#but this is a really blatant and pretty cool moment imo

[mako-mahko]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned (and if someone has please direct me to it) is that there is a clear visual representation of the inaccessibility of the council room in episode one.

When Salo gets crushed under the rubble after the explosion, he becomes wheelchair-bound and loses the function in his legs. His first scene after this is when he enters the council room, and in order to get to the center of it, he has to go down two sets of steps in his wheelchair. The camera focuses on these shots, and I think it's a really interesting way to portray that inaccessibility, especially since a person with a physical disability played such a large role in the previous season. Not only did the writing in season one support the fact that the council was inaccessible, but this cements the fact that without Jayce, a council member willing to bring those without access to the other side of the table, Viktor wouldn't have had any possible chance of affecting change.

It stood out to me on my first watch because I thought it was a really solid visual way of showing that the council isn't as inclusive or fair as they portray themselves as being, and that in order to affect change, the people that don't have direct access to the council have to put themselves in peril in order to get there. No one on the council was physically disabled prior to the explosion, and it is only after they have been brought down to the level of those they preside over that their inaccessibility becomes an issue for them. That moment is a sound reinforcement of that inaccessibility, and I found it so cool that they decided to include it.

[akkivee]

i’m still not sure what was ranked lol??? but ig it’s a ranking of which hypmic media is peak hypmic media????? and some notes lol

s tier:

the manga and chuuou stage!!!!!

tho knocked for its inaccessibility, inability to hear the character voices and insert raps, and it being behind canon, the manga is still just like, the best way to consume hypmic’s canon lol

you get the drama tracks and additional storytelling for those tracks AND stories that help build hypmic’s world and characters!!!

the best way to consume canon tho imo is reading the manga to the drama tracks whenever you can lol

the chuuoku stage was originally a tier but i was asked to put it higher and therefore it is LOL

the stage as a whole would be a tier i think, despite some misgivings about it lol

but the chuuoku stage had peak acting, peak character moments and bonds, peak canon interpretations and it was sick seeing a group of women oppose the women’s rule while lowkey guilty of what chuuoku was doing as well 😫👌

also seeing honobono in the flesh and our first auxiliary media honobono too where she was just as terrible and terrifying as you might expect thanks hypstage lmao

sucks it’s not very accessible tho lol

a tier:

the drama tracks and the legends era stage!!!!

tho the drama tracks are my s tier lmao, i can acknowledge it can be hard to sit down with a couple dozen or so drama tracks when a good majority of them are 30 minutes each lol

all of the canon drama tracks are very accessible!!! side media not so much lol but the majority of the main story is on youtube!!!!

but bc the manga was made to accompany the tracks, you don’t get the full picture as you would with the manga lol

the legends era stage, despite not being the most faithful to the character portrayals, showed character flaws in peak dramatique lmao

thru the side characters you get a lot of worldbuilding that is relevant to canon despite its other universe status

it’s my issues with its characterisations and ESP the blatant disregard for the women that doesn’t have it higher lol

it’s pretty inaccessible too lol

b tier:

arb and hypdream!!!!!

hypdream is new and i haven’t played it but creating ghost versions of the characters where their character traits are Slightly skewed is automatically peak writing for me LOL

and any game that calls ichiro pretty is aight by me lol

arb is really cool!!!!! it’s mostly b tier bc it’s incredibly inaccessible lol but it’s zany and in character crazy lmao

like sometimes character traits are played up for a comedic effect but it doesn’t detract from the character itself lol

i also think the main story is cool!!! the arb ocs are very neat and the divisions intermingle in ways canon simply cannot provide

it also being paywalled knocks down lol

c tier:

the current era of hypstage!!!!

they haven’t done anything lol

like them doing og get together stories is nice ig and even if idk how i feel about them forming nagosaka alongside the og divisions, i can appreciate them weaving their narratives together so they all begin together

there’s a sanitation of a few characters that are already showing thru that might be a detriment in the long run idk where the stage is going tho lol

like i mean there felt like there was an attempt on nuanced characters in the first era of the stage and idk if it’s been carried over based on what we’ve seen so far??? maybe a bit???? idk i think only time will tell

always on that inaccessibility ✌️

d tier:

rhyme anima!!!!!

i don’t hate rhyme anima let me just preface lmao!!!!!!

it was originally on c tier but i felt a little offended putting it next to the stage lol

it’s a little too silly i think lol like arb is fun silly but rhyme anima doesn’t have enough charm in its silly

it might be bc the character portrayals toe being offensive tbh lol i always commiserate with mtc fans watching samatoki be bastardised like that 😭😭😭

ramuda too imo but idk if that’s my place to comment on lol

like arb tastefully exaggerates their characters, rhyme anima made caricatures of them 😭😭😭

tho i will always be amused by kuukou being so sanitised of his insanity lmao he’s smart and you can actually see that and it’s so funny to see lol

[amulet-or-not]

Ok so I watched rise of the titans and it was... An experience...

The things I loved/liked:

Children of the sun summoning the amulet sequence. It was pretty cool. But it's funny this is one of the things in this category since it was basically ripped straight out of the scene in 1x12. But I don't mind a little self plagiarism if it's satisfying

Toby actually being smart and having a part in the defeat of bellroc

Toby's last moments with Jim. Not to say I liked Toby dying that was fucking horrible but seeing Toby and Jim be close again was something that had been desperately absent for a few seasons. And the idea that Jim even after winning would sacrifice the entire world and take on the burden of going back into the past himself, just to save Toby is kinda sweet even if this movie didn't go in that direction. Cuz it just proves this boy would give up anything for his friends and that's one of his core qualities and why we all love him

The opening sequence on the subway. That was pretty excellent and raised the hype and allowed everyone an equal chance to shine

Aarrrgghh going batshit when Toby dies cuz mood

The taco truck with the little tune entering arcadia and all the government are like 'remove the barricades, let them through!!'

Jlaire was pretty cute in this movie, not the best it's ever been but y'know.

Douxie was pretty good throughout

The things I was ok/unsure about:

Ajas characterisation. I know a lot of people hated it in this movie but it wasn't the worst. She acted like a leader trying to protect two worlds of people, and that's entirely fair tbh. I didn't like how she doubted Jim but as she didn't know him that well especially as neither of them remember the events of d'aja vu it was kinda understandable. And I agreed that they did need a contingency evacuation plan

Krel. He was consistently good in this movie as usual but didn't get enough time to shine individually, same goes for blinky and aarrrgghh

Stricklake getting married was cute, however I didn't like how Barbara was used as a mouthpiece to mediate all of Jim's relationships with the older men in his life, i.e. when her and Jim talked it was either about strickler or James SR. and honestly that's just a disservice to Barbara's own character (and makes me realize that I doubt this movie passes the bechdel test)

The things I disliked:

Eli basically doing nothing all movie and being useless

Having Eli come back after a glow up for the sole purpose of having a moment where Steve is jealous and distrusting of his girlfriend. Actually no this can go in the hate category too ❤️

Jim saying 'i always wondered about dad' to his mom. The only reason this isn't in the hate category is bc it meant we actually spent time on the relationship between Jim and Barbara which is something that was sorely lacking in wizards tbh, and something that really made trollhunters shine. But what happened to 1x17's 'you know I don't care about my father'? Like what is this bfr

Toby being used as comic relief didn't bother me in this as much as in wizards cuz at least he got that important moment at the end but him saying 'moral support is the lamest superpower' what happened to the Toby that cherished supporting his friends and knew that his support was the greatest gift he could give to Jim and Claire just as their support was his greatest gift. Cuz that seemed like a key factor in earlier seasons imo. Also what happened to the Toby that started becoming confident in his abilities in earlier seasons of trollhunters?

The blatant Hollywood stereotyping. The kids kicking the football in Brazil and the fishermen in the South China sea, and then the bright neon lights of anywhere in east Asia at nighttime visual. It's not the worst but I'm tired tbh

The things that I absolutely fucking hated:

This shouldn't matter to me so much, but why when Jim went back into the past, did he wake up at 8.00 instead of 6.00? You could claim it was because it was cuz he was disoriented, but the time of his alarm should never have changed. If I remember that it said 6.00 on the alarm, and I haven't watched the first episode since probably 2018, the screenwriters should've too. It's just lazy. Or maybe it's symbolic of the fact that Jim only used to wake up at 6.00 to make his mom breakfast and all of them lunch, something which was a key part of his characterisation and clearly showed how much he cared for and loved the people around him - something which is very obviously no longer a part of his character since he allowed Steve to bully Eli and manipulated Toby into becoming the trollhunter. But idk. You choose

Nomura's characterisation?? First of all she just seemed ooc, like a stereotype version of herself for some reason. Secondly, her death. She died. In the sun. She's a changeling. The sloppiness of the writing team in keeping their facts straight is fucking astounding.

Stricklers death. Just for shock value and a play on emotions cuz it contributed nothing to the story. Same with nomuras. All it showed me is that the writing team were sitting around a table and someone goes 'you know we should kill off a few characters early on in the movie just to show this is a serious level threat'.

Pregnancy being used as a fucking joke. I wouldn't have necessarily minded the mpreg concept happening but the execution was just. Ugh. Steve being pregnant was treated as a joke and gross and just something to fill in time as comic relief, rather than what pregnancy actually is which is fucking hard work. It just seems like another extended misogyny-as-comic-relief trope again and Steve's character and everything was thrown down the drain

Toby Jim and Claire not having a group moment together. There was a scene somewhere in the movie where Claire was comforting Jim and I was wishing Toby was there too. If they're going to play the moral support joke with him at least have him be there when morals are at the lowest

Toby being stuck to the van. The treatment of his character in general throughout the last half of the franchise, he should've been given proper development as a character since trollhunters ended but fuck that I guess

Getting human Jim back was WASTED. Utterly wasted on this poor excuse for a movie. The peak of Jim's character arc was accepting himself in every form even when his humanity was stolen from him. The 'am I a hero without the amulet' in this and even the corruption storyline in wizards were both forced, particularly the former, as we'd already gone through that part of his arc in s2 (and it was one of the best arcs this franchise has produced frankly). It was really really apparent they couldn't think of anywhere to go with his character but still wanted to use him bc he remained the most popular. Fanfiction writers can and have done better. Fuck this movie

The lack of emotional maturity and depth between a lot of the characters honestly?? I really don't know how to explain this other than anytime this movie paused to have an emotional conversation or moment between two characters it seemed hollow and worthless because none of them were going through true important character arcs

I'm sure I have more things in this category but for now this is all I can think of. Might rb later with more if I can think of more things that really annoyed me :)) time to rewatch trollhunters s1 and remember how good this franchise used to be :))

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Hii I’ve stumbled across a few of your posts and haven’t even gleaned the tip of the iceberg that is your blog, but I would love to hear a more fleshed version of your Bakugo with AFO post (if you have more that you wanted to share), because that is such a cool concept???

Like, it’s such a nice way to address the symbiotic nature of the two quirks + Bakugo’s relationship with Midoriya at the same time, and there’s also so much to explore in terms of the repercussions of that (not just the symbolism of it, but also the parts you’ve mentioned like what that would mean for people who’ve had their quirks stolen, how they will deal with all the stockpiled quirks, or even on a wider scale of how the media would react if AFO/OFA is leaked/ revealed to the public).

