#don't ask me to explain a joke

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Adding onto this post, I wanted to say thanks to everyone for their kind comments and replies!

More on these topics:

It occurred to me: why was I thinking of Tamara (and MT's Tamara in particular) as "upper middle class" when she married into aristocracy? I think it was mostly because 1) her Tamara really reminded me of specific people I have met in that category, and 2) there was a sort of a casual expectation of privilege combined with fear of losing that privilege which I associate with the upper middle class. (Though there’s also this article where Carson Kreitzer mentions EE’s “natural regality” so that could be part of the contrast as well.) It would make some sense if there were a perceptible class difference between Tamara and Tadeusz. During “Our Time,” she mentions that her father being "a merchant Jew" was an issue in their marriage arrangement (while the person favored by Tadeusz's family was "so proper"), which implies that both the class difference and the religious difference matter. Tamara also shushes Tadeusz when he alludes to the two of them having slept together before marriage, and he dismisses her concern saying, "What? It's just us," when there is obviously another person in the room—the person Tamara is using as a model for her painting (Masha?), who seems to be a household servant. Since Tamara orders her over to let Tadeusz wipe his hands on her skirt, Tamara is aware of her as someone that Tamara can order around and use, but Tadeusz doesn't even register Masha as a person. (The class difference could also explain why Tamara later thinks, “to get money I should just get a job” while Tadeusz is like, “Work??? Eww, embarrassing.”)

@muffins-for-days Re: Eden being silly, that does remind me of a couple of moments :).  There is the one at the beginning of the group show scene when the Baroness makes a snide (and funny) comment to Tamara about how nice it must be to show her work "indoors, at last," and poor blindsided Tamara can't quite figure out how to respond and nods awkwardly several times like a bobblehead desperate for approval. By that time we had already seen that she could be silly in private (the madeleines), but I was a little surprised at that specific gesture because this seemed like it was very much exaggerated for the audience vs. something literally happening within the scene. Then again the scene itself does call attention to the jokes with the little triangle "ding" played each time. On occasion the show presented this sort of campiness (sometimes deliberate, sometimes I wasn’t sure) which could have been a source of confusion about what tone it was trying to convey.

Though now I wonder, what is it about Tamara that the Baroness is so skeptical about (at least in Act 1)? Is she tired of the Baron picking up strays, as Marinetti puts it? Does she sense the Baron's little crush developing? Or maybe with her unusually clear sense of people’s emotions, she can poke at whatever people might be sensitive about – and Tamara really wants to have her artistic ability acknowledged. It’s not the worst insult, I guess; it at least acknowledges her progress, so it’s a little less mean than a comment on say, her bodily functions (hey maybe that other street artist just sweats a lot & he can't help it).

More silliness: there was also a moment in the final show in the same scene when Marinetti commented about all the promising young artists having the opportunity to "unzip and whip it out to measure – so what did you bring?" He then headed over to look at her paintings, but EE as Tamara paused to look down at herself before turning to hear his comments. I remember that getting a laugh from the audience and wasn't sure if she had done that in other shows or if it was intended to be anything other than a funny moment. But if we run with that... characters in the show repeatedly suggest Tamara wants to be a man (socially, if not literally). Could she be considering the idea? What would she be thinking? My guess: "I’d win.” (I’m fairly certain I’ve heard or read Eden Espinosa comment somewhere about Tamara’s BDE.)

Edit note: I made one update within the post (changed "muted trumpet" to "muted horn" since I finally looked more closely at the Playbill and the only brass instrument in the orchestra credits is a French horn (oops) played by Zohar Schondorf, so I assume that’s who is playing that note.

Been trying to gather my thoughts about Tamara de Lempicka as a character, and the difference between Eden Espinosa’s Tamara vs. Mariand Torres’s Tamara:

EE’s Tamara: Her Tamara seemed to me to be a little more self-serious and intense to the point where it both fed into the humor (e.g. when she meets the street painter and very earnestly steps in to try to correct his perspective while completely missing his offended reaction), but also informed her interactions with basically everyone else she interacted with. That focused seriousness and disregard/cluelessness about others’ feelings really made a lot of little moments—especially with Kizette, Rafaela, and Tadeusz—more understandable.

