#+trying to keep the statue feel

[time-slink]

painting warmup— grian as the angel of the waters statue in central park :D

[canisalbus]

you say machete has to be closeted then why's he always wearing them little heels

Maybe he thinks he's a tiny bit nicer looking in them.

[flufflecat]

More effigy progress

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[resident-gay-bitch]

little rich boy sirius who gets disowned and can barely survive without his expensive brands and the basic human need to eat at least once a day meeting the entirely too generous james potter who just falls for the vanity and sincerity of the reformed rich boy and decides that once sirius stops caring about brands and status and rich boy things and just cares about what matters in life he decides to spoil his boyfriend to pieces because he’s secretly sitting on a fucking fortune

[crowempress]

FAMILIES IN NEED OF FUNDS 🍉

Here are some fundraisers that have reached out to me in the past few days. Please boost and if you are able to donate, please send even a few dollars to one of the campaigns below. Small contributions from many people will make change!

Some of these are not yet vetted, but are very likely legitimate, please boost in hopes we can get these families vetted so their campaigns can pick up more traction!

Basic Necessities for Ola's Family to Live $42,772 USD / $50,000 Fundraiser Post (Vetted, Line 205)

Help Mohammed and his Family Escape War $4,034 USD / $35,000, Fundraiser Post (In process of being vetted, digital footprint is legitimate)

Help Najah Provide for her Children 965 € / 80,000 €, Fundraiser Post (Not yet vetted, but reverse image search is clear and donations are protected)

Help Evacuate Abod's Family 25 € / 49,200 € Fundraiser Post (Not yet vetted, but reverse image search appears to be clean and donations are protected)

Provide Medical and Basic Needs for Mohammed 297 € / 10.000 € Fundraiser Post (Not yet vetted, reverse image search clear, and donations protected)

Help Khalid's Sisters Escape Homelessness $1,440 USD / $15,000 Fundraiser Post (Vetted)

Help Ali Evacuate His Family €613 / €70,000 Fundraiser Post (Not yet vetted, reverse image search is clear, and donations are protected)

Help Hazem's Family Escape War €5,424 / €50,000 Fundraiser Post (Vetted)

[faunabel]

apparently i also put tolerate it by taylor swift on my playlist for vene....... i also see it. perhaps in a looser sort of way.

[commanderelita]

Sorry for loving you, I know I’m bad at it.

[thelostgirl21]

Am I the only one that really struggles with the idea of Radskier's current relationship status being listed as "Ex-Lovers" in the shipping wiki, or...?

[pepsiiwho]

:( thinking abt they having a family “Sorry Bas,” and with a nod Fidelio turns towards Will “me lord. My lady’s under the weather right now, no sense pushin’ her up the hill to any party”

Will tuts, understanding if not disappointed. Basilio loved Cassius, of course he did they were family now, but the bond those two had formed seemed oddly close for two people that met relatively recently. If it were anyone else, Basilio would worry. With Will, that was just par for the course. It helped, naturally, that Cassius hardly viewed other men as much past set dressing compared to her husband. “Should I send someone out for her?”

He waves the idea off, smiling “‘s no point. She’ll bounce back faster than anything. She’s scary like that, nothing sticks to her long”

“She gonna be in shape for your birthday?”

He scoffs “going on 5 years together and I haven’t convinced her to skip a birthday celebration for me yet. Come hell or high water she’ll do something, sure as shit that”

“And you’ll love it” will adds uselessly

“And I’ll love it” Fidelio agrees.

)))$

“Del another?”

“You’re supposed to be happy for us you dickhead—“

“I’m Over the moon! But gods, you gotta get off the poor thing, you’re insatiable—“

“y-you’! It ain’t ME, you ass! I want a bigger family, sure but …” Fidelio looks away, blushing “You don’t see how she acts … I’d give her the fuckin ‘ Sun if she asked. A baby is light work in comparison”

[random-dandelion]

Gonna be busy for a while, so I may not be able to boop anyone back until tomorrow later in the day (Going shower and might pass out after).

@shadow-commet

(I thought to tag you, so you know why I'm not booping back immediately)

[lgbtlunaverse]

Could someone tell me where the interpretation that, in book canon, the promotion Nie Mingjue gives Meng Yao made Meng Yao's life worse than it was before, came from?

I have seen that claim made multiple times now and I've looked at the text over and over trying to see where the basis for it is and I. Can't find it? Don't get me wrong, it absolutely spells out that it does not and cannot fix everything for Meng Yao, but the idea that it was actively bad for him?

