#shameless rant

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

i always get pissed off when people are like “season 4 is the best ian season! he’s so hot!” because i’ve seen so many people say that and like… the best? did we watch the same show?

he was extremely traumatized, homeless at one point, working at a club (at 17), doing drugs and getting roofied at the club (and acting like getting roofied was normal for him- which it probably was), was basically prostituting himself, had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and also “i didn’t like starving myself to fit into that gold thong”.

it’s so weird how romanticized that era is because to me all i see is just a victimized literal CHILD who was failed by every adult in his life. that man mickey beat up in 4x07 was going to rape ian, and again, when ian woke up he was totally normal about it. barely anyone even cared when ian ran away and i wish they did because he was in so much danger, and i get people think that him being skinny and in tight clothes is hot but again- he’s a CHILD and a victim.

[ravnervn]

I'm gonna be frank: right now, if you're talking about Non-Japanese/Original English Language Visual Novels and still treating them as overwhelmingly irony-poisoned and acting like good and sincere ones are rare, you're being fucking ghoulish. It's pretty evident from most reporting that visual novels were the genre of videogames most affected by recent waves of censorship, especially on Itch.

I think it's really gross, actually, to see a reasonably popular EVN recommended on a Tumblr post with "this is an OELVN that isn't irony poisoned" today. You know there's more than 5 OELVNs, right folks?? You know that more EVNs than Date Everything have been released in the past two months, right? Lots more, in fact??

When I pointed this out on a Tumblr post, people acted like I was the one who didn't get it because they're calling out xenophobia rampant amongst VN fans who don't play JVNs and like. Okay. We clearly move in very different visual novel communities, because in my experience as a hardcore weeb, it's more common to find VN fans who only play JVNs and treat OELVNs as shit on their shoe than the opposite. Like yeah these folks are being xenophobic, but in the weird orientalist way.

Is it a Tumblr thing?? Is it because you're posting on Tumblr dot com where the main draw for most gamers here is "can I be gay in it?" that all you're seeing is people who only play Youtuber Industrial Complex VNs because yeah, that WOULD lead to some difference in approaches. In fact, most of the big popular Western romance games account for people wanting a queer Hot Singles In Your Area "dating" approach over a slowburn narrative with romance as a crucial part, that's why they feel like that! Likewise, JVNs aren't inherently superior, you guys just aren't playing the reams of moege slop being churned out because people have already curated peak and you just have to go find it! Also because the reams of moege slop aren't being translated, whereas every amateur OELVN is right there for you to sniff at.

Am I bitter and mad? Yes! Blatantly! I've been banging the drum for people to try indie EVNs for years, as someone who adores visual novels as a medium (devotedly watches Amelie Doree, gifts people Hatoful Boyfriend and FataMoru at every opportunity, yearns with every fiber of my being for an official overseas Kusarihime release, played Togainu no Chi as a wayward teen through illicit means, etc.) , and even fell into the "nooo this isn't one of those ironic dating sims that tarnishes the genre, it's good" trap for years, seeing people still repeat that talking point when those same games I've been trying to hype are now being fucking torched by censorship laws IS making me feel bitter!!

[gallavich-gunk]

List of time fiona cries in Shameless(US):

Season 1 episode 8 "its time to kill the turtle" fiona is forced to work at a sports bar where she is objectified

Season 1 episode 9 "but at last came a knock" fiona is confronted with the first return of Monica and makes the point she was left to mother her children when she needed a mother herself

Season 2 episode 4 "a beautiful mess" goes to toilet after Craig heissener and wife come to the Gallaghers, not fully clear why she cries maybe as she's sad she let Debbie down with her party or she feels bad about sleeping with a married man

Season 2 episode 10 "a great cause"

She was relying on Monica to help with the family while she got her GED and started doing things for herself but realising after Monica crashed a car and stole the squirrel fund this wasn't going to work

Season 2 episode 12 "fiona interrupted" the fallout of Monica trying to kill herself

Season 3 episode 5 "the sins of my caretaker" Jimmy and fiona got into a fight because Jimmy got so upset his dad was gay and kept complaining while fiona had to dig up a body and then Jimmy left

Season 3 episode 6 "cascading failures"

The kids have been taken by dcfs

Season 3 episode 12 "survival of the fittest" Steve has left her and she just had to tell Frank he was dying because of alcohol and needs to keep himself alive for his kids

