#also both of them make great points

[yellowocaballero]

Miguel is Fine, Actually (Being Spider-Man's Just Toxic As Hell)

Before I watched ATSV I said that I would defend my man Miguel O'Hara's actions no matter what, because he's always valid and I support women's wrongs. I was joking, and I did not actually expect to start defending him on Tumblr.edu. But I'm seeing a lot of commentary that's super reductive, so I do want to bring up another perspective on his character.

Miguel wasn't acting against the spirit of Spider-Man, or what being Spider-Man means. Miguel isn't meant to represent the antithesis of Spider-Man. Miles is the antithesis of Spider-Man. Miguel represents Spider-Man taken to its extreme.

Think about Miguel's actions from his perspective. If you were a hero who genuinely, legitimately, 100%, no doubt about it, believed that somebody is going to make a selfish decision that will destroy an entire universe and put the entire multiverse at severe risk - if you had an over-burdened sense of responsibility and believed in doing the right thing no matter what - you would also chase down the kid and put him in baby jail to try and prevent it. He believed that he was saving the multiverse, and that Miles was putting it in danger for selfish reasons. Which is completely unforgivable to him, because selfishness is what he hates the most. And then he goes completely out of pocket and starts beefing with a 15yo lmfaooo he's such a dick.

But why did Miguel believe that? Why did he believe that Miles choosing himself and his own happiness over the well-being of others was the worst possible thing? Why did he believe that tragedy was inevitable in their lives, and that without tragedy Spider-Man can't exist?

Because he's Spider-Man.

Peter Parker was once a fifteen year old who chose his own happiness over protecting others. It was the greatest regret of his life and he never forgave himself. Peter's ethos means that he will put himself last every time, and that he will sacrifice anything and everything in his life - his relationships, his health, his future - to protecting and helping others. Peter dropped out of college because it interfered with Spider-Man. He destroyed his own future for Spider-Man. He ruins friendships and romantic relationships because Spider-Man was more important. If Peter ever tries to protect himself and his own happiness, then he's a bad person.

That is intrinsic to Peter. Peter would not be Peter without it. A story that is not defined by Peter's unhappiness is not a Spider-Man story. If Peter doesn't make himself miserable, then he's just not Peter.

That is a Spider-Man story: that not only is tragedy inevitable, that if you don't allow yourself to be defined by your tragedy then you're a bad person. If you don't suffer, then you're a bad person. If you ever put anything above Spider-Man, then you're killing Uncle Ben all over again. Miguel isn't the only one that believes this - as we saw, every Spider-Man buys into what he's saying. There's no Spider-Man without these beliefs.

Miguel attempted to find his own happiness, and he was punished in the most extreme way. He got Uncle Ben'd x10000. He tried to be happy, and it literally destroyed his entire universe. It's the Spider-narrative taken to the extreme. Of course Miguel believes all of this. Of course he believes this so firmly. He's Spider-Man. That's his story. And the one time Miguel tried to fight against that story, he was punished. And like any Spider-Man, he'll slavishly obey that narrative no matter the evil it creates and perpetuates. Because if he doesn't, the narrative will punish him. The narrative will always punish him. It's a Spider-Man story.

I don't think the universal constant between Spider-Mans, the thing that makes them Spider-Man, is tragedy. I think it's the fact that they never forgive themselves. And Miguel is what that viewpoint creates. He doesn't believe this things because he's an awful, mean person. He believes them because he's a hero. He's a good person who hates himself.

Across the Spider-verse isn't really a Spider-Man story. It's a story about Spider-Man stories. Miguel's right: if this was a Spider-Man story, then Miles acting selfishly really would destroy the universe. But Miles' story isn't interested in punishing him. It pushes back against Peter's narrative that unhappiness is inevitable and that you have to suffer to be a good person. It says that sometimes we do the right thing from love and not fear, and that Peter's way of thinking is ultimately super toxic and unhappy. ITSV was about Miles deciding that he didn't need to be Peter Parker, that all he needed to be was Miles, and ATSV is about how being Peter Parker isn't such a good thing. Miguel shows that. Whatever toxic and unhealthy beliefs he holds - they're the exact same beliefs that any Spider-Man holds. He's a dick, but I don't think he's any more awful a person than Peter is.

