#And something about autonomy there too

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

Re: the end of your Joever/renegade post, it’s almost like wondering at what point does the “rough patch” cease to be a rough patch and just how the person *is*. As in, this is just how they choose to exist or are most comfortable living as a person.

(Not villainizing him at all, it’s just alluding to what you and others said… at some point it stops being a single issue or issues to fix and starts revealing itself to just be fundamental differences in compatibility and outlook.)

Just got this and I know it was sent pre-TTPD tracklist, but yeah!! Like it makes so much sense to me that a relationship would take over a year to go from Renegade to YLM and then another year to reach breaking up for good. That honestly feels like the most normal progression in the world, and I’m sooo interested to hear how she describes this experience and gives voice to something that I think a lot of people have been through.

I’ve talked about it on here before but my current relationship is 6 years old, and Renegade literally sparked some very VERY serious conversations for us when it came out because it gave voice to things we were dealing with and we were able to address using the language she offered us in the song. That was a definite “rough patch.” We nearly broke up, and had a real epiphany about things that we both needed to change in order to continue, and the types of support we both needed in order to stay safe and healthy. I felt so seen by Renegade and then in midnights as well- labyrinth and The Great War come to mind - the decision to stick it out. When I heard about joever it hit me (and others, from what I’ve heard!) suuuuper hard because it was like wait. Whatever measures they took after Renegade and the Great War actually didn’t fix it; what does that mean for me!? I was soo shaken up because of how strongly I related to the struggle (as it was portrayed to us). But that gets to the point of this ask: the difference between a rough patch and something un-fixable. I’m certain this will come up on TTPD, and it’ll be a deep portal time travel exploration of how she came to that exact conclusion. I can’t wait.

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is that small moment in “Air Turtle” where immediately after the Daves lose yet another game, Leo says how sorry he is and how he’s doing his best as the mascot. This moment is so short but it’s honestly jam-packed with a whole heap of characterization.

His need to apologize for things clearly not his fault - especially when it feels like he messes up the job he was given despite doing the best he can (the phrase “it’s not about you” takes a new meaning when this is one of the lessons to be learned from that - that he is not always solely responsible for things going wrong), his need to save face and make a connection with an older adult man in his life (something he consistently does throughout the series - he’s got a few daddy issues, always collecting potential father figures, it’s no wonder he jumps at the bit to keep rapport), and the way he sounds and looks and the words he chooses really pushes how he is just a kid (“Mr. the Dunk, I’m so sorry”).

Like I know it’s a one off moment that doesn’t truly mean much, but when put against the rest of the series it works really well with the rest of Leo’s established character and helps in solidifying later concepts as well.

[tea-cat-arts]

Since we're getting closer to the release of the next Madoka Magica movie, I'd like to gently remind you guys that Rebellion doesn't have a single reliable narrator, and you really can't take anything the girls say as fact.

Madoka, Mami, and Kyoko have all had their memories tampered with by Homura and don't have the full story

Sayaka and Nagisa are both mentally fully there, but they're biased as they benefit from Madoka's system

Homura is being prodded by Kyubey, is in the middle of a mental breakdown, is missing key information, and is locked inside her own head where she is subconsciously filtering out and ejecting things that don't alight with the reality she wants there

This isn't to say that any of these girls are bad people or being intentionally manipulative. Just please keep in mind that all these characters' perspectives are skewed, and you really can't take everything they say at face value.

[ruporas]

post ep 11

[kacievvbbbb]

to complement this post

I think the red hair pirates would be obsessed with S-Hawk too! Especially the main group who've known Mihawk through his teenage marine hunting phase.

Benn would know they are walking on thin ice but look at him! He’s a little baby Mihawk! Look at his little uniform shirt tucked into his little shorts. Every angry and threatening expression s-hawk could make would mean nothing to a crew that has seen the real thing live and in color. It would just be adorable like look at his little frown! His glare! The threat of disembodiment in his eyes! Adorable

Mihawk is very uncomfortable with how much the red hair pirates fawn over and adore what is essentially a manufactured baby him. But yet also somehow touched? By it. He’ll kill everyone and then himself before he admits it tho

Yasopp, who actually did know a shorter 19 year old Mihawk, would ask him if he was that adorable but tiny (still can't comprehend that the seraphim are infact giant) as a child and if he had any pictures, and Mihawk almost takes his head.

