#but it makes for good storytelling so whatever

[waywardsalt]

the only minecraft movie i want to see is the one i found on yt several years ago and have been trying to track down again ever since

edit: i think i finally found the video i was looking for. win

[wyvernquill]

Today I offer you the following headcanon/scenario: Hob dislikes Shakespeare and criticises him, but not because he's jealous of Dream walking off with him in 1589... no, it's because he genuinely thinks the man was a talentless hack.

Let me elaborate.

Hob does like Shakespeare's plays, and grudgingly admits they're the work of a "half-decent playwright", judging from the 1789 scene. He does appreciate the craftsmanship.

The only trouble: Hob is of the opinion that it's not technically Will's work at all. It's His Stranger who had... well, some hand, at least, in the creation of those masterpieces, and Hob hates that Shakespeare gets the sole credit.

(Now, to be clear, I do think that all Dream did was lend Shakespeare support and inspiration and the power to put his own dreams and imaginations into words. It's absolutely still William Shakespeare's work at the core, and Dream's involvement is hardly much more than in any other story ever written - but Hob doesn't know exactly how this works, does he?)

Imagine his frustration. Imagine people praising Shakespeare as a genius in front of him, and Hob bursting to say "actually, he was total shite until he sold his soul or something to the maybe-devil in exchange for talent". He thinks he's the only human in the world who knows The Truth About Will Shaxberd, and it drives him mad that any attempt to explain it would make him sound like some conspiracy nut.

It's the sort of thing that could drive a man to irrationally hate a playwright and his ill-gotten gains, it really could.

(Which is highly hypocritical of him, seeing as he himself enjoys the boon of that very same maybe-devil - well, his sister’s, actually, not that Hob knows that - but it's aBOUT THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING-)

And that's how Hob ends up as his university's #1 Shakespeare Hater.

.

And perhaps, Dream eventually explains to him who he is and how his boons work, and Hob suddenly realises he has to revise his entire spiteful opinion of William Shakespeare, who may have had a certain spark of talent of his own, after all...

And then, groping desperately for some reason to cling on to his increasingly irrational dislike of the man, Hob recalls how Will stole his date back in 1589, and breathes a sigh of relief at the realisation that he can carry on hating Shakespeare just as much as before, only now for a different reason.

(Not that saying "I hate Shakespeare because he stole my boyfriend" will make him sound any less like a nutter than insisting his talent came from magical intervention... but, well, it's a step in the right direction, isn’t it.)

[frumentariae]

vent. sorry i’m honesty hangry and upset

actually i’m still annoyed. has anyone in this damn fandom heard of filtering tags. for shit. they don’t like

also like not to be ‘what about’ but seriously if your biggest problems are fucking shipping wars on tumblr dot com i envy you. truly.

[sirellas]

one of my biggest issues with new trek is that it keeps trying to make every season of every new show have such a monumental scale that it circles right back around to being irrelevant. there's always a huge evil plot to destroy everything in the universe slash starfleet (and the assumption that starfleet and the federation IS everything ((and that everyone should want to join)) is a whole other debate) and our rag-tag crew of misfits has to save the poor defenseless federation against all odds etc etc..... like i get it, big stakes = big action = big emotion. but it's too big. it's lazy. when "everything" is on the line, characters don't have to justify why they're risking their lives because, duh, it's obvious, they're doing it because they have to etc etc. there's literally no believable alternative in the narrative.

whereas a smaller scale issue (i.e. voyager stuck in the DQ, dealing with the cardassian occupation of bajor, and so on; still big problems to solve! but they don't affect the entire fabric of society) has moral gray areas and also specific goals the main characters should achieve other than just "save everyone in the universe". the characters could and did question their own motives and actions because there wasn't one right answer! the shows were about thinking about what the right answer was!!! how am i supposed to believe that the real treasure was the friends we made along the way if i don't care about the ""way"" in the first place????

[lesbianyosano]

deeply hypocritical of asagiri to try to pivot the story into the fake deep commentary on the state while completely ignoring the question of carceral system even with mersault at the heart of the story for years

[legionofpotatoes]

nimona thoughts! still my top movie of the year so far!!

been thinking about how to frame my thoughts on this gem, and I ultimately arrived at a bit of a pretentious jumping-off point. but honestly, my favorite stories are always the ones that end up demoting the whats, the hows, and sometimes even the whos in service of the whys. it's the hardest question and context to tackle in any story, and it's worth interrogating the most in order to find any true meaning, any connection at all to what's told.

nimona shows exactly why walling yourself away from the "others" isn't good enough. it shows why you have to do the work and see them.

not just that it is dogmatically "the right thing to do". not just depicting what certain systemic injustices are, how they are deployed, and who they are targeted at. but the why. that simplest, purest shape of questioning an injustice dating back to your gentlest time as a child, when you were vulnerable, naive, and truly curious in the best possible faith. the question you would always ask was why.

you are picking up a sword to threaten the unknown. you've been told the whos and whats. you parse it thus. but you don't know the why. you are watching this happen on TV, contextualized, simplified, dramatized. you are connecting the dots. understanding the why.

nimona painstakingly drills down on that why. arduously, achingly digging past the institutions of fear fed by cycles of indoctrination and right down to the core of it. packaged in a simple-to-parse fantasy world built with deft, elegant metaphors and archetypes that immediately fall into place and make sense to a person of any age.

it is animation as a medium and fantasy as a genre both working in concert. a fun and colorful romp that ends on a gentle embrace of reassurance that tells children - both literal and the ones buried deep inside adults - that their first question to the world was always the correct one. because it was the kindest.

