#for all his flaws

[tranquil-traveler]

Just finished mob psycho season 1 and it's so good.

[ruegarding]

i never understood ppl claiming percy has never suffered the consequences of his loyalty. you're talking about percy "i know the prophecy said my friend would betray me but these are my friends they wouldn't betray me" jackson, who walked into a remote part of the forest with luke and almost died in book one. you're talking about percy "kronos told me point-blank there was a traitor but i can't imagine any of these ppl betraying me" jackson, who decided to stop looking for the traitor and moved on. you're talking about percy "nico is acting suspicious and very clearly hiding something from me but he's my friend and i trust him" jackson, who walked into nico's very obvious set up and almost got himself held hostage during the titan war. percy is so loyal that he cannot fathom betrayal until it's happening, and it has nearly killed him multiple times.

[my-heart-of-heart]

So normal about Jon being like I don’t remember what you looked like but the man who let you die is going to suffer for what he did to you. If only Sasha coulda seen that.

So normal about Jon being like you died hating me and wanting me dead but I’m still gonna make sure this man knows I’m ending him in your name. Sure wish Tim coulda seen that.

So normal about the fact that everyone believed Jon was losing his humanity but no one got to see the ways his love and compassion for the people he lost or who hurt him drove him to that final moment.

So normal about the fact that even after everything Jonah’s done to Jon, the only person he never thinks to get justice for is himself.

[frodo-a-gogo]

Let us be brutally honest with ourselves and with eachother for a moment. If he weren't obese you motherfuckers would be capable of percieving evrart claires sexy sexy moral ambiguity and complex charms

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

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[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."

[rochenn]

One and a half hours and 20 unorganized layers later I conclude that Arcane art style is hard. But imagine if TCW looked like this

[turtleblogatlast]

I love Raph and haven’t said that enough so to be more specific I love that Raph is a soft boy who loves bear plushies, a gross boy who eats an assortment of things that are definitely better left alone, a smart boy who is more than capable of taking down villains through planning and fortitude alike, a strong boy who is dedicated to training his muscles and fighting prowess, a teenage boy who loves his brothers but is more than happy to tease and roughhouse with them, an angry boy who sometimes lets his anger take a hold of him to cover the fear, a gentle boy who is generous with hugs and affirmations to those he loves, a capable boy who takes on more than should ever be expected of a teenager, a good boy who just wants to be a hero and slowly comes to realize the cost of that duty, a good boy who has no reservations about putting himself in the way of harm coming to his family, a good boy who’s a great brother and son and person and deserves only the best the world has to offer.

[daftmooncretin]

james Tiberius Kirk is pro choice and pro contraceptives just fyi

[coolestzed]

As someone who was looking for Merlin content earlier today only to come across a flood of posts with the tag "merlin hate train", this is extremely cathartic.

Stop the Train!

So, apparently, yesterday was the one year anniversary of this blog. I’ve never done much with it, but on this occasion, I felt the urge to write. Like many of you, I’m a big fan of Trollhunters. I’ve watched it since it came out, my girlfriend and I are currently working our way through Part I of 3 Below (although I’ve already seen it) and it is in fact the show that made me decide to get Netflix in the first place. I adore the lore, the characters, the storytelling… Every aspect speaks to me.

I have been aware for some time that quite a few of you are… unhappy with Part III, mainly for what you perceive as a poor direction to take one of the main cast in and that you are content to lay the blame for this almost solely at the feet of one character in particular. As I have a singular dislike of spoilers (our very second date, my girlfriend spoiled HTTYD2 whilst we were buying popcorn at the cinema), I would ask that you only choose to keep reading if you’re already all caught up (and if you’ve read the accompanying comics).

Stop the fucking Merlin Hate Train. Seriously. Stop it. You’re out of coal, you’re miles from the nearest station. Someone probably should have prepared for the journey a little better and I doubt most of you brought tickets anyway.

I am well aware that this is an extremely unpopular opinion to have and that merely expressing it will likely result in my bombardment from all ten of you who might read this blog. I do not care. This needs to be said.

You do not know better than Merlin. You cannot.

We know that Merlin crafted the Amulet of Daylight. That is fact. As the earliest Trollhunter we know of (a fellow named Spar the Spiteful) was around when mankind was at their most primitive (we were wearing animal skins and hadn’t really developed anything major beyond sticks as weapons), we can surmise that he predates us, as indeed does Morgana if he is correct in thinking that she is older than he is.

This means that their enmity towards one another goes back much further than a cursory glance at the series would suggest, especially since we know for a fact that Merlin crafted the Amulet using Morgana’s hand. This is an undertaking he would not have performed lightly, given that she is notoriously difficult to kill or, I would assume, maim. Even millennia later, he was only able to seal her away and as we know, was not fully aware of the finer details of said imprisonment.

This brings me back to my original point. You don’t know better than he does and the reason you can’t is because he doesn’t know everything. As an example, I offer his first meeting with Jim. Merlin expresses surprise at his youth, mentioning off hand that he expected him to be at least thirty.

Now, we know from ‘The Felled’ that around a hundred years after she was chosen, Deya the Deliverer expressed a desire to know what her larger purpose was. To that end, she sought out Merlin and after much trial and hardship (during which she aided many in need and slew many misguided enough to try to stop her), she found him in what was to one day become his Tomb (literally coming upon him in the middle of setting up the time-displacement trap, Deya’s the reason that bag of beans is just lying on the floor).

Pretty much the first thing she does is punch Merlin in the face and call him out on withholding knowledge of the future. He goes on to defend himself with the Staff of Avalon, saying that he’s impressed with her rather than angry for punching him and then?

