#I don't think that's necessarily clear

[nameless-poet]

Hellfire

I am the last warden of Hell. Alone I stem back the tides. The souls driven by agony are driven away by the blaze.

They know it in their hearts. It was never about right. It was about my might. The whole time.

And yet they'll still die For my wars, in my fights.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about marriage/women's rights on Vulcan Some may think that T'Pring not being allowed to divorce Spock was because he was going through the pon farr but if she were allowed to divorce him at all she probably would have done that a long time ago, confirmed by T'Pol when she's speaking with Koss, who isn't suffering from the pon farr. She says that he can choose another mate (without invoking a fight it seems: note the difference between a 'mate' and a 'challenger') and after he makes it clear that nothing she says will change his mind about marrying her, she finally threatens to declare a kal-if-fee. It's clear that Vulcan women cannot divorce/refuse to marry a man they've been betrothed to under any circumstances if A) He himself doesn't consent to ending their marriage or B) She doesn't have someone else waiting in the wings to be given to in his stead. Though, if the challenger she selects fails to win the fight, she'll have to marry her betrothed anyway unless (again) he decides he doesn't want her after the challenge. That seems like an incredibly unfair system, heavily biased towards men. SNW is an alternate universe in many obvious respects but most egregiously in that T'Pring has a lot of non-canonical agency over her relationship with Spock. It's interesting to me that Vulcan society has women in many positions of power and treats women as equal to men from what I've seen despite these laws. We don't really see Vulcans exhibiting a misogynistic attitude towards women in general but in TOS (perhaps because of its general writing style but it's still interesting to note) both Sarek and Spock take on patriarchal attitudes specifically regarding wives. Amanda says that 'of course' Sarek commands her because "he is a Vulcan and I am his wife." It's worthwhile in my eyes to note that she specifies 'wife' instead of attributing this attitude to women as a whole. Again, with TOS' writing style it wouldn't be out of place for her to say "he is a man and I am a woman." Spock, while in a pon farr induced irritation, states that it's "undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn't hers" - again implying that there's something specific about being a Wife in Vulcan society which is different from being a woman in general and demands subservience to a husband. This could perhaps stem from the extreme sense of ownership that Vulcan law has permitted men to have over women. A woman legally cannot point blank refuse marriage. There is no option which guarantees she won't have to marry her betrothed other than death. When T'Pau speaks of T'Pring she refers to her as being 'property' and Stonn, before being interrupted, states he's made 'the ancient claim' - we don't know what this is because he gets cut off but it's obvious they're both using the language of Vulcan law. Men are permitted true freedom to choose. If a woman wants to choose someone else to be with there is no option available to her other than the kal-if-fee which might result in the death of the one she wants to be with. And, if her lover fails, her husband can still just decide he wants to marry her and she'll be forced to. T'Pring gives two scenarios: One where Spock 'frees' her and one where he doesn't - it's still ultimately his decision which is clear when he ends the conversation with "Stonn, she is yours." This again isn't just because of the pon farr as T'Pol also goes through this. Koss can choose another mate and when the option is talked about there's no implication that this would result in any sort of fight (both by the casualness of its mention and by the fact that there's no formal word for it unlike the kal-if-fee.) Also, the fact that Koss does eventually grant T'Pol a divorce and it's all fine means that T'Pol isn't lawfully required to have another man waiting if her HUSBAND doesn't want her. It's ONLY required if SHE doesn't want her husband. Tradition must take precedence over individual desire UNLESS!!! You're a man. Then it's fine. Like, your parents might not be happy but legally you're golden.

[yukipri]

Another mini Din & Paz

Probably shortly after Din joined the covert.

~~

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[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

So following the "the TADC characters aren't humans trapped in a game, they're digitized copies of humans and the real humans are just going about their days" theory...

How fucked up would it be if said humans are actually WATCHING the TADC play out as if it's a game of Sims you just created all your friends in and set to autoplay? And with about as much empathy?

"LMAO dude our characters fucking hate each other now"

"Dude your character just went insane and burned down the whole tent haha"

"Oh my god your character abstracted ALREADY?? Lmao dude it's been like 10 minutes what happened??"

[clonerightsagenda]

I rag on Maes Hughes for being chill with genocide but to be *entirely* fair upon a reread, it's not like he's loving it, he's just not particularly haunted by it either. Roy rants about how this is a betrayal of how he joined the military to protect people (mistake number one, dude, seriously) and Maes calls him naive. His reason for fighting is to stay alive. While Roy talks about his dreams of a better future, Maes refers to letters from his girlfriend as his brighter future. He's willing to support Roy's ambitions because Roy's his friend, but he thinks they're childish.

