overanalyzing media is my therapy

I'll keep this short and list out what I'm gonna post in this blog:

catra's "redemption" and what's wrong with it

concerns surrounding catradora

racist and ableist undertones in the show

bad writing and inconsistencies within the show

wasted potential of the show

memes about any of the above topics

reasons why c//a is abusive and romanticized by the narrative:

part 1

part 2

proof that catra and adora are adoptive sisters:

this is a safe place for queer people, disabled and neurodivergent people, poc and abuse victims. if you're a catra apologist or someone who thinks c//a is healthy, this is your cue to ignore this blog (unless you are willing to change your mind, in which case, congrats. you have more braincells than 90% of the fandom).

that's it for now!

so a lot of people have already noticed certain similarities with Backrooms and Obsession already. in particular, both movies have a toxic male lead who refuses to take accountability for his actions and instead projects his issues onto others. there are themes of denial, loneliness and getting stuck in toxic cycles instead of breaking out of them and doing better.

if you just look at the summaries of both movies, you would assume that Backrooms handled these themes way better since it's a movie about a never-ending liminal space and that's the sort of setting that lends itself to great metaphors.

but it didn't. Obsession handled all these way better and it's because of one thing: sublety.

Obsession did not need to explain every little thing to its audience. barely anyone in the movie calls Bear out on his shitty behavior, but the subtext and framing is enough to tell us that he's definitely the antagonist.

not only that, but we see his fatal flaws way before he makes the wish. when he practices confessing to Nikki, he only mentions how she's helped him. this shows that he doesn't really understand or care about Nikki, only what she can provide for him.

we see how he accidentally caused the death of his cat by leaving out opened pill bottles. we see how he doesn't bother to give Sandy a proper burial or even throw away the body, but instead just dumps it in a garbage bag, and goes on with his life.

and we see this even later down the line, when Bear goes out to meet Sarah even though he's seen how jealous and dangerous wish!Nikki can be, and he knows he's putting Sarah in danger.

all of this indicates that Bear is an irresponsible and highly unreliable person. it shows how little love or respect he has for other people. and as the movie progresses, we see more and more of this destructive behavior affect the people around him.

now let's get to Clark. what do we know about him? he's an alcoholic who used to take his frustrations out on his wife until she finally kicked him out. he's a failed furniture shop owner and he's lonely and disappointed.

how do we know all this? because his therapist lists out all these things at the beginning of the movie. she just straight up tells the audience what they need to know about the main character. this is not good writing.

and then, throughout the movie, we don't see his destructive behavior as much as we hear about it. we're told that he refuses to take responsibility for his mistakes but do we see it? barely. we're told that he's using the backrooms as an escapism from his miserable life. but how much do we actually see of his life?

Clark just straight up says that he doesn't want to change. instead of showing his refusal to change and his tendency to get stuck in the same cycles, they just tell it to us.

let's look at some other characters. Nikki and Mary, the secondary protagonists. we only see a glimpse of the real Nikki but it's enough to give us an idea of who she is. she's friendly and likeable. she gives money to the poor. she's a creative who has big ambitions. she has very specific ideas on what love is.

and most of this is conveyed through action, and not dialogue. sure, her dreams of being a writer and her views on love is dialogue but since so much else is action, it doesn't feel quite as unnatural.

and then, with wish!Nikki, we see even more. wish!Nikki is unnatural and alien, she doesn't understand what's socially acceptable. she is filled with this overwhelming love for Bear and she doesn't know why. she starts having nightmares after Bear SAs her. she can see Bear's interest in her slowly fading and she's helpless to do anything about it. she associates her genitals with violence because that's what Bear has done to her.

again, all of this is masterfully shown through action and subtext. wish!Nikki doesn't turn to the audience and say "i'm not really Nikki. i love Bear and i'm gonna feed him his cat because i don't know that humans don't eat their own pets".

but with Mary, we know very little about her. we see glimpses of her childhood in flashbacks and dream sequences. but there's not enough depth to it that would make us relate to her or connect with her. and we don't see the impact of her childhood trauma.

again, we're told that she wants to help people because her mother was institutionalized. we're told that she has decided to stop trying to help Clark because he's an asshole. there's a scene where she uses a piece of construction from her childhood home to kill Pirate Clark, but it doesn't mean anything because her backstory is so vague and not impactful enough.

and i'm saying this as someone who should relate to a character like Mary. i've had similar experiences, i've felt the need to help people and resolve their problems because of my own unpleasant experiences. Mary should be a relatable character to me, but she's not. she's just such a bland character.