Just imagine the amount of continued exploration in terms of the nature of quirks v nurture of society, because AFO/OFA has so far been (imo) one of the few evidence that quirks carry personality, which is so awesome because it’s like saying a quirk literally holds a part of you through the vestiges while demolishing this idea through basically the entire plot of the manga loll. (To phrase it slightly better, the manga is sort of reaching the conclusion that a quirk is a part of you and you only, without being all of you, and that it’s exactly what the name says it is: a quirk.)

The thing I don’t really like about this conclusion is the blatant disregard for the quirkless community, which was the initial point of discussion and social commentary in bnha. This is why I think Bakugo being given AFO would be great fuel for the debate of should we be allowed to mess with the quirks we are given.

As in, who gets to decide? Who gets to play god? How will it be regulated? Should it even be regulated? How do you do all that without dehumanising Bakugo the same way society dehumanised pro heroes? (Bonus points for linking this to real life because I’m all for social commentary/ reflections in fictional media)

And then on a personal level, what will it take for Bakugo to be able to control AFO’s personality (hello, eye symbolism + name symbolism) within the quirk? How will All Might handle this info? How does this all relate to the conflict of children in war? The development of the league of villains’ character plots (esp Tomura’s)?

I have a lot of questions with very few answers loll, I would love to hear your thoughts on this!!

this post, for reference

Gosh, I am so sorry for taking forever to answer this. But you ask so many good questions! And I think this is actually a pretty good time, after 419.

I guess where I stand with the idea now is still somewhat ambiguous. All for One as a power is too big and interesting to go away--or at least, if it did go away, it would speak volumes. It feels like an almost elemental, fundamental, and even spiritual power, something beyond the man himself. So I'm still wondering about its future.

While a lot of other characters' narratives, including Katsuki's, are about this "nature of quirks vs. nurture," with the original Japanese name for quirks literally meaning "individuality" ("個性" or "kosei"), All for One (the power) oddly represents a lack of individuality. Like a shapeshifter with no form of its own. With that in mind, might we actually compare it to quirklessness? This is worth considering if we're trying to guess who might be a fitting person to inherit it.

I'm at least certain that Tenko shouldn't keep it, since he was literally groomed for it, to be a vessel. For him it represents a lack of individuality in the absolute worst way: a lack of agency, and an identity determined by/in the image of someone else since before even the moment of conception. Actually, as of 419, it seems like if there is any echo of him left after being possessed again, Tenko needs to get rid of the quirk. If he is able to regain control for even a second, the most logical action he can take to save himself and do something of his own free will for once, is to pass the quirk on to someone else.

What I'm a little less certain about is who should get it. On the one hand, Katsuki has a very strong sense of self, especially now. As I said before, this would make him an interesting candidate because he wouldn't want AFO, and thus wouldn't use it for his own gain, on principle. However...

In between now and when I wrote that little post, the future of One for All has also become ambiguous. Does Tenko have it even though All for One does not? (because of Izuku's intent in passing it on?) I've wondered for a long time what would happen if OFA and AFO combined. Would they become more than the sum of their parts, creating something new? Maybe something that can connect with other people and build them up? Perhaps it would develop some aspect of agency that takes away its capacity to exploit people. I'm just speculating...

And I haven't wanted to talk about it, but I'm ambivalent about Izuku becoming quirkiness again. As in, I think Horikoshi could pull it off either way. So this is just an idea:

Izuku could also be a candidate for AFO because he lacks a sense of self, in his own way, as I've gone into before. At best, this means a lack of an ego, the opposite of AFO's personality. In AFO's words, Izuku is the boy born with nothing, who now has less than nothing. There's also a nice symmetry to this idea: Izuku giving OFA to Tenko, then Tenko giving AFO to Izuku. It would be interesting to see what the power would be like in the hands of its antithesis.

But like I said, if you ignore AFO's own selfish interpretation of the power as a tool for domination and a sign of his natural superiority, its essence is a lot more comparable to quirklessness. Just as one's quirk does not encompass one's entire self even though it is unique to them, so too does the quirk have potential beyond its user's point of view. It is potentially ideal for someone who wouldn't make it a part of who they are or use it to enforce their desires, and this applies to both Izuku and Katsuki.

The final thing to mention from your question is the possibility that whoever received AFO would have to deal with overcoming his possession. Maybe this is too much for one person to handle. Maybe Katsuki plays into this either way.

[neverendingcomplaints]

That wasn't it.

This has been a spring/summer of surprises for movies for me. I wasn't expecting to like The Little Mermaid live action, but it turned out to be the best one imo - not that that is saying very much since these live actions are just blatant cash grabs but I would watch it again (except Scuttlebutt because). And I was super super hype for Barbie, but what a disappointment.

SPOILERS

Why was it so rushed? I felt no pay-off for anything because everything was just happening so fast. I didn't care nor do I understand the importance of America and her daughter to the story. They should have had more adventures in the real world, I think, instead of skipping back and forth like it was nothing. Also just in general, how dare they waste America Ferrera!

I don't care if it's a "choice" or not, the whole Take Sh*t Verbatim From Twitter or TikTok and Put It Directly Into People's Mouths thing is just cringey. The only people who talk like that, truly, are academics and maybe some university students who just started smelling themselves after taking a social sciences course. I'm sure there's a Professor Barbie but I'm pretty sure that wasn't Margot Robbie's Barbie. And coming out of a TWEEN'S mouth...That's not satire or absurdity, it's just bad and lazy writing to me. I think it let's Hollywood off the hook because why think of clever, entertaining ways to show all of this when they can just lift some cool tweets and academic work and throw that on the screen as lines? Easy Button!

Also, I know they were going for nostalgia and they are trying to sell us everything everywhere, but it was such a blatant commercial for Mattel. People are gonna run out and try to find Midge and Allan and and the Palazzo pants or whatever. I have never felt so uncomfortably aware of product placement and ADS in my life. But played for funzies tho *wink wink*!!!

I feel like I get what they were trying to do with the Ken stuff and Ryan Gosling was a FORCE so I'm not as unforgiving there, but it still felt kinda off to me. They sorta had the right idea but I definitely had a few Kens for my Barbies and they were together. They both hopped in Barbie's Jeep with Barbie and her friends and they kissed and hugged and even though I didn't have any of Barbie's homes, they lived together. I feel like some of the stuff with Ken didn't feel true to my experience of playing with them as a little girl - of course it was mostly about Barbie, but I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that she was just hanging with the girlies all the time. I get it - it was supposed to be an exaggerated reverse of the Patriarchy but I don't think anything would have been lost if the Barbies had treated Kens more like say, absurd 50s housewives than annoying puppies who whine and nip at your heels no matter how much you try to tame/reassure them.

People are saying it was just some summer fun but the dialogue suggests otherwise.

Ugh. I was hoping for another Mean Girls or Heathers - unapologetically fun and feminist with a strong message, iconic because it just undeniably IS. Instead, it's this pink plastic empowerment ad with some really funny moments (most of which were already out and about before the movie hit theaters) that felt kinda like forced iconic. Like the equivalent of companies "standing with" BLM or turning rainbow for Pride but it's actually just empty virtue signaling so we will all please keep buying their products please.

Really liked the beginning in Barbie Land, Ryan Gosling was the absolute perfect Ken and I've known it since day one because that man can act and kills comedy, kinda love seeing Michael Cera randomly in stuff lately, Margot IS THE BARBIE, and yes I'm sorry Midge was absolutely a creepy idea but there was no way Midge was not gonna be creepy because the whole process of pregnancy and giving birth is a little bit of a horror story if we're being honest. But that's all I got.

[autisticandroids]

hi i'm trying to keep up on spn fandom drama without actually watching the 6 seasons I don't care enough to watch so could you tell me what on earth "why lamp" means? tysm

ok so this is a long one. 

so the way i see it there are three major pieces of evidence, in the last two seasons, that dean is going to reciprocate. 

i’m not talking about like, evidence that i would use as a textual analyst if the author was dead: if i use everything that looks to ME like dean being queer then i would have mountains. i’m talking three pieces of evidence which i am absolutely convinced were intentional on the part of the people who write the show, meaning that they suggest deancas might actually go canon officially. 

that’s also why i’m only counting the last two seasons; cas made his deal with the empty in early season fourteen and it was definitely intended to come off as romantic. why do i know this? because it has the same goddamn terms and even wording as angel’s curse from buffy: angel experiences “one moment of true happiness” and he loses his soul, cas experiences “one moment where he is truly happy” and he dies. on buffy, angel’s true happiness is..... well.......... sex with buffy. so when i heard the deal i was like hm. at the time i thought they were just fanservice/easter egging me, but now i know better: they intended that. so i think mr. dabb has been planning deancas endgame since at least them lol. i’m pretty sure they knew the show was ending at that point so they could do it.

anyway the first piece of evidence is dean’s michael fantasy in 14x10. this is imo the second strongest. in it, he’s a bartender, accompanied only by a woman he can never sleep with because she has a boyfriend. they flirt endlessly, and she comments “how come you only want what you can’t have” which is a mirror for what cas says in his confession: “the one thing i want, it’s something i know i can’t have.” she also later comments “besides, you don’t want me, you just like to flirt. i’m psychic, i know.” suggesting that dean is faking his interest in her, which could be normal but reads to me as intentionally suggestive that he’s either uninterested in women or simply hung up on someone else. like “dean pretends to be interested in women to show off his flirting game and flex his dudeness muscles” is a subtext that’s present in a huge amount of the show; like, there are a few female love interests he has chemistry with, but mostly his sexcapades read like i-need-to-prove-i’m-manly bedframe notching or showing off for his buddies. this is even explicit-ish a couple of times, like i said in this post here. but they’ve never explicitly pointed it out in words i don’t think. and like. “pretending heterosexuality” is pretty queer lmao (even if dean is bi he’s still faking ultrastraightness to prove he’s manly/straight). 

also, it’s weird as hell that they picked pamela barnes for that scene. she never had a particularly close connection with the boys or anything, why not someone else? but she’s 1) psychic, so she can say that line about dean not wanting her, and 2) much more importantly, she’s intimately associated with cas. like, she first appears in lazarus rising, and she’s the one who gets her eyes burned out looking at cas’ true face. like that’s her biggest deal: Woman Who Got Her Eyes Burned Out To Show How Dangerous Cas Is. and then she died off pretty quickly because she was a woman on spn s4.

also, in the scene, she wears an angel wing necklace and a shirt that says “to hell and back” (pointed out to me in the same post). plus the guy who wrote the episode also wrote lily sunder has some regrets which i hope we can all agree is an ICONIC destiel episode.

the second piece of evidence is the purgatory confession in 15x09. this is the strongest evidence. i don’t really have much to say about it because it’s so blatant? like, when i first saw it, i was literally like “this is intentional deancas fanservice jesus christ.” like i lean towards generally interpreting deancas stuff as an accident on the part of straight writers and the purgatory thing did not feel accidental to me. and then cas cuts dean off at the end of the confession, before dean can say some final thing, and dean looks devastated, and then we never find out what the final thing was. like, it’s pretty blatant.

the third piece of evidence is the lamp dance. this is the weakest of the three. basically, dean has a dream sequence in 15x10 where he dances romantically with a lamp. given that one of the things that’s going on in 15x10 is that dean is realizing that he could be allowed to have domestic bliss, the apple pie life, and still be a hunter. the dance with the lamp does kind of come off like it’s implying that there is a partner shaped hole in his life. he has no female love interest in s15 and he hasn’t for years. here is a really cool, if way too smart for spn, piece of meta about it, and here’s another which is less cool but acknowledges that spn is dumb and doesn’t think that hard and is therefore imo more correct. also, andrew dabb himself wrote the lamp dance episode, which makes it stronger evidence than it would be otherwise imo.

anyway when i was Feeling the Madness on saturday, i decided to make this joke post based on the format of that one alvin and the chipmunks meme, you know, “if women are oppressed then why ___” (i would not suggest looking at it on my actual blog because tragically that breaks the format, open it in dash). i was basically using the lamp dance as slightly-ridiculous synecdoche for all three of these pieces of evidence because it’s the weakest.

then later that day, because i treat my blog as a deeply self-referential internal monologue, i made this post documenting the madness i was experiencing, and i ended it with “then WHY LAMP” as a reference to my earlier post. that one got popular, and now “why lamp” is a common way to refer to the lamp dance meta.

