#I AM THINKING MANY

[starglossie]

Mel is the textbook example of how black female characters are treated in fandom. This is not to say that there are not people who love her or appreciate her character in all of its facets.

I'm just scratching my head at some of the takes on her character that feels, to me, like a gross misrepresentation of who she is and how she is presented in the show.

It is true that she is a politician. It is true that she knows how to navigate social situations. She was raised by Ambessa! She knows the tricks of the game better than anyone! But then I see people calling her manipulative? And then feel vindicated by Jayce screaming at her (unnecessarily so, btw bc that scene was SO crazy) that she was manipulative (when by the way, we all agree Jayce was not in his right state of mind at the time and then apologized afterwards because he realized he crashed out on her for no reason). When she... never has been manipulative?

So if someone sees your potential, and wants to see it flourish, is that manipulative?

Jayce LITERALLY wanted her to take a chance on his and viktor's project. It was MUTUALL BENEFICIAL for Mel to help Jayce posit himself in a position of power that would get him better access to the resources he needed to get where he wanted to go.

That's not manipulation. That's investment.

Mel is a complex, black female character. It is not to say she is perfect. She's not. She has her flaws but one of those flaws is NOT manipulation and I cast a side eye at people who think Ambessa is a great, well-written character and then think Mel is not. I have to. Because Ambessa is written to be aggressive, and cold, and strong, and tough--even her design emulates this rough edge. And I HAVE to think, why do I see people write essays on how bad Mel is but not Ambessa? Is it because Ambessa carries character traits that are more palatable to a non-black audience?? Character traits that more align with people's subconscious associations with blackness?

ANYWAYS.... I'M YAPPING. I could go on about how Mel is soft, and kind, and strong, and her character arc is about finding out who she is not as a child of Ambessa or an exiled daughter, but who is MEL MEDARDA, and what do you do with this newfound discovery. What do you do in the wake of grieving your mother who died by your hand?

I could go on. But I am so tired of seeing posts dogging Mel and taking scenes out of context and if Mel was a MAN.... I don't think she'd get half this flack. And if Mel was a WHITE MAN......... LMAOOOOO.

Anyways I love Mel she's pookie.

[spyglassrealms]

had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[astearisms]

catalysts, protectors

[paintedcrows]

Holiday Classics

Been thinking about Ford watching the 70s Animated Lord of the Rings Movies... (companion comic to this post!)

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

his therapist woulda had a field day at their next appointment

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[tarvalian]

XII - The Hanged Man, Upright: surrender, sacrifice, faith, perspective

[rogueshadeaux]

“I hate the script, the vault dwellers sound so cheesy—“ my Brother in Steel you realize that’s the point, right? They were bred to act like the physical embodiment of an HR e-mail. Did you not catch the memo that Vault-Tec put out regarding their experiment facilities?

[cametotheshowinsd]

TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR (2023)

[ashleyloob]

this can't just be me but do you ever hear a YouTubers voice and immediately click off because you just can't stand how they sound and don't know why. even if the content itself is fine

[ohbother2]

do you know what?

I miss long seasons.

I miss seasons that had 20 episodes and half of them could be cut and nothing would be lost to the story.

I miss the episodes where nothing fucking happens but you get to see the main cast goofing around with one another. You get to see their interactions, their relationships develop, their day-to-day lives and how they all fit together in them.

You get the Christmas/halloween/valentine's special -is it needed? certainly not. but is it good? is it entertaining? does it give the show and characters life? do we, the viewers, enjoy it? YES!

give me long stories!! give me little quarrelling spats between characters that can be resolved in one episode with no need to have an impact on the greater story! make these stories real!

let me enjoy them before they end!!!

I absolutely love Hazbin Hotel and the little world that's been created, but I can't help but feel disappointed we're only getting two seasons of 8 episodes.

back in the early 2000's 16 episodes would have been ONE season, never mind the entire thing.

show my angel dust and husk and nifty and sir penthouse living their daily lives in the hotel! show me Charlie brainstorming ways to redeem sinners! give me Charlie forcing the hotel staff to do cringe-y exercises! give me an entire episode of Vox trying to follow alastor through security cameras! Give me husks typical day! Give me a special through the eyes of nifty on a mission to irradiate the hotel of bugs! Give me sir penthouse and the egg boys up to no good!

give me something other than the bare necessities to make the story flow

6 months have nearly gone by in the hotel, and it feels like 1 month.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

...Turns out gay sex actually was the solution.

(This is basically a redraw, come read the real deal over at Tiger Tiger)

[irenespring]

Today I would like to shout out that one random Twitter person who made up that JD Vance bragged about fucking a couch.

Imagine making a random shitpost and less than two months later your joke is being used by a major party nominee for Vice President on live television at his introduction rally, earning him thunderous applause.

That poster must be having quite the experience.

[paintedcrows]

Ever think about how Bill Cipher has canonically threatened every member of the Pines family, except Stanley, with suicide? I think about that a lot... Kid's show villain everyone!

Individual Panels below the cut!

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"