The impression I get is that Hughes has decided he can tolerate atrocities as long as he stays alive and can go home to his loving family, so he leans into that loving family really hard. That's his reward. That's what makes it worth it. Which adds a layer to Envy killing him while disguised as his wife. You can't hold those things separate. If you're a collaborator propping up an awful regime, your family (and you) will still eventually become its victims. The rot at the heart of the nation is wearing your loved one's face.

[aerithisms]

i think my problem with this dw season arc accusing the audience of fanbrain for theorising about ruby is that it both feels deceitful and isn't actually that compelling from a character perspective. the season goes out of its way to build up supernatural mystery around ruby and even invokes susan more heavily than ever before in a way that is deliberately trying to get the audience to make those connections. and then it turns around and says you stupid idiot why would you ever try to connect these dots i have deliberately tried to get you to connect.

building up a mystery only for the character to be ordinary is an impossible girl arc redux only this time accusing the viewer of failing to see the humanity of the companion, whereas the impossible girl arc was turning that accusation on the doctor. 7b didn't really blame the audience for viewing clara as a puzzle and in fact several times spells out the fact that clara is perfectly ordinary before the big reveal to give the audience a chance to catch on. as 7b goes on, instead of laying the mystery on thicker, the audience just gets more and more affirmations that clara is a normal human being (rings of akhaten, journey to the centre of the tardis, hide). i found this approach compelling because it was rooted in character, focusing on the doctor's disconnection from humanity/the gendered dynamic of a man treating a woman as his manic pixie mystery to pull him out of grief. s14's meta approach of accusing the viewer feels both unfair, given it has deliberately led the viewer towards theorising, and personally less compelling to me because it wasn't tied into character in any way.

the thing about rey's parentage in tlj is that the reason rian johnson chose to go for that reveal was that it was the only answer that was interesting. none of the theories - rey is a skywalker, rey is a kenobi, and even the eventually canonical rey is a palpatine - were interesting or satisfying because they brought nothing compelling to the table for the story being told. the only satisfaction to be gained from those answers was a fanbrained "omg rey is important because she's related to that guy from the other movie." on top of that, rey desperately wants her parents to have been important, to give her life and her abandonment some kind of significance. so them being ordinary provided the most compelling trajectory for her character because it was the thing she least wanted to hear. it forced her to do the most introspection and growth, as well as tying into the film's themes about the capacity of ordinary people to be special. it wasn't just a choice made to "gotcha" the viewer, it was rooted in character.

i don't think ruby's mother being ordinary accomplishes the same thing. by invoking susan, s14 is engaging with the most egregious example of the doctor's streak of abandonment, which has potential to be very compelling in relation to ruby (and now also the doctor's) own abandonment issues. theories that ruby might be susan, or be somehow related to susan, or somehow related to the doctor, weren't just fanbrained "omg she's related to that guy i know from the classic series." they were theories genuinely rooted in character and the potential to explore both the doctor and ruby's issues with abandonment. and this is something the show willingly led fans towards by invoking susan so much in the first place. so for the show to turn around and act like they were shallow out of nowhere ideas when they were not shallow and were based on potential character conflicts the show itself deliberately invoked, feels misguided.

as well as that, ruby's mother being ordinary does not require that same growth from ruby as it did for rey because it is exactly what ruby wanted to hear. she never wanted her mother to be important, she just wanted to know who her mother was and have a connection with her. so finding out she was a normal woman who still loves her and wants to be a part of her life is everything she's ever wanted. it doesn't introduce interesting conflict for her the way rey's parents being ordinary did for her, because they were written as different characters with different hangups over their abandonment.

tl;dr i don't necessarily dislike ruby's mother being ordinary as an idea but compared to the things it was inspired by - 7b and star wars - it is not nearly as compelling in terms of how it relates to the characters or themes. and the meta angle, while conceptually interesting, doesn't quite work for me because it feels a little manipulative of the audience.

