#anyways that's my rant for now

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

There was a post talking about how disappointing Disney+ Star Wars costumes have been..

and I keep thinking about it because when you look back at older tv shows (not just star wars, but basically anything before streaming really took over) and the effort that used to be put into production

you can really see how worth it that effort was! And I just miss it so much!

Like I literally do not care how bad the cgi looks as long as there was effort and care put into what was made.

This is coming from the fact that I am rewatching Once Upon A Time...

and even though OUAT's digital effects are kinda awful endearingly shitty, anything that was practical or real was GORGEOUS!

I’ve never seen costumes as consistently beautiful and detailed and unique as they were on this show Every! Single! Episode!

The makeup was always amazing. The hair was amazing. And the props were sick! (Even the green screen castles and stuff's designs were beautiful)

I just miss when tv shows put this much effort into their production

When they let artists! be ARTISTS! and actually appreciated them! Instead of just underpaying and overworking them for the bare minimum results

When you can look at stuff like OUAT and the star wars prequels, it just makes the recent stuff so much more disappointing

[mokeonn]

Since I found out steam does a year in review (I had no idea until this year) I have decided that I must play video games more and play every game in my steam library so that my year in review is 100% accurate next year and I don't get told that my top 2 games were Disco Elysium and Baldur's Gate 3 because I would Hyperfixate on one game for a whole month (or three) and play nothing else, and still have my genre graph have nothing to do with those two top games and instead have "cats" as a genre while calling me a fag

[snarkspawn]

I really enjoy playing through tnp again like hi it's been a while

[amphibianaday]

day 1421

[arrowheadedbitch]

New idea: Shinsou is supposed to be babysitting Eri but he has to do something so he leaves Denki in charge for a little bit, he comes back expecting the house to be burnt down but instead he finds Eri begging Kaminari to let her re-dirty up her room so they can clean it together again

[that1notetaker]

I love prophecies and the battle of Bond of Choice versus Bond of Obligation.

[eldritch-ace]

I need more bestie Will and Bev content so I make it myself. They are the only cool people to ever exist in the FBI.

Also the Fred(dies) whom I despise (I love them with my whole heart). They are my favorite AO3 authors.

[fist-of-vengeance]

just saw someone on tiktok discussing whether or not a character "deserved a redemption arc" and i am losing my mind. we as a society have lost sight of what a redemption arc IS. it doesn't mean a character is rewarded by the narrative. it doesn't mean the other characters forgive them. it only refers to a character acknowledging their mistakes and choosing to better themselves, which any person can do, no matter how terrible. of course there's no shortage of badly executed redemption arcs, and a character who willfully committed countless atrocities having a change of heart after a single conversation about the power of friendship is simply poor writing and unrealistic. not every character who CAN change WILL. but there is zero value in debating whether a character "deserved" to be redeemed. no one in fiction or reality needs to be "worthy" of making better choices. there is no fixed point where a person is "too evil" and therefore forbidden from doing anything differently. it's always worth it to change, and implying otherwise is both a genuinely harmful ideology and bad literary analysis

[egberts]

ALSO if prisoners could get educated then prisons could run themselves more reliably and function like communities which is conducive to a growing/healing/learning/absolving mindset

[erinwantstowrite]

the past couple of days i was doing a lot of stuff but mostly deep cleaning our house and something i noticed while listening to my mom's true crime videos was that you can rarely find a channel that doesn't add stupid fucking music to the background like it's a horror movie- or even more inappropriate cheerful music.

and that REALLY bothers me because these are people's REAL lives we're talking about here... when i watch true crime anything i have to go out of my way to find channels that don't sensationalize it or disrespect the victims in any way. recently, one of the channels i watch has started showing signs of leaning towards this kind of content, when previously they hadn't done so. and it's disappointing. i'm a big believer in music elevating a story but it just feels gross to put it here. or to keep doing moments like "but this horrifying secret will come to light later", etc etc

[kitamars]

i have nothing for halloween so take some yokai ginhiji doodles so you know im not dead ndnjvjd

[ricky-mortis]

Have some Ted doodles- as a treat.

[eilinelsghost]

I was rereading bits of the Lay of Leithian over breakfast (like you do) and today it stood out that when Finrod is at his best in the battle with Sauron, it's when he brings in the dual visions of home: the home he has built in exile and the home of memory in Valinor:

The chanting swelled, Felagund fought, And all the magic and might he brought of Elvenesse into his words. Softly in the gloom they heard the birds Singing afar in Nargothrond, The sighing of the Sea beyond, Beyond the western world, on sand, On sand of pearls in Elvenland.

The Silmarillion: Chapter 19 "Of Beren and Lúthien" (emphasis mine)

But! While one of these is what we expect - Nargothrond, the home built of his longing and vision - the home in memory is not Tirion. It's Alqualondë, with its sand of pearls beside the sighing Sea.

In Finrod's moment of greatest trial, caught in a battle he knows he can never win, he sings a vision not of Tirion and its dynastic power, but of Alqualondë where Finarfin fled for peace and where presumably his son found the same.

Faced with a conflict of power, he reaches for peace.

