#ad rants

There was Cullen discourse on twitter the other week and it was SUPER dismissive of the perspective of people who hate him. Like his writer wrote him as a creep and potential sex offender and the Cullen fans were saying “Actually HE is the victim” as if he was the only person tortured and that his captivity absolves him of the wrongs he done in his templar service to that point.

Also they spun him being a templar as if he was taken from his family when that boy LEFT said family WILLINGLY to join the templars. He signed up for the magic police academy, and yes templars are cops. because they arrest mages, abduct mages, and police the mages.

His 180 against Meredith at the literal last second got brought up as a heroic moment like he wasn’t marching to annul mages regardless of Hawke’s decision. Discounting however many dozens of mages he helps torture, murder, or worse tranquilize over the decade that DA2 covers. He outright tells a Hawke that COULD be a mage that Mages aren’t people. complete depersonification only to “change” and tell the Inquisitor to abandon mages for templars, that the mage rebellion isn’t worth saving only the templars should be chosen for the breach, but that’s “deprogramming’ from his ‘indoctrination’ despite being in lock step with his views from his entire adult life.

and the fact that his ‘redemption’ is kicking the addiction that comes with his choice to join the templars is used to wash him of his murderous, torturous, and oppressive ways is sickening. Oh his lyrium addiction is so tough, choosing the templar specialization lays that out for the Inquisitor but that in no way equals even the life of Karl from Anders’ intro quest, a fully harrow mage turned tranquil, a complete violation of his person and his life. As knight Captain Cullen oversaw and stood by those things and only saving mages and going above and beyond to COUNTERACT his behavior is redemption.

I'd even say it was going great, except, of course, for the fact that NO ONE IS TELLING ME ANYTHING.

And not little things. I'm talking important things. Things the fucking STAGE MANAGER kind of needs to know.

There have been at least 5 instances of a line being cut without me being informed, and I'm not sure if that's the on production assistant or not. All I know is that I'm not being told, it's not in the fucking prompt book, and it sure as hell didn't change when I was there.

And, of course, when I am there, the director doesn't tell me. He tells the actors and I have to do my best to hear all the changes over a bunch of chatty pre-teens and/or directly ask because apparently he can't be fucking bothered to tell me.

On another note, he'll ask me to read lines for someone who isn't there. Pretty standard, and it's not like I'm not on book so what's the harm. But then sometimes he'll just decide to do it himself. Which, while aggravating, whatever I can deal, it's fine. Well, it would be fine that is, if he actually read the fucking lines of the script that he fucking wrote instead of ad-libbing out of his ass, taking a ridiculous amount of time and majorly fucking up the lines, and therefore confusing the kids and making it harder for them to get their lines right.

And then he's getting on the kids about how they have to memorize their lines and it's disrespectful to the playwright to paraphrase even though he literally told them that its the intent and not the words themselves that matter.

And these are fucking middle school children getting yelled at by a man decades older than their parents in a summer camp that's supposed to be fun.

Like, sure, I'll raise my voice to tell them to be quiet and get a little testy when it's the third time in 20 minutes.

But there's a difference between being told "Quiet backstage please!" and "Remember to look over your lines!" and "Don't leave your props laying around backstage!" or "Don't play with the basketball, it's a prop not toy!" by an eighteen year old girl and getting yelled at and lectured every fucking day by a half-deaf white man in his late sixties.

This man literally threw his keys at (they slid across the stage, but intent) a group of kids for being chatty. The production assistant told me that one of the speakers doesn't work because of this man and a similar incident. My friend who helped me get a job here told me she was sorry that I ended up with him as my director, said she'd worked with him for three years and he was the literally worst. He gets special treatment when it comes to tech stuff not because he deserves it but because he's an entitled asshole who'll fuck shit up when (not if, when) he tries to do it himself.

system_status:

temp: "18°C"; energy_level: "Mixed"; // 🫥 active_sprint: "Processing b-day thoughts";

system_status:

temp: "25°C"; energy_level: "low"; active_sprint: "Happy Fucking monday";

current_session_audio:

let currentSong = { title: "RedBone", artist: "Childish Gambino" };

console.log (`Now playing ${currentSong.title} by ${currentSong.artist}`); //😿 Dev thoughts under the cut

system_status:

temp: "19°C"; energy_level: "mid"; active_sprint: "Finalizing weekend"; location: "CMDX";

current_session_audio:

let currentSong = { title: "De Este Lado Del Camino", artist: "Café Tacvba" };

console.log (`Now playing ${currentSong.title} by ${currentSong.artist}`); // ** jk 🐱 Dev thoughts under the cut:**//