#“do you want it to be thematically good or do you want it to be done?” is definitely a question Jace asked at some point
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
illuminatedcomics · 2 days ago
Text
Tumblr media
My next endevour is finally wrapping up a 14 pages story I first posted in 2023 but never got around finishing for semi-stupid reasons. CAPTAIN DAMAGE, my personal little legally distinct OC based on a favorite character of mine and my take on her. I want to finish both because I want to make an effort not to abandon stuff anymore, and because of the collection of my shorts I'm organizing. I think writing wise this is one of my funniest shorts, I love writing these characters, the snappy scenes etc, but in terms of the art, there was a lot I'm unhappy with. It's a good rule of thumb that you shouldn't waste time redrawing old stuff you made, because that becomes a neverending process, as you continously mature and improve as an artist, but there were just too many little things I hated about it. Here three big ones.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Missile kick, I liked the scene but I was profoundly unhappy with the way I drew her, the anatomy is all screwed up, the pose didn't convince me, it was all wonky and I regretted settling for it. New version, I cannot be sure the anatomy is THAT much better, but I'm happier with the overall momentum. I got a comment telling me the kick looks better because the power seems to be coming from the hips, so I'm glad it's working.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Evil alien ship approaching a planet, the original is an overt Star Wars reference, and I thought to myself "Why?" What's the point, thematically this has nothing to do with Star Wars, so I changed it up and went for a flying saucer look. While a lot of the stuff I do is often a parody of something, I try to avoid being overtly obvious with my reference, and I have a strict rule against mentioning memes or anything meme adjacent. I've changed dialogues and jokes when I saw people commenting with memes or stuff I didn't know about.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Spooky villain reveal shot. Eye is much bigger to mantain it consistent with how I'm drawing the guy in the new pages. On the teeth, first time around I was trying to do something weird and new, so I gave him bifurcated fangs, but now every time I see it, it just looks like he has braces on, so I went for something more conventional. Also, I bought a new fancy font to give the evil aliens some more spice to their dialogues. I love the trope of giving characters a differente "sounding" voice by changing fonts, or making letters and speech bubbles a different color.
20 notes · View notes
morsobaby · 2 days ago
Text
Perhaps too spicy of a take
I am actually a victim of parental (motherly) abuse and I still enjoy abusive mothers in fiction bc I think it's good to portray them existing and it validates my pain. I find it really satisfying to engage with media about abusive mother relationships bc it helps me compartmentalize my feelings and experiences. I also am able to enjoy different things in fiction than real life, shocker. But I do not enjoy Fandom at large reception to these characters bc everybody fucking refuses to view it as the complex experience that abuse is and just opts to fucking shred the fictional mother character instead. That's not actually as cool and progressive as you think. It does not make me, as a victim, feel more understood and comforted actually. Refusing to engage critically with media about abuse bc it's a woman (gasp!) is completely trashy. Refusing to engage critically with media about abuse is always trashy but I'm talking about the misogyny aspect rn. It's the same thing as in my previous post: evil female characters are denied the privilege of being analyzed and viewed with any thematic complexity, which is often awarded to similar male characters much more (even when people acknowledge them as being actually as bad as they are).
Viewing abusers as simply "Pain dispensers" is grossly reductive and has the same problem as like. When in pro climate media, you portray the villain as this mustache twirling guy who just Really loves polluting and throws garbage on the ground for fun. Like it is that immature to me.
I think reducing evil female characters to "Grr she should burn in hell and be humiliated constantly and nothing else I have no opinions except I hate her and she sucks", honestly comes from the same spigot as the people who don't think women are capable of being abusive (or downplay/refuse to acknowledge abuse from women). It's like. Something something "Women are inherently more pure and innocent, and the ones that aren't, have some innate womanly failure to them and are not a sign of anything complex or real; they're just evil. End of story"
Like do you get what I'm grasping at here? It's not my most well constructed post but I feel a passion and want to make this post bc honestly I need to let this out
19 notes · View notes
adaines-furious-feast · 7 months ago
Text
Buddy making Bakarath real make the fact Porter couldn't just make his own god even funnier.
Like, ok maybe Kristen is just the most gifted cleric of her age and she spoke to the void and created a god (that she almost immediately ditched). But Buddy almost certainly didn't get banished to the void. Buddy created Bakarath out of pure belief. If Porter just had a really dedicated cleric (who he didn't have to kill first) he could have had his god of war without having to do all this messy shit. But no.