Lacking other evidence, I kind of have to assume that it comes from cql canon being sort of projected backwards onto book canon. In cql canon, meng yao is suffering active and explicit bullying and abuse from the captain while under the nie, and does so because the capain believes he has risen above his station via nmj's promotion of him. (In book canon this... isn't happening. It happens with the captain in Langya instead) However, in cql canon he has also been with the nie for years and is openly close to both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huasiang, whereas in book canon he has only been working with nie mingjue for a few months (though has, in that time, apparently become close enough to him for Lan Xichen to explicitly state Meng Yao is able to calm nmj down in ways no one else can? Ofc he does this... Right after that stops being true. But. Food for thought. Not what this post is about tho.) So, if you project the much more explicit abuse from the nie sect captain in cql back on novel jgy who has a presumably much less stable position in the sect overall you get... a meng yao for whom the promotion only means a bigger target on his back and virtually no protection from nmj, who we must assume he can't trust to talk to his about because he never mentions it. (This also explicitly violates book canon when it comes to meng yao's general behaviour, we'll talk about that in a sec)

And look. We all do frankencanon in this house. I get it. And for fanfiction that is very fun. But for a serious reading of the character, his situation, and the actions that lead from that this... doesn't make much sense, in my opinion.

So. Why is that? Why did I say this was out of character for the novel? Because Meng yao spoke up about the jin captain mistreating him. Multiple times! It's just that none of it mattered because no one cared to listen to him. This is a pretty important line for his character because it flatly shows that meng yao is not and has never seen murder as something trivial. He's not trigger happy. He will only do it if he sees no other way out that doesn't end in himself being seriously harmed. (Whether he's right or justified in these cases is not the point of this post.)

If anything remotely similar was happening in the Nie sect, he would have said so. Cql Meng Yao doesn't do this because cql Meng Yao is a different character, and also the plot wouldn't work if he did. Cql Nie Mingjue, by extension, comes off as a fundamentally less trustworthy figure in cql Meng Yao's life because apparently for whatever reason, he cannot be trusted with the information that the deputy he has already publicly defended is still being harassed, and doesn't notice even when it is really blatant. The assumtpion the audience is given is that, like a middle schooler getting the principal involved when being bullied, it would only make the harassment more viscious.

This... actually has a somewhat solid basis in the book. Because after nmj yells at the bullies in question Wei Wuxian says this.

And it is important to keep in mind that this is Wei Wuxian saying this. Not Meng Yao, not an omniscient narrator. Wei wuxian is drawing on his own experiences, likely from the Jiang family, to conclude that if someone is angry at you and thwarted by someone defending you, this generally does not make them less angry at you.

This is leaving out two crucial things, though.

Firstly, this worry isn't about the promotion at all.

The promotion hasn't even been brought up. In the novel it doesn't ctually happen immediately, it takes another few battles where meng yao continues to do his job well and nie mingjue continues praising him for him to eventually go "yeah, you deserve a raise."

This is another aspect that is being projected from cql canon onto book canon I presume, because it does happen quite quickly there, and it's a throwaway line in the books so it's easy to miss. I can't be mad about anyone forgetting the difference, but it is important to mention for this particular analysis.

Which is the second point: change in status

Wei Wuxian couldn't exactly change status within the Jiang family. (And if he could, that would just fuel rumours that he was jfm's bastard even more and make madam yu even angrier at him, etc etc.)

This isn't comparable to Meng Yao. The worry Wei Wuxian is talking about is explitly about Nie Mingjue's initial very loud defense of him. Before he has any idea Nie Mingjue is going to promote him.

Promoting him would likely decrease his chances of cultivators coming after him because now he was in a higher standing in the sect than they were. If applied to that earlier metaphor of middle school bullying it's like if the bullied kid suddenly got hired as a teacher. Which. Doesn't work with the metaphor at all. Touché. But what I am trying to say is that any payback they would have planned for him relied on the fact that they could make sure that Nie Mingjue wasn't going to be within very convenient earshot a second time, and as a random disciple Meng Yao couldn't just go complain to him every time.

But as his right hand man? Who spends most of his time working directly alongside him? Lmao. Good luck. Oh, sure, it is very likely that they feel offended a son of a whore has been raised in status above them, and many will continue to do so as jgy rises through cultivation society (in fact, Wei Wuxian's observations are absolutely on point for how Madam Jin will be treating jgy later on). But as we can also see from the way jgy is treated and how he treats others throughout the story: you can be upset all you want, but if that person is higher than you in status there's jack shit you can do about it.