[yamayuandadu]

Wikipedia troubles, or “Father Enlil, (...) don't let your precious metal be alloyed there with the dirt of the underworld“

clarification regarding my post about troubles with a certain site i’ve been contributing to a lot for the past few months. To preface this with a mythical metaphor: in Inanna’s Descent, when Ninshubur pleads with the other gods to save Inanna, she uses the formula “don't let anyone kill your daughter in the underworld. Don't let your precious metal be alloyed there with the dirt of the underworld. Don't let your precious lapis lazuli be split there with the mason's stone. Don't let your boxwood be chopped up there with the carpenter's wood.” Currently this is what is happening to the Inanna article, I am afraid.

So, long story short, as most of you probably have noticed I am contributing relatively often to wikipedia as of late, starting with the creation of a Matara-jin article a few months ago. Among other things I wrote, rewrote or at least significantly improved the following:

articles about Mesopotamian medicine goddesses:

Ninkarrak from the western frontier, Nintinugga, who was associated with funerary offerings, Ninisina, who took over Inanna's gimmick in Isin, Bau, who became a healing goddess by chance, Gula, who eclipsed her peers - as expected from someone named “the great” articles about Inanna's courtiers and associated goddesses:

Ninshubur, her sidekick (my best work overall imo, the one article I wrote which I think fully deserves the “good” badge but I am not vain enough to apply myself), Ninegal, a goddess turned into her title, Nanaya, just the horny part distilled (bought a book just for this one!), Irnina, inexplicably cthtonic personified victory

articles about Mesopotamian gods too insignificant for anyone else to care about them:

Tishpak, a god so foreign nobody knows where he came from, Sebitti, seven warlike brothers, Enmesharra, Enlil's evil uncle, Urash, not the earth goddess – there are two... Urashes, Ningishzida, Dumuzi but with a snake gimmick, Zababa, a war god who's NOT Nergal, Ninimma, Enlil's court scribe, Gatumdag, popular as ersatz mom among kings of Lagash, Manzat, the rainbow

articles about Mesopotamian goddesses whose main trait was being someone's wife: Marduk's wife Sarpanit, Adad's wife Shala, Shamash's wife Aya

articles about Hurrian gods: Alalu, primordial vanquished king of gods, Kumarbi, his son, divine Saturday morning cartoon villain, Ninatta and Kulitta, a pair of divine musicians who always appeared together, Allani, oddly joyful queen of the dead, Šauška, who was so firmly genderfluid there's two of them in the most famous image of the Hurrian pantheon, Lelluri, a mountain goddess, Kubaba, who isn't Cybele, Goddess of the Night, who has no proper name despite being a case study in important religious rituals, Belet Nagar, who was like Ashur before Ashur got popular, Nupatik, who was important but we don't know why

articles about Eblaite gods: Ishara, “independent lady of love associated with scorpion and cannabis” popular everywhere where she went, Aštabi, a war god who really wanted to be like the weather god, Hadabal, who used to be famous but vanished out of blue, Kura, whose mask had to be renewed each year, Adamma, who left her husband to hang out with Kubaba

articles about Elamite gods: Pinikir, sort of like a bootleg Ishtar and an international sensation, Jabru, who exists only in Mesopotamian texts about Elam, Humban, mandate of heaven personified, Ruhurater, oddly obscure creator of mankind, Inshushinak, the underworld judge and his Akkadian helpers Lagamar and Ishmekarab, and Simut, the “strange star”

articles which were borderline unusable before due to low quality of sources:

Astarte, who was much more than vintage Bible scholars might lead you to believe (but not a fertility goddess), Dagan, who wasn't a fishman, Qetesh whose existence proves that Egyptians were fond of making ocs for their favorite foreign franchises

assorted articles about general topics pertaining to Mesopotamia:

Sukkal,  Hurrian religion (ongoing project), List of Elamite gods; also a much needed overhaul of List of Mesopotamian deities (ongoing project)

and, last but not least, a solid chunk of the Inanna article.

Two guiding principles of these ventures were the following:

people who cannot access academic resources or don't know how to use them and as a result rely on wikipedia aren't any less deserving of receiving up to date, credible information

Wikipedia's mode of operation isn't flawed in itself and the only problem is lack of will to edit it

I think I did a pretty good job at these two things, honestly. I made sure to rely on rigorous, credible, and, if possible, easy to understand sources, and removed the horrors which sometimes were hidden in bibliographies: a book written by a hate preacher who believed Bush didn't start enough wars; 1930s race science; what I can only describe as a hybrid of Woman's Encyclopedia and a bdsm manual; a fringe book asserting that Minoan palaces were graveyards and that Egyptians only learned mummification from superior Minoans; etc. Of course, it’s a thankless job, but as long as I could make the site more credible undisturbed, that’s fine by me. I even got some help in a few cases, most notably that of the god list, indicating that the work was on some level appreciated. The only problem I've encountered prior to today came from editing the Ereshkigal article – I've removed the claim the Burney relief depicts “Lilith”; this edit was however undone. I left a message on the editor's page, complete with links to articles about the Burney relief AND about the possible Mesopotamian forerunners of Lilith (who are undeniably not depicted on the Burney relief). They're responded rather dismissively to it, and asserted that even if unproven, a connection existed, so I pretty quickly gave up, as they relied on sources which were outdated or fringe. I focused on fixing two long, important articles instead: the god list, and the Inanna article. Some parts of it were alright, but there was much work needed: fringe theories trying to assign greater antiquity to relatively late myths, and frankly insane hyperdiffusionism, had a prominent place in the article, while well attested association between Inanna and similar deities from cultures closely associated with Mesopotamia wasn't, much of the info was outdated, scandalous hot takes about Dumuzi's treatment were all over the place, the section on Inanna's descent favored Jungian confabulations over credible research, etc. My progress on fixing that had been slow and steady. However, today the aforementioned person intervened when, in between editing the Inanna article and the god list, I reverted a dumb, brief , unsourced edit – made by a third party - which asserted that Inanna's descent is “similar to Persephone” which it isn't – if anything is similar to Persephone in Mesopotamian mythology it's Nergal and Ereshkigal. They pretty clearly didn't take it well: not only the unfounded speculation went back up, but they also added a “source” affirming it, from a controversial -medical- author, not an Assyriologist. They also added Persephone to the list of Inanna equivalents in the infobox, removing any credibility whatsoever from it. The author of the claim this is all about relied on sources so antiquated that they interpreted Inanna's sexual character as her being a child-snatching boogeyman. Inanna's primary connection to boogeymen is that she was invoked, alongside Nanaya whose sexual connection is even more blatant, to -ward off- child-snatching boogeyman Lamashtu (whose character was not sexual, because sumerians and akkadians weren't victorian aristrocrats and weren't paranoically afraid of sex - and why would a demon representing death in infancy be sexual in nature, anyway?). Simply put, the book in mention is worthless as a source. Of course, I reverted that; when it went back up (despite a justification being included in my reversal) I edited the Inanna article to remove this outlandish claim (you have a limited number of possible reversions per day for some arcane reason), also adding other information about Inanna I had prepared: a few tidbits on Assyrian royal inscriptions which involved the warlike and erotic aspects at once, suggesting that transgressors should lose both potency and bravery in battle, some info on love poetry about her and Dumuzi, that sort of stuff. The weird person reverted my edit – removing valuable info – and reinstated the claim. For a moment I lost my cool and reverted this edit, which sadly put me in the reversion overuse danger zone, but which was a necessary sacrifice to save the credibility of article I put weeks of work into. See the edit history here. As you can guess HaniwaEnthusiast is me. I left messages critical of this decision on the talk page of the article and on the talk page of the outlandish editor. Sadly, they responded rather rudely, and basically declared Wikipedia isn't meant to be credible, and that favoring academic sources over random crap is an “ivory tower” approach and should be discouraged; they also insulted me but that's much less relevant and much less hurtful than their desire to spread lies. If you ask me it's more of an ivory tower attitude to say people who cannot access or don't know how to use academic sources do not deserve equally credible info and need to be at the mercy of weird wikipedia editors. What's the main problem here, though? That person is a mod. Not a random user. They have 16 years of Wikipedia experience. They spread fringe, pop-spiritual claims about Lilith and the like, so I assume they have an ulterior religious agenda of some sort, which they seem to actively encourage judging from these ventures. I'm not sure if the Inanna article is a lost cause yet but I do think the weird addition of Persephone they made is a step into some hellish direction, and I am entirely certain I cannot win this conflict. Simply put, I think that if this is the sort of staff the site has, this is a lost cause. I am not sure if I will go back to editing.