And I get thematically conquering the last god of conquest is great but do you want it to be thematically good or do you want it done?
93 notes · View notes
vaguely-concerned · 4 days ago
Text
Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).
many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.
(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)
#dragon age#dragon age origins#been thinking about the unreliable narration/in-universe texts only element being the thing da:o took from tolkien that's most defining#for a LONG time and I want to write something smart about it sometime but alas. this is what I've got right now haha#I think *some* da:o nostalgia is about that familiar safe childhood feeling of Fantasy World in a pattern that was so deeply entrenched#for many many MANY years. it's been in the groundwater of the genre for so long it's only fairly recently the patterns were broken#on like a mainstream sort of scale. I know I'm getting older b/c I keep going 'how do I explain to some of these people#that the world (both the real one the fictional one and the gaming one) was a very different place back in 2009' lol#and I agree there's something so tremendously comforting about it even with all the grimdark elements more in the martin vein#that's also in da:o. the same way you get satisfaction out of the structural familiarity of fairy tale logic but for a whole genre#da:o follows the Rules of a fantasy world in post-tolkien tradition -- even when it's subverting them it's doing so in reference#to a set of tropes and ideas both you and the game are deeply familiar and comfortable with#(da:o IS also just a really fucking good game I'm NOT saying people's love for it comes from being blinded by nostalgia haha#just an observation of a thing I've recognized in myself as well. there are elves there are dwarves there are talking trees and dragons#and basically orcs. all is as it should be and everything makes sense <- the part of me that grew up on lotr and derived works lol)#and while the other games also have all these elements they don't USE them in the same way and it doesn't feel the same. it's so interestin#dragon age: the veilguard#dragon age: the veilguard spoilers#dragon age spoilers#only in the vaguest way but still#you know what veilguard occasionally feels more like actually. sci-fi! and it's not an accusation or a bad thing for me I think it's great#da:i veers more to high fantasy and da2 feels weirdly low-fantasy -- it's a story where magic also happens to exist but I almost forget lol#it's a magical world and magic is integral to the plot but thematically it's so much about real-feeling political conflict#da:o is a Quest in da2 you're new in town (and it gets worse)
20 notes · View notes
seventeendeer · 6 months ago
Text
just watched the barbie movie everyone was discoursing about last year and I can't help but feel like a lot of the problems in its execution could have been avoided if the kid character's arc had been about learning to embrace girly stuff as an act of rebellion against the adultification of teen girls while barbie went full butch transmasc
#deerchatter#i know why they didn't do that obvs the writers haven't a fucking clue what a feminism is and the bosses prefer it that way#but it's fun to think about what a good version of the premise could have looked like. there were interesting pieces on the board#the kid character could have been interesting if her arc had been about rejecting barbie bc of increasing awareness of the association#between femininity and weakness. but in wanting to gain respect she started acting and dressing like a young woman because she's at that age#where girls begin to be rewarded for being a more subdued and quote-unquote natural kind of feminine.#she could have become friends with barbie as a symbolic way to heal her inner child#meanwhile barbie takes the you-can-be-anything message to its logical extreme and decides what she wants to be is the one thing mattel will#never let her be: gender non-conforming#these 2 character arcs and where they intersect could have told the same story much better i think#emphasis on personal choice/growing up/social rebellion/embracing what will really make you happy#while also covering multiple ways to handle gendered expectations. pick out the parts you like or throw the whole gender out. both r good!#anyway i have to admit this movie was disappointing. i knew it wasn't gonna be woke but i thought it would still be a bit more fun ....#was hoping for a guilty pleasure kind of experience but even setting aside that hard thematic fumble it's underwhelming :(
38 notes · View notes
hypermascbishounen · 4 months ago
Text
There's a deep irony in Berserk being so admired by people who really really hate what Berserk is about on an emotional level, but especially when writers want to take influence from it. Because Berserk is very strong thematically, and someone who can't acknowledge subtext is going to whiff on emulating anything good.