TL;DR: Miguel isn't a bad person, he just has Spider-Man brainrot.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

and! barbarian!fig! its her

[bonnieura]

jfk and his children

[mbat]

jews: this thing in fiction feels jew coded to me, this character/group has several parallels to jewish people and i see myself here :)

non-jews: nah, that aint right, its clearly coded to be this other thing/youre stretching so hard to find a connection that isnt there

jews: this thing in fiction falls into antisemitic tropes, this character/group has several common antisemitic tropes that have a long history of being used against my people, and i think we should really consider not using these tropes anymore/consider if theres a better way to go about making the same point without doing it in this specific way

non-jews: nah, that aint right, its clearly coded to be this other thing/youre stretching so hard to find a connection that isnt there

just something ive noticed

[magicwhiskers29]

Day 5 – messages

AU where for some reason they both get stuck in the barn anyone?? I think it would help to highlight some interesting parallels

Happy PL Yuri Week and Flora Friday!

[surreallyy]

Thinking about how Varric and Solas represent the two sides of Cole...and how that is much that same as Solas and Sera for a Dalish elf inquisitior. Solas representing your elven heritage, your connection to the fade. Sera representing your humanity, your connection to the people around you, the people you need to save. They both see you as being like them in some way but have completely opposite expectations of what that means, and if you lean into your Dalishness you end up disappointing both. Too elfy and never elfy enough.

[can-of-slorgs]

caw 🦅

[batsplat]

bat splat thank youuu for saying the pecco jorge rivalry is just for pecco as opposed to having the specter of Vale hanging over it. I want to ask tho, I have been seeing people say the only reason pecco wins the race is because he copies jorge's setup throughout friday/saturday/Sprint. Wanted your opinion on this because I have also heard that Pecco gives decent engineering input and builds his race slowly over the weekend. Was just confused about how much data sharing can actually help, and how much does it help with the ducati specifically!! Have a nice day, love your posts

have a good day too, anon!! and I will gladly spread the pecco narrative independence agenda!! it's something I really do like about the rivalry - expanded a bit in the comments under this, but it's neat to have something that really is Just Pecco's. from inception it's very much his own rivalry, his own narrative... idk, this sport is too reliant on valentino to provide any kind of narrative tension, and it's just sort of refreshing to see this multi-year narrative play out that has fuck all to do with that guy. enough

on the set-up copying, obviously that is bullshit. I mean, to be clear, I'm sure pecco absolutely copies the set-ups of other ducati riders, but that's very much a mutual process - it's something that benefits all the ducati riders, and they've all openly spoken about this. it's very helpful to be able to see the data from seven other riders!! that's a big part of why ducati has been so bloody good!! the main difference is that jorge tends to be faster from the start of the weekend, whereas pecco tends to take time to reach his level. which I suppose makes some people draw the conclusion that pecco is only fast once he's copied someone's set-up. again, this isn't the case - it is just a difference in approaches. points come... well, unfortunately, not just on sunday anymore, but they certainly do not come on a friday. pecco knows this, which is also why sometimes he's not even trying to top an fp1 session - this year there have been quite a few instances of jorge but not pecco throwing on a fresh set of tyres towards the end of fp1 and setting a particularly impressive lap time. there's also nothing wrong with THAT approach, jorge is playing to his strengths, but at a certain point we're just talking different run plans

(there is also a very obvious logical fallacy with this line of reasoning. if you are copying someone's set-up, then by definition you have the same set-up as them. and if you beat someone with the same set-up, then it stands to reason that you were riding better than them. sure, you can argue the success is less earned because your team... idk, just lazed around all weekend, but at the end of the day surely you still cannot be a bad rider if you are getting more out of another rider's set-up than they themselves are able to manage)

and yeah, pecco is known for giving good feedback! just being a good learner in general. here, actually, a little throwback from start of 2019 where pecco's crew chief gabarrini (who also ofc has worked with casey, lorenzo and briefly with marc) compared pecco and marc:

"A driver - all of them do this - starts at a certain level and ends the day at a higher level. What makes the difference is starting again where you were. Few have this quality: it often happens that a driver sets good times - without knowing why, without being aware of how he got there. The 'good' ones, on the other hand, have this characteristic: they achieve a result and know why they did it," explained the chief technician. Gabarrini even goes so far as to compare the MotoGP rookie with the current world champion: "I saw this quality in Márquez: I was with him when he made his debut in the MotoGP World Championship. His ability to not forget what he had learned impressed me. Once he had understood an aspect of the riding style, the set-up or any other thing to be faster, he had it in him forever. Pecco also has this quality." "In Valencia we started with a base similar to the one Lorenzo used: on paper it suited Bagnaia, based on what you could understand when you saw him riding a Moto2 bike. From then on, the normal changes to the set-up were made so that he could ride the bike as he liked. In the meantime, Pecco has worked enormously to adapt his style to the Ducati."

