#And now I'm here

[eskawrites]

the funniest part of the celebrity fake dating au is that dustin spent years teasing robin and steve for being blatantly in love, when in reality anyone with eyes could have seen that robin and nancy were head over heels for each other the entire time

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

something something contrast between full eclipse vs i'd give you my sunshine give you my best, you used to shine so bright but i watched all of it fade, lived in the shade you were throwing 'til all of my sunshine was gone, people throw rocks at things that shine, the kingdom lights shined just for me and you, every time you shine, I'll shine for you, what's a girl gonna do a diamond's gotta shine...

[overleftdown]

saltburn and lo real maravilloso

bare with me.

lo real maravilloso, in its direct translation, means "the marvelous real." in english language, this is more commonly said as "magical reality." magical reality is (arguably) a genre of fiction.

lo real maravilloso is a genre which defies definition. it is the inexplicable, the absurd, the ironic, the whimsical, the manifestation of dream and abstraction. lo real maravilloso is also the mundane. if this is confusing, that's entirely understandable. let me quote alberto rios; "first things first. nothing so important and nothing at all unimportant." this is the essence of magical realism. the absurd and unbelievable in a constant dance with the mundane, creating nothing so important and nothing at all unimportant.

to quote un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes (a very old man with enormous wings) by gabriel garcía márquez, "his huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. they looked at him so long and so closely that pelayo and elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar." in the story about un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes, the absurd and unbelievable (a winged man crashing to the earth) becomes the mundane (the winged man is flightless, and those that found him are quickly annoyed by his pathetic presence). a winged man becomes nothing so important, and the drag of every-day life is nothing at all unimportant.

now, saltburn. i'm fascinated by emerald fennell's choice of using the aristocratic english as her metaphor for the untouchable. in a lot of ways, i'm grateful this is what she chose. while the ultimate inspiration for saltburn was less the materialistic class commentary that it came to be, the aristocracy becomes so many things throughout the movie. what i wanted to talk about is how the aristocracy, the cattons, are lo real maravilloso. the essay i quoted before by alberto rios is spectacular, because it delves into not just the ironic nature of magical realism, but the rhetoric, as well; what it means to think we understand something, how language deludes us into believing we know something, how our own reality is mistaken for reality itself. saltburn and the cattons live in their own reality, which to the outsider, is absurdity. when watching the film, what we find ourselves thinking throughout it is essential to understanding the rhetoric of the movie.

when we see the grandeur and wealth and think how impractical, how unreal, how hilarious. the humor that saltburn taps into is near-identical to the core of magical realistic irony. "to use classical terminology, tone so often derives from the delivery of the narrative as litotes—understatement—in the middle of hyperbole-- overstatement. If it is not humor, then it comes off as flatness of treatment, non-reactivity, deadpan almost, which is the great comedian’s trick..." (rios). think back to the casualty of the cattons' absurdity. the sincerity in which elspeth delivers the most appalling, unreal anecdotes and additions. magical realism places culture, sincerity, normativity uncomfortably close to what we could hardly fathom. a winged man falling from the sky, kept in the chicken coup because it is quickly understood that he is hideous. finding your winged son dead in the middle of an elaborate maze, sprawled out beneath a minotaur statue, and the knowledge that lunch is about to begin.

the longer we experience the world emerald has created, the more we understand the reality in which the cattons live, the more we find it familiar. the absurdity is forgotten, until it's once again realized, until it's once again forgotten. this is the act of interacting realities; ours, and then another, and then back to ours. what's so fun about exploring wealth is this clashing of reality. believing that it's so absurd to be so rich, then succumbing to the normativity of richness, then once again finding yourself laughing at the idea of it. "what do you mean it's almost lunch? how could you say that? your son is dead. and beyond that, he's dead in the middle of a maze. he's dead in the middle of your estate maze, with your estate statues and your 179 bedrooms, one of them being the king's." and when lunch begins, we're dragged back into foreign reality. we feel the grief that pollutes the air, pulls at each of the cattons. we understand that our reality is not reality, nor is their reality. we're submerged in the tone of the film, the tone of the writing. a well-written character is a character who has their own reality; not that they're right or wrong, but that they are.

there is also the clashing of culture. the aristocracy is more familiar to the english. the emotional repression visualized throughout the movie is more familiar to the english. the culture of british boarding school is more familiar to the english. the longer we experience, the longer we stare at the unreasonable, the more familiar it becomes. our reality is not reality. we stand amidst billions of others, who have millions of preconceived notions, derived from millions of alternate cultures, experienced through thousands of languages, interacting with another billion people. what this all boils down to is how little we understand.

how does oliver interact with this foreign reality? how does farleigh? how are felix and venetia interacting with each other, as well as this life that so little experience? how do we understand it? how do we react to it? how do we react to the sex throughout the movie, which exist in its own absurdly real world? at what point in watching saltburn did you forget how stupid it was? at what point did you forget that having a maze in your backyard is ridiculous? having gargoyles? having footmen? having 200-person parties in your own house? at what point did you lose yourself in this foreign reality, and when did you remember that it's all ridiculous? have you remembered? have you realized that the sex was absurd? have you realized that felix catton is absurd? have you realized that oliver is blind to the absurdity as well? hm. hmmm.