I remember thinking after seeing the show in La Jolla that she had done a very good and solid job as Tamara, but something about the performance was a little bit out of focus. I’m not even sure what that missing element even was, but between La Jolla and Broadway it seemed like she found the central spark; by the time I saw it at the Longacre it was the kind of performance (for me at least, if not the professional critics) where you’d jump out of your seat for bows, because she fully embodied that central role in such a way that it’s hard for me to think of the character of Tamara and not think of her in it.

MT’s Tamara: Her Tamara seemed a little lighter than EE’s in both vocal tone and personality. To me she came across as a blithely self-involved upper-middle class lady whom you might not take seriously until you find (to your surprise) that she has steamrolled right over you to get what she wants, and she herself might not even notice that she has done so. I liked her “I Will Paint Her” a lot, but I thought she also was excellent in “Speed” and “Just This Way” – she really conveyed the sense of sorrow and despair (with an interesting little dash of entitlement) from losing Tadeusz and Rafaela.

(On a less meaningful note, Mariand Torres seems to be slightly shorter than Eden Espinosa, and I remember feeling worried during some parts of “Woman Is” when Tamara is running up and down the stairs with her long robe open and billowing behind her, which seemed like it could easily snag or cause a mishap. Thankfully it didn’t!)

The moment that for me best illustrated the difference in the portrayals between Eden Espinosa’s Tamara vs. Mariand Torres’s Tamara happened early in the show, when Tamara’s mother tells her on her wedding day, “Don’t forget to smile. You’ll be surprised where a pretty smile can take you.” What I remember is that EE’s Tamara halfheartedly attempted a smile that looked much more like a grimace, while MT’s Tamara pasted on a smile that was bright, pretty, and fake. So I see MT’s Tamara as one who is better at putting on the façade.  

The second example that I found interesting was in “I Will Paint Her.” I have always interpreted “I Will Paint Her” as Tamara almost (but not quite) understanding that the overwhelming feelings she has upon seeing Rafaela for the first time are actually romantic and/or sexual, and not solely artistic inspiration. The humor is one of my favorite aspects of this song, and I just find that interpretation funnier than the alternatives. (The muted horn sound after the line “she’s just a woman who’s pretty” makes me laugh, because it’s as if the music itself is having a *looks into the camera* moment.)

One reason I like EE’s “I WIll Paint Her” is that her emotions are bursting forth and only occasionally (on those “I will…” pauses) she realizes what she’s been saying; she seems to be surprised by herself, and in trying to grasp at reasons why she’s feeling this way, she lands on what she currently knows best, which is “art.” I did really like MT’s “I Will Paint Her” as well, but after the “I will…” pauses, her follow-up seemed a lot more deliberate and knowing. In the moment I thought she was just overemphasizing the point for the audience, but thinking back on it, it could also be that she is more aware of where her thoughts and feelings are leading, so she is trying to regain her decorum and maintain a little plausible deniability. (You could interpret EE’s version this way too, really, but I am just choosing not to.)

[barschter000]

broke: Due to his attractiveness, Barok has slept with countless (wo)men.

woke: Despite his attractiveness, Barok is a virgin.

Bespoke: Because of entirely different factors, Barok does not know what sex is.

[popcorn-plots]

quick PSA: the "who...... asked?" joke is not funny. It's mean, insensitive, and downright hurtful.

sincerely, the person who is slowly loosing interest in his AP psych class because people keep making that joke whenever he brings up something important to him

[magnetothemagnificent]

Magneto and Professor X and their constant ideological and personal squabbles and homoerotic tension would fit right in as a Chavruta amongst the sages of the Talmud lmfao

[commsroom]

It’s my birthday too! !! Happy Birthday! I wanted to ask you about Jacobi since he rotates around my brain like he’s on a microwave plate 24/7. Just, general Jacobi thoughts, go crazy , I think about him all the time

yayy, shared birthday!! i hope you had a good one. you're actually the second person who told me it was their birthday too... june 21st birthday club!!

i feel a little guilty saying this, since it was your birthday too, but jacobi is one of my least favorite characters. not to say i don't have things to say about him, but. i don't care for him at all.

some things i can say about jacobi:

i think the most compelling thing about him is that his character arc is a perfect loop back around to his backstory mini episode - two people are dead. he feels responsible. he's out of a job. what now? in things that break other things, he deflects. he rationalizes - "it wasn't anyone's fault; everyone was just doing their jobs" - but is that really true? or is that what he has to tell himself in order to live with himself, and to keep doing the work that he wants to do. when jacobi says "i was wrong and people died, and the only thing i can do is not be wrong again" to kepler in the finale, it's as much about the deaths that weigh on him. maxwell's most of all.