and there you have it - pecco's good at progressively getting better at stuff, including over the course of the weekend. as for the set-up copying thing, partly it's just typical competitive paranoia (even though it feels like the fans are currently doing it more than the riders). back in the day, valentino and jorge used to have the world's dumbest arguments about this every other week. led to one of my all time fave messy jb moments:

god I miss that guy so badly. they don't do ride-or-die like that anymore

the point is that both sides were engaging in pretty silly mudslinging, just kind of for the vibes of it. valentino/jb trying to get under jorge's skin and jorge a bit more earnestly aggrieved. as ever, if you want to read more about how that particular era of jorge/valentino unfolded, see here. this is just to say, this kind of faffing about is a tale as old as time and it's always a bit silly... you had jorge say that it was impossible for them anyway to copy each other's data in the very same answer as he accused valentino of copying his set-up. like, I'm sorry, I am not going to take this seriously. a lot of sports is about having dumb arguments

and yeah, again, pecco does gradually build up his level over the weekend. more of a valentino than a casey, it's fair to say. and that'll hurt him in the sprint format - which I talked about a bit recently while going through casey's latest interview about how sprints are satan's providence:

so yeah, casey thinks that if anything there isn't enough time to work on set-up, and mat oxley thinks it's rubbish to say pecco relies on sprint data to be better on sunday. (as I said in that post, I do find it fun if unsurprising that casey is so virulently anti-sprints, because you'd think a lot of aspects of the format - including less time for everyone for working on set-ups - really would have suited him. keeping it real.) so on the whole... y'know. maybe he just gets better over the course of the weekend. it's been known to happen. there's actually some pretty significant ways in which the current version of the sport isn't all that pecco-friendly, from the shitty michelin front tyre we're keeping for another year to the sprint format we appear to be stuck with. it's just that he also happens to be on the best bike - and the fact that he's winning a lot but simultaneously isn't highly rated by fans makes people want to believe that the current series is 100% ideal for him

a lot of fans are loathe to admit pecco might actually be a good rider so they'll find basically everything to justify that prior. including getting into increasingly conspiratorial territory. but my actual take is this - if pecco has been gaming the system so expertly that he is somehow the only guy able to take full advantage of everyone else's data, so shrewd and cunning that he can spread magic dust on his bike so that he suddenly leaps ahead of jorge, such a dastardly operator that he can steal the set-up that poor jorge perfected on friday morning to fix his bike five minutes before the sunday race, then... good. I support it. I hope he's cheating. the more unearned the success is, the better in my books. long live corporate espionage and foul play

[horsegirlhob]

Honestly the worst thing about being raised by and around professors is that I can't really do the whole students bitching about professors thing even when I mostly agree with it, because my whole life I have been hearing the professor's side of the story. Every time someone talks about how ridiculous mandatory attendance or participation is there's a part of me that starts loudly protesting about how actually being in class is really important for learning, and it must be so hugely frustrating for the professor when students just don't show up to your class half the time and then when they do show up they're playing sudoku on their computer.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[queerofthedagger]

if you're my friend and haven't read the silmarillion yet, or want to re-read it but are lacking motivation, i can only tell you that if you do i will have an entire collection of posts i collect for you for each chapter and then you will scream a little over one thing and i will spent two hours sending you various posts, fanart i have carefully gallery'd, 20-min-long voice messages losing my mind rambling madly over things, and a bunch of memes. this could be you. read the silmarillion <3

[iniziare]

Following my usual daily ventures on X and Tumblr, I realized that there's two things that I wanted to address/bring up. So, as per usual: spoilers. /echo, echo.

— The Fade prison is still failing. It needed replacement (which is referenced on several occasions, but a big one is during the memory with Mythal that expands on the DAI scene), and nothing in current lore tells me that this has changed in any way: it's still failing. Nothing I can find says that it now being bound to Solas, who is decently weaker than Elgar'nan, magically 'resolves' that issue. Therefore, his 'atonement' doesn't automatically equate to an 'eternal imprisonment', even if Lavellan's choice of words for going with him include 'forever', for she simply doesn't know what she's walking into or for how long, and instead enforces this tether to him from the deepest form of trust one one else could ever find (heartbreak.mp3). The atonement lasts as long as Rook decides as they hold the dagger, or until the Veil falls on its own. But that touches on another topic briefly: if you want to 'punish' Solas the most, or longest— though this ending is 'kindest' (not quite), it is the one that keeps him in the prison the longest. The dagger trick (this warrants a post on its own, and it's the only one I have writing beef with, character 'bias' aside), or the worst ending(s) all send the lyrium dagger with him, which, has you wonder if he's then simply given the opportunity to slice into the Veil, and slip out. Does the prison need a host, if said host holds the lyrium dagger? And even if he couldn't what could he do from inside after 'Pride' has been taunted, and 'punished' (in Rook's, and the audience's eyes), since again, he is in possession of his dagger? There is no atonement here, only resentment from a spirit that is now even closer to finding its fully perverted nature of a Pride demon. So I think if speaking morally across the board, which option is really 'for the greater good of Thedas', instead of personal resentment (though understandable)? But in that, I like that we're repeatedly told that we don't know, and we're making it up as we go. Out of all protagonists, Rook's personal journey of mental development is the most intriguing to me, and arguably (in my opinion), is the most 'human' in the sense that I think they give us the most relatable options of choice, understandable/relatable resentment being one of them. But anyway, I digress: if the atonement ending isn't chosen, then I definitely think the story isn't quite concluded, even though I don't believe that it ever really is.