[lilyhoshikawa]

Finished delta2ne last night. Final thoughts below, with spoilers:

:readmore:

1. I still hate Berdly. I appreciate his character arc fine enough but it was done pretty plainly and I’ve seen it done far better for much more likable characters. It just didn’t feel like enough, y’know? He’s a fine character just still not someone I’ve grown to actively like

2. Weirdly boomer move to pull the “addicted to screens” trope toward the end, it didn’t jive much with the rest of the themes of the chapter or Queen as a character and just felt bizarrely out of touch for a game that hits a lot of themes so intimately and beautifully

3. Shouldn’t have told Noelle and Berdly it was all a dream, that’s dumb. I’ve never liked the secret identities trope and having to keep it a secret from characters who played a major role and were really impactful on the story kinda sucks in a major way

4. The lesbianism should have been more explicit. I know it’s extremely blatant that Noelle and Susie have feelings for each other and are just blissfully ignorant but it’s a bit of a shame that whenever there’s been explicitly romantic feelings in Deltarune so far it’s been straight- Toriel’s ex-marriage to Asgore, Berdly’s explicit crushes on Noelle and Susie. Some more outright gay relationships would be appreciated. I also refuse to count Alphyne bc Undyne is a cop in this one which cancels out her gay status /s

5. Queen is very good, I liked her a lot. Aside from just being very funny and having a lot of great moments she was leagues more interesting as a villain than the King, who existed more as an intimidating figure to overcome and a force to facilitate development in Lancer than his own character

6. I’m a bit uncomfortable abt the like… very default Christian theming of Hometown? Toriel as a church mom, Gerson and his son as pastors and even having a significant subplot related to that, everyone in the town talking abt going to church and the prominence of the church as an object in the town, feels kinda… weird. Especially given that Hometown and the Dreemurr family especially are framed as ideals, the perfect town and community and the ideal family

7. Kris continues to be an icon. Eating moss, sniffing markers, making bath bombs, doing general feral activities

8. Lot of unanswered questions… I would try to list them but I can’t even remember all the loose ends the game introduced and hinted at future installments following up on, and just… gosh, I wish the full game was out, I want answers… and I wanna play more fndkfnf

9. The punch-out minigames were cute and fun, in general the chapter was significantly harder than chapter 1 but had a lot more unique ideas, battles and minigames as well as overworld challenges and puzzles. The final robot battle kicked ass

10. I don’t like Catti’s sorta weird implication that Susie will turn evil, something that’s kinda reinforced in a few places as well, just cuz it would be super uncool for the story to take that direction (imo), but it’s also weird bc Kris is like… the one doing what is “bad” in terms of the game’s story, the one facilitating the conflict is them, the Knight, y’know? So you can’t exactly have multiple secretly evil betrayal party members. There’s also a theory floating around online that Ralsei is secretly evil but I don’t personally think it holds much water

11. At one point Lancer calls Queen a “girldad” and that’s so powerful and so gender, god damn. I hope she continues to be a recurring character and I also hope Lancer just continues to collect dads like Pokémon

12. Kris being the Knight was a real cool twist but it’s surprising that we got it this early on. I was also very interested in like, the way Kris rips their soul out to stop letting the player control their actions, I dunno how that’ll factor into future events but I’m curious… like, if Kris will be the final enemy or what have you. Combined with the “your choices don’t matter” theme that keeps getting reinforced. It’s obvious that Kris is aware that the player is in control of their actions and is aware that by ripping out their soul- the means by which the player exerts their will on the character- and trapping it somewhere secure where it cannot be moved (as in battle) they can move about freely and do as they wish. My roommate theorized that there’s an additional external force controlling Kris when their soul is out but to me it makes more sense that the soul is just the embodiment or player influence- this is backed up a bit by the book on souls in the library which can’t determine their true purpose. So to me it stands to reason that Kris must have their own reasons for creating the fountains. I have multiple theories as to why but nothing concrete, one being just as Susie pointed out and was hinted at when the Lightner gang almost made a fountain, that being heroes in the Dark World has allowed these kids who were obviously very lonely (it’s repeatedly emphasized how much Kris misses Asriel and what a big deal it is for Kris to have made friends with Susie) to make friends and be important. The themes of the game so far as well as Undertale as prior knowledge kind of point toward the idea that the player is a force that influences the characters and this might not be a good thing, so Kris acting independently flies more on the path of that theme than a surprise evil influence, especially given Toby’s consistency in not writing completely malicious and irredeemable characters (I see all these ppl blaming Chara again as if they’re just some ultimate omnipotent malevolent force in the Undertale universe for some reason and I scoff), especially also since Kris’ independent actions take place offscreen, away from the player’s sight. My roommate also pointed out that Kris is the only human in the game and since we know from Undertale human souls are exponentially more powerful than monsters’ souls it stands to reason that Kris is A.) probably the only Lightner with enough Determination to consistently make fountains and B.) the only human in the entire game so far, which is coincidentally also the case with Frisk in Undertale, implying some innate ability of humans in this world to be controlled by players or that there would be some other complication brought on by having multiple humans in the Light World, presumably related to how souls interact and function. All just… super interesting stuff

13. Talked this over with my roommate as well and based on Ralsei not turning to stone in Cyber’s World like the other characters from chapter 1’s world combined with everything else (the hiding his appearance in chapter 1, his name literally being an anagram of Asriel, his knowledge of the Light World and people and places within it, his knowledge of humans and souls) it seems pretty possible that he’s just straight-up Asriel going undercover. These same pieces of evidence have been used to claim he’s secretly evil but they fit so much more neatly into place for me if he’s Asriel instead. It’s even stronger if Kris already knows this since it would reinforce my “Kris is making portals to see and spend time with their friends” theory

14. The scene where Susie stays over at the Dreemurr house was so pure and good it almost made me sob. Genuinely worried abt Susie’s potentially abusive home life (it’s vague but there’s implied Bad Stuff at home and I’m worried) but so happy to see her get to feel at home there. During the scene where Toriel calls the police abt the slashed tires I was so petrified that she was calling abt Susie and I was almost heartbroken

15. Susie, Noelle and Kris are probably my favorite characters so far, but honorable mentions to Lancer and Ralsei for just being funky little boys I’d love to hug and buy ice cream for

[itsclydebitches]

(Not "Tai's Joke Anon" but on that topic) I agree with you on pretty much everything: Yang being very obviously a victim in her situation and not responsible for what Adam did doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. Ruby growing increasingly irresponsibly reckless in V6-onward doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. Ruby and Blake having made strategical blunders doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. Weiss's "accidental magic" emotional semblance use doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. It feels silly to act like Yang can't have flaws just because she was a victim and others also have flaws. I think you're right about all this.

That said, I do have to agree with the other anon that I think Tai's 'joke' was horrific. I was shocked and angry when I first heard it, and not even writing Yang to laugh made me feel any better about it. I recognize that humor is a valid way for people to cope, but imo, it should be up to the victim to decide when joking is appropriate (like in Yang and Nora's arm-wrestling match) and not the able-bodied person currently yelling at her about not being ready for the world. Plus, even if it was okay for him to joke about her situation, the joke itself seemed heartless. He not only is using humor to speak over her and tell her what she is and isn't capable of, but he throws in a jab at her intelligence, too.

I like Tai. I really do. He's probably my favorite RWBY parent. And I liked Yang's recovery arc, outside of that line. And I have a lot of respect for you (and this hasn't made me lose any or anything, jsyk) and I agree with basically everything else you've said. But I'm sorry, I think that joke was crossing a line, and while I agree that it isn't entirely fair to judge 4-5 by 6-8 standards, I do think that the recent pattern of blatant, admitted ableism in the Penny and Ironwood arcs, with the added bonus line of Yang telling the audience that humanity stops at flesh and everything else is 'just extra,' makes the joke seem even less like an unfortunate blunder on RT's part, and more like the first sign in what would eventually develop into a long history of ableist writing that, at this point, can no longer be denied.

Aww thanks, anon! 💜 Yeah, as said, it’s a very contentious choice and it looks less and less like a positive the more RWBY goes on. Back in Volume 4 it was a (mostly) isolated moment that some fans enjoyed and others absolutely did not. However, four years later, it’s now a part of a pattern. For some that moment, if it was ever okay, will retroactively be made worse by what comes later (particularly Yang’s “extra” line). For some, if it was ever okay, it will be an example of when RWBY was writing disability better, further proof of how far the show has fallen. For some, if it was never okay, Volumes 5-8 just made it a thousand times worse. Congratulations, RWBY. You took what we thought was a one-off misstep and turned it into a whole philosophy. Nice work!

For me, I’m.. all the camps at once? lol. I enjoy nuance in media and that moment, for me, does have nuance. In that yes, we’re supposed to believe it has crossed a line. There’s a reason why the scene gives us shocked expressions. Not just Yang’s but Port and Oobleck’s too. Omg, how could you say that? 

And then we get our answer. The answer is not, as we assume in this moment, that Tai is a horrible person who insults his daughter without cause, but rather because Tai knows his daughter. He’s making a point here. Yang is arguing that she’s an adult now, ready for the real world, and Tai is arguing that this doesn’t mean she’s ready to run off on her own. If she honestly believes that, she’s lost those braincells along with the arm. He isn’t telling her she isn’t capable, he’s telling her (as my previous posts have argued) that she’s thinking recklessly right now. The implication is that of course she’s smarter than that. Smart is what he expects of her. So stop for a moment and consider whether what you’re saying is, in fact, smart. And provides that reminder in a way that normalizes her arm. After this will be the first time Yang has really talked about it, after it became something to joke about, not just tiptoe around. 

Things have been escalating, they’re yelling, Tai makes his point via an insult... and with a smile to lessen the sting.  

And then Yang smiles too. 

(Though I also think there’s a case to be made that neither really meant their “argument.” It feels very posturing to me, the chance to just go at each other for the fun of it, not because they actually feel that strongly about either position. It’s a form of play between them.) 

I agree wholeheartedly that the victim should be in control of the humor and that’s perhaps my biggest criticism here. The scene is meant to show how well Tai knows his daughter, he’s so sure this will cut the tension... but what if he’s wrong? This could have indeed backfired spectacularly and then yeah, Tai would need to apologize for that and not repeat such behavior in the future. In a perfect world no one would ever make that kind of misstep, but people (and characters) aren’t perfect. I like that Tai is shown to take a risk with humor. That he’s not some generic Good Father Figure who only approaches trauma with the Certified Approved Approaches. This risk makes him feel human and, notably, it paid off. He chose his intimate knowledge of Yang’s personality over the generalized advice, “Treat someone with that trauma with the upmost respect and care.” That works for me personally  — emphasis on personally  — because I’m like Yang. I have friends and family who say things that sound so unimaginably insulting to outsiders about the most sensitive subjects in my life... but that’s because they know me and know I’m cool with it. That, in a weird and human way, it helps me to process the horrible things going on. Tai knows Yang and knows she’d be cool with it too. And she is! Not to attribute agency to fictional character written by, as we’ve seen, authors with a very iffy handle on disability, but I think it’s important to let Yang speak for herself. The scene is written to show that she enjoys this, that it’s what she needs, and it’s always felt weird to me to go, “No, it’s horrible and never should have happened” when clearly Yang draws a benefit and gives it her stamp of approval. The nuance is that sometimes people cope in ways that don’t work for others, are insulting to others, may even seem harmful to others... but if it works for Yang, as a disabled woman, who are we to say, “No, you’re doing disability wrong”?  

But of course, that’s all in that context of our incredibly flawed writers who, as far as I know, are not disabled themselves. So I 1000% understand why others are not at all comfortable with this scene. And certainly no one needs to be. I do want to be clear, in such a meta-filled blog, that my own love of analyzing this show is by no means meant as a, “This is the right interpretation.” I don’t think the “right” interpretation exists, let alone for a moment as charged as this one, trying to represent huge swaths of people at once. I think a scene can cross a line and be a powerful choice simultaneously, depending on who is watching it and what that person needs. Like the question of whether Ruby is endangering people or heroically saving them, whether Ironwood had a phenomenal downfall or was slammed into OOC territory, whether RWBY’s “rule of cool” creates an inconsistent mess or a fun and thrilling adventure not burdened by what it put down before... so much of how we experience media is a result of not the media itself, but us. Our experiences, our normality, our needs, whether we’re choosing to read a scene on its own or in the context of a whole series. Since no two people are the same and, even if they were, they might be coming at this with different intentions, a single scene can read radically differently to them both. 