[worshipfulmercy]

i have so many thoughts about his gender and how he's kind of textually a woman and/or abinary (read tags if interested)

[july-19th-club]

we talk a lot about how the shtriga case was bad parenting and horrible just being-a-person-ing from john back when the boys were KIDS but this time im talking about how . it's also horrible parenting when the kids are adults. like you held the guilt of that night over your son's head in his childhood, you looked at him different, you know? and that was worse. and THEN he's a grown twenty-something and he hasn't seen you in half a year because you're back on your old obsessive quest and you keep him busy by sending him cases to work. you send him this one because you know your son, and you know that when he realizes what he's hunting here, the same child-devouring creature he once left his little brother vulnerable to (although you never told him what he needed to look out for, and never gave him a reason behind the orders, and never explained), and that he will hound himself over it and insist upon finishing it and you allow him to do the job and you allow him to continue to take responsibility for your decisions seventeen years ago, when you left an anxious eight-year-old alone with a preschooler for three solid days to be bait for a thing that would kill them. he finishes this case thinking he's finally righted the wrong from back then, finally made up for his failure (as a CHILD) to protect his brother, to follow the orders, to obey and behave, and he'll never be corrected about this. he will insist to the boy in this episode that it's not that kid's fault, he will insist that it is not really his father's fault, no, dad gave me an order and i didn't listen. don't. don't. but nobody will ever tell him this one wasn't his fault

[boyfridged]

Genuinely curious question.

How do you interpret those comics where Robin!Jason was advocating for the woman who killed a serial killer?

I certainly don't take issue with it even if the authors intent was to make us dislike Jason, but one could argue it was unintentional character establishing for elements seen in his Red Hood era even if that was not the intent.

two parts to my answer here: one that explains why i don't think this story can be taken straightforwardly and the second explaining what i think is still of value there and how it could be reinterpreted.

to clarify for those not overly familiar with jay's robin tenure: we're talking about judy koslosky, introduced in batman #422.

first of all. you know this, of course! but i think some might forget about it - this is not a jason story. this isn't even a robin story. this issue is strictly a batman story, and jay's role there is one that often gets delegated to robins - in fact, got delegated to every single robin at some point, dick and tim included - the role of a youth too rash in their pursue of justice, which serves more purpose for bruce's character than their own. bruce has to deliver his lectures about the legal system to someone, and that someone happens to be robin, who is often for this reason treated with little consideration. that's an issue historically, but not a surprising one; as i've said before many times, this is bruce's world, everyone else just lives in it and has to suffer through being reduced to a rhetorical device from time to time. so whatever jason says, in that arc especially, is in contrary to what the narrative wants you to believe (and it wants you to believe in law, essentially.) it doesn't draw any connection to jay's personal experiences and offers no insight into his inner life. and this, of course, was even more taken advantage of in case of jay, since starlin believed robin to be a hindrance to batman's story in general.

and since we're speaking of starlin -- we ought to once again note, that he completely butchered any continuity for robin jay, making weird time skips. jason's robin run is very fragmented because of that - we basically go from him at 11/12 to him at 14... with essentially no insight into what happened in between.

but all of this to say: i don't fundamentally take issue with jason's attitude either. it's the execution (being the result of all mentioned above) that bothers me... or, well -- i definitely think that the implication that jay would be fine with personally killing the man is disturbing and weird given that bruce holding his arm when he beats the offender up is a strange mirror to jay similarly stopping bruce in dc #569... but i don't think his desperation and raw emotions in reaction to the case were a wrong turn. i just wish they were portrayed as a turn; i just wish we got to see the build up to his hopelessness, of it being culminated from overflowing empathy towards victims, victims like judy. because i believe the reason for which he sympathizes with judy should not be his own anger, but rather a result of his morality being so deeply rooted in interpersonal relations and focus on the victims... instead, starlin portrays it as if it came from his own pettiness. but how interesting would it be if starlin considered his own, albeit of course exaggerated, complaint that the position of robin is child abuse seriously and explored the traumatic effect of witnessing so many brutal crimes up-close, and what it would do to someone as sensitive as jay. and oh, it could go meta, since it contrast so starkly with silver age-esque plotlines of barr's run and takes place as dc was entering it's "dark" era, condemning even a child to spectate acts of violence that would often get relegated to bruce's solo adventures in the past (this is the third part of this arc and robin did not appear in any of the previous 2)...

