#but it also means not as good results

[raveledits]

.THOSE WHO DREAM. Emilien Vekemans, as a pop punk rock star.

[jewishjon]

Look, I love Jon as much as the next person but I think some of you have gone so far along the ‘Jon is a sad little man who did nothing wrong’ route that you’ve genuinely forgotten all the times he held power in a situation or like. Made a decision that hurt people

[slasherscream]

No bc ur post about hitting Jordan with the "this you? 🤨" is so real. Like maybe you two are frenemies like you hang out but are academic rivals so as soon as they get a little too bold, you pull up their jitterbean promo lol It def shuts them up but they're secretly into it when ur mean to them

(Sorry for rambling I just really like ur stuff)

They'd never know a minute's peace. Even when they think you're being nice there's teeth to it.

"You look really good today, Li."

Jordan, not trusting you to not be a cunt, "....thanks?"

You, copying their exact cadence and tone during the 'Godolkin Campus Tour with Jordan Li' video, "So much swag!"

"FUCK YOU."

[asha-mage]

Here's what I'll say about Siuan for right now, since their are still a lot of unknowns floating in the air: I think her actions in this episode are largely in accord with her book characterization no matter which way the show breaks on certain details.

Siuan's central character flaw in the books, the thing that largely leads to her downfall, is her default response to most problems being to exert raw force and control. It was how she handled the Hall of the Tower which allowed opposition to coalesces around Eladia and Alviarain, it was how she handled Gawyn creating a resentment in him that would drive him to side against her during the coup, and how she forced Min to remain in the Tower against Min's wishes which was the catalyst for Eladia realizing she could strike against Siuan at all.

And it's what Siuan does in this episode when confronted with a problem she does not have another way to deal with. Moiraine is with holding information from her? Go to Cairhien herself and seize the tiller of events with her own hands. Rand is running wild, derelict in his duty? Take him captive and bring him to the Tower where at least he will be under her eye and safe from the Forsaken. Moiraine is attempting to abscond with him as a result? Cut off her avenue of escape by any means necessary, even if it means damaging her personal relationship with Moiraine, possibly forever.

And that's the other thing to keep in mind: Siuan, like Moiraine, fundamentally does not trust anyone except her partner in conspiracy. She can't. For twenty years she's been on a quest that will lead to her stilling and execution if it is ever discovered. She and Moiraine are each other's confidants and allies, their deepest and most important loves. But even in the books Moiraine is withholding information from Siuan out of a sense of greater good. The difference is that in the show Siuan becomes aware of it in the show and of course she begins to doubt and loose trust in Moiraine as a result.

In her mind she has gone almost at once from being a partner, one half of a team that trusted in and depended on each other, to being on her own against the storm. If Moiraine didn't tell her about being stilled, what else might she be holding back? And if she is stilled, then realistically, how much good can she do for their cause now? How can she keep Rand safe from himself and the Forsaken, prepare him for what's coming, when she might not live another year? And that agony- that pain that the person she trusts and loves most didn't just betray that trust but also might not be around long enough for Siuan to be mad even be mad at her- has to be put aside because the mission, the duty, is everything to Siuan, just like with Moiraine. The stakes are too high for anything else.

So she falls back on the safety net of the Tower's traditions and secret plans. Take Rand to the Tower, keep him safe, prepare him for what's coming and trust to the Light for the rest. Take away his agency for his own good and the good of the world (something it should be noted she's wistful for the ability to do in TSR when she wishes she could keep hiim from a learning a word of the Prophecies, which is the same scene where she outright admits to Min she intends to try and control him in), and bring him firmly under her thumb. And what does Moiraine do? Enlist the aid of one of the Forsaken to break Rand free and flee to Falme through a Waygate, which is at best an INSANELY risky and potentially very stupid play, and at worst tacit confirmation of her worst fear, that Moiraine has gone over to the Shadow, and everything is on the brink of being lost.

And where does that leave Siuan? Isolated and alone and with no other fallback by her same response: to keep exerting raw force, to pressing the spring down until it snaps.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

More silly MXTX polls to mull over for the week:

[gogandmagog]

The Blythes are Quoted by L.M. Montgomery

[a-vague-yet-menacing-agency]

Old news but the fact that Cody was manager at hot topic is so unexplored in fandom. Like he wasn't some shithead employee he was the boss Entry level retail workers are so rarely promoted to manager nowadays, like, was Cody just that good at selling/managing the store? Also, managers make good money. Okay, haha, it's a hot topic, but store managers make like 70,000$ a year (CAD). They have health insurance. So Cody was actually doing pretty well. It's kinda weird to pretend he was on the same level as his friend with just a standard sales associate position, even if that friend was also full-time. Like the power and responsibility that Cody actually had is kind of impressive especially for 28.

AND then! To become a carnie! Like sick move and also Cody lost all his money anyway but the financial disparity! Was Murph probably thinking of like an assistant manager position which would make more sense with Cody's vibe? Probably. Is it funnier to imagine that Cody had to make sales reports to corporate and design store planograms? Absolutely.

Cody was management.