— Blood magic. No, Solas has no loathing for the nature of blood magic at its essence. He stated so very clearly back in DAI during a conversation with the Inquisitor in Haven, and the bit of the conversation that pertains to my point goes as follows: 'Magic is magic, just as water is water, but it can be used in different ways. (...) Dalish magic is more practical, not needing Chantry approval, although they still frown on blood magic. Superstition.' And when you ask him to elaborate, 'You said censure against blood magic was a superstition...' He adds: 'Most modern cultures forbid blood magic. Publicly, even Tevinter disapproves of it. But as I said, magic is magic. It matters only in how it is used.' And yes, I can already hear it, I know exactly what point will be brought up (lucky me, I found a video that touches on this exact topic that showcases both scenes): and I want to say firmly that no, this is not a retcon, nor is it Solas changing his mind, nor is this a total and utter lie (he rarely, rarely lies that fully, and clearly). He simply states that he abhors the use of it, as in— he, himself, despises using it; which is why he so firmly says no to Cole, when the notion is brought up in DAI. Now yes, he did employ the use of blood magic in relation to Rook (the extents, I need to do research on, as it's obvious that Solas absolutely winged that part of this 'plan', but all of it is also a bit flimsily written due to, for starters, the details that Varric shares being incredibly personal at times, but I digress), and I see so many on X and whatnot complain of how this means that 'Solas changed his mind', no— what it intends to show you, is the ferocity with which he believes that he, and only he, is able to fix what he broke. The game intends to show you that over, and over again, and it is to prove just how far a spirit can be pushed from where it started. And no, stop approaching Solas as if he is your regular elf next door, or anything but exactly what he is: a spirit. Trying to sway a spirit from its nature is incredibly difficult (we'll go into Mythal, and the nature of his care, and devotion to her that started the journey of his spirit's perversion, another day), and that is literally the explanation behind what people are calling an 'inconsistency'. It's called desperation, but more so, the strength of a belief, or more specifically, how far something that is akin to being... the 'personification' of a belief can go in, well, its own belief. I think Solas has proven that one can go very far. The perversion of spirits, and the reality of what demons then truly are, is a tragedy that Dragon Age has been trying to prove to us for years. It doesn't take away the wrongs that they can do once they get twisted, but it's tragic, because spirits are benevolent; serene, and peaceful at their core. And it's kind of heartbreaking to know that something so purely good, can be pulled from that nature.

[jack-the-fool]

I see how everyone is going about how Nimona and Ambrosius become friends and stuff post-movie and honestly, I love it but I feel like everyone is skipping over the beauty of the adjustment period where they basically circle around each other and are more in a tenuous alliance for Bal's sake.

Nimona I feel would take longer to warm up to him because she has much less reason than Bal does for wanting to forgive him. I mean, most of what she's seen of the man is what he's done to hurt Bal and any other knowledge she gets is probably from his public persona. Meanwhile, Ambrosius still has to catch up on working through his preconceived monster bias and get used to Nimona's casual shape-shifting. PLUS now there's someone important to Bal he has to impress whose opinion of him could affect their relationship which is something he's never had to deal with before with Ballister and he has NO idea what to do.

[i-am-church-the-cat]

Okay no one talk to me bc I haven’t watched the race yet but I just finished Nightbane by Alex Aster and am currently Losing It. I need the third book rn.

[itspileofgoodthings]

I think the writing is gentle, often funny, and sustained (overall) but it’s the acting and the chemistry that takes it to the next level.

[3rdbogwitch2theleft]

*watching Resident Alien season 3 undermine and almost completely sideline one of the core friendships that made me fall in love with it*