#and the More Contextualized way

[cultofthepigeon]

actually i talk about math but i wanna say something on reading also

yeah a lot of people call the classics Snobby and everyone with a lit degree has taken that as a personal offense and decried it as anti-intellectualism and blah blah blah instead of actually like addressing why people might say that

but to anyone who cares im pretty sure people say that shit as a defense mechanism

The Classics as a whole can be intimidating, especially if you already struggle with reading/writing or didnt have a good education on the subject

theres decades if not centuries of people talking about these works and interpreting and argueing about them and on top of that theyre Great Works that Everyone Should Read and Everyone knows about. theres also, whether you like it or not, a nice sheen of Only Smart/Highly Educated People Can Truely Appreciate This on top

so when someone approaches one of these works for the first time it already feels like coming in late to the party

but on top of that the writing styles can be dense, the books/poems/plays lengthy. theres usually a lot of historical context thats needed to fully appreciate the story being told. and thats before you get into whatever literary/mythological illusions thatll almost certainly be inside the story itself

then they take a crack at it and its slow and confusing and boring and really time consuming but everyone else is talking about how amazing it is and what a Classic it is but because of all the reasons listed above this new reader Just Doesnt Get It and well

that makes em feel fucking stupid. they feel like an idiot

so they brush it off as pretencious and snobby because otherwise theyre just too stupid to get it

or alternatively, they push through the whole thing, dont get what the fuss is about, and assume everyone praising it is so far up their own ass theyre now a circle

the same can also be said for things like movies, art, and music

im not saying that the brushing off of The Classics or more involved books/art/movies etc is GOOD

but i think brushing it off as anti-intellectualism is just attempting to ignore the actual problem

[transmascutena]

my apparently hot utena take of the day is that when anthy purposefully loses the rock paper scissors game for the bed in episode 31, it is not something she does to protect nanami or utena. this is a common reading of the scene, and i understand why, but i just don't think it makes a whole lot of sense. i don't think anything would have happened to them if she had chosen to win the game instead - that's not the plan. the plan is for nanami to walk into the planetarium like she does at the end of the episode, and see the truth of what is going on (the way she ultimately reacts to it, though, is of course not according to plan). the consequence of losing the game is simply to not get to sleep in one of the beds. anthy chooses the couch as her alternative, likely on akio's behest, but had one of the other two lost they probably would not have. anthy is not getting between akio and anyone in this episode, and she doesn't need to either. they're not at any more risk in this particular moment than they are every single day they spend in that tower. she's just playing her role.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bestie Deficiency

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[getvalentined]

Someone asked me about something VinVeld related and I've been working on the response for two hours because I had to double check some terminology to explain the canonicity of them being partners, which led me down a rabbit hole on titles used amongst coworkers, which led me to check how often one title specifically shows up in the Japanese BC script, which led me to double checking that I remembered the honorifics used between characters and how that's super relevant to keep in mind when interpreting Veld and Vincent's short interaction—

This isn't even the question, it's just necessary information for me to be able to explain my take on the situation, because I don't want people to just take everything I say at face value without knowing where it came from.

There is something so fucking wrong with me.

[amelikos]

Something so interesting to me about the way they are depicting Gibeon's close friendships, while Amethio still doesn't have such bonds with others yet.

[pynkhues]

hello Sophie! need your opinion on something. a weird thing that I still can't get over is Lestat saying "enjoy him" and "I gave you to Armand". like, he isn't your poodle to hand over!! asshole (tho I love him to death). even after the "murder" he still doesn't see Louis as his own person, just as Claudia. I mean Loustat are both possessive as hell but the choice of words irks me so much. like he refers not to a partner who he's posessive over but to a property. but that's me. how would you read this scene and the words?

Hey! And oh! I hear what you're saying, but I didn't really take either of those exchanges to be possessive or objectifying?

In fact, I think the 'enjoy him' line isn't even directed at Armand about Louis in that sense, I think the words themselves are directed at Louis about Armand. I mean, look at the context:

Lestat's gaze is flicking between the two of them as he says, but I tend to take that as a part of the two-hander. He's glancing at Armand in a way that's signalling to him that he's choosing not to say anything, while still talking / directing his words to Louis. To me, it's about fronting up to what Louis' just said - Louis' told him that he's choosing Armand, and Lestat's saying the equivalent of well, good luck, babe. After all, Lestat's a lot of things, but he also knows both Louis and Armand, and I imagine probably knew Louis wouldn't enjoy Armand longterm at all (especially given Louis' basically admitting there and then that he's getting with him out of spite).

The 'I gave you to Armand' line on the other hand I took as an admission of shame and guilt on Lestat's part. By not telling Louis what he'd done or what had actually happened, he robbed Louis of his ability to make an informed choice, which was the equivalent to letting him walk into the maw of a monster. Lestat knows how powerful Armand is, and to let Louis go probably did feel like handing him over, particularly with the years to stew on it. He didn't give Louis to Armand literally, but he let him go to him effectively as an innocent when he knew Armand was anything but, and I do think that, for Lestat, that wording is about taking accountability for that. By not telling him the truth at the time, he - again - kept Louis in the dark in a way that ultimately harmed him, just like he did by not telling Louis and Claudia about the Paris Coven in the first place.