If I am correct and Wei Wuxian is basing this on his experiences with the Jiang family, it makes sense why he'd miss this. Madam Yu gets to be way angrier at Jiang Fengmian as his wife than some random disciples can be at Nie Mingjue. Insulting Meng Yao, suggesting that he didn't deserve his promotion or that he earned it through less than proper means (you know who is mother is) is also an insult to Nie Mingjue and the way he chooses to run his sect. They can't do that.

Another thing I see brought up in this regard would be the tea scene. There may be no explicit harassment like in the show, but cultivators still don't respect him! The disrespect is just quieter and more subtle.

Tiny detail: these are actually not Nie cultivators

They're cultivators Lan Xichen is escorting with him, making a pitstop in heijan.

The book confirms this by basically outright stating that this is the first time they see his face, and recognize him as Jin Guangshan's bastard son.

Now, just because there is no proof that it happened doesn't mean it definitely never happened. Mdzs is a novel that often leaves stuff out or up to interpretation. Similar stuff to the tea situtation could very well be happening in the background. But I do think it is pretty significant that there is no mention whatsoever of Meng Yao having any negative treatment from Nie cultivators betwen him and Nie Mingjue meeting and him executing them while spying for Wen Ruohan, and the most we get is Wei Wuxian's personal speculation, after which he immediately goes to wax poetic about how surprised he is that Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are getting along super well.

And, again, novel Meng Yao would have said something. He doesn't say anything about the tea scene. - Or? Does he? Notably 3zun have some very long in depth conversations that Wei Wuxian zones out from because he's busy thinking about Lan Zhan again. But let's not rely on what-ifs. Let's say that neither he nor Lan Xichen find it worth bringing up. Major reasons for that would be that a) these are not nie cultivators, nie mingjue wouldn't really have the authority to scold them. Especially because b) it's such a subtle offense it could easily be handwaved as coincidence. "They just always brush their cups clean like that!! It's wartime you know, and they were traveling! They're used to drinking from vessels that aren't thoroughly washed everytime! It's just a habit!" And would therefore not be worth reporting.

But anything worse than that? A "price tens or hundreds of times greater" like wwx mentions? He'd report it! I do understand that "well if it was happening why didn't he say something?" would, in real life, be victim blaming. This is not real life, and I am not talking about this in a matter of blame. If Meng Yao was being mistreated in the Nie and stayed silent about it, it would still not be his fault. I am talking about this in a manner of character consistency.

His admission of seeking help in the Jin sect shows that at that time and prior to it (a very good argument can be made that he loses faith in this idea) he believes that if he is being mistreated and someone with the authority to say something about it takes his side, things can improve. If Nie Mingjue standing up for him in Qinghe only made things worse, he would not have tried to ask for help in an even more hostile environment. You can call Meng Yao many things, but naïve isn't one of them.

Meng yao's later habit of completely isolating himself and lying to everyone around him comes from the fact that revealing his suffering would mean explaining several horrible things he's become complicit in and he does not feel safe admitting to that. But he's done nothing wrong here!

The reading where he says nothing would imply an either correct or incorrect belief in Meng Yao's eyes that Nie Mingjue did not much care for his wellbeing or safety. Oh sure he defended him once but doing so again multiple times would be such a bother. This also contradicts his later behaviour, where he banks solely on Nie Mingjue's protective instincts to seal his qi and escape during the confrontation in Langya. After having been caught murdering a man, he is still convinced Nie Mingjue will immediately try to help him when he is in serious danger.

And even if you very badly want to characterize Nie Mingjue as a blundering idiot who is apparently less trustworthy in Meng Yao's eyes than the jin cultivators who had already resoundly rejected him by the time he tries to ask for help with the langya captain. He doesn't say anything to Xichen either! Lan Xichen, who has explicitly and exhaustively been portrayed as kind and understanding to Meng Yao's circumstances and very willing to talk to Mingjue if Meng Yao wants something from him he doesn't otherwise think he'd get. The conversation Mingjue overhears where Meng Yao's new position in the Nie is explictly brought up would be kind of the perfect time to go "yeah I've been promoted but I'm not treated well by other soldiers" aaaand. Nothing. So unless you come to the conclusion that Meng Yao trusted the Jin he told about the captain's abuse more than Lan Xichen you kind of have to conclude that Meng Yao's treatment after his promotion improved significantly. And that even if people still disliked him they could not openly do anything about it because he was high enough in status for that to be socially inappropiate. Which is, explicitly, one of his main motivators over the entire course of the story: Avoiding mistreatment by getting high enough on the social ladder it doesn't matter what people think of him, they can't hurt him.

