I LOVE YAPPING!!

!!! i have commitment issues !!!

INDEX

this is a holding cell for my thoughts on every thing i've thought about that doesn't have enough significance to me to warrant their own pages. if you go chronologically, you'll find that I've immediately written more than intended. Don't let it set a precedent.

If i've not fucked this up, there'll be a table that'll take you to each section. Click on the ones you like to read my incredible insight on your favourite media

iCarly

08-08-23: Freddie
While I haven't actually watched this show, for a multitude of reasons - being too young for it when it was on, being british, and hating live action shit - I'm halfway through QuintonReviews' iCarly series, having finished the first video.
As is characteristic of me, even if I don't particularly get into something, and god forbid I get into iCarly, it does linger in my mind for a while after learning about it, and this is no exception.

I am less invested in their interpersonal relationships than I usually would be for fiction, and I approach their more personal and tender moments with the same attiude as a mum overhearing gossip about her kids and their friends, with an "Aww, that's sweet," every time they're nice to each other (particularly the school dance episode ending, which ilicited this exact phrase to all but audibly leave my mouth) and a "Well that's not on," every time they fall out with each other. Because I am only really learning about this show now, as a legal adult, and as the characters are being played by actual teenagers, it does feel strange, to me at least, to care about it any more than that.

That being said, when I watched the segment on, I believe the episode title was something like "iKiss"?, I immediately thought "that's a gay man and a lesbian". Might be a bold claim, but it's an opinion I held before I started (re)watching the mini-series, somehow, and I will not let it go because framing the story in that episode as a rare show of WLW/MLM solidarity between them rather than a shippy thing is more interesting to me. On the subject of Freddie being gay, I know exactly how I would execute this in canon:
It's this stupid unsubtle setup where Carly and Sam are fighting for his affections, both convinced he has feelings for them and them only. Their fighting only ceases when he enters the room, and they try and hide their conflict whenever he's about until the end of the episode, where he catches them mid-fight. After breaking it up, he asks what the fighting's about. They explain it to him, and he looks a little bewildered. One of them asks "So... who do you like?"

There's a long pause, tension builds, he looks at both of them before bluntly going "Men."
The episode ends, credits roll, and it is never brought up again.

Also before this I would kinda have like... an unrelated episode where something romance-adjacent happens while Freddie is in the room and it sort of sends him into a spiral of self-reflection which leaves him sat on the roof of the apartment complex staring out at the streets of Seattle while various characters come and check on him, all coming to seperate, incorrect conclusions as to why he's acting like this. The end of the episode is Freddie sitting there with his head in his hands while "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga (or something equally unsubtle) can be heard blasting out of an apartment below. I think it would sound like this:


Cityscape audio credits go to AApolo and mario1298

If it wasn't obvious, despite not knowing his last name, I'm quite endeared to Freddie. He's like a nephew that I'd take out to ice cream and maybe drive him to therapy and let him stay at my house for a week every month.

When he's an adult I like to imagine that he goes into production work and while he loves it, something about independent internet live broadcasts has him enraptured like a mysterious ex-lover he can't forget about. It's not like he's out of practice - as a side-hobby, he's picked up speedrunning. He's pretty good, has a couple world records, y'know, humblebrag... Maybe, sometimes, he livestreams runs, mic-off, for an extra layer of authenticity. That's really his first mistake, because soon he finds himself hitting the "start streaming" button more than the "start recording" one, and then he starts mumbling to himself as the commentary in his head starts coming out of his mouth. Next thing you know it he's busting out the Logitech C920 webcam for some real high quality commentary. Soon his gay little profile picture becomes a staple in the twitch.tv sidebar.

As he gets more confident, the production value starts going up; a smooth ascent for somebody as experienced as he is. A normal stream deck is a little overwhelming for him, so he builds a custom one that uses only two buttons, like his old master controller. It's an oddly welcome return to familiarity for him. Despite coming to be avoidant and even resentful of iCarly, his enthusiasm for the equipment never wavered, and the light butterflies in his stomach and sparks in his fingertips that come as he manipulates the buttons with practiced motion, the muscle memories don't ache, and he feels a sweet kind of nostalgia.

The salty taste comes with other habits, like the countdown he can't help but repeat every time he begins a stream, a mantra that steadies him, that calms the waves in his mind. Tones of voice and styles of quips he falls on to fill the silence, habits that fade as he catches up with his own sense of humour, yet sometimes an old inside joke becomes too tempting to miss, and while the chat glosses over it he feels his eyes flicker and lips twitch as he tries to remember what made it funny in the first place. There's a ghost of familiarity when he hangs out with other streamers, banter that feels recycled, a script with a different font. The silence after the stream ends, after a raid goes through, everything replays in his mind as he remembers things he wishes he didn't, a pang of longing for something that isn't there anymore. Eventually he buys a standing desk because he can't keep still anymore. Something about it feels like giving in to an old vice, but it's almost liberating too. Taking control. It feels truly his this time.


Anyway his starting soon screens would be fucking HYPE!! Like he's got animations, a now playing section for the tunes (which is usually gonna be Neil Cicerega mashups), chat flying past, all this fancy shit. Then the stream is ten hours of like. Mario 64 where he replays the first ten minutes of the run over and over because he keeps fucking up the same skip. I'd eat this shit up btw like my ass is SAT DOWN i am watching every stream to completion.