That and my own enjoyment of the moment aside though, yeeeeeeah, the more RWBY messes up its disability rep the more it reflects badly on... well, everything. At this point, the blatant problems are a blight on the current volumes, the past volumes, the previously good rep, previously bad rep, previously debatable rep, and everything in between. 

[brave-clarice]

“Clarice” Liveblog: Episode 2

Again, some extremely unfashionably late hot takes.

(Special thanks to @kathrynethegreat and @special-agent-pendragon​ for encouraging another liveblog!)

Clarice is working out! And eating junk food! I love it.

and cleaning her gun!

hey, Ardelia is drinking what I’m going to assume is her grandmother’s “smart people tea”.

Krendler disciplining Clarice already is infuriating but appropriate.

“I lost control.” Oh no, I don’t like that. Don’t make Clarice unstable. Her mental and emotional state never had anything to do with her failing career.

getting weird mixed signals from Ardelia. Last week, she obviously didn’t want Clarice to lie/stick to the script Krendler gave her, but now she’s telling Clarice she messed up by not doing so...?

“I better know you if you’re calling this early.” Amen, Ardelia.

I’m in love: this cinematography is straight out of the film (when she’s flying to WV with Crawford)!

“When’s the last time you went back to Appalachia?” “It’s been years.” What??? It has NOT been years--Clarice was JUST in West Virginia last week as well as in Silence, and she arguably attended college there as well. (UVA is at least nestled in the mountains, and you don’t have to drive far outside the Albemarle Valley to hit Appalachia proper.) After all the details about her character they’ve been nailing, they miss this glaring error? 

I like the tiny details she’s noticing (like the guy biting his nails). Not only because she’s an investigator, but because it’s reminiscent of Hannibal’s influence (imo).

Clarice Is Short: The Saga continues

still not getting any creepy vibes off Krendler. He’s going to be much less effective as an antagonist if he isn’t lewd as well as a dick.

I really don’t care for the way the opening “credits” fade out from the death’s-head moth to Clarice’s face. There are MANY animals that represent her, or parts of her, in the books--lions, lambs, horses, and of course birds--so this choice feels empty and lazy to me.

also lazy: having a fellow agent straight-up tell her in episode 2 “you shouldn’t be in the Bureau.” Maybe in two or three years, after some further “Death Angel”-type incidents, I could see this blatant rudeness, but not yet.

“Reesey”? Thanks, I hate it.

this flashback must be of Clarice’s little brother. That answers one question I had last week. That said...Clarice’s brother doesn’t play the same role in her story that Mischa does in Hannibal’s--but this sure feels like a Mischa-esque flashback.

good: they’re finally getting to the source of Clarice’s actual trauma!

bad: this is NOT how Clarice found out about her father. In fact, that whole incident is laid out in detail in the novels, and there’s nothing overly literary/un-cinematic about it, so this feels unnecessary. “The police are here! Something happened to Daddy!” No, bad! Show, don’t tell!

she would’ve known better than to introduce herself to that kid as “Clarice Starling, FBI,” come on now.

were they regularly able to wire tap hair clips in 1993? 

actually, nothing in this show looks very 90s to me so far. I’m sad about it.

so in eighteen months, Ruth Martin has gone from a junior Senator to the Attorney freakin’ General, and now she might run for governor?? At least let her get settled in one position of power first, why don’t you!

yet more Buffalo Bill flashbacks...alas.

are they trying to make this guy another surrogate Hannibal character? He’s commenting on Clarice’s accent and the dryness of her skin, asking about who she “left behind”...it all feels very Hannibal. (I know he’s a Charismatic Cult Leader trope, too--but when played off of Clarice...)

“Ew.” “I hate this guy.” I laughed.

I understand that Clarice probably feels conflicted re: her siblings in the book, but I’m really not digging the flashbacks of this Tim Burton character her brother.

@ the writers: Clarice already has the lamb backstory/symbolism, too. We don’t need this Little Brother stuff.

*shrieking* Mrs. Starling! At the sink washing the blood out of his hat!!! 

...aaand they had to ruin it with the brother’s painfully bad dialogue. Will still be good for gif-making, though.

are we supposed to interpret all these flashbacks as Clarice being incapable of controlling her emotions/state of mind? She keeps losing herself in memories and emerging all doe-eyed and panicky. I don’t like it.

not to be a broken record but...Clarice should be TOUGH. Again, Ardelia only saw her cry once in seven years. But she’s more worked up in this scene than Jodie was in Memphis!

when Mr. Cult Leader shouts “Agent Starling! Agent Starling!” he sounds exactly like Hannibal calling her back to his cell in the asylum. That has to be intentional. 

damn, wish that I could look as good five minutes after I’ve been crying as Clarice does.

I LOVE that Ardelia gets to be the crucial behind-the-scenes book-smart partner to Clarice’s action heroine.

AG Martin’s just playing politics by turning a blind eye to the crooked sheriff. But when her own daughter was just kidnapped and almost killed, she looks like a real hypocrite.

gosh, Rebecca Breeds is great. I already hope she gets nominated for an Emmy.

so Krendler is...doing the right thing???

Clarice’s father was definitely not a sheriff. I hope she’s just exaggerating for dramatic effect. (Maybe this will be clarified later.)

she couldn’t just sit with a manipulative guy without getting emotional, but she’s cool as a cucumber while telling an extended story about her father? HmmMM.

sometimes her mannerisms and facial expressions are so much like Jodie’s that it’s uncanny, like here when she leans forward to confront the Cult Leader.

“She did it.” Damn straight!

another great callback to Silence. this show’s camera crew knows its stuff!

“He’s concerned I have some residual trauma from Bill.” I. Hate. This. Subplot--and all its OOC implications.

“Catherine was close to her father, too.” Ooh, a nice allusion to the novel! Clarice makes note of their “common wound,” the loss of a father, when she’s in Catherine’s apartment in Silence.

she is just SO pretty.

little Clarice looks a LOT like Rebecca Breeds. I hope we see some more of her. 

The Good:

the continuing visual nods to the Silence film via cinematography

Mama Starling!!!

Clarice’s “The World Will Not Be This Way Within the Reach of my Arm” attitude, refusing to leave without helping the victims.

Ardelia Mapp coming in clutch! 

Clarice being, generally, a badass

and using psychological tricks/mind games to pin the antagonist...that’s the woman who disarmed a monster with just a few words.

Rebecca Breed’s acting has been phenomenal so far.

I like Clarice’s haircut a lot better when worn down (though it’s not very practical for fieldwork, so we probably won’t see it much).

The Bad:

the continuing Buffalo Bill-related Trauma Subplot. Ugh.

all the flashbacks to Clarice’s brother (and the not-so-subtle suggestion that her brother is, symbolically, another lamb).

will the real Paul Krendler please come forward? this guy is so TAME.

the other agents’ hostility towards Clarice needs to be toned down slightly so that it can escalate. Otherwise, where’s the tension?

is this actually 1993? I’m not feeling it. Shouldn’t it have a little of that Season 1/2 X-Files aesthetic? Please give me more than once-an-episode references to pagers and fax machines!

that glaring Appalachia continuity error...it’s still bugging me.

I missed the overt Hannibal references, even though they’re not necessary to any part of this episode. A lady can dream!

Overall, I really liked this one despite my various issues with it. It started shakily but built to a great finish. The emphasis across both episodes on Clarice being in the FBI not just to “get out, get anywhere,” but out of a genuine desire to help victims has been wonderful. I just hope they don’t swerve too far into the “too traumatized and emotionally compromised to function” lane. It would be a disservice to Clarice’s character and to her journey (and would smack too much of “Hannibal really did prey on her weak mind/brainwash her”.

Things I’d still like to see: More of her personality. Her hobbies and interests. That she’s cleaning her gun is great! Now let’s see “Poison Oakley” practicing her sharpshooting skills. Or car shopping. Or clothes shopping to show off her “developing taste.” (Ardelia can come!) I’ll take literally anything. Give us more of Clarice’s sense of humor as well. She had some subtle funny moments in the pilot, and it’s nice to see Rebecca smile for a change.

And Krendler? Smear that man in grease! I appreciated a happy ending even though Clarice’s career is, as we know, already in a downward spiral--the last thing we want is for every episode to be a slog, especially when a good chunk of the audience hasn’t read the book and doesn’t know Clarice is doomed to fail in the Bureau.

However... Krendler’s not a “redemption arc” kind of character. Or even a “run-of-the-mill sexist asshole” character. This is a man who spent seven years systematically sabotaging a young woman’s career because a) he was jealous that she solved the Gumb case before him, and b) she wouldn’t fuck him. He was a Justice Department official working fist-in-glove with a serial child molester who was planning some of the heinous vigilante justice imaginable. THAT’S why his very gruesome end at Hannibal’s hands felt deserved--even Clarice thought so! In short, he needs to get nasty.

Anyway, thanks for coming to another long-overdue TedTalk. Fingers crossed that the next one will be more timely (aiming for Sunday night)! 

[curiosity-killed]

Hello....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your favorite yunmeng shuangjie scenes/moments? And why? Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Ah gosh this is the hardest cql question for me ;A; tbh @veliseraptor pretty much hit all of mine as well and more coherently than I’m going to do it lmao

so I will just add a couple others that I also love bc I am incorrigible:

pretty much all of ep 14-15 but this convo in particular:

because what I love about so much of these two episodes is how we see who they are before the story. We’ve seen Wei Wuxian be an irreverent and too-clever-for-his-own dumbass and a smart, noble young hero — and here we get to see him as the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, as the young man who truly believes he will be Jiang Cheng’s second-in-command. 