[yellowocaballero]

I just finished your New Wave fic. I’m convinced everything your write is gold. I loved your TMA fics, with the most heartbreaking demon AU imaginable and the hilarity of Fahrenheit 101. I loved your moon knight fics, starting with Steven talking to animals on the reg at work to the system growing closer with a focus on Jake, i- there’s- it’s sooo much packed into it. When I’m on burnout, of art or writing (maybe life in general at times) I revisit your work and am thrown back into a creative headspace.

You are my favorite writer, you cram so much meaning and thought into your work and it shows. The characters are dumbasses and say the most ridiculous shit and turn around the next chapter and say the most thought provoking thing, and I don’t get whiplash from it because these characters just work! They just do, and I… am very much off track!

Anyways I just got into Batman and reading your fic is fueling that flame! I can’t wait to see what you have in store next, and I shall now stalk your blog for writing tips! I hope you have a nice day broski 💙

Thank you!! This is so sweet thank you so much! This ask is so nice!

Trust me, if there's meaning then it's because I get obsessive over these fics and I massively overthink them. I honestly wish I was better at making simpler, more elegant stories. I feel like nothing I do is truly going to be good until I can find that simplicity.

"Dipshit who says stupid stuff and then turns around and spouts ridiculous philosophy" is just how I talk. But I habitually approach my life from a standpoint of finding humor in everything, if only to soften the blow. I was once told that it's really hard to tell when I'm joking, because everything I say is always half-joking and always half-serious. I feel like that's pretty evident from my narration too...

As for writing advice...um, I was just speaking about this with somebody. When you're plotting a story, the first thing I like to figure out is what I'm trying to say. Everything else should be built around that. The joy of writing is that I think we all have something we want to say, or something we want people to know, or that we have an aspect of ourselves and our lives that we want to express. Most of the time, trying to convey those things verbally just results in a frustrating approximation of your true feelings. I find that when I manage a successful story, the depth and scale of what I'm trying to impart is fully understood and felt. It's rewarding. I think if people aren't understood on some level, by somebody, they kind of die.

Thanks for the sweet ask!!

[end-orfino]

ahhhhhh i remember why i dont read comics & books and watch movies as much as I should. Because they make me lose it

[siena-sevenwits]

💎

[pomodoriyum]

it is so funny to me whenever i see folks (usually like. teens or whatever who r experiencing or processing things for the first time n such) in the tags of a controversial character having a. i guess meltdown? at the idea of being able to understand the characters motivations or seeing that character in a way that accepts both the good and the bad. like yeah babe theres nuance let me get you a nice cold fruity drink or something welcome to the party happy you made it

[officialjimmybuffett]

idk i wish a show marketing itself as a thinkpiece on queer history and politics in the us circa 1950-80 didn’t feel so painfully netflixcore

[undertheknightwing]

not to Titans post but something about Gar being almost right outside the church (or whatever it was) when Rachel escaped always struck me as weird. either Doom Manor is really close to that church place and Gar just so happened to be there as a tiger or Gar followed them after they left roller rink and I honestly think that's what happened, the way the scene was lingering on his reaction after the group leaves and he's just randomly outside church at the perfect moment to meet up with Rachel again, almost like he knew what was going on and was ready to take her away from that place if/when she got out. It seems the most logical to me. I think he got curious after how weird the situation at the roller rink was and decided to follow them, and probably used his enhanced hearing to eavesdrop when he needed to like to learn about keeping Rachel at the church.. or he just is really well at hiding and heard everything from the shadows (which would also make sense since he seems to be a pretty good thief and would have to learn to sneak around and hide)

[makerofmadness]

Watching the muppet christmas carol movie for the first time ever as a school activity the sickness has healed enough to allow this it's a Muppets miracle

[clovernment]

started naoki urasawa's Monster bc i want to procrastinate on studying but no one told me id be bombarded with my course material right on screen

[doom-dreaming]

oh i forgor how scary the leadup to the flood reveal is

[roombagreyjoy]

Contender for my new favourite character dynamic: Creature of deathless nature who keeps dying and resuscitating over and over because they keep saving their unwittingly carefree (or rather careless) partner by bargaining with the gods in order to keep exchanging their fates. Shenanigans ensue in order to keep this a secret because nonchalant as Character B is they would absolutely be heartbroken and devastated about this happening (more than once)