#but in their roles they are also ugly?????

[sapphiresaphics]

I think part of Vi’s journey in Arcane is seeing her family the way they truly are and coming to accept them for who they are, blisters and bruises and all.

Vi sees her dad Vander as this pillar of strength and resolve and ideals. But deep down inside he’s got a monster that can come raging out at any time. Silco knows this first hand, but Vi doesn’t. That’s why she’s so terrified when Vander hulks out at the beginning of Season 1. For the first time she saw the monster that Vander could become.

And it takes until Season 2 for her to accept this aspect of him. To know that despite the fact he has this terrible beast inside (now literally) she can still love and appreciate him with warmth and kindness.

Same for Jinx. She only saw Jinx as powder. Even when Powder changed and became Jinx, Vi didn’t want to see this. She deluded herself into thinking Powder could come back and they’d be rid of Jinx. She literally tells Silco that she wants to tear out the “brainwashing” she thinks Silco did to her to turn her into Jinx. But at the end of the day, Jinx isn’t brainwashed. Vi can’t change Jinx back into Powder. But coincidentally, Powder also isn’t gone either. They both exist inside her. She is both Jinx AND Powder. And by the end of Act 2 of season 2 I think Vi has come to accept that.

Like look at this picture. Vi is here, standing with her monster of a dad, and her sister who has split personalities in both Jinx and Powder (as represented by Isha). But she’s not scared of either of them anymore. She’s content. Happy. She can accept them for who they are now.

There’s a lot more too. I think Vi seeing Caitlyn for who she truly is (a privileged rich girl who has deeply ingrained privileges and sense of superiority). Like Vi starts seeing Caitlyn as just another enforcer, but gradually over the course of season 1 and beginning of season 2 she learns that Caitlyn has a kind heart and maybe she could be one of the exceptions. But Caitlyn does still have this ugly side of privileged that clouds her judgement and causes her to do terrible things. And Vi doesn’t want to see that at first. That’s why she goes along with the enforcer role even though it’s a betrayal of everything she believes in. She’s so desperate to not see the terrible things Caitlyn is able to. But again, by the end of Act 2, I think she’s come to accept that’s a part of her. And despite the fact that Caitlyn has done terrible things, I think deep down she still loves her. And I think this weekend we will see her hold Caitlyn accountable for it.

Either way, I think it’s fascinating how much that picture encompasses all of the things Vi has tried to deny existed in the family she grew up with, but now she’s accepting them for who they are no matter how monstrous and crazy they might be.

[farenmaddox]

@wormieapple I don't want to reblog all your tags, but I do want to respond a little bit because you made some great points!

You kind of summarized it as "free will is ugly, has consequences, and is constantly in competition with the free will of others." I think that's true, but only up to the certain point of the original run of the show. I would tentatively say that I think this point has been eroding ever since season 6.

In the beginning, it was just about Sam and Dean having autonomy for their own bodies and souls and being allowed to make their own choices about who they can share those things with and/or give them away to. They spend a lot of seasons 4 and 5 finding out that a lot of their lives were "predestined" and they are left questioning how much of it was really up to them. But the story is about them fighting back against this idea, and Castiel comes in to provide this additional perspective that it's not just because they're the Winchesters and they're special, that this type of freedom should belong to anyone. At the end of season 5, they have thrown off the preselected narrative and saved the world. It did have consequences and it did hurt and not everybody survived, but the message is still that free will is a good thing and the world is better for it.

Everything from that point on has been very "free will's consequences are devastating, actually." They get so many people killed, and they have no victories that are not pyrrhic and directly leading to even worse problems. Every attempt they made to have a personality outside of their assigned role was brutally punished.

In my original post I was talking about Cas embodies this a lot, and how specifically every time he tries to grapple with or defend free will, it goes wrong. He wants so much for angels to have this, to make heaven a better place, but all it ever does is get them killed in droves. It literally never works even a little bit. Introducing free will to angels was unequivocally bad and this is never rectified or redeemed. The ending message is that angels can't handle free will and it's bad for them and for the world. But I'm also thinking about how they will never ever let Sam process his trauma meaningfully. Thinking about that scene in the apocalypse world (season 13, I think???) where they killed him and had Lucifer be the one to bring him back and hold him hostage to get to Jack. Sam is yet again helpless against Lucifer's wishes, as if nothing has changed in the last 10 years, directly contradicting what they wanted to say when they had him say "no" to Lucifer in season 11. When he wanted to use his trauma to display how resilient it had made him at the beginning of season 12, he wasn't allowed to have that either, they just drugged him and took what they wanted anyway. Sam is never allowed to be anything but a victim, EVER. All this before season 15 even happened.