... and i think there's potential for change there, now that he's able to confront it, but in a lot of ways that's the start of a character arc rather than the culmination of one. i will never believe that jacobi wants to spend any more time around minkowski, eiffel, and hera (nor vice versa, really) - they are also the people who killed maxwell to him, and they will never be "his" people. but i think if you were going to write about post-canon jacobi and that theme of survivor's guilt + escaping destructive cycles, lovelace would be a good counterpart to him for that - she's further along on that journey, he expresses a kind of respect and even almost-friendship for her that he doesn't for the rest of the hephaestus crew, and she has a more... biting sense of humor; i think they could actually be friends (or at least narrative parallels) given the right conditions.

and speaking of narrative parallels: he actually has a lot in common with minkowski. jacobi plays at being a rebel, a loose cannon, etc. because it gets people's guards down, but he's very, very patient, calculating, and measured. he is not an impulsive person, and more than that - he's a follower by nature, and a rule follower. jacobi doesn't believe in the "bigger picture" for his own sake, but he is deeply committed to maxwell's bigger picture. he wants to be told what to do, he wants to feel like he has a purpose within a greater system/structure, and - crucially to dirty work - he wants to be able to shirk responsibility when something goes wrong. jacobi craves certainty, he needs that faith in the judgment of the people who give him orders, and i think what dirty work does by positioning jacobi and minkowski as narrative foils highlights a lot of similarities in their faults.

(it does drive me a little crazy when people compare him to eiffel or say they'd get along under different circumstances, like... no? for all his other faults, eiffel is distinctly anti-authoritarian and sincere. they're like, coworkers with different politics who would really rather not speak to each other if at all possible.)

appearance-wise: i firmly believe he needs glasses (the line about his eyesight not quite being good enough is the kind of thing he'd downplay + it's a fun inverse of people drawing maxwell with glasses when she canonically doesn't need them), he has very specific military masculinity issues (thanks to his father) (and gabriel urbina once said jacobi's car is probably the civilian model of something used in the military) so i think he keeps his hair very short, and. i actually don't think he has notable burn scars. i respect that it's a distinct design choice, but canonically i think it makes more thematic sense that he wasn't personally, physically hurt by that accident (and i think someone would probably have made a remark about visible burn scars on the guy insisting he "is that good" with explosives.)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Are there any companions you can't stand?

I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.

The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.

I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.

I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.

Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?

For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.

I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.

It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.

If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.

But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?

Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"

And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.

My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.

Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.

He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.

Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?

We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.

Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.

[nostalgia-tblr]

loki/william rufus fic, where bill explains that as the second son he has inherited england while big brother bob only got the duchy of normandy, ha ha ha.

[chappellrroan]

mwaaaaaahhhh!!!! >.<

thank you that kiss was overdue by now 😌

[accursedthing]

Tbh I kind of hate those "NOT the same person. ARE the same person" Kingdom Hearts memes, not cause there's no humor to them but because most of the explanations for these things aren't actually that difficult, it's just possession or clones or spiritual connections most of the time, which are pretty common in fantasy stories (some of them like the Nobodies are kind of a can of worms but also not hard to understand in context and ANY fantasy story with multiple installments is going to have stuff like that), and yet people who aren't familiar with the series use these images all the time to support the running idea that Kingdom Hearts is like. Impossible to follow and makes no sense. Which I, of course, don't like because at its core it's just people calling a thing I like stupid. And I WILL take it too seriously because I have the kind of autism that makes you deranged about Kingdom Hearts

[deer-with-a-stick]

on one hand, if larian gave us raw rules for revivify/raise dead, you could do things like save Duke Ravengard without Mizora (ignore her, go to Iron Throne where he's going to be dead for some stupid reason, cast Raise Dead with a diamonds and boom. you can't tell me that he's been dead for more than 10 days when you find him) or just revive random NPCs for fun but on the other hand dear god the chaos

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

I mean the post said the most evil version of yourself, what if you were the evil version, is a supervillain? and if you are genuinely hurt by someone pointing that out that is basically my point. by refusing to consider not "perfection" but the ways you may hurt others or even yourself with this blindness to your faults... such as ignoring all critical self-reflection because it's really shitty and hurtful. ha!

you know what? i typed out THREE long explanations in response to this ask explaining what i meant AGAIN. but you misread the original post and you misread my response, so i doubt i can get through to you. i'll just use this as an opportunity to tell you that if you send me another one of these weird fucking asks again, i'm blocking you. i don't owe my tumblr followers a public reckoning of my flaws like be so fucking for real!!!

if you really think i'm on the brink of turning into a supervillain without your brave anonymous intervention, you better block me before i zap you with my freeze ray.