Season 4 episode 5 "there's the rub"

Fiona was just arrested after Liam got into her coke

Season 4 episode 6 "iron city"

Fiona is checked in at prison and again when on phone to lip about how Liam was harmed in the overdose

Season 4 episode 8 "hope springs paternal" everyone has left fiona alone in the house as she pissed everyone off especially lip who blames her for what happened to liam

Season 4 episode 9 "legend of bonnie and carl" fiona struggles to get a job and after being rejected by the cuppers goes and blames that dickhead brother guy

Season 4 episode 10 "Liver I hardly know her" fiona got stuck in sheboiagain and feels bad for fucking things up

Season 5 episode 6 "crazy love" had a long run of no tears but then Jimmy Steve returns and she cheats on husband gus with him

Season 6 episode 3 "the F word" fiona cries several times due to hormones but also dealing with a lot of family drama, dealing with the fallout of her marriage and navigating shawn having come off the wagon

Season 6 episode 9 "a yurt of ones own" after Shawn's son finds Carl's gun and he potentially loses custody he blames it on fiona and they temporarily break up

Season 6 episode 12 "familia supra gallegorious omnia!" Frank reveals shawn is still using heroine at fiona and Shawn's wedding and then shawn walks out on her

Season 7 episode 8 "you sold me the laundromat, remember?" Fiona has a hysterical breakdown whilst trying to fix the laundromat and everything going wrong at once

Season 7 episode 11 "happily ever after" fiona has to put etta in assisted living (honestly RIP Etta so was such a great character)

Season 7 episode 12 "requiem for a slut" She tears up a bit at Monica's funeral

Season 8 episode 6/7 "face it youre gorgeous"/"going down like the titanic" probably one of fionas biggest breakdowns of the whole series, she doesn't have lunch money, basically ford's a dickhead she looses all her money, her car and her apartment building and misses Ian going into prison

Then she leaves in the next few episodes and probably cries then too? If she does I missed it lol

Also please appreciate this data I gathered for no reason other than I wanted to✨️

[bubblegumbarbie33]

I feel like there's something sexist about the way Shameless doesn't write any of their lead male characters as being rapists because they might be shameless morally grey men but that's a step too far and yet they write half of their most compelling female characters as rapists and then either forget it or make it their one defining character trait and I just- I can't figure it out but it FEELS sexist y'know????

[cutedumpsterfire]

tell me i’m smart

tell me i’m impressive

say that other kids could never do this

take me away from the normal and put me in a class with the exceptional

what’d you call me again?

gifted?

i like the sound of that

it makes me sound… better

call me exceptional

look at my straight a’s and smile big

you’d expect nothing less from someone who’s gifted like me

the other kids call me smart

i am smart, aren’t i?

how else would i get here?

call me amazing

say that i’ve always been like this

say that i was just born this way

the medals, the plaques, the awards

sum it up as just being intelligent

don’t you see how hard i work for this?

what happened to the praise?

call me smart

when did you stop smiling at my report cards?

they used to make you so proud, but now you’re used to it

the awards pile up in the corners of my room

i still work as hard as ever, but you don’t notice it

what do i have to do to make you smile like that again?

call me gifted

it used to set me apart as amazing, but now it feels like a curse

i still sit on my ledge

away from all of the other children

she’s stuck up, they whisper

she wouldn’t talk to kids like us

she hasn’t had to work for anything in her life

she was just born like that

call me something, please

where is your encouragement when i need it the most?

i’ve hit a plateau

i need more… more

i’m not satisfied with myself

i still crave your compliments

but i don’t believe them if you say it like that

i try something new

and im good at it!

but you don’t look at me with that sparkle in your eye

so i give up

you say that i used to be so smart

you ask me where that little girl went

you are blind to the fact that you killed her

that little girl that was showed to a world of adults on a pedestal

that girl that didn’t connect to kids her age because they weren’t as *smart* as her

when the grown ups stopped gushing over me i had no one to play with

and now i have no one at all

no parents or teachers calling me exceptional

there were no children that crashed with me

the rest of the gifted kids made it

why was i the only one that didn’t

i cant talk to the gifted kids anymore

now i’m just what i was taught to look down upon

why would you ever call me gifted?