Season 15 was where they should have drawn those threads back together and found a way to say, actually, you CAN escape these narrow definitions and things CAN change and your choices DO matter and the world IS a better place for having you and the way that you care in it. But they either didn't want to leave us with that message, or they fumbled the ball so badly that we're still talking about it on fandom ESPN these four years later. Like, I'm not arguing with what you were saying about season 15 being terrible and spitting in the face of the story they were trying to tell before. But my main point is that I think the warning signs were there much earlier than season 15 and they were undermining themselves well before then.

... is it just me, or was Supernatural's ultimate thesis statement on the character of Cas that angels cannot and never will be any good at independent thinking and all efforts at expressing free will shall have unexpected and terrible consequences? He thought he was digging a tunnel out and he was proud of himself but actually all he dug was his own grave. The message being that you actually cannot escape the role you are assigned no matter what?

This is the message of Cas, as a way of underscoring the arc of the actual main two characters, in which the thesis statement is that you cannot escape the trap of toxic masculinity and patriarchal hegemony, you will never deal with your trauma in a way that matters, and you will die and spend eternity caught in its endless cycle. The maze has no exit.

the son becomes the father and becomes absent. this happens to all four members of TFW 2.0 in one way or another. god is dead, long live god. long live broken promises.

[stiltonbasket]

💙 (blue) for the other ask 🙈🙈🙈

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

As a flaming asexual, I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this...or the right person, because to me, nobody is as hot as everyone else seems to think except maybe figuratively? I'm bad at distinguishing whether attractiveness is being spoken of "seriously" or .... theoretically?...or as a joke, or...yeah, I honestly don't know. Characters whose personalities I especially like immediately become adorable to me (if that makes sense) so I get cute aggression every time I see my favorite little guys.

[ladykeyleth]

[Keyleth's] stoicism cracks as much as she tries to hold it together.

[silusvesuius]

properly drew my 2 skyrimlians; Agnes, the tryhard failure, and the recently born Gorshi, the 'neat' one.. sometimes a good guy, sometimes a bad guy. sort of polar opposites maybe.

and their respective horses !!! 😝🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎

[shorthaltsjester]

sorry if it was unclear but the clarification on ashton's position in 110 that has made the ugliness of his current ideology clear was not the fact that he listened to what was said to him, it was his claim after that "The shard of titan in me, it's good. If things go the way I think they're going to go... I think nature is ready to right itself one way or another. [...] I think the world is ready for a bit more chaos. I think that we could be good for this place and I think we will more than survive the gods, if it comes to it ."

First, claiming that nature as titan has any moral standing at all is a bold move, because then ashton is ascribing the exact same power structure he thinks is inherently horrible with the gods to the titans. the titans are morally neutral if taken to be part of nature, the shard is just power, ashton's assumption that there is something about the titans that makes their responses and role in the world more right, natural, or most of all good is literally just. textbook essentialism.

but second. one of the first pieces of communication in that exchange was a correction of ashton's thinking (one similar to the correction the matron was trying to draw out as she kept bringing up the agency of mortals and their power). when ashton says "i'm a part of you." they're corrected and told that actually she's a part of ashton. in the literal sense this is obvious that the shard is inside ashton, but it also speaks to the pattern of bh looking everywhere but inward for an answer to what they should do, which is rather comedic given the degree to which ashton is willing to reinterpret anything said to them to get a specific answer but not actually uphold their own agency when it comes to 'nature righting itself.'