Lestat is not a character who outright lies, but he lies by omission, and it's those omissions that leave people he loves unaware of, and unequipped to handle, very real and present danger, and to me, that line is an acknowledgement of that.

[orcelito]

so we all know the iconic vashwood line of "I wanted to share my tomorrows with him", which is pretty soul-crushing in and of itself. but ive been rereading some parts of trimax for research purposes and i found this bit:

this idea of Yesterdays vs Tomorrows. this is central to how Vash thinks about life. the Yesterdays that he cannot change, and then the Tomorrows that exist to ease people's sorrow and make the weight on his soul easier to bear.

and he wanted to share his Tomorrows with wolfwood.

ngl im kinda wrecked by this revelation sdlfkjsdfklj

[doodlingcrayon]

2019 -> 2024

Side-by-side comparison of the old/original and the new! I really like looking at these next to each other... It's fun to see how much my style has grown over the years! Lots of similar elements I wanted to keep the same, but just a little... enhanced! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)

There are definitely things even in the new version that I know could be done better, but y'know! That's for future me to improve and learn, just like current me did for 2019 me! ...Does that make sense? 😅

[fiapple]

okay, i'm a good part of the way through impel down, & i'd like to say that it has made me fall in love with ace as a character. i really appreciate the way it adds depth to his prior characterization while also allowing us to look into a behavioural pattern for him that breaks from it. i love how subtlety the difference between how he views his mum & dad is introduced (paraphrasing again but "I owe a lot to the name portgas. i got it from my mother." is such a beautiful line to me for some reason?) & the way he claims whitebeard as his father & everything that distinction means to him, his entire conversation with garp, just how deep his awareness is on an emotional level that he is someone society rejected before he even took his firt breath & how that informs both his worldview & self-perception. the way it informs how he attachs to people. the way that informs how he's attached to luffy & whitebeard. his snarky but heartfelt bond with jimbei- the way jimbei then relates that to whitebeard, which then relates back to ace. the way he gave luffy his vivre card not to save him, but find him as an equal- but of course luffy is coming for him anyway. ace isn't surprised, he knows luffy, but his first response is to be afraid. to want luffy not to come because it's dangerous even if his escape could stop a war. in spite of the fact that he'd just asked garp to kill him for just that purpose. the constant contrast between the bitter & the tender, the brutal & the gentle. the way this reinforces the sun imagery, religous imagery, & the inital symbol of the crew ace comitted himself to meaning peace on a crew that bases itself around care. the way all of this has made ace the man he is & he knows it & he wants to die to protect it, but not at the expense of anyone he cares for- he doesnt deserve it. he's thematically fucking beautiful. & i'm so excited to see this built upon for all i know it is going to fucking hurt.

[pallas-cat]

ngl the paranoid idea that a bunch of people i know including my family are now only willing to see me if i get my shit together is pretty strong

as if i should message them with "i swear i won't do insecure rambling in front of you i am somewhat normal my apartment is presentable i have a job please forgive me" (obv won't but a girl has rejection sensitivity but it's unfortunately close to the shit my brain circus says)

[starbuck]

i think it’s kind of hysterical that - out of any piece of media that could possibly have a straight relationship that passes the sniff test for me - it’s this one, considering like *gestures to the misogyny*

[rolandkaros]

sometimes my knee jerk reactions to things i see on the internet force me to deeply consider that i am, in fact, the problem here

[sad-endings-suck]

“Jake is a bad father.”

I’m gonna need ya’ll to understand that just because a character is considered a “good guy/hero” does not necessarily mean you should be applying modern real life moral values to them. Jake is born 100+ years in the future, he’s on a completely different planet, him and his family are a different species than us, he’s apart of a completely different culture, he exists in a different social climate, he is at war, and they are fictional. Contextually all this information is so important because it tells us none of these people (no matter how moral or ethical or lawfully good) are not going to perceive what is “right” the same way we are. Because the world that teaches them what “right” and “wrong” are, is a very different world than the one we know. Automatically assuming that a fictional character that doesn’t do exactly what you think they should do is inherently wrong, lacks serious media literacy and basic understanding of fiction as a genre.

[slerralartz]

I need someone to hold my hand while I cry about how my friends never made me feel stupid or dumb for not understanding things and needing an explanation even though I never realized it was probably because my learning disability actually yknow disabled me

[dreampearls]

colleis personality functionally being left to the ether because her webtoon iteration is at such fundamental odds with her game iteration that any attempts to temper between the two just range so dramatically

[merge-conflict]

Still surprisingly not over the Other category but the other part of marketing nonbinary pairings is like the lack of terms we have. I can’t exactly call Abernathy/Valentine toxic yuri because Valentine isn’t a woman, but she was when that ten year uneven relationship started! And to some degree she enjoys “playing” the loyal butch role, even if that isn’t quite the right descriptor to have for her. Anyway it’s such a pain not to have easily understood words or terms for yourself and idk why I’m experiencing it mostly through trying to tag my writing but here we are. If I was *smart* I could come up with some kickass terms myself but alas…