-an ode to pedestal children

[hotchnersome]

I like to think that S12 was supposed to focus on Hotch from psychological point of view. What do I have to back that up:

-for the first time ever Jack outwardly displayed his doubts about his father’s job. If the kid grows out of believing his dad to be a picture perfect superhero (and Hotch said himself that it would happen soon) that could mean he’s also ready to really get to know his father. If Hotch wanted to keep that close of a bond with a teenager, he would have had to come out about his PTSD, prove to his son that he is only human and that it’s okay. 

-Mr. Scratch. How. on. Earth. Did that man. Not lose it? Every other victim ended up with a shattered mind after their encounter with Lewis. How could the team not question his sanity after this? How could they trust him with a gun? We know that the whole Mr. Scratch arc got messed up since Hotch was no longer present in the show, but we still had S11, when he was just fine? Imagine knowing very well that your boss is comparmentalizing every bad thing that happens to him, how can you not question his position, where he’s coming from with his decisions? I really wished poeple would come at him like Morgan did in S5, because Hotch wasn’t dealing with his past, he just kept pushing himself and people allowed him to do that. It was leading to an eventual breakdown.

-the government questioning his morals in S11 finale. Finally! That was such an important and raw plot point for Hotch. What does this scene let us know: 1) people in higher ranks question Hotch as the Unit Chief, 2) he started dismissing procedures after loosing his ex-wife, 3) he covered up the fact that he had a dissociative episode in his psychological evaluation (does he not know that he’s risking other people’s lives with that behaviour? really dumb of him). And he gets called out on his BS! Look at him in these scenes, he’s uncomfortable, he’s nervous. He doesn’t like people digging in his mind or through his past (ofc), I count that as foreshadowing, I like to think this is where they were going with his story.

-I don’t know how else the writers would have executed the Prison Reid story. This man has Vatican on his speed dial, don’t tell me he wouldn’t go even greater lenghts to get Reid out of there. The only option I can really see: Hotch has a psychotic break and is dismissed from his Unit Chief position. Or maybe  him getting arrested, accused of crime and questioned makes the news and weakens his contacts. Either way, he would be no longer safe from not being profiled or simply judged by everyone. Imagine people viewing his stoic persona as his weakness, finally seeing it as a cover-up for a broken person he’s become...

All the way to his last episode I had that final shot from S10E21 (’’Mr. Scratch’’) stuck in my head. That close up. Gibson is a great actor, we didn’t need to get this close to Hotch to know there was fear in his eyes. That close up tells us: there will be insight to his character. And Hotch already knows in this very scene: he is going to be picked apart by people around him, and if he doesn’t let them in, he’s going to lose them. 

[emmyrussum]

Mickey's transition makes me sad. In the early seasons he was in control because he had to be. He could run a scam or an operation and knew how to survive. He had serious, heavy shit he was dealing with. In the later seasons they made him incompetent and immature for cheap comedy. It felt like a betrayal of the character.

[yeah-all-of-it]

I can’t figure out for the life of me why they decided to introduce a brand new character with only one episode left. I am unable to care at all about Heidi because I already know that there is no time to become invested in her story, nor will she be around long enough to form any sort of (believable) meaningful connection with Debbie.

Why did they invest the larger part of two seasons on Sandy and Debbie, just to have Sandy leave with less than a handful of episodes left? They even exchanged mutual I love you’s only a few episodes ago and began progressing the seriousness of their relationship, just for it to fall apart after Sandy’s secret life choices triggered Debbie’s abandonment issues. Why did they mess it up when Debs and Sandy could have so easily and effortlessly been end game?

It also feels as though they are painting Heidi with the “early season 1 Mickey Milkovich” brush, without allowing the time (you know, like ten years) to examine the complexity and nuance of her character.

I’m not sure where Debbie and Heidi’s journey is going to take them in one episode that will convince us that Debbie has found someone solid to spend the rest of her life with, or to at least live with for the foreseeable future so she’s not living alone. That’s the whole point, right? Debbie doesn’t want to live alone? And Frank tells her that she will have to find someone more messed up than herself if she wants someone to stay, so she gets with someone who literally holds her (and her daughter!) at gunpoint to evade police? I’m just having trouble grasping the thought process behind this plot choice.

Someone make it make sense.