particularly i find revealing the "we will more than survive the gods" part. even taken as generously as possible and assuming ashton is just exercising his lack of judgement and does mean all mortals in his use of the "we" pronoun there, he has completely overlooked what was explicitly said about how, if the world is remade, only the strong are likely to survive. paired with the notion that the world needs a bit more chaos after spending weeks with several people whose lives have been irreparably damaged by the chaos that the other person in exandria who is appealing to a greater power to free him from the responsibility of dealing with his trauma at any cost... even my best faith still comes out of that looking at ashton (as someone who literally earlier in the same episode pushed back against his party members being optimistic because it wasn't realistic) as someone acting with naive optimism for blatantly selfish reasons. also just, general icky feelings about ashton referring to nature righting itself, the world getting more chaos, if things go the way he thinks they're going to go in vague, hand-wavy fashion when he should well know, punk icon that he is, all the violence those notions include.

[aimless-otter]

Liam moving minis

Bonus: Campaign 2- Episode 43 (After 10 minutes of setting up exact placements of minis)

[ravenquingvax]

Thinking about Vax'ildan.

Thinking about Vax and hair.

Thinking about a small child running to his mother crying because a bigger kid pushed him into the Gladepools and his hair is all messed up now.

Thinking of him sat in front of the fire as his mother dries and untangles his hair, singing to him in her mother's tongue.

Thinking of him and his sister sitting on stools at the kitchen table waiting impatiently as their mother braids their hair all prettily for the Harvest Close Fair, the pair giggling and kicking their feet as they're asked to "please sit still for just another minute, you two."

Thinking about Vax asking to brush his mother's hair and braid it, so she teaches him how to do it and Vex asks him to braid her hair as well.

When Syldor takes the twins, aged 10, to Syngorn, he forces them to have their hair cut according to Syngorn's bizarre Family Hierarchy Hair Rules;

waist length hair is indicative of political status

hair just above the waist is indicative of being the head of your household

just above the elbow length is indicative of being the household heir

just below the shoulder length is indicative of being respected by your household

hair that's shoulder length exactly is indicative of being from a wealthy household but of having little respect

just below chin length but just above shoulder length is indicative of you coming from a non-wealthy family

hair at chin length or shorter than chin length is indicative that you have been disowned by your family's household

Syldor has waist length silky black hair, which he usually leaves undecorated unless he's hosting or attending a ball

Vax also has silky black hair, Syldor having it cut from just above the elbows up to exactly shoulder length - while Vex has curly brown hair that had also been just above the elbows before it was also forcibly cut to shoulder length exactly

Vax would continue to help his sister with her hair, brushing it and braiding it for her

Whilst Vex slowly earned a modicum of respect through her hard work at school, her hair allowed to grow longer, Vax never gained any respect as he flunked his classes and started to act out, so he had to keep his hair shoulder length

By the age of 16, Vex had her hair back to just above her elbows to show that she's now the household heir - while Vax has rebelled and cut his hair into a choppy pixie cut in an attempt to piss off Syldor

He's forced to wear a wig to social events and he's banned from using sharp objects, but its worth it to him

When the twins run away from Syngorn and end up living in the woods when Byroden is gone, Vex has Vax cut her hair to match his as a symbol of her love for him and Vax cries while doing so because his sister's hair is so important to her

from then onwards, Vax comes to consider both of their hair as incredibly sacred to him, taking as good of care as he can of both of their hair even while living out in the wilderness

they both grow their hair out to be waist length, almost as if to spite Syldor and Syngorn

Vax braids Vex's hair in a way that protects and maintains her curls, while he likes to decorate his hair with small braids with colourful beads through them

When they join Vox Machina, Vax accidentally becomes the resident hairstylist as well as the resident cook - Scanlan, Pike and Keyleth all go to him for hair cuts, hair styling & help with shaving properly

Percy wouldn't start asking for his help too until after they've dealt with the Briarwoods and freed Cassandra & Whitestone

Cassandra also goes to Vax for help with her hair, having him cut it to her shoulders for her after years of Delilah not letting her style it how she wants to

when Grog gets the belt and grows a beard, Vax helps him to style and maintain it

Vax and Gilmore do each other's hair, teaching each other different styles and hair care tips as they gossip - just two boyfriends who have "caring for the other's hair" as a love language, so cute!