#And by that I mean that like many of its influences and descendants the plot is fundamentally driven by toxic gay shit lol#Listen there's just no beating around the bush here: you either understand this type of story is super emotional#That the softness and hope and love for humanity is vital connective tissue between the edgy violent dark setting#And that at its core the queerness is *central*#Or you will just end up creating something toothless and cynical with tokenizing bullshit at best#You cannot make that lightning strike twice if you're too scared to even write that shit as ACTUALLY core to the plot#You don’t have to make your shit gay to be good you just have to understand if your major influence was gay and why#So that you respect subtext and thematic writing and emotional resonance in writing in general#And maybe understand that if you also want credit for pushing the envelope you get where the real standard is#This is one of those things I see in equal measure in dudebro homophobes and supposedly progressive queers#No that wasn't “bait/delusion” it was barely subtext and if you go into writing with that attitude you're going to write shallow shit lol#I genuinely believe when people lament about reading comprehension they're actually talking about willful ignorance#Because willfull ignorance *does* cause a need to deny reality to a point where it warps your ability to understand information#Having difficulty comprehending text from a learning disability or improper teaching#Has fucking nothing on someone whose deliberately trained themselves to rationalize away anything uncomfortable#Tag rant over but this shit really is a plague and you can see it so starkly when it comes to Berserk#An undeniably respectable work from a place many envious little goblins that covet it do not actually respect
33 notes · View notes
necrotic-nephilim · 4 months ago
Note
Hello! New to comics and I don't really feel like the New-52 comics are for me and would really like to read and understand Pre-flashpoint and all the dark and good stuff there. Is there an order or starting point you would recommend? Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great day!
hi! i'm so glad you want to get into comics! i'd love to help with some recs! since you're here, i'm going to assume you're a Batfamily fan and most of my recs will cater to that, but i will try to encompass a bit of everything to help you just understand some big moments and all this mess that is DC canon. adding a cut bc jesus this got long.
so your starting point for pre-Flashpoint is going to be Crisis on Infinite Earths. the TLDR of this event is: DC had a big multiverse in the 70s and early 80s that wasn't friendly to new readers. to try to push their titles more and become a proper competitor to Marvel, they created an in-universe storyline that nuked the multiverse and gave a solid entry point for new fans going forward. this is why you hear terms like Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis. it refers to the comics canon before and after this event, in 1985. some characters had some big changes (for example: pre-Crisis Jason Todd was a circus kid whose parents were killed by Killer Croc) but most remained largely the same, just simplified. you don't *have* to start with Crisis on Infinite Earths if you don't want to. it's a *good* storyline, but it's a big one and a lot of big multiverse-scale stuff happens. so as long as you understand it as "big event that nuked DC's multiverse and gave the world a clean slate in 1985", then you've basically got the gist. also Barry Allen dies during it, but he comes back so don't worry about it.
in general, if DC has some big timeline/canon-altering event, they're going to call it a Crisis Event. the only Crisis Events that will matter to you, trying to get into pre-Flashpoint are
Crisis On Infinite Earths - the above, starts the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint timeline
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time - an event in the 90s that sought to fix some of the kinks that the above Crisis caused, like fixing the origins of the Legion of Superheroes and other Golden/Silver Age characters, not *super* important tbh
Infinite Crisis - this was a big event that brought back some characters who got nuked by Crisis on Infinite Earths, unfucked Power Girl's backstory, and set the groundwork to bring back the multiverse. if you've heard "Superboy Prime punched a hole in reality and it brought back Jason Todd" yeah, this is the story where it happened
Final Crisis - a big event that was partly meta commentary but heroes fought Darkseid, Batman died for a hot second, it was all a big deal about evil winning and all that
Flashpoint - the event that nuked this timeline, a big storyline to do with Flash and the timeline that would result in the New-52 in 2011
are you confused yet? good embrace the confusion it's going to become second nature of a comic fan. you don't need to read these events as a beginner. you really don't i promise. they'll sound big and important, but besides Crisis On Infinite Earths and Flashpoint, the start and end of this era, the rest you can just kind of breeze by so long as you understand the big plot points like Batman dying or Superboy Prime punching reality. unless you really care about a character central to these stories, skip 'em for now.