And I'm not sure how to reconcile that character journey with the idea that he would, at any point, have preferred to keep his head down and stay where he was. When he was so desperate to crawl his way out.

[end-orfino]

ahhhhhh i remember why i dont read comics & books and watch movies as much as I should. Because they make me lose it

[syxnewt]

my parents want my little brother, who has had a fever no lower than 100 F for the past 2-3 days, to go to school tomorrow

[psalmsofpsychosis]

Some Batman: Telltale thoughts

[this is a Batman Telltale critical post, ye be warned.]

So. There are perhaps no words in the english language to describe with how stupid i feel right now.

I started Telltale Batman because i thought that it's one of the more distinct unconventional Batman narratives that would let you have a more interesting, complex and nuanced relationship between Bruce and Joker— the game even lets you bring all of Bruce's sincere hypocrisy and sentimental selfishness to the surface and have him admit that yes, he can fight the rogues gallery because it takes a madman to know a madman; to love a madman. For a moment i geniunely thought that i can escape the everpresent shadow of DC hays code in the freakshow funhouse that is Batman comics, i thought Telltale had done something different.

But telltale's approach to The Enemy Within is so flaky and flimsy and timid at best— such noncommittal twist on themes of pain and grief. They take on a hefty plotline, "what does it take to actually fight through evil and be surrounded by it? How long does it take before your resolve and your selfhood cracks? When you lose the mask, which one did you truly lose— The ideal persona, the superhero, the crusader, or the person underneath, the casket that holds all your humanity and your heart and your hopes? How long can you stare onto the abyss before it stares onto you?" It's indeed a very Nietzsche approach to Batman— except that a good Nietzsche narrative takes a lot of intentional plot points and honesty of thought and of heart. And Telltale doesn't commit, not to Bruce's characterization, and not to any other character, and definitely not to Joker's journey in any variation of it. The existence of the Vigilante route is useless on every front; Joker is going to turn into a villain anyway, just with a different hello kitty eyeshadow palette and an extra bland consolation lollipop. No good choice Bruce makes on Joker's behalf affects anything whatsoever, and i particularly love the "community and friendship and sympathy do not help the mentally ill and all that ever works is punishment and shock therapy and confinement and loneliness" message the vigillante route puts on the table, charming charming status quo commandments from DC as always.

Telltale Batman could only be revolutionary if it had dared to break comic convention and let the vigillante route play out like Selina and Bruce's relationship always does; very grey morality, irrational, full of tension and trust, unstable, intriguing, inexcusable, irreversible, unavoidable and heartfelt, human. But we can't have nice things in batmanverse, so both Joker routes run on stuck gears and topple and fall into a predictable narrative hole that neither Bruce nor Joker can claim out of.

And on the predictable front? this story is too lukewarm to be a good time for me personally. When you get 84 Batman comics per minute every other Tuesday, all ending the same way no matter whatever the fickity happens inbetween, you have to pull no punches. This is my 53368532th Batman-with-tragic-batjokes-implications read of the week, say something new or forever hold your blue-balling silence, i dont care.

[frobby]

i love madoka magica however i dont think we as a fandom talk enough about how tragic madoka herself is. probably because the narrative itself steers you away from thinking about her personally. shes not a character shes a desire that homura has, shes a force of good, shes homura's foil. but those are all madoka's narrative roles but madoka herself as a person is not really looked at because we are viewing this world from an unreliable narrator(homura) who only sees madoka as those things. The best thing homura could have done for madoka was give up on her, to let her go. because every time we go back in time the image of madoka is distorted, she loses more of herself every regression of homura's as she tries harder and harder to save her. We don't even know what madoka originally wished for to become a magical girl in the original timeline. and she actually acts quite differently than the madoka we meet. shes a lot more honest and caring and bold. by the time homura's has reached the actual anime madoka has been reduced by the sands of time to a figment of herself. she has no wants or desires of her own beyond wanting to do good and help her friends and when all her humanity is stripped away is when she finally acends to godhood because thats all thats left of her. an ideal and a faith in her. madoka kaname died a long time ago and all that is left is her ghost.