Also every time he plays a game normally he ends up finding a new skip nobody's ever seen before and half the time it changes the entire landscape of the speedrunning community. He's a recurring character on every speedrunning video essay channel. Like they'll go "then suddenly, somebody new entered the scene, someone who altered the course of MySims Racing runs forever..." and there's just enough room for everyone to go "it's Freddie again isn't it" and they go "IT WAS FREDDIE" and everyone's like "HOLY SHIT IT WAS FREDDIE" and that's his reputation.

21-08-23: iGoodbye
Having seen "The End of iCarly", I can commentate on how stupid iGoodbye was now. Something about Carly being convinced to leave everything she's built up over her teen years to hang out with her father on a military base and learn such valuable lessons like "living on a military base sucks" and "your dad's a bigger prick than you initially realised". And the way nobody contested this either???

Carly was in such an advantageous position, at the dawn of the internet, where her talent was only going to grow, with a whole group of people there to support her - she had such a solid foundation for success, and it was disregarded so she could spend time with her dad. Her dad, who has primarily been absent almost her whole life, leaving her to be raised by her brother, without a mother in the picture. Me personally, if I was going to be a parent, I'd leave the military to raise my fucking children, ESPECIALLY IF MY WIFE DIED???!!! Leaving it to Spencer must've put such a massive burden on him (something I rarely see mentioned by the way) and he managed to do it extremely well. Honestly, being raised by Spencer is best case scenario for Carly but that doesn't make it any less fucked up. God, I hate Carly's dad and also the US military and and ---


21-08-23: Early Fic Commentary
On a totally different topic, iCarly has a number of fics on AO3, almost 1000, and I couldn't help but peek. I haven't done a full statistical survey, and I only sorted by kudos, but here's some observations I've made:

So, my theory on why Seddie is more appealing to writers than Creddie is because the latter is a lot sweeter and more wholesome, while the former is very much two broken people (very broken, depending on your interpretation), and also follows the enemies to lovers trope.

Seddie is just more fun to write. Creddie can become very formulaic and uncomplicated because in comparison to the other two, Carly has a distinct lack of severe trauma that's easy to give to the other two. Carly's relationships within the trio are much more straightforward, and so there's less a writer can do without tearing canon to shreds. Meanwhile, a lot of Sam & Freddie's lives can be toyed with, interpretations can go more outlandish without technically conflicting canon. This makes for an easier creative outlet that is a lot more interesting.

21-08-23: Other Thoughts
Oh God this is entering fanon territory probably, but do you think Sam and Freddie celebrate Father's Day with Spencer? Because I like to think he's practically raised them both to a degree. Sorry.

...NO BECAUSE I can imagine him playing video games with them and taking them out places and teaching them stuff because their mothers don't do that...

I’m back. Freddie autism vs Spencer ADHD (they do not fight they sit in the living room with Freddie disassembling an old camera while Spencer works on a new sculpture not looking at or speaking to each other in dead silence. They are bonding.)

Life is Strange

28-06-24
I think Nathan Prescott has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

No I'm fucking serious, look it up. Look up the symptoms right now. I'll wait.

It's 'cause... I noticed that he had small eyes. That was what tipped me off. There was this MacDoesIt video where he was reading comments and someone was like "you should look into FAS 'cause you look like you have it" and I distinctly remembered small eyes being one of the symptoms, and then I look at Nathan Prescott, and he's got little eyes. Then I looked up the rest of the symptoms like "surely not??" and yet:

My jaw fucking dropped when I read the last one.

Obviously I can't be completely sure, for the same reason you can't armchair diagnose Twitch streamers with autism: I don't know him. Because we don't get access to all of his medical records and report cards, it's impossible to conclude if he's actually got it. But there's enough matching sympotoms for me to theorise that it was intentional. I mean, if I was married to Nathan's dad, I'd drink while pregnant too.

29-06-24: About the Other Games
I'm not the only one who has this opinion but you cannot make me care about a motherfucker named Sean.

The reason why Life is Strange was good was because its gimmick relied on taking a common practice among players of story games -- save-scumming -- and turning it into a game mechanic. They let you change your mind on a decision, then present you with choices that don't have an immediate outcome, making you have to really think about it. That's why it worked so well. Hours down the line, a choice you made comes back up, and you think "Oh, shit, I should've done the other thing!".

2 & True Colors give you the wonderful powers of telekinesis and... reading people's emotions? I think? And by comparison it sucks. It really sucks. I don't think there's anything wrong with having sequels where the protagonist can also time travel. Make that a common thread in your universe. Give them different expansions based on what tools they have available, like how Max could use photos to return to a distant moment in time.

And Double Exposure... I've already decided I don't like it. Max doesn't need more story. The timelines thing could've been given to a new protagonist. And that's another thing, actually -- LiS 2 has references to the first game. David survives the Sacrifice Arcadia ending. Victoria does in certain timelines. Its speculated that Kate does too, depending on the hospital's location. Doesn't that fuck up the point of the choice, choosing Chloe over everyone else, if half of them fucking live anyway?

Anyway, Double Exposure doesn't have my mediocre white boys in it so why should I care.

ᓚᘏᗢ