[tearueful]

The choice is pretty simple. There are only two options:

The woman who wants peace and a ceasefire or-

The guy who is best friends with Putin and Netanyahu that wants to glass Gaza.

That's it. That's the choice.

VOTE.

[faithandfairies]

Re-visiting Antoinette

So, I've been re-watching the show and it has me coming back to Antoinette. Which, I think I always come back to Antoinette because she is important, just not in the way a lot of people think.

The thing is, Louis and Lestat don't communicate properly so you have to look at their actions to figure out where they are at mentally and emotionally at any given time. And painting a more complete picture of Lestat's actions in relation to Antoinette and her purpose according to Lestat does that.

You see, I think by the time Antoinette enters, Lestat feels like he is losing Louis. Their relationship is going down the drain because they're not communicating properly and on top of that Louis isn't feeding well so he doesn't have energy for the parts of their relationship that do work. Louis' lack of proper feeding though is tied to his feelings, his humanity. And his shame of what he is, for which Lestat partly blames himself because of how he handled Louis' turning and their relationship.

And so Lestat starts trying to re-write history to get Louis back. Fix the mistakes he made in the past that Louis holds against him to get Louis back in the present but also as a way to remind Louis of the good times. And he uses Antoinette to do that.

As such Lestat casts Antoinette in the role of Ernesto. Because that's where everything started to go wrong in their relationship. Louis being disgusted with how and why Lestat kills. In Louis' opinion Lestat should never have killed Ernesto. At the very least not in the way he did.

Just like Ernesto Antoinette is a musician. And just like with Ernesto as she leaves Lestat is looking at her like he wants to drain her but he doesn't at that point even though I believe he wants to.

He then also uses Antoinette to remind Louis of his courting period with him. I think Lestat's intention with Antoinette is for Louis to miss him during that two week period as he lavishes all of his attention on someone other than Louis only to then try to seduce him at the end of it, recreating the first time he and Louis slept together after their two week courting period with Antoinette in the role of Lily. Also using the fact that Louis is hungry to try to get him to feed.

I genuinely think Lestat would have killed Antoinette if his plan had worked here. Drained her with Louis most likely. Ernesto's death, but with different circumstances. No humiliation, no torture, just pleasure and lulling her into a false sense of security so Louis can feed. Trying to listen to the objections Louis had to the way Lestat killed. Because the killing itself is non-negotiable, but the circumstances can be negotiated. Lestat is willing to hunt for Louis, and in whatever way that will make it more likely that Louis will feed human.

Lestat's genuinely trying to find viable alternatives for Louis to feed on. Because Louis isn't opposed to feeding on animals. But that isn't a sufficient diet. So what is the human equivalent of an animal to Louis? Louis is opposed to feeding on black people because he considers them his people. Louis is also gay, attracted to his own sex, so all men might be off the table. So I think Lestat goes, would white women suffice? Would that be impersonal enough? Or do you need it to be more personal? Would a white woman that looks like me make you angry enough to feed if you can direct your anger at her? Since male criminals don't do the trick? Or do you need variety of the sexual sort? Do you need to have sex that then devolves into you draining your victim in the heat of the moment?

And I mean, Lestat hit the nail on the head too, you've got to give him that. He knows Louis very well. Because Louis in Paris feeds on humans when he hallucinates his victims as Lestat and directs his anger at them. And in San Francisco Louis sleeps with his victims then drains them. They need so much therapy by the way.

But then here that doesn't work. Louis leaves to feed on animals instead of joining Lestat and Antoinette. So Lestat's like okay, I've got to go back even further. Fix every mistake I've ever made with Louis. Not kill Lily, not turn Louis two weeks into knowing him and use Antoinette to represent that. And so he continues to cast Antoinette in the role of Lily and adds Louis-stand-in and doesn't kill or turn Antoinette. Instead he continues a relationship with her as a human.

But I think Lestat's also realizing it won't make a difference, even if he has learned from his mistakes. I think his relationship with her devolves into a form of self-flagellation through her then. Because he can't turn back time and not turn Louis after only two weeks of knowing him, ease him into things so that Louis doesn't hate Lestat and himself for what they both are. So that he doesn't want to hurt himself and Lestat for what they both are.

I think Antoinette also ended up becoming a way to bridge the gap between Lestat's vampirism and his humanity to save his relationship with Louis when Louis became hard to reach, because Lestat stopped being able to read Louis' mind to understand him and because they didn't communicate well. And because Lestat kept making missteps that created an increasingly larger chasm between them.

Because that's one of the problems, although Lestat understood where Louis thought he went wrong enough to try to fix it I don't think Lestat fully understood why Louis thought certain decisions Lestat made were wrong, why Louis saw things the way he did. Lestat acts on instinct a lot, having been a vampire for as long as he's been by the time he meets Louis and having embraced it as he has. He just doesn't think about things the same way Louis does or at all.

He left Antoinette human as long as he did because it was beneficial to him, because it meant she could help him understand Louis' human side, to be a confidante and a sounding board, but it also genuinely offered a layer of protection to him and Louis for him to be seen with a woman when he and Louis were suspected to be lovers by the town.