[jollmaster]

young human beast

[missycolorful]

Remembering how c!Philza was insistent about c!Wilbur taking and eating the cookies and honey he offered. "I don't deserve these." "No, no, take them. Please, you need to eat," Phil practically pleaded in response.

And then we see an insane amount of cookies, as well as other food, left to go stale in all of Philza’s storage.

[pomegranate-witch]

My tarot cards keep telling me that I need to connect with others in the witchcraft and pagan communities. I guess it's been a long time. I'll be slowly getting back into this blog, and I'm very excited to reconnect!

[somuchbetterthanthat]

truly feel like after a certain age at the VERY LEAST Anxiety should disappear. Like, okay, you've been anxious and depressed since you were oh, right, 13 is that it? more or less. So that means your sentence is over. Welcome to the fun 30s. No more of that!

and yet

[littleladymab]

Thinking about how when I finished the Witcher books in Dec 2022 I went into the tag to find fanart and instead it was a lot of people complaining about them dumping hcav for Hemsworth. Anyway I'm FEASTING on all these first looks of liamralt making me excited for the show again

[scraemoo]

I'm planning to look through all cinematics to see if there are glitches and when exactly they happen. as for the first Purgatory cinematic with the Watcher speaking, I noticed the inconsistency of the glitches. Perhaps the glitches mark certain words of the Watcher and together they form secret messages

[trashyandtiredsol]

It has taken me SO fuckin long to figure out Cable is Nathan Summers ie Scott Summers aka Cyclops fuckin son AND ALSO THAT SCOTT AND JEAN GREY HAD A SON TO BEGIN WITH ajdhajfjsjfhsjfjshfh

[bisexualalistairtheirin]

I always forget how short Trespasser is until I'm almost done with my first seating with it and I'm thinking like "Damn, there's still so much left to happen" but then, just as that thought is formed, I realize I'm halfway done at the Darvaraad.

[kosomolski-dolls]

Vent post, trying to sort my thoughts.

SO.

As you may or may not know, I'm a bit obsessed with Detective Conan rn and especially with one character...

And yesterday, I found a sculpt that I actually kinda liked for him? It has the nice almond eyes, looks pretty and almost androgynous, I liked it.

It also gives me similar vibes to the luts sculpt I once considered for him (but I didn't go for it because I kinda don't love it enough for the character)

So I grabbed the blank photo and did a "vibe check" and...

Yeah, I think it would work. 🤔

So now I went to see if the measurements are similar to the luts MDFs, because the sole reason why I even consider buying him is that I want to be able to take photos with Hiro, and while I love the ooak head I got to bits, it's just... very realistic and i don't think they will look good next to each other?

So I went to check Terra's measurements, and what do I see??

ROMANCE Terra!!

Same sculpt as I have for Hiro, but with a bit more slanted eyes!

Seriously, fuck me... it's 2 weeks in 2024 and I'm tempted by TWO dolls 😭

I'm actually really torn.

Luts offers just the head for sale atm, which means I could just put him on the body I got for the ooak version (or one of the other guys' if I want to take a Koumei group photo 💀), and I know the match would work.

The other head on the other side looks a bit more mature/ less round and juvenile... but it also has 10mm eyes according to the artist.

Plus I can only buy it with the body, which isn't that much of a problem price wise (it's $134), but rather... the size

Not only is it quite a bit more muscular than what I imagine Koumei to be under that suit, he's also probably around 50cm tall 💀 44 without the head...

I could, of course, also just get the sleeping head for $40 and mod the eyes to fit...

But idk if I'm in the mood for this extra work... Sigh.

I commissioned that ooak head because I didn't find anything I liked enough for him. I did consider getting another Terra for him, but it also felt like it would be too cute for him?

And now there's 2 sculpts that are calling out for me...

Nothing will ever beat the ooak, just for the sole reason that it's ooak and I love him.

But taking some cute brotherly photos...? Would also be kinda nice? 😭

[jellobubblelol]

School's fun. Sometimes I end up drained just from looking at a computer screen, and sometimes I end up Jashifying my new art teacher as a coping mechanism.

[italic-doing-random-shit]

You also owe me ColourKiller art because I did self care for that

INKEEP FORGETTING TO COLOR IT IRONICALLY

[astro-b-o-y-d]

It's still so funny to me how I've apparently been calling that triangle mid for almost a decade

[butscrewmefirst]

i do not see myself making any sideblog for us.fw content. all content will be written / reblogged / etc. here bc i am way too lazy to split stuff up. i can't even keep up with multiple blogs in general, so idk what would make me think i could do a sideblog.

anyway i'm down to 1 page of drafts! about 20 threads in total. wish me luck! back to listening to that midsom.mar score to keep me going <3