Backrooms is the most tell, don't show movie i've ever seen. this movie does not trust its audience to understand deeper themes. it feels the need to spoonfeed every little theme and metaphor to its viewers.

and like i said in my initial review of this movie, it's so funny that the fans of this movie act like it's some profound masterpiece. i've seen a lot of "if you don't like Backrooms, you're too stupid to understand its psychological themes" even a complete moron would understand the themes of this movie because it's quite literally spelled out for us.

i've also seen a lot of "you just don't appreciate slow paced horror, you want jumpscares and cheap shock value" and i'll just speak for myself but this isn't true either. i love slow paced horror. i love it when horror movies are unsettling and slowly creeps up on you, rather than just counting how many times it can make you jump.

but Backrooms being slow paced is not enough to classify it as a good movie. there are plenty of other slow paced horror movies that do a much better job of telling a good story while still unnerving the audience.

no, not the original show but whatever new iterations they're putting out recently. apparently there's a show about the new Avatar coming out in Paramount (?) and everyone is super excited about it, but i just.. don't feel anything.

and you know i love ATLA. i am constantly bringing it up here as an example of good writing and i've mentioned Zuko's redemption arc at least a hundred times by now.

but idk if it's certain decisions they made in TLOK that retroactively ruined the original series, or the new movie that apparently erased all the characters' ethnic features and gave them same face syndrome, but i just don't feel excited to watch more of this universe anymore.

i feel like they dropped the ball right after the original series. TLOK had some good stuff in it but it also had a lot of shitty writing decisions and didn't really delve too deep into any of the characters other than Korra herself.

Kaufmo goes crazy trying to find the exit. and then he abstracts. it felt like a huge conspiracy, like there was something off about his situation. like there was someone trying to silence him.

to me, this seemed like maybe Caine was directly inflicting the abstractions upon members. maybe there was an exit and Caine was causing these people to abstract whenever they got dangerously close to finding out the exit.

but then it turns out, no. Kaufmo was just actually crazy. there's no exit and the abstraction is just indicative of an unstable mind, period.

idk it just feels like such a cop out. i wasn't entirely against a story where they couldn't escape and had to stay in the circus. but this was the laziest way to do it.

there was no indication that this was even possible, it felt like such a deus ex machina. the only possible canonical explanation is that since Caine was gone now, going into an abstracted person's mind was suddenly possible. but if that were the explanation, it wasn't very clear.

and if that wasn't the explanation and really they could have always gone into the minds of abstracted members and talk to them, that's just a gut punch to all the other abstracted characters. no one other than Pomni thought to do this??

TADC constantly feels like Gooseworx pulling new rules out of her ass, like an elementary school girl playing with dolls. anything goes in TADC as long as it all revolves around Jax.

that's a very good question!

i'm not an expert in this by any means, i did major in psychology but i haven't specialized in it, so take what i say with a grain of salt.

all abuse is toxic but not all kinds of toxic behavior are abuse. in my view, the one thing that sets apart these two things — power imbalance.

toxicity can happen from anyone to anyone. it doesn't necessarily require a person to hold power over the other person. but with abuse, there's usually a power imbalance of some sort that makes a person more vulnerable to getting abused. it could be age, it could be social standing, physical strength, privilege, or simply a difference in personalities.

i think one example i'd like to bring up here is Zuko and Iroh. i remember seeing some people say that Zuko was abusive to Iroh in the first two seasons, but this is where i bring up this distinction between abuse and toxicity.

Zuko was toxic to Iroh. he called Iroh names and insulted him, he lashed out at Iroh a lot, and he betrayed Iroh at a crucial moment.

but the reason his behavior cannot be counted as abuse is simply because he held no power over Iroh. and Iroh knew that. Zuko was not stronger than Iroh, he was not older or more privileged. Iroh was always in control here. sure, he felt hurt by Zuko's actions sometimes, but he was capable of standing his ground when he needed to. and he has.

children can be abusive to parents, especially towards the elderly. this is not an impossible phenomenon. but in this case specifically, Zuko's behavior could better be described as toxic rather than abusive.

compare that to Zuko's relationship with Azula and Ozai. both these people had some level of control over him. Ozai obviously dictated Zuko's life in a major way. he scarred and traumatized Zuko for life and yet, Zuko still wanted his father's validation. Azula constantly lied to Zuko and manipulated him, and even though he knew of her dishonesty, he still fell for it.

Ozai was superior to Zuko in age and power, and Azula was superior to him in power and privilege (as the child more favored by Ozai).

i think the time period is also a good way to distinguish between abuse and toxicity. toxicity, if gone on for too long, can turn into abuse.

for example, if your friend sometimes makes belittling comments about you, that could be considered toxic. but if you've been friends with this person for years and they've been treating you this way for years, it turns into verbal abuse.

so i like body swap episodes, body swap movies, all that jazz. i think it's so much fun when two characters have to figure out each other's roles and act completely different to how they normally would act.

but one thing i've noticed with a lot of animated shows specifically is that they do a cop out and just swap the VAs. so you got a body swap episode but the actors are just doing their usual roles, they don't really have to imitate the other character.

Gravity Falls does this, so does TOH. it pissed me off so much that they just swapped the VAs and called it a day. imagine how much more fun it would have been if Dipper's VA had to speak like Mabel normally would, so it's like Dipper's voice but extra energetic and enthusiastic. imagine how interesting it would have been if Luz's VA had to imitate King, and do all of his little vocal quirks, or if Eda's VA had to speak like Luz.

it's just something i've always been dissatisfied with. the most fun part of the body swap trope is seeing the actors play characters that are definitely not suited for them. like a middle aged woman playing a teenage girl, or a huge muscular man playing a femme fatale. it always cracks me up, and in a lot of cases, these actors do a terrifyingly good job.

i'd like to highlight that scene from the third Jumanji movie where Martha and Fridge swap bodies, and so Martha's actress has to play the role of this highschool jock black guy and Jack Black.. well, he's already played a very convincing teenage girl in the last movie, but yeah, he still gets to play a different teenage girl.