Especially coming after the Yunmeng Twin Heroes/Prides talk in ep 14, this shot has always been striking to me because of the way they’re framed both as relatively equal (standing, sharing center, etc.) and in a way that emphasizes the in-world power dynamic (standing together but with wwx back 1/3 a step, slightly more shadowed, his hands usually contained in neat posture). So soon after this, everything goes to shit, but for a moment here, imo, we really see what another life would have been like where Jiang Cheng became leader under better conditions and where Wei Wuxian remained at his side. 

and I am, as y’all know lmao, generally not terribly interested in exploring that happier universe but I do find it deeply compelling that it was their path — the path they knew they would walk together — given how we know it becomes untenable and unwalkable for them due, in large part, to that very same sense of duty and love that has been so clearly demonstrated in these episodes. 

episode 18

the hesitation! the fear! the trust! hnnnn babies. Anyway mostly i am just here for the (paraphrased, presumably badly and from memory), “from this point on, Jiang Cheng, I can go no further with you” because wow! babe! OUCH! as discussed above, I love the contrast between their life up to this point, which has largely been them as a solid and effective unit, and the breaking and destruction of that dynamic through the events of canon — and hello! we have arrived. 

there’s a lot of great meta and insight out there about the golden core transfer and I am fundamentally uninterested in who is right/who is wrong about it because it’s just so narratively delectable. they both are so motivated by love and duty, and the actions engendered by that love and duty tear them apart until they are at the edge of a cliff and Wei Wuxian is smiling as he falls to his death, leaving Jiang Cheng alone with his grief and his anger and a secret buried in his chest that he doesn’t even know. Miscommunication as a plotline is generally v boring to me but I’m a sucker for it in mxtx’s stories (so far anyway lol) because the decisions that lead to it come from a very deep and real understanding of the nature of the character. Jiang Cheng couldn’t let Wei Wuxian be captured by Wen soldiers if there was something he could do about it, no matter that Wei Wuxian would never agree to that decision or think the exchange was worth it; Wei Wuxian couldn’t let Jiang Cheng live without his core if there was something he could do about it, no matter that Jiang Cheng almost certainly wouldn’t have agreed to it* and wouldn’t have believed the exchange worth it. And those two decisions born of love and desperation destroy them (if not literally, then certainly the people they were at the start)!! We love it here <3 :’)

*look I’m not touching the disk horse but the fact that Wei Wuxian felt it imperative to never ever let Jiang Cheng know the deets (even when knowing would have been super helpful and advantageous for wwx & co.) and that Jiang Cheng had already given up his own core/life specifically to protect Wei Wuxian is a pretty blatant mound o’ evidence that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have agreed if he’d been fully informed. 

ep 20

god i wanna be hugged again

okay so basically this is just outing me for having a very specific favorite arc and that arc being Sunshot with the subdomain of the deterioration of Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s relationship throughout the campaign. but: HUG! the desperation and physical grief and relief of Jiang Cheng; the way Wei Wuxian pulls back, how he retreats both like he is no longer used to touch that doesn’t bring pain and like he didn’t intend to be found. Jiang Cheng trying to be a good brother by following wwx’s lead in the interaction with Lan Wangji but accidentally enabling wwx’s continued downward trajectory. HNNNN

the way jiang cheng tries to be cool and tough and just toss suibian at wei wuxian, the way he absolutely fails and does that terrible tender thing with his face and then clings to wei wuxian aaaahhh how dead-eyed wei wuxian looks, how he looks at suibian, how he takes so long to respond to the hug im literally never over this scene honestly

jiang cheng at this point feels like they can finally go back to how it’s supposed to be and start back down that road they’ve always shared and these months will only be a small detour, easily passed beyond, and Wei Wuxian is watching him while knowing that he can never ever walk that path again

ep 50

....yeah. yeah. Jiang Cheng finally has his answer on why they never walked together again, why Wei Wuxian couldn’t, why his sacrifice and his love and his duty was never enough—and maybe the knowing is better but. it fucking sucks. it hurts! so much! for both of them!! 

i’m not necessarily of the opinion that they must reconcile or that it’s healthier than the rest but i am absolutely of the opinion that I want them to and that they each would also like it but view it as fundamentally impossible

the kindest thing to do is to let you go hnnnn

anyway this is why I have written uh. over 300k about these two basically. they hurt me and i love them and it’s awful

[ecl1pse]

Hi! I saw ur post on how it’s hard to stan gidle bc of the questionable stuff they do and since I don’t know much about it can u please explain to me anything problematic they’ve done? Not that I doubt u I just wanna know about it

ooh, girl! lemme tell ya. this is gonna be a long one, and i will preface this saying i absolutely do not have all the facts and details, but this is what i’ve gathered in my time being a mostly soft neverland.

when (g)i-dle debuted they released this v beautiful mv along with their debut song latata. in the mv the girls had henna in their hands, which, ok. nothing too bad, right. but that was just the beginning of a very weird history of cultural appropriation.

then they released another banger: hann (alone). amazing vocals. amazing sound. cool choreo. but the mv was littered with all these…hm. middle eastern references. which. ok, latata also had some of that. it’s…ok. maybe they’re just going for A Thing. it’s ok. this is just their first comeback, their second single overall, and their first digital single release ever. BUT during one of end of year shows, the girls found themselves in hot water bc they had a stage where they had freaking synagogue as their backdrop. not even like a cool 3d stage, it was printed synagogue on freaking sheet. we all collectively had a very oof moment. (also, shuhua had like, no lines in this song. a crime on itself.)

after that came senorita. which should have been called señorita. it was catchy, it was replayble, it was spicy. it was also also kind of weird how they had a guy just singing “señorita” in the background, and no other lyrics in spanish, other than soojin saying “señor” by the end…hm. also the beat is just very generic “latin-inspired” song. in one of their live stages they had a fake-ass mariachi band as their….back up dancers. or whatever. they were just in the background pretending to play the trumpets. which personally i found more funny than offensive. but also i’m mexican and when momoland dressed up in ponchos, sombreros and fake mustaches, me and my sister just laughed and went “haha we do look like that!” i can take a joke. like, very easily. (also, if you want a more tactful latin-inspired k-pop song, listen to vav’s senorita & give me more. absolute bops imo.)

after that came uh-oh, which is a very clearly an old-hip hop inspired comeback, even down to the mv. it’s proooobably my favorite song of theirs ngl. this comeback wasn’t…too bad or shrouded in controversy, ‘cause tbh the mv director did a pretty good job at paying homage to late 90s/early 2000s music videos. but still, some people were skeptical considering the rep they had been building up. and at this time it was becoming very clear that soyeon is calling the shots, or at least has the most say out of all the girls both in songwriting and art directing when it comes to their concepts/mvs.

during the summer/fall of 2019 gidle participated in the competition show queendom. in the show, during the planning of the stage performance for their cover of 2ne1′s fire, soyeon asked yuqi to make “tribal sounds” for the opening of the song and sing it like she’s “an african chief” and said this was how they could keep their sound, which she describes as “ethnic hip.” it was. gross. and the rest of the girls just laughed it off. queendom pretty much ended up confirming everyone suspicions that soyeon is the one coming up with these ideas and the rest of the girls are just there to do what she says. you can look up the behind the scenes and planning of the stages on m-net’s youtube channel. soojin doesn’t even get a word out when they were planning the fire stage. it’s…weird ngl. you can’t even accuse m-net of evil editing this one bc she just says that! like, wtf. anyways [here is an excerpt of the video]. she says it with such a straight face, too. ew.

people demanded an apology from gidle, soyeon more specifically. it never came. so people boycotted their next release: lion. honestly i don’t know if any transgressions happened during this time cuz i was just so put off by what was mentioned above that to this day i can’t really even vibe to lion. it just brings a guttural disgust to my whole being.

i’m little iffy on the timeline here – bc like i mentioned, i was keeping as far away as possible from gidle at the time cuz of soyeon’s comments – but i do remember that some time after yuqi found herself in hot water for a comment she made about shuhua during a livestream that went like she “needed darker skin to be a police because her white skin wouldn’t let her to catch criminals at night.” or at least that’s how a fanclub made it sound like. it sounded v suspish, but a lot of fans came to her defense saying the joke was poking fun at how fair shuhua is and how she wasn’t actually making fun of darker skin. the fanclub that made the translation actually came out with a letter of apology saying they had rushed the translation and the joke was actually little more nuanced than what they made it out to be. regardless, yuqi actually apologized on a fancafe letter. which was actually really nice of her, since the mistake wasn’t so much on her part, and if anything this is a way lighter offense than anything soyeon has ever done or said, and yet….

[here is a koreaboo article that includes screenshots of the fancafe letter and a translation]

it’s been awhile since gidle/soyeon have said or done anything since – well, it’s been a while since they have released anything, and they’ve been under a microscope since the queendom incident. also, i haven’t payed attention at all to what they have been doing, if they have been doing anything, lol.

their latest transgression has been the very blatant, very suspicious uplifting of imagery from fka twig’s cellophane mv onto their mv for their newest single, oh my god. @anna-something made a [post] which very clearly lays it all out, screenshots and everything. considering all the evidence above i have to say this one also falls on soyeon’s shoulders yet again. also, as i was making this post someone commented on an yt comment i made on a mv reaction of the mv (since i’m not gonna give them views, lol) saying “maybe they have the same mv director.” i looked it up, they don’t. cellophane was directed by andew thomas huang, while oh my god was directed by yoon rima.

in conclusion, it is very exhausting to try to stan (g)i-dle. wouldn’t recommend it. mostly because soyeon does not seem like the greatest person ever. now, i will say i am all for cultural appreciation! in fact, i tried to believe that’s what they were going for during senorita. but… it’s become very clear that soyeon doesn’t understand there IS a line between appreciation and blatant appropriation, so she tends to fall on the latter. if she just apologized, strived to be better, and actually took the criticism and applied it towards becoming a better person – and therefore a better artist – than i could get behind her 100%. but as it stands right now, i don’t like her. i don’t like her at all. i have given her chances, but she does not seem to want to accept her missteps. she doesn’t even addresses them at all. and i’m tired. if yuqi could, why can’t she? i doubt cube, as shady as they are, is keeping her from releasing some sort of statement. 

if she intends to make it big over here in the west she needs to grow up, she needs to apologize. until she does that she will continue to jeopardize not only her own career, but also yuqi’s, miyeon’s, soojin’s, shuhua’s, and minnie’s careers, and they really don’t deserve that. she might be the biggest voice in the group, but she’s also the one dragging them down. APOLOGIZE, SOYEON, GODDAMMIT!

if anyone wants to add anything else that missed, please feel free to do so.

[bat-lings]

Hey, you mentioned in an earlier ask any Damian that Tim was also low-key sexist and tbh I'd love examples cause I feel like this has never been brought up and it's interesting??? Anyway, thanks Ur stuffs super interesting and insightful!

Thanks for your interest & nice words!

Let’s be clear tho Anon (I assume it’s the same Anon both times?), you are 200% entitled to disagree with me. Yes I am unapologetic about my opinions and write looong paragraphs of questionable pertinence to give arguments but like. The goal is to explain “why I think what I think,” never to tell you “why you should think what I think”. You’re very much welcome for the Damian post btw

Now I think Tim, precisely, shows internalized sexism. Doesn’t change the end result all that much though.

Random sequences

Let’s get the most straightforward stuff out of the way.

[Robin (1991) #1 || Robin (1993) #43 & #179 || Detective Comics (1937) #687]

Dunno about you but the first two are particularly cringey for me. That and the agenda section.

Okay to be fair: He does attempt to defend Lynx (first example) beforehand, throwing the on-point “she doesn’t have to go with you if she doesn’t want to” line. All is good for five seconds and then he goes “maybe she likes that treatment”.

We may have different sensibilities but the mere fact that that went through his head for even a second is the perfect illustration of what’s internalized sexism imo. Conscious thought & action level: A+ behavior (being able to identify a visibly wrong situation and taking action against it). Unconscious level: blatant sexism (”maybe she likes it” aka a less visible/more subtle manifestation of bigotry).

He has a… pretty specific way to regard women’s agenda. And is overall patronizing to straight-out disrespectful.

