's not edited or a comprehensible narrative) words than my fic which you should read IFF you are an adult. 🔌

#tadc #tadc jax #fem jax #transfem jax #character analysis #long post #egg jax #trans jax #long long post #writing #i guess #deposts #diseased-effort

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Weekend Snippets: Spargus is Haunted, Final Showdown pt 2

TW blood, descriptions of injury, implied offscreen death

This is a long one 😂

The spider arrived from the north, delicately stepping over rubble and bodies. She hissed, higher and almost sweeter than any snake, and swayed on her tree-trunk legs.

"Here! Quickly!" he hissed.

#long long post

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