as to it being read as establishing his red hood era: honestly, i'm not a fan mainly because 1. it was done badly 2. makes him read as someone doomed to become red hood 3. and it ignores the fact that, as i mentioned, it is not a jason-centric issue. in general reading his robin stories through the lenses of his post-res characterisation is not beneficial for the source material... could be if he was, in these moments, properly written as a child and even just a human being. and could provide with an some argument regarding how these experiences push him into considering more radical methods. alas.

[xiii-e]

//ooc posting: I NEED to find more fun/silly things to do with my two they are Not meant to be all agony all the time I swear- I just have a penchant for the dramatic and they're a little in the torment nexus o(-< but on god they will Have Fun too

[pynkhues]

How do you think the show will depict Armand and Lestat’s relationship? I used to think that the theatre box scene was made up because well, Armand is obviously distorting a lot of stuff. But since Armand was already exposed as a liar this season I don’t think they’re going to have him be exposed again for lying abt something major in s3? I’m also curious if they’re going to keep Armand’s Lestat obsession

Hey! It's an interesting area to think about, especially because I think there are a lot of truths in Armand's story (taking Nicki to bait Lestat out, Lestat's role in the destruction of the Children of Satan cult, Lestat giving Armand and the coven the theatre, his and Lestat's mutual attraction), but there's already lies threaded through that it sounds like the show's planning for (most notably, of course, Gabrielle being omitted, Lestat playing Harlequin instead of Lelio and, of course, Lestat and Armand having had sex).

I talked about it in more detail here (and included the passage from the book), but I actually think them not having consumated their relationship + the one time they tried, Lestat being massively triggered with memories of Magnus, is too important to Lestat's arc at that point of the story to lose?

I could be wrong, of course, but given the way Rolin's talked about the trauma Lestat carries with him, and the weight of that particular scene as both a trigger point for trauma and one where Lestat explodes violently, I feel it'll probably be adapted?

It also feeds I think into this touchstone that the show's been exploring already of victim-survivors of sexual violence (Claudia, Lestat and Armand) all treating each other pretty badly and refusing to engage with the fact that trauma might inform the other's action. I've written about this before, but Lestat weaponising Claudia's rape, while Claudia casts doubt on Lestat's, and Armand diminishes Lestat's in 2.03 is all pretty pointed to me and opens up a really interesting dialogue in how trauma isn't a ticket to compassion when it comes to other people experiencing similar horrors.

So yeah, I don't know! I do think they're going to be insane about each other, haha, and I think there was genuinely a lot of truth in Armand's retelling, but I think there was a lot that was deliberately mm, curated too.

[mariocki]

Return of the Living Dead III (1993)

"What's going on, Curt, tell me what happened?"

"We had an accident."

"What kind of an accident?"

"On the bike."

"What happened?"

"You died."

"I what?"

[mishkakagehishka]

I love instagram

[forcedhesitation]

I love that the bg3 guys are all written to have this intense adoration of karlach and lae’zel’s abilities to absolutely eviscerate their enemies. they’ve all got the same taste in women, which is “she could gut the big scary man chasing me, and then princess carry me to safety in her blood spattered arms.” and I respect and relate to that, as a bisexual man myself.

[emmriches]

hrm

[dent-de-leon]

playing Astarion's romance and rewatching Vanitas has given me so many vampire writing thoughts--

[thesixthstar]

i just did a rewatch and like yes its insane already how fun and surprisingly good Teen Beach Movie and Teen Beach 2 are, but its more insane how good they could be if they bothered to use the incredible potential and the THEMES

Like. Wet Side Story - The time loop vibes. the "what if Sisyphus WAS happy rolling the rock, until he remembered the nature of his predicament". and "what if Sisyphus put down the rock and walked away and then HAD to go back". the Orpheus and Eurydice of Brady and Mack. feminist icon Lela. perfect ken doll Tanner.

like my god. Someone has GOT to make the two movies into a single stage musical where the song lyrics are less empty and gut a bunch of exposition to make room for expanding on the Themes/character development.