[ravencromwell]

hi! not sure if appropriate to ask, but is your username derived from thomas cromwell at all? cheers, from one considering cracking into the diarmaid maccullough biography if i can lift the damn thing

A. I love! this question. B. GOD I _wish. My username came, very pedestrianly, from a fanfic oc created in the early 2000's. I remember nothing! of this oc except it was shared between @blindbibliophile and I. I dunno if you were around in fandom back then, but the usernames on fanfiction.net were shudders just utter mishmash gobbledygook. We both wanted something that sounded kinda comparable to a human while having a properly _exotic flare. GOD we were both internet babies with no business out of swaddling clothes much less let off the leading strings :). So we coin-flipped for who would get to use the name, as I recall--she'll correct me if I'm wrong. I barely produced anything with it, but was fortunate enough to pick up fannish connections via leaving lavishly verbose fic comments for other people that evolved into convos/friendships (going around sprinkling comments like a fairy overburdened with rainbows and pixie dust will forever be my fav way of interacting in any and every fandom and I'm fortunate very few people have asked me to stop :). When I transitioned over here, I kept it for continuity with those folks and because I'm terribly, terribly fond of all the shared history with one of my fav humans.

Y'know, for all the years I've been a Thomas Cromwell geek--I don't remember when I read and adored Wolf Hall, but it was before 2015, and I have yet to read Mirror of Light because. I. just can't watch him die via headsman, if that tells you how insanely attached I am to the fictionalized bastard of her work--I'd never put the connection together, and am almost sheepish in answering this because for just a second there, I seemed so much cleverer than I was ;)! But! you have no idea how happy you've made me <33333333333333333 because oh! oh my god I didn't know that biography existed I now have flashing hearts in my eyes and need it immediately (he was kinda a religious zealot holy shit!!!!!!! with administrative competence I already found the Mantel version hot apparently I'm gonna find the real one that way, too. I have a weakness for revolutionaries--in whatever form-- with bastard morals, particularly when they lived long enough ago their bastard morals aren't affecting my friends and family and I can crush in peace :)

[ihavetoomuchhomeworkforthis]

so today my mom decided to take us on a hike, and my brother and I were walking much farther ahead talking about whatever, and I learned something which I continue to be shocked at and now must tell you.

He was walking slightly farther ahead of me, and I thought I heard him say "Stolas." He did say Stolas. He was talking about the character from Helluva Boss. He has watched every episode of Helluva Boss at least once. He has also seen the entire pilot of Hazbin Hotel.

This child is NOT EVEN A MIDDLE SCHOOLER YET.

[itsmeglycine]

what are your top l4d ships? :3

I am actually a chaotic shipper who will ship anyone with everyone, and I'm talking like, permutations, all of them!

(And that goes for any fandom. I'm happy to see fanworks of every ship, although I rarely draw any.)

For L4D, (I'm so ashamed to confess it, but) right now I'm big on Francis/Zoey and Coach/Nick. I just really dig their in-game interations. 👉👈

[kyouka-supremacy]

bruh

[tinogiehd]

i think it’s only fair to take george’s words on his sexuality as fact until he officially says otherwise. it’s not really anyone’s place to try to look for hints. time and time again people are made to talk about their sexualities before they’re ready because of people digging and making assumptions. like to be honest some of y’all are starting to sound like leaktwt at this point. he’s okay with the shipping and that’s great keep going with that and the jokes are very funny but when it comes to truthing his actual sexuality giving him labels he hasn’t claimed yet is invasive

here are my thoughts on george's sexuality if you want to give it a read 👍 it's from a bit ago but my take is pretty much the same however with recent developments I think that there is nothing wrong with taking things said at face value. I hope that when you say his "words on his sexuality" you are including the "I like guys" moment. if you are, then I think we are on the same page with it