now for any character, if they have a Year One comic? that is a very safe bet as a place to start. it is what it sounds like. Batman: Year One is going to be Bruce's first year as Batman. same as Green Arrow: Year One, Batgirl: Year One, etc. when in doubt, if there's a Year One, start with Year One. (note: for Superman, his "year one" type story is called Superman: Birthright and it is worth reading if you like Superman)
for Batman, i am holding you by the shoulders when i say this: people will tell you to read The Killing Joke. they're liars. do not listen to them. it's a bad story. you don't need it. do not let the Joker fanboys lie to you. people will also say Dark Knight Returns. don't listen to *them* either. i *like* DKR, i talk about it a lot here. it's not a good intro to Batman. it's an AU story, it's not canon, ignore it for now.
now where you *should* start with Batman, imo, is as followed
Batman: Year One - as said above, Year Ones are good, this is solid to start with
Batman: The Long Halloween - this is an iconic story and it's a followup to year One
Batman: Dark Legacy - the followup to Long Halloween, also a very good story
Batman: Hush - this story is a solid starter if you want to understand the general vibe of Gotham, the typical characters you see in the Batfamily, and a good Batman villain
once you've got the basics down, you *can* get into the big boy storylines like Batman: Knightfall and Batman: No Man's Land, but don't worry about those right now. they're long and complicated and shouldn't really be your starting point no matter how good they are.
other very good pre-Flashpoint comics that are easy to pick up and iconic storylines
Death of Superman - this is a long arc in the Superman run that if you collect in trades, goes Death of Superman, Funeral For A Friend, Reign of the Supermen, Return of Superman, Doomsday. it's long, but a very iconic storyline
Wonder Woman by George Perez - this the run that helped define modern Wonder Woman within the pre-Flashpoint era
JLA: Year One - if you want a good Justice League story where you get characters besides Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman taking the shine, this is a great place to start
Green Arrow by Mike Grell - start with Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters and then go into Green Arrow (1988). this has the darker, very 80s vibes that gets a bit gritty and very realistic with the issues it faces bc Green Arrow comics tend to be more rooted
The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman - this technically starts before pre-Flashpoint, don't worry about it it's fine. a good run for all of these characters, can get a little confusing, it is okay to be confused do not be afraid to google shit
so, some big stories out of the way i'm just. honestly going to run down the line of the major pre-Flashpoint Batfamily members and give you comic recs for them that you can start with. (besides Bruce obviously, bc well. see above)
Dick Grayson
NIghtwing: Year One
Robin: Year One
Nightwing (1995)
Tim Drake
Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying
Robin (1990)
Robin II: Joker's Wild
Robin III: Cry of the Huntress
Robin (1993)
Barbara Gordon
Batgirl: Year One
Birds of Prey (1999)
Jason Todd
Batman: The Cult (as Robin)
Batman: Death in the Family (as Robin)
Batman: Under The Red Hood
Red Hood: Lost Days
Cassandra Cain
Batgirl (2000)
Batman: No Man's Land
Jean-Paul Valley
Batman: Sword of Azrael
Batman: Knightfall
Stephanie Brown
Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma
Batgirl (2009)
Selina Kyle
Catwoman by Ed Brubaker
Helena Bertinelli
Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood
Huntress: Year One
Birds of Prey: Manhunt
Damian Wayne
Batman & Robin (2009)
there are other very important pre-Flashpoint stories for all of these characters, but these are starting points more than anything. figure out what characters you're interested and go from there. understanding the universe at large helps, do not get me wrong. but at the end of the day, comics are a choose your own adventure of who you want to give a shit about. you're *never* going to read everything "important" and you're probably not going to understand everything. that's okay. don't treat it like a media you need to "complete" like a tv show or a movie, but more like an open world game where you decide what characters/teams/stories you like the most.
pre-Flashpoint covers a lot of ground. some stuff will be darker and grittier, some stuff will be more light-hearted. it will all be about what titles you pick up and what characters you decide you want to read about. you're obviously going to get a much more grounded storyline out of Green Arrow than you are say, a JLA comic. i prefer the more grounded, "street level" sorts of characters. (if you like gritty detective stories, i will be biased and highly recommend the Question (1987) just because. i love him okay.) but you might find you like sometimes more worldly and big scale. at the end of the day: don't force yourself to love a comic you're not enjoying, even if you like that character. you can put that shit down. sometimes, "important stories" are by shitty writers that you won't enjoy reading and you shouldn't make this hobby a chore. i don't care how "critically acclaimed" it is, you don't have to like it if it doesn't click for you. and on the flipside, a comic might be considered "bad" but you may enjoy it (a personal example: Robin III: Cry of the Huntress is considered a very weak comic. don't care. i love it anyway.) accept the cringe, have fun, and enjoy yourself at the end of the day. none of it will make sense anyway so just read what sounds cool to you.