That was when Deya the Deliverer picked up the Omniscienstone.

It transpires that Merlin’s ability to see the future is not inherent to him or at the very least is greatly enhanced by the Omniscienstone. He warned Deya not to use it, saying that to do so without preparation is to court madness. She ignored him.

She saw.

She saw the creation of the Amulet itself.

She saw a human battling Gumm-Gumms.

She saw the death of Blinkous Galadrigal.

She saw a strange creature, a hybrid of human and Trollkind.

She saw Draal the Destroyer bearing the Mantle.

She saw the bones of a human, encased within her Armour.

Deya saw what was. Deya saw what is. Deya saw what might one day be. 

Deya the Deliverer saw all and when she was done, she tore the Amulet off and begged the Wizard’s forgiveness. To all those riding the train, I ask. Do you know what he did?

Merlin apologised to her. He explained that he did not withhold the information out of spite or capricious intent. He did it to spare his Champions of the terrible, overwhelming dread that comes with true Understanding. He does it to preserve their sanity.

The Omniscienstone does not show you what will happen. It shows you what may happen and it shows you all of it. We are given only a brief glimpse into the things Deya saw, the things that Merlin must see whenever he uses it and although he seems capable of predicting things with a high degree of certainty (presumably greater clarity does come with preparation), it is not always perfect. Not by a long way.

Merlin knew for centuries that a human would one day bear the Amulet. He knew that he would not always remain so. But what people seem to fail to understand is that he was expecting Jim to be older.

An older man would be far better suited to handling the transformation and the accompanying side effects. An older man would have had a chance to live his life.

But the fact that he was not an older man does not change things. Jim was the Trollhunter and the Trollhunter was needed. Only the Trollhunter could slay Gunmar and in doing so, aid in the defeat of Morgana and keeping the world from being cast into an eternal night.

I agree that Merlin was manipulative, that he stacked events very much in his favour and that he pressured Jim into using the potion. He used the ends to justify the means. But I would remind you that if he had not done so, Jim would have failed. I’m sorry, but it’s true.

Every other time he went up against Gunmar, he barely survived. He defeated Angor Rot only through trickery and the aid of his friends. If Jim had not made that choice, he would have died. He may have killed Gunmar in the process, but he certainly would have died.

Merlin even went so far as to create armour for Toby and Claire, greatly increasing their own chances of survival, when he could have just as easily not.

I know that a great many of you (if a great many read this) will likely respond with arguments along the lines of “Yeah, but he destroyed Jim’s Vesper to do it!” or “He’s a total jerk, so fuck him!”. To you, I say firstly that he didn’t have any idea as to the emotional significance Jim ascribed to that moped and was merely working with what he had, under the very reasonable assumption that Jim would rather have living friends and secondly that just because he’s a jerk doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

We’re talking about a Wizard of immense power who predates mankind as a recognisable species and who has been battling evil longer than we have had language to describe it. He has seen countless conflicts and has more often than not come out on top.

You do not know better than Merlin. You cannot know better than Merlin.

I’m not asking you to love him, only to stop hating him. Given everything he knew about what was to come, everything he couldn’t have known, this was the best he could do.

So, does anyone still want tickets?

[kathaynesart]

Can I ask what the formulas are that donnie calculates to make a big boom(??)

Just curious, lolol

Of course! There’s a few different ones in there including the infamous e=mc2, but the majority are meant to calculate the energy released in a nuclear explosion. There’s also the Born–Oppenheimer (BO) approximation (which makes the assumption that the wave functions of atomic nuclei and electrons in a molecule can be treated separately) for the sake of his creative process. Admittedly t’s not 100% accurate (because nuclei and electrons CAN move at the same speed) but Donnie is working on the fly here with nothing but his still limited mortal brain and it has been accurate enough to aid his basic needs in blowing up Krang. So uh… just trust him on it haha!

[fulcrum-1029]

I feel like so many people characterize Cass as this perfect angel who can do no wrong and never messes up that they have completely forgotten that Cass is a weirdo in her 20s who has beat up everybody at this point just because she could.

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of the things that continues to strike me on reread is how much the character of Darcy, and Austen through him, finds Mr. Bennet dead. And how much Elizabeth, in growing and changing and discarding her past blindness, has to move past her way of seeing her father and thus of seeing reality, because the two are connected! Darcy’s letter exposes her father’s flaws to Elizabeth in a way she’d never been able to see before. Most especially the way his laziness and neglect of his own gifts have hurt his family and that ultimately he doesn’t. care. Not enough to change. It literally says that she comes home from Hunsford and tries to laugh at her sisters’ and mother’s folly (the way she used to; the way her father has taught her to by example for her whole life) and she can’t anymore! It sticks in her throat. She is grieved by the failures that she sees in him, all the more so because she IS his favorite and she loves him! And the thing about Mr. Bennet is he never changes. The Lydia/wickham situation exposes to him sharply his own conduct and the consequences and he feels it! Because he is neither stupid nor unfeeling. But he, like everyone, has free will. And he chooses not to change when the opportunity presents itself. He even jokes about how quickly his feeling bad will pass and how soon everything will go back to normal, to his laziness and his selfishness. He is set in his ways and he serves as a contrast to Elizabeth’s personal journey because he embodies a version of a person she could have become and was in danger of becoming if her only goal at all times was to laugh at and judge people from the sidelines.

[fluffylord]

TWELFTH DOCTOR I THE ZYGON INVERSION

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 13: Beware the Grapes of Wrath.

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