[wardensantoineandevka]

look, I simply don't have the patience to entertain argumentations apparently rooted in the idea that everything Solas says about anything is a clear-eyed and fair judgment of what the current state of affairs is, what the implications or consequences of that state of affairs is, how those living in those conditions feel about them, what is the best way to move forward to improve those conditions, and what the consequences of any action he takes in an attempt to correct or fix that state of affairs is going to be.

he's a very interesting character and one that I do find sympathetic, especially after Veilguard, but I find it laughable to take anything he says as even remotely grounded in the reality of Thedas now or that his claims about what is and what will be are authoritative. his tragedy is that he is unable to see outside of his perspective and his desperation to assuage his regrets and guilts over hurting others and the world repeatedly in an attempt to make up for or correct his previous hurtful mistakes, which invariably go wrong, creating a vicious cycle. the thing is that Solas does not want to work with the current reality because he feels guilt and regret over creating it, so he is trying to hit a reset button to restore what he destroyed, believing that such a reset is even possible after the world having already changed so much since, adapted to new material conditions, and is trying to find a way forward and better through it—so, I don't necessarily find it convincing that he understands what the current reality even is and whether this is the best course of action to remedy what harm or pain is happening.

if an argumentation starts from a supposition that Solas has the most clear, sensible, authoritative, and grounded assessment and judgment about what is happening now, what must happen to move forward, and what will happen after he acts, I find it a fundamentally flawed one and thus too tedious to entertain, especially given that the series as a whole is very loud about how everything is being filtered through a flawed perspective

[hammerhead-jpg]

Lazy ahh doodles of some of the other pjo characters cuz they need some love too

[bobbinalong]

what earth names do you think otho and osul would pick if they had to pick some?

[mysecretdsmpblog]

quietly reading philza's arcs with rose and the ender king + Hardcore in general as a dissociative disorder instead of possession. phil having a hard time differentiating whether things were dreams or reality, his memory being dogshit throughout, finding things done he didn't do, reading books and letters written to him from someone else, the arguably dissociative episodes of Hardcore, the whole Birdhouse arc, now with him doing shit he otherwise wouldn't, having times where his skills/senses are different (e.g. experiencing temporary blindness and then having strength/resistance he wouldn't otherwise have).

[johnskleats]

Ty Lee and Katara would be friends

[butchhamlet]

that quote about shakespeare being “not of an age, but for all time” does, of course, oversimplify the way shakespeare’s plays were shaped by his time period, but sometimes i do think about how you can read the merchant of venice as making a statement that white people who are marginalized (see portia, white woman, and antonio and bassiano, white gay people) are still, first and foremost, white people who will enact social violence on jewish people & people of color in order to keep their own societal standings secure. which is fascinating from a standpoint of intersectionality & dissecting the violence in white womanhood, and is also fascinating because shakespeare wrote this play in 1596

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly it's been really healing being back to actively contributing things and writing out thoughts on tumblr the last week or so, because while twitter tends to be easier for me to write out Thoughts on without getting overwhelmed, the environment in the twitter fandom circles i'm interested in is not only infested with antis but cliqueish in a way that is caustic to the fucking soul if you try to express a thought that's more than three sentences long--a hundred times over if you're autistic in slightly the wrong way--and it's incredibly reassuring to come back to an environment where the very kindest and most inclusive people toward you are not clearly thinking the r-slur the entire time they interact with you lmao

[name-doggo]

One thing I really wish the FF Community would Stop doing is Removing All Nuance from the Parents in Those Stories in order to Make Them Abusive Supervillains who Never Loved their Kid.

Like... In the Four Years I've been here, and for how Small the Community really is, you'd be surprised how many Times I've seen it-

[osaumu]

LIGHT / DARK TRIAD TEST.

you lean 57% more toward the dark triad than the light triad.

you are 86.07% darker than the average person.

tagging: @tormenther, @doppogin, @rottedfigs, @ategod, @leventar \ @chuyua, @adamanteine + @memuntos (and anyone else who wants to do it) !

[guzhuangheaven]

Hello! Love your gif sets—have you thought about doing some for comparing Joy of Life Fan Xian from season 1 (esp. early on) and Fan Xian from season 2? He grows so much, and gets so much more ruthless in some ways, and sharper and more cunning, and I think you can see it also in his face and bearing in some scenes. Feels like it would be an interesting thing to compare and contrast!

This sounds like too much brain power involved 😂

I have thought about comparing the stabbing scene at the end of season 1 and the recreation at the beginning of season 2 just to show how much weight Zhang Ruoyun lost between the two seasons. It's not so obvious if you just watch season 2 on its own, but back to back with season 1...the contrast is quite stark.