this was all over the place and rambly, but i hope it helps at least a little! welcome to comics anon! if you or anyone else would like more character-specific recs, feel free to ask! if i don't know, i can at the very least hopefully point you in the right direction <3
24 notes · View notes
timeausterrors · 8 months ago
Text
i had the most infuriating interaction on twitter. so i want to have more productive and interesting conversations about homestuck now. tell me things you find unique or interesting with homestuck's writing/characters/themes etc! or tell me criticisms you have about it, its character choices or writing choices, etc! (pls dont come in to just say act 6 is bad or vriska did nothing wrong etc ! you can have those opinions but i want to spark conversations and debates around new and interesting topics or topics that don't get brought up as much!!) ALSO PLS NO HS2 i just want to talk about Homestuck as it is because i think there's still so much to dissect and explore!
43 notes · View notes
planet4546b · 7 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
ffvii: rebirth, 2024/spoiler, hala alyan/@.arthoesunshine/season: a letter to the future, 2023/untitled, mark rothko/outer wilds, 2019/what will you miss about the earth?, megan fernandes/george sand, to gustave flaubert, june 1870/perhaps the world ends here, joy harjo/drawing, kyutae lee/ffvii: rebirth, 2024/disco elysium, 2019/rawk tawk: q&a with philly's hop along by phawker/my god, it's full of stars, tracy k. smith/you're the beginning and the end of all things, sung hwa kim/the conditional, ada limon/eschatology, eve l. ewing/season: a letter to the future, 2023/no good al joad, hop along/a small collection of things @.poetryoutloud/i know the end, phoebe bridgers/ffvii: rebirth, 2024
23 notes · View notes
starbuck · 6 days ago
Text
i am not opposed to films being very on the nose about their message, in fact, i often find that charming and fun… but the one thing that i REALLY don’t like is when they have a voiceover repeating earlier lines when they become thematically relevant. like, Ah, i see, you think i have the memory of a goldfish! you think that i am stupid!
8 notes · View notes
fiona-fififi · 2 months ago
Text
The way people sometimes refuse to acknowledge that writing choices that clearly go against established canon should mean something is endlessly frustrating to me. We don't have to agree on the interpretation, but these writing choices SHOULD mean something.
Otherwise, it's shitty writing.
#'the ga wouldn't even notice'#'the character doesn't seem to mind'#'you're reading too much into things'#no actually the fact that so many people think writing doesn't have to involve any stylistic or thematic choices to build meaning#and that writers just do stuff and as long as the character doesn't say anything it couldn't possibly mean anything is absurd#like y'all can pick up any classic piece of literature and think the writing just manifested on the page#and nothing is any deeper than some author saying what happened to a character like the character's just recounting real-life events#and that nothing really means anything except exactly what is said outright or some shit#but that's not how good writing works#in any form of media#and if the blatant contradictions are not being addressed then maybe the writing is shitty actually#and also even IF something wasn't intended to mean anything by the author directly doesn't mean that no meaningful connotations exist#for the audience like jesus christ y'all#i get enough of this bullshit from my students i don't need it in fandom too#let people analyze things and dig into them and spec and 'look too deeply' it's fun#and also it's okay if someone has a different interpretation than you and wants to talk about the possibilities behind that interpretation#or about other possible interpretations#it is not hurting you to see someone 'read too much into something' let people have their opinions#without trying to shut down everything you disagree with goddamn#anyway#911 discourse#fandom negativity#and actually i do think it's mostly shitty writing at this point#but that doesn't make it not mean anything that it's shitty writing actually#and it shouldn't be viewed as some awful character flaw for someone to point out why certain choices don't make sense#and to talk about what they would like to see addressed because of that
7 notes · View notes
metanarrates · 1 year ago
Text
orv scratches that good gamer itch in my brain because i learned about the term "ludonarrative resonance" once in class and now every time i see a mechanic that serves as storytelling fuel i start screeching with delight
56 notes · View notes
Text
I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.
Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.
Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.
And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!
Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.