Tim’s treatment of Steph is a well-known fact but this is a call-out post so have a non-exhaustive bunch of examples:

[Robin (1993) #4, 41, 35, 44 || Batgirl (2009) #8]

On we go and see how there’s absolutely no ill-intent on Tim’s part in the next examples, yet I have a big problem with how he’s considering the ladies’ agency:

[Robin (1993) #182 || Red Robin #10]

Notice how it’s all about him whether the lady obeys him or not. His failure to impose the necessary authority or his failure to give the right directions. The girls’ choice/independence just doesn’t factor in. It’s a cop and a vigilante we’re talking about, not some civilians caught in the crossfire.

((btw it’s disputable but his apology in RR#10 is too little too late as far as I’m concerned. Tim gets a pass since Nicieza has him referring to his dumbass traitor!Steph arc but he doesn’t deserve any additional credit either. Okay no I’m being mean, he gets kudos for making a step in the right direction with Steph. Tiny kudos. It’s a tiny step.))

[Red Robin #5]

Tam? Okay. She’s the civilian who got embarked into this crazy story, she is in need of saving. But Prudence? Maybe don’t automatically assume that the assassin needs you to pat her on the back to even consider pursuing her own wishes, Timmy.

Tim can be arrogant to everyone yeah (more on that later), but I don’t remember him negating a man’s agenda like that.

[Robin (1993) #25]

Yeah the kid who will feel betrayed when Bruce tells his identity to Steph just elected to tell her name to Connor whom they both don’t know well yet. While talking in her place rather than letting her answer for herself (something he’s done on several occasions). Then he attempts to decide for her whether she has a right to participate, again. On that note: thank you Connor for putting Tim in his place, that sure doesn’t happen often.

[Robin (1993) #6 & #28]

Uh, yes you can. Give the adult woman who’s been handling Gotham’s streets since before you were born some credit, Tim?

As for Helena, the scene in itself is… well, not okay exactly. He’s basically dismissing her wish to handle a personal matter alone, which could imply he doesn’t think the other adult woman who’s been handling Gotham’s streets since before he was born can handle the case.

I’m just putting it with his constant attempts to keep Steph from participating, often to cases that concerned her directly, and how he tends to take it personally when she doesn’t obey… but he casually brushes off Helena when she’s saying she’ll handle a personal case alone. Double standard? Maybe I got too specific a reading but. I don’t remember that sort of thing happening between Tim and male characters– do call me out if I’m remembering wrong though.

And then there’s the “another vigilante” remark.

Anyway yes Tim can be arrogant towards both men and women. Much like Damian being antagonizing to everyone didn’t negate the possibility of him being sexist, Tim being generally arrogant doesn’t negate that possibility for him either.

Plus the only male characters I’ve seen him be that patronizing with are Chris Kent in World’s Finest #3, and Damian. The ten-year-old who’s regularly antagonizing him and does deserve to be put in his place. Oh yeah, and maybe Dodge, another brat. So yeah I do think there’s a slight difference between Tim’s treatment of men and women, if only in frequency. (and in intensity tbh.)

Yes, he’s been consistently disregardful to his girlfriends.

Anon, you say very rightfully that we shouldn’t automatically assume it’s due to them being girls. Please believe it’s not a conclusion I’ve come to automatically though:

A) While I realize that Tim only having canon girlfriends is due to heteronormativity & homophobia rather than a conscious writing intent to highlight any character trait, assuming that he wouldn’t have behaved better with boyfriends is pure speculation– aaand I am totally speculating he’d behave better if only because he’s never that patronizing or that dismissive of his peers’ agency (examples above) when they’re men. that’s part of why I ship tim/kon more easily than tim/steph.

B) Like with everything I brought up on this post I’m not considering his behavior with his romantic partners separately. It’s a character fault that could take its roots in several things, but Tim’s global characterization makes me think the root is sexism.

C) I understand why you’re thinking there’s no reason to conclude his disrespect is due to them being women; in the same vein I think there’s no reason to conclude it’s not. It’s kind of a stalemate and both conclusions are valid.

Skipping Tim’s habit to break up by letter or by phone, ‘cause that’s not cool and obviously disrespectful but even I think it’s more due to cowardice/inadequacy than sexism.

I don’t think I need to speak about Steph again. Let’s go with Ari. Who Tim casually cheated on by kissing Steph on several occasions.

Being a cheat is, in itself, a distinct character flaw that doesn’t always takes its root in sexism. Plus it’s something I have my reasons to assume Tim has grown out of.

It’s his reaction when he learns about Ariana “"cheating”“ on him (she went ice-skating with another dude once in the 87 times Tim stood her up) that ticks me off. Btw and unlike Tim who didn’t seem to feel all that guilty, Ariana did try to tell him about it but he fell asleep during her confession.

[Robin (1993) #15 & #17]

Two things bother me here, a lot more than the cheating in itself: the possessiveness and the hypocrisy. You really don’t have a right to go all “My Ariana” and to chew her out for the grand treachery that is ice-skating when you’ve been casually kissing Steph, Timbo. What those panels prove is that there’s a double standard in Tim’s head. Which one exactly is up to your interpretation and that’s probably where we’ll end up disagreeing. I read it as the “proper girls don’t get close to several boys at one time, but boys who get close to several girls are either ladies men or boys being boys” double-standard, hence Tim’s blatant lack of self-awareness here.

Btw and the thing that solidified my opinion here: Tim, as a rule, tends to be pretty self-aware, at least retrospectively. He puts himself into question and has no problem admitting when his judgment was clouded. I dunno take YJ #55 or Robin #119 for example (I even selected examples that both have Tim recognizing he wronged a girl!)

So if he’s generally self-aware, but doesn’t see anything wrong with his own behavior in the specific situation where he’s cheating on his girl then chewing her out? I explain it with the above double-standard. He internalized a mindset that keeps him from realizing how hypocrite he’s being in this situation. Also he doesn’t confront Ari immediately, he had time to think about it, it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. That should’ve been enough to allow him to step back and evaluate himself but he just. Didn’t.

Bonus: Jack has been hinted to be sexist, and contrary to Tim it’s safe to assume that was totally intentional.

[Batman (1940) #441 || Robin (1993) #122]

Only two occurrences in decades of canon arguably don’t make for solid basis but they still allow me to build a coherence since our parents do influence us without us realizing. And given how much Tim loved his dad (he said himself how much he got from Jack), it sure isn’t an element that could plead against him being sexist.

.

There’s a bunch of other sequences that I low key read as sexist, but that I’m more mitigated about or in which I gave Tim a pass for various reasons so I didn’t include them here.

All in all when I take a solid look at Tim’s global behavior, I see sexism. While it may not be a “solid canon fact” since it surely wasn’t intentional on the writers’ part, I really don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to infer from his very canon behavior. And tbh writer intent doesn’t excuse much. Factually speaking that portrayal has been there since Tim’s early days,he’s been consistently dismissive & disrespectful of his female peers and/or of their wishes and agency. It’s part of him & his history.

It’s not incoherent with his character either– Tim has always been intended to represent a normal boy/teen (dude was legit marketed around the fact that he’s relatable). It’s not baffling or coming out of nowhere that a random teen just so happened to have internalized sexism. It’s pretty damn common, even. It’s not like Tim being sexist was a brutal turnaround that contradicted what makes the core of his character to the point of making him unrecognizable (*cough* Talia’s current characterization *cough*).

Hope this explains that.

Thanks for the asks!

[bthump]

Don't you think that Casca is a little boring and overrated? The character who only purpose is revolve around male characters and be their love interest -especially if those men have special bond- is annoying, but people think so highly of her when she's not really that complex, interesting and independent character, especially when her sole role only is rubbing the salt on Guts' wonds. ://

Kind of yes, kind of no lol.

I find Casca a very frustrating character because I think she had plenty of potential to be interesting, and we see brief flashes of that in canon, but Miura fucked her over at every turn, flattening her, making sure every aspect of her character revolved around men somehow, etc. Personally that potential is more than enough for me to love her, because I’m easy when it comes to angry women with swords lol, but that’s just me and my ability to ignore what I don’t like about canon.

For example, when she brought Guts up to that cliff by the waterfall so she could take her anger out on him by trying to murder him. The narrative never really acknowledges how utterly fucked up that was, it’s played off as Casca being a hysterical woman, but man in theory that is a very interesting, super dark character note.

Casca’s lack of independence is actually interesting to me too as a major character flaw. But again, it’s something that the narrative… doesn’t necessarily acknowledge, but rather seems to treat as the default role of a woman.

Like Miura’s misogyny is never more blatant than when it comes to how he writes Casca, and it sucks, but despite that he’s still a really good character writer, and that still shines through even with Casca. She has relatable moments, she has awesome moments, she has strong dialogue, moments that make me feel empathy, and interesting traits. I mean the most heart-wrenching part of the Eclipse imo was when we saw it through her point of view as she fought with Judeau. Miura’s writing still makes me feel real feelings for her, and I can’t not love a character I feel for lol, even if that writing fails her enormously in many other ways.

Like it blows that her motivation for joining the Hawks and becoming an incredible swordsman was being in love with Griffith, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s an incredible swordsman who can lead an army and it’s cool and badass. Like, it seriously blows that she’s almost 100% motivated by men - either being in love with them or fighting against their misogynist violence - but I can still read moments like her capture of Doldrey, or the way she can take command of the Hawks in moments of panic, and want to cheer for her. It blows that she’s always being depowered somehow so she can be rescued, but I can still read dialogue like “they say she can defeat ten strong men at once” and go ‘yeah that’s my girl’ lol.

BUT ALL THAT SAID like, I can completely understand being exasperated by her character too. Like, I personally can kind of… ignore how badly she’s often written and just take the parts I like and form my opinion based on that. But that’s not something anyone should be required to do, and her writing fucking sucks let’s be real.

No one should feel like they have to like her when she pretty much exists as an example of Miura’s misogyny, and when she is forced into the love interest role for the sole purposes of a) no homoing Guts and Griffith and b) getting horrifically and off-the-charts offensively fridged for Guts’ manpain. One of my pet peeves is people calling fans misogynist for disliking fictional women, cause like, the thing is she’s not real and hating her as a poorly written and often offensive fictional construct isn’t the same as hating a real woman, so yk, I support you lol.

Plus yeah I do think she’s often overrated in lots of fandom - a good chunk of Berserk fandom doesn’t acknowledge the enormous flaws in her writing, and does consider her to be genuinely a well-written ~strong female character~ lol. So yeah in that case I think she’s overrated. Though it might be more accurate to say Miura’s writing is overrated.

idk tl;dr I like Casca but her writing is so deeply flawed that I completely get disliking her.

[sytycdrankings]

Top 10 Perform Rankings!

First of all, I’m really excited to have things to list again. This was a really good first show, I thought. For the most part, I liked everything.

10. “Clown” (Cyrus/Kaylee contemporary), Tessandra Chavez 

I didn’t hate this. I really didn’t. I just felt like...I don’t know why this was the routine that was given to these two. We all know that Cyrus isn’t that great at contemporary, though he didn’t really do much other than partner Kaylee, to be fair. It wasn’t that I thought they didn’t have chemistry, it was just...I don’t know. It somehow felt flat? I also didn’t think that dress was very flattering on Kaylee. Not her fault, of course, but it was distracting. I hope she doesn’t go home because of this because I’m still excited about this pairing and I think they could do great things. Fingers crossed.