Vax and Allura, who are best friends with messy feelings in my fanon, love to gossip over tea and take turns braiding each others hair as they do

and I can so see Vax starting a hairdressing salon in the back of the 2nd floor of Gil's shop

just...Vax'ildan and hair 😭

(I will never forgive TLOVM for the fuckass ugly hair they gave Vax, let him have pretty hair!!!)

[cruelplatonic]

ruminating on 'the vees died despondent nobodies' thoughts

velvette interrogates vox after she hears him give various conflicting and bombastic accounts on air. a selection of these include: blew his brains out on live television, administered the death penalty for killing his "bitch wife," a tragic accident involving two shetland ponies, dubiously legal iranian yogurts, and a whole lot of cocaine. the actual cause was shockingly ordinary- a heart attack in front of the television, alone, his corpse only recovered after two weeks passed. he was watching a game show and his last mortal regret was never even learning who won, because he died during the commercials.

[henrybelly]

honestly when i tried to figure out why some fans are so mad at ivypool these days i was looking through avos and. the scene where ivypool apologises to twigpaw for not supporting sending a patrol for skyclan is genuinely very sweet??

i actually saw someone characterize this as "ivypool forcing twigpaw to forgive her". is it crack you smoke. is that what you smoke. you smoke crack?

[cerealbishh]

"I relate to Bess a lot. I think that she is someone who is super quirky, I'm a very quirky person! Artist really struggles with feeling validationwith her art and they can be incredibly critical of themselves. And I think that Bess is someone that really cares about other people and I think I care a lot about people, too. Her temper is a little quick, for sure. And that was something that was exciting to play because normally, I try not to make anybody uncomfortable. So I think that was fun, to be a little more sharp and and to find that!" - Brittany on Bess(x)

[shredsandpatches]

Our beloved local outdoor summer musical theater venue is doing Les Mis this summer and they're looking for 20 extra singers from the symphony chorus to fill out the ensemble on "Do You Hear the People Sing," "One Day More," and the finale -- it would basically involve a couple of days of intensive rehearsals (necessitating two days of vacation time) and a week of performances, it's after the symphony season is over, and it would allow me to do something I've dreamed of since I was ten.

So why am I waffling about it? Oh right, it's my mother's voice in my head. (It's probably also that recovering from covid has got me worried that my voice won't come back--even just with the symphony there's so much amazing stuff happening this season)

eta: it's actually 10 days that we need to be available for rehearsals, I think, which would make it a lot less doable for me, but idk if the supers need to be there the whole time -- I guess I'll go to the interest meeting in a couple of weeks and find out. We get 180 hours of vacation time a year but I will actually need to take a real vacation at some point

[dumpster-fire-sapphic-failgirl]

y’all the last half of Ep 3 of Tide and Bone was like, the most comforting horror I’ve ever seen?

like, full on sobbing for the last hour or so

and the dread and despair and not being able to change the big things that is a necessary part of eldritch horror

but they did it in such a warm way

and the tears were of grief

for what could have been and what was

but they flowed because of that loving embrace

a sense of home

from what should be one of the most terrifying figures in the universe

it was a fuckin masterpiece

[sagabrielle]

as a person who hasn't read the books; I thought that finale was 8/10. Louis is so crazy but he is so free! and I kind of like the ambiguity with Daniel/Armand. We are gonna have to continue watching to see what happens next season. I have a feeling Armand is back to hiding in a cavern/hole somewhere, and Daniel knows where! ALSO...lestat playing sad music on his ipad in his shack while pretending to play a keyboard. can't wait to see more of this stupid french fuck

[ardentpoop]

no secret that I hate how most people perceive dean (usually includes how dean himself perceives dean lol) but I don’t think you entirely get it. bc neither do I really. all I know is I see posts abt his “I had to be more than just a brother” speech and I start itching

[drifternox]

Me, but I stick Gavin in my OC's universe and send him straight to hell

All that you need to know is that Gavin partially works for a very scp-esque organization focused on keeping things outside of the boundary of the dimension's existence from bleeding into it

He still works his normal job, everything is pretty much the same, and his only daily goal is to get home and "use his android boyfriend as a weighted blanket and go to sleep."

sucks that the constant exposure to extra-dimensional shit causes a form of corruption that (while reversible!) is not great