Tumblr media
#bg3#like... thematically the characters are bg3 are all struggling with mortal frailty and meaninglessness in the grand scheme of gods#several of them are on a ticking clock to immediate death. the tadpoles themselves are a death sentence. others are being actively#hunted by their abusers or will be drawn back into a life that's no real life at all or told to kill themselves or seen as nothing but#disposable pawns in the game of the gods to be used and discard as if nothing#or are destined for objectively shitty afterlives#and what do they do? they fight it! tooth and nail! and try to live their best life here and now! they form bonds and fall in love#and help strangers or each other and have fun even for only the moment and cling to life by their fingernails#while also accepting death could be tomorrow or next week or decades from now because we all die but that's no reason to lie#and meekly accept it because some god said so#they care! they all care SO SO MUCH ABOUT LIVING! even if its tempting to give in to the nihilism they all try so goddamn hard#even on evil routes there's something so deeply human and vulnerable to how it all comes from caring so deeply#about wanting to live and survive and be loved and safe#listen to Wither's lines about the companions if they died. especially Karlach. do you get it? they made the GOD OF DEATH#JERGEL HIMSELF! feel something about the beauty of the mortal life in all its fleeting incandescent glory!#but also I think it's just that Jergel needed to leave his sad little crypt more and talk to people other than kelemvor#and Helm accidentally made Jergel less terrible by forcing him to socialize with the mortals#it's like never leaving your room as a teenager. it makes you depressed and sad and full of despair like an understimulated parrot#and like is Wither's being more invested in the affairs in mortals necessarily a good thing? maybe. maybe not. but he clearly is#so good on him. I think more gods should hang out with mortals in non-worship contexts. might give them some perspective#just pretend to be some random helper NPC#and this is all especially poignant when we remember Jergel’s past as Neutral Evil and the genuinely horrible things he’s done
8 notes · View notes
tyrannuspitch · 8 months ago
Text
thinking about the specifics of loki's sexuality for the first time in aaages and like... while i am personally not too fussed and tend to go with the flow here. i've decided i think it's fair to argue that the loki show is so far removed from the original character that you don't have to accept what it says on the subject.
obviously SOME people will be doing that maliciously, especially (but by no means exclusively) if their alternative is that he's cishet. it's def worth watching out for (and reflecting on a little in yourself.)
but at the same time - there are genuinely zero datapoints on mcu loki's orientation while he has his original characterisation. he's never visibly attracted to anyone, and he never expresses any personal feelings on sex or romance. (i mean, overtly. you can read anything into anything if you go looking for it, but nothing is canon.) loki is queercoded, but his queercoding in the first three films is entirely about gender presentation. so, if you accept that this era of canon is separable from the rest, then by the same logic it follows that loki's actual orientation is a blank slate.
so yeah. obviously if you like seeing loki as bi that's great, vive la bisexualité. but also. if you see loki as gay or aroace or whatever else, especially if you've been doing so since the 2010s, who are any of us to tell you you're wrong.
10 notes · View notes
whypolar · 2 years ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
An explainer
Any version of either of these characters would either ignore me or pop me like a grape if I attempted to speak to them. It's fine.
60 notes · View notes
variousqueerthings · 1 year ago
Text
I note that I don't, and I never, was much of a fan of doctor-and-rose as romance, but that I -- rather than get annoyed at the romantic-coded scenes -- had a tendency to simply read them from a totally different perspective, and really maybe should have been a sign of sooomething different about me, that I continuously felt that the doctor's concepts of connection must be so alien, that to call it romance would be to diminish the actual Thing that they had, which was presented as such onscreen (to my mind then, now I realise what was happening, but I prefer what I had going on), which is basically that the doctor was a shell of a person, hurtling towards destruction (he would have died without rose in ep1), desperately lonely and sad and traumatised, and she retaught nine -- and by extension ten -- how to love the universe, at the same time as nine and ten taught her the same. (I think about the scene in father's day, where while they're arguing, rose says that she knows how sad he is, and he'll just hang around the tardis waiting for her -- she knew!)