9. “More” (Gaby/Lex tap), Anthony Morigerato

...this is just me being stingy. I’m not a fan of this style of tap, just like my general dislike of Broadway. I give Lex all the credit in the world for pulling this off, but I wish we could have seen him in Anthony’s more modern tap style instead of this. I will say that he did a great job bringing out his personality. I wanted a bit more chemistry between them, but I’ll withhold that judgement until I see a routine that I don’t have inherent bias against. 

8. “There’s Nothing Holdin Me Back” (Jenna/Kiki cha-cha), Dmitry Chaplin

So...if I were judging Jenna, this routine would be much higher. She’s amazing. But since Kiki is the contestant here, this is where it ends up. Because where even is he. Like, was he there?? Maybe all of it isn’t his fault. After all, Jenna is  a very hard person to show up when she’s on stage, and the purpose of ballroom is to show off your female partner. But on the other hand, there have been plenty of male ballroom dancers on this show that didn’t disappear, so Kiki has a lot of work to do. Also, why was that table there? Did we need the chairs? What is it with unnecessary props on this show?

7. “Protocol” (Audrey/Logan contemporary), Tyce DiOrio

Oh, Tyce. I can’t even hate here, though. I actually thought this routine was gorgeous. I’ve said before that Tyce is far better at contemporary choreography than at jazz or anything else IMO. I think this routine would have ended up higher if Allison was dancing it and we got to see the chemistry between her and Logan, but I don’t think Audrey was bad at all. It’s just not easy to have perfect chemistry and partnering with only a few hours to get something right. There were some beautiful moments, though. I especially liked that part where Logan grabbed her ankles and Audrey kinda swiped her back on the ground and got back up?? That was really cool. Looking forward to seeing how Logan does on the show. (And I hope Allison can come back!)

6. “Change is Everything” (Robert/Taylor contemporary), Travis Wall

So...the judges are really blatant sometimes, you know? It’s not that this routine wasn’t really gorgeous. I loved so many things about it. The lighting, how the dress Taylor was wearing flowed when she moved, the weight shifting and some of those extensions...Taylor has some of the most beautiful lines. I didn’t even know she was that good since we barely saw her in Not-Vegas. But like...some of those lifts were really shaky?? Robert looked like he was struggling a lot. And lifting someone who is that close to your height for an entire week probably took its toll on his body, but there was not a single mention of it from the judges?? I’ve also said in the past that Travis focuses a lot on pictures and lifts in his choreography and not a whole lot of dancing, and that was true here. I wanted them to break away from each other and dance, but they never did. But on the other hand, I loved their chemistry, and I felt really connected to Taylor for some reason. This is going to sound weird, but I love her face. It’s very striking. She’s not going anywhere for a while, so let’s see how she does from here on.

5. “Perm” (Jasmine/Robert hip-hop), Christopher Scott

Speaking of too many damn props. What was in those spray cans? Was that not a choking hazard? Sheesh. But I love this pairing! Robert has personality for dayssssss, and Jasmine can have chemistry with a paper bag. This routine was so fun, but what I want to see eventually is a more challenging routine for Robert since I really don’t think this was very difficult for him at all. I really want to know what he can do. I always love routines that make me happy, though, and this definitely fit the bill.

4. “All Stars” (Paul/Sydney cha-cha), Val Chmerkovskiy

So happy to see Val choreographing for this show! He’s been my favorite on DWTS since I started watching. And I really love this routine. When ballroom is done well, it looks so fun and I get jealous that I don’t know the first thing about dancing it. Sydney and Paul make a good couple, and when they were looking at each other, I really felt the connection. I think Sydney needs to work on connecting with the camera a little better, though. Even during the judging, she seemed to have trouble knowing where to look. But it was nice to see just dancing with no gimmicks or props. And Paul, of course. I’ll always love anything Paul touches tbh.

3. “Shake Your Pants” (Fik-shun/Dassy poppin), Popin’ Pete

I WAS SO HAPPY WHEN I SAW THIS. There’s never been (that I can remember?) a full on poppin routine on this show before! All of this is so hard to do, and Dassy was so sharp! She was even better than Fik-shun at some points, tbh. I don’t think she’ll have a remote problem keeping up with his energy and I’m so excited to see them dance together if I can look forward to more of this. It reminded me of watching people dance in the 80s and 90s, and there was a bit of an MJ homage in there, too! This hit all my heartstrings. I get the feeling that Dassy will be around for a long time and I am perfectly okay with that.

2. “Memories” (Marko/Koine contemporary), Stacey Tookey

I have no idea how this ended up so high. The first time I watched it, I thought it was pretty but nothing super special, but then I watched it again today and I got choked up LOL. Marko and Koine look like they’ve been dancing together for 50 years. It was just so pure and beautiful, and it made me think of a meadow and oceans and all sorts of corny pretty shit. The lifts were light and effortless, and Koine looked like she would throw herself off a cliff if Marko was at the bottom ready to catch her. I want to see what she’ll be like in other styles, but at this point she’s probably my favorite girl. (Sorry Kaylee. Come back to me next week.)

I’m sure nobody is surprised at what my number one is lmao. I’ll have that up for you very soon!

[sage-nebula]

Pokeani, Sun and Moon season!

Okay, admittedly, I’ve seen barely any of the new season, but from what I have seen / what I’ve absorbed through fandom osmosis (/what bleeds over from feelings I have from the games):

Kiawe — It’s a bit difficult, because often times when I see him I feel this pang in my heart, because seeing an older* trainer with a charizard reminds me of Alan and that’s such a bittersweet pang of remembrance (and envy because Kiawe gets to ride on his charizard when Alan was denied at every turn fjdsagdafdsa I’M STILL SALTY), but at the same time Kiawe is my favorite of the Akala Trio in the games (then Lana, then Mallow), and I can’t help but love his anime incarnation as well, especially since they’ve fleshed out his character a bit more and are showing him having fun / not just crushing his hopes and dreams by firing him from his part-time job. :( Poor game!Kiawe, he didn’t deserve that. Anyway, Kiawe is a sweet boy who aspires to be a professional dancer one day, and I think he can do it. I believe in him.(*He’s a definite teenager in the games, imo, and they might have aged him down in the anime? It’s possible and I don’t know, so I’m not saying either way. I’m pretty ??? on his anime age and don’t wish to be dragged into any Discourse™ about it, thanks.)

Mallow — Back before the season actually aired I had pegged Mallow as Ash’s new bff at the school, and I guess that didn’t really pan out, but I still like her quite a lot anyway. Then again, I also like her in the games so I guess I’m a bit biased—but while I think she could probably use more focus episodes, she was the first one to get an evolved pokémon, so that was really cool. And I think it’s cute how she looks out for Lillie, too. (Though again, in the games she’s a teenager while I’m ??? about her age in the anime, so I’m not sure if I ship it. I’m very ??? about it.)

Jessie’s Mimikyu — THE SALTIEST CREATURE TO ROAM THE EARTH, ALSO ACTUALLY ACCIDENTALLY MURDERED MEOWTH ONCE, RIP. The funny thing is, Pikachu would have actually been pleased about this in the OS (see the bottom of this post for a gif of Pikachu’s reaction in an episode when he realized Meowth had not, in fact, drowned in the ocean. Literally I’m not exaggerating, that is literally what Pikachu was reacting to in that gif. Savage), which I suppose would just make Mimikyu even more salty because like hell Mimikyu wants Pikachu to be happy about anything. Mimikyu doesn’t want Pikachu to be happy. Mimikyu wants Pikachu dead. My thing is, is Team Rocket still trying to capture Pikachu? And if so, how will Mimikyu feel about this? I feel like Mimikyu would actually have a conniption if they found out that Team Rocket wanted Pikachu. Like … damn. Anyway, Jessie’s Mimikyu is salty af. I love and relate to them.

Lillie — Lillie is like … one third of the way toward what I initially thought her character was going to be like before either the games or the anime released. Since her original concept art always had her making a sort of >:( face, I imagined that she was going to be more uptight and cold (and as such that’s kind of the characterization you’ll see in To Devour the Sun, since there are certain aspects that can’t be reworked to fit her actual characterization—though I’ll try as best I can to accommodate). She isn’t, in either the anime or games, and that’s kind of disappointing, but I can live with it. I still think she’s sweet and it’s obvious she’s getting the most characterization out of Ash’s school friends, no doubt because she’s the protagonist of the games (and she is—the player avatar is a supporting protagonist, nothing more). I am disappointed that her inability to touch pokémon was just a phobia, though. I feel like we’ve already seen that done with quite a few other characters in the anime, and I was kind of hoping for something more original (even if they couldn’t actually make it be because she’s an Ultra Beast). Ah well.

Lana — I like what I’ve seen of Lana in the anime. She seems to have a good sense of humor, has embarrassing siblings, likes to fish, et cetera. She seems like a cool girl. I do prefer her game self, though, the Lana who tells blatant lies with a straight face (“Oh there are mysterious waves in that pond hmm gee I wonder what those are I’ve never seen them before in my life oh my stars” ok Lana, sounds fake, but ok), and who is very blunt about wanting a swimmer on each arm (and she never specifies gender, either, so bisexual Lana = canon). But she’s cool in the anime, too. I think it’s cute that she has popplio, especially since it seems like Ash will have both Rowlet and Litten.

Ash’s Rockruff — He’s a cute, determined pupper who JUST WANTS TO FIGHT. Gods please don’t let him evolve into Midnight Lycanroc. Let him evolve into Midday. Please. 

Ash’s Rowlet — He is cute and, unlike Nebby, actually stays in the fucking bag. He also likes to sleep a lot, which I can empathize with, a+. 

Professor Kukui — Again, he’s different from how I originally imagined him—I thought he’d be a bit more of a gadfly, teasing and trolling but never cruelly, and I’m a bit disappointed that he wasn’t. (Though I’ll be keeping that in To Devour the Sun because you’ll pry gadfly!Kukui from my cold, dead hands.) I feel that his characterization is a bit more standardized as far as professors go, even accounting for his game characterization, but it is what it is. I will say, though, that I do like how he acts like a dad for Ash, particularly since Ash is a child living in his house. That’s cute and nice. (And obviously Ash decided to go for this set-up because he saw that having a professor for a dad worked out really well for Alan and he wanted in on that. Obviously.)

Lillie’s Vulpix — I like that we see a clear difference in behavior between the two vulpix, and I like that Lillie’s is so attached to her. Also, Lillie’s vulpix is cute af, what the hell. Those gifsets alone could give a Scrawlers diabetes.

Pikachu — Finally, I have to say that I’m immensely pleased that Ash’s bond with Pikachu is being recognized again. After being largely ignored in the previous saga (save for not talked about moments like when it was Pikachu’s voice that broke through to Ash when he was being tortured by Lysandre), it’s nice to see Pikachu finally getting the respect he deserves once more, a+++.

Oh, and that “Pikachu reacts to the fact that Meowth did not drown” gif I promised:

S A V A G E, NO MERCY