Until of course it was more beneficial to have her as a vampire. And of course her love becomes a stand-in for the love he wishes he got from Louis, that he feels he could have gotten from Louis if he'd handled things differently with him.

The thing is, just like everything else in Lestat's mind his involvement with Antoinette is for Louis. It's just that Lestat being Lestat everything he does or thinks he does for Louis alone he's usually also doing for himself.

[marlenacantswim]

hey gang, do we all agree that ten's massive ego and god complex (or rather those traits being especially prominent in his regeneration) were a direct result of what happened in Parting of the Ways?

"marlena what the fuck do you mean" okay well think about it; ninth doctor. fresh off the time war. thinks himself unlovable, unworthy of love. just did a double genocide, including against his own people. he's returning to his old ways of lallygagging around helping humans in a more-than-desperate attempt to repress his feelings and try to mimic the person he was before the war. he's so vulnerable.

enter rose tyler. to him? she's the most amazing person in the universe. he loves her, full stop. she makes him feel like maybe he's still capable of love, but does he really trust her love for him? after all, she doesn't really know him, does she?

all that comes to a head when rose tyler becomes the bad wolf. in that moment, she sees everything. everything everything. the doctor's past, and the doctor's future. every horrible thing they did and will do.

and in that moment, with all this truth streaming constantly into her brain, most amazing person in the universe rose tyler looks at him and goes "i want to save you. you are worth saving."

bro no fucking shit ten has a motherfucking god complex, jesus christ i would too!!!

now personally i think nine would have rationalized it and been relatively Normal 'bout all that noise had he survived onwards, but unfortunately he didn't, and so when the doctor's subconscious and the universe were holding hands deciding what their new little guy should be like... well, we're already making him just for her, and she loves him.

rose tyler loves me. she loved me even when she knew me.

i'm just saying, that "Bad Wolf chose to save me" to "the laws of time are mine to command" pipeline is a straight vertical drop only a few feet long.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[queensparklekitten]

i wonder how many times the school for good has had "survival dates" at the snow ball where the boy and girl involved have zero romantic interest in each other, maybe even barely know each other's names, but she's desperate to not be failed out of her life for either being a social outcast or just not being interested in romance and as such would accept an invitation from anyone by this point, meanwhile he also either can't find a ball date or doesn't care about romance, but either can't afford to take half credit without being turned into an animal which he doesn't want, or he's too good a person to let her be failed even though he's not actually interested in her and would do this for just about any girl, so they agree to go to the ball together and then go their separate ways afterwards

[kalamity-jayne]

In case you were wondering where things are at in the film and television industry here's how post-production folks (editors, VFX, Colorists, etc) are doing. These screenshots are from The Blue Collar Post Collective's FB page (they are an International professional network for folks working in post).

This one is from a few months ago...

These are all from the past few days (from 2 separate Anon posts re "where to find jobs")...

My former post-supervisor really fucked me over and I've been unemployed for months. At this point I'm applying to jobs in grocery stores cause it's just dead dead dead out there. Winter is always the time of year you don't want to be without a film or series to work on but this just abysmal.

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

i think the diamond dogs should play improv games just bc it would amuse me, an ex theater kid, specifically

[fangsandfeels]

I know that Kagha is super easy to hate, but I really feel how much Jerra hates Kagha.

She is generally NOT impressed by the Grove. Maybe there is something she doesn't know and understand about balance and shit, but for the gods' sake, this Grove fought Dark Justiciars and Shar's monsters!

They have all the power, all the positioning to fight back against goblin hordes. Moreover, they have a fucking responsibility. It's carved into every plaque around the grove.

And yet, druids walked past reminders of their duty and choose to avert their gaze, hiding away, whining, and placing blame on people tons more vulnerable than them (and yet these vulnerable people were the ones defending the Grove's gate, getting killed and learning to kill for the first time).

Pathetic.

The "we don't have a leader oh if only Halsin was there" was another lame excuse to her -- many of Grove's denizens were centuries older than her.

And they still needed a nanny to get their shit together?

Given all that, Kagha still managed to make herself a particular target for Jerra's scrutiny.

It wasn't just about the sheer audacity of a grown ass woman stating that a child led goblins to the Grove, lamenting about having to do her job.

It was also about the same smug crap Jerra heard long, long time ago (and still couldn't forget):

She knows this kind of narrative all too well. Years may have passed, but she still remembers how her family's vulnerability was exploited. How the "debt" for the food, and water, and refuge was held over her parents' heads and how they were constantly kicked down from ever leaving the status of victims, denied their dignity and turned into expendable fodder.

To people like Kagha, vulnerable people are always nothing more than a convenient target - the ones to become scapegoats for others' mistakes, the ones to be used, the ones denied their dignity.

No wonder that when the Shadow Druid reveal happened, Jerra didn't waste her breath on persuading Kagha and went straight to:

Once again, Kagha had centuries to wizen up. If she didn't learn to make better choices by the time she crossed paths with Jerra, then it's her funeral.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

the thing about gomens s2 is that if they don't kiss I will blow myself up. but if they do kiss I will also blow myself up