and then on top of that with sarah-jane (which, I never watched the classics as a kid, so I didn't have that context for her beyond what the episode presented) it felt like that was sort of confirmed and made even more canon through this idea that the doctor is constantly mourning the inevitable deaths of their companions and would rather simply leave them behind at some point than watch that happen (and they've seen that happen before, although dying for a cause versus just... dying, because you die, while they don't, they just continue on and on, always seeking connection, always knowing that time will take them away, that's a whole other thing)
and then of course there's ten's... I would call it "sex appeal" because it's david tennant and with his performance there's immediately a bit of a focus on oh he's quite pretty and he faints/is knocked unconscious in both of his first episodes, and a lot more flirting, and the people want to see sparks or what have you... but the doctor as portrayed and written is still... not coming at it that way. yes yes girl in the fireplace but also, once again, doesn't work for me, because I find it soooo much more interesting that the doctor would imprint on A Life - and a life that they admire -- and speedrun the exact thing that they're most afraid of with their companions... that she ages and dies and it's the one thing that the doctor simply cannot stop
meanwhile rose is quite young and swept up in this whole massive adventure and very much reads the doctor not as an alien (frequently surprised by their alien-ness) and gets jealous of sarah-jane as if she's an ex, and renette as if she's... a replacement? but really it's more that the doctor met her at the point when she was about to accept her life as it was. not an exciting life, not a bad life, but always having to ignore the idea that there must be more to it than this. and the idea that she might be unceremoniously dumped back in that after seeing just how This the this could be, of course that's terrifying. and of course she's simultaneously taken with the dashing doctor and the jetset life, and worried she could be replaced, because to her the doctor saved her at 19 years old. in some ways the doctor created her (considering who she becomes after dooms day)
contrasted to martha who initially has a similar kind of experience, but the doctor doesn't meet her at the space she's in with them -- ten is leaning on her, like they did with rose, but not giving anything back unless kicking and screaming and traumatising her whole family. martha's trajectory is so so tragic, because she barely gets a taste of the splendor versus the horrors and the latter marks her for life. but she also knows to walk away from those overwhelming feelings, rather than give into them, she knows they'll never be rewarded and she also grows beyond wanting to be a crutch for the doctor (the fact that she then ends up as a soldier, well... ouch)
and then of course donna, who never has those fucking awe-feelings to begin with and whose connection with the doctor is explicitly de-romanticised but never placed on a lesser pedestal as if there's a hierarchy of alloromanticism. topples those pillars, never sees the doctor as anything but what the doctor is. good old donna. (sobs.) (but also... cautious hope for the specials.) (but also sobs.)
my point being. just don't buy alloromantic doctor, they're a near-immortal alien. it's such a dull simplistic way of reading their relationships to other beings. other point being. all those women who were making heart-eyes at ten, wish they'd met thirteen and had a... "yeah, this still works for me," moment. their horizons, too, are broadened by seeing More. (that or they realise they were never actually "in love" but just thought ten was a sexy skinny little snack and it blinded them.) (although jodie whittaker, too, is a snack.)
and lastly lastly ofc, is that if the doctor has a longterm (by doctor time measurement) intense relationship with anyone, whatever that might be called, it's the tardis. and that relationship is also so alien it cannot be quantified by human words for concepts
#im rewatching doctor who#doctor who#dw#aroace doctor#look im rewatching into 13 and beyond i am willing to entertain yaz and 13 because we enjoy a good bit of lesbianism#however will wait and see because the doctor in my head is so so aroace in every incarnation#they just manifest it in different ways#i could go into the whole eleven-and-river and how i feel about that#i am perhaps in the minority in that river's arc just doesn't work for me and often neither does her character#i kind of want to listen to the audio adventures because ive heard she's got much more to do there#than be a flirty enigma/sexy lady/moffat fantasy#but i can say that one of my least favourite things about moffat's run was how 'sexy' he tried to make everything#by literally just having people use the word sexy all the time and talk about bad girls and what have you#it's like sexiness as written by a straight teenage boy#and not a supposedly grown man writing for grown people#other minority opinion perhaps but eleven just isn't my cup of tea#am interested in how i'll feel going back into that run#dont like matt smith much dont like moffat much and dont like what they envisioned for the doctor and how they directed/acted the doctor#feel like capaldi had to claw the character back into some semblance of thematic coherency#i was never too much into especially ten getting a bit high and mighty with lonely god and the like titles BUT#waters of mars places that in a very particular context that makes it so so gooood#(another post for another day about companion opinions)
24 notes · View notes