And by doing this, he turns his immediate defeat into something hollow - while Sauron is said to have mastery here in their duel, it is Finrod who ultimately triumphs. For in the Leithian, the Release from Bondage, victory is achieved through sacrifice and not through power: Huan's sacrifice of loyalty and life, Beren's sacrifice of his body (Erchamion) and his life as well, and the overarching sacrifice of Lúthien's own life and fate, which both serves as their own personal triumph and lays the foundations for the victory and redemption of the Three Kindreds at the end of the Age. And Finrod's sacrifice is key among these - laying down his power, his authority, and his life both for Beren individually and also for the Edain as a whole.

Sauron's power may dominate and subjugate, but it is through Finrod's peace that hope grows to fruition and gil estel rises.

[a-loose-collection-of-ants]

I love your depiction of Hamilton and Lafayette, it’s so funny! Lafayette is so sweet and happy and Hamilton just has beef w/ the entire world. I can’t wait to see more of their brotherly relations in ur AMAZING art style

God, they're so narrative foil coded

Seriously though, there's some fantastic contrast between them. They're just similar enough (both roughly the same age, both insecure and glory hungry, + their "shared father" or whatever Lafayette said) - and yet they manage to be exact opposites at the same time.

I could say more but I think this bit from Mike Duncan's biography about Lafayette basically gets at what I'm trying to say:

"Like Lafayette, Hamilton grew up without a father. He also lost his mother to a fatal illness at almost the same age Lafayette lost his. But where the tragedies of Lafayette’s childhood made him the heir of a fabulous fortune, the tragedies of Hamilton’s illegitimate childhood left him systematically cut out of his family’s inheritance. So where the dark clouds of Lafayette’s life were lined with silver, the dark clouds of Hamilton’s life were simply dark. Lafayette emerged from childhood buoyant and effusive, Hamilton cynical and reticent. But even though Hamilton started life a penniless bastard on the periphery of European civilization, and Lafayette started life an insanely wealthy heir in the heart of a great kingdom, they fell into an easy friendship. French was not the only language the two young men shared. The also shared a code of personal honor and a desire to prove themselves to the world." -Mike Duncan, Hero of Two Worlds, The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution

Now, I am not qualified to speak on the real figures, but I do like to write. So, there is a narrative opportunity here that drives me insane.

Like, cast Hamilton as brilliant, but overly cynical with a habit of assuming the worst in people, and give him a negative character arc where he comes close to recognizing the potential good of humanity but ultimately falls into his more authoritarian tendencies. Then contrast him with Lafayette who's more naive. He's not quite sheltered but unfamiliar with the sort of selfishness and greed he'd have encountered if he grew up in a more vulnerable financial position. In coming to America he, like Hamilton, is forced to reckon with contempt, greed, and the failings of democratic government. But, unlike Hamilton, still manages to come out of it with a generally positive opinion of humanity.

I'm just saying, if I were writing history to contain ✨themes ✨ they are a perfect opportunity.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Just to clarify my thoughts (since I've had a number of people ask me about it) re: Job and cursing God. There's a big difference between cursing God as used in Scripture and how we generally would think of cursing at God today.

Cursing someone, in the Bible, has a lot of depth to it. It's not just saying "screw you " in anger, it's got a sense of forsakenness to it. It's the opposite of a blessing, a removal of blessing. If the blessing is presence, your face shining on the person you're blessing, then a curse is absence. In some translations, Job's wife tells him to "renounce God and die," which I honestly think makes a lot more sense to modern ears.

Job says a lot of unpleasant things to and about God in his anger and grief. So do the Psalmists. A number of the Prophets. So can we. God can take it if we come to him with honest expressions of our emotion, including those not-so-nice ones directed at him. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting mad at God and saying, "How dare you, you bastard" when you suffer unjustly. You can say much worse, I think, without sinning, though I don't feel particularly inclined to give examples. But as long as it's an honest expression of your heart, I think you're doing exactly what prayer is for. You're presenting him your heart with an open hand. He can use that. Opposite of love is not hate but indifference, etc.

Job doesn't renounce God. Neither should we. But I think when you're truly suffering, you're gonna have those feelings toward God either way. He'd rather you address them with him directly than try to avoid them. Cursing at God in the modern sense is actually a great way to keep the relationship strong and not end up cursing/renouncing him in the Biblical sense.

[ohmytiredheart]

Honestly I feel for Sam but serves him right.

Even if we ignore the potential intermingling of the web or any other other spooky strings that are likely being pulled, there's a lot to unpack here.

I wouldn't say Sam "deserved" it, but Alice tried warning him for months. This is what he gets for sticking his nose in places it didn't belong.

Did I say the same thing about Jon in TMA? Yes and no. Obviously there isn't a story without someone doing something dumb, but I think Jon's situation and Sam's situation are a little different. Jon was an idiot, yes, but he (and everyone else around him) were forced to go in completely blind. He had no idea what he was doing and didn't have any warnings or help at all except from his creepy boss with ulterior motives.

Sam also went in blind, but he was warned several times by several people including the eldritch computer to stop and turn around. He could have avoided this if he just returned Alice's calls or looked at her messages.

But nooooo he had to poke around with his little crushy crush and get himself thrown into a portal to what we can only assume is the TMA universe. Serves him right.