#he's such a phenomenal character

[rapidhighway]

my love for him is stronger than any other force in the universe

[aethersea]

I do think Blazing Saddles handled its one depiction of native americans very poorly, and the full extent of its representation of chinese workers on the railroad is they were literally just there. not even one single speaking line. unclear if this is worse or better than the redface.

it's fucking phenomenal at lampooning antiblack racism though. extremely blatant, extremely funny satire, which is constantly and loudly saying "racism is the philosophy of the terminally stupid at best and morally depraved at worst, and we should all be pointing and laughing at them 24/7"

plus the main character is a heroic black man who has to navigate a whole lot of bullshit but is constantly smirking at the extraordinarily stupid racists and inviting the audience into the joke. the one heroic white character is a guy who was suicidally depressed until he met the protagonist and they just instantly became buds, and he's firmly in a supporting role the whole time and happy to be there. the protagonist saves the day with the help of his black friends from the railroad, and uses the position of power he was given to uplift not only those friends, but all the railroad workers of other minorities too, in an explicit show of solidarity.

anyone saying "Blazing Saddles is racist" had better be talking about its treatment of non-black minorities. it had better not be such superficial takes as "oh but they say the n-word all the time" or "they have nazis and the kkk in there!" because goddamn if that's the full extent of your critique I very seriously suggest you read up on media analysis. there is too much going over your head, you need to learn to recognize satire.

[iccedays]

Me crying at all the love David Jonsson is getting for Alien:Romulus

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

Rescue Bots Graham Burns

Propaganda below the cut

Need him.

[sophsun1]

shoutout to luke brandon field though, like he got horny daniel, sassy daniel, high as a kite daniel, fucking terrified daniel, emo daniel, all the flavours down pat. take a bow, sir.

[saberpastel]

Friends, I present to you... blorbo from my dreams

Old Man Sampo isn't something I expected or knew I wanted but boy do I want it now.

[cooliogirl101]

Controversial opinion but like…Uchiha Itachi was definitely a villain.

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.

There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.

This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.

Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.

He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.

He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.

Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.

Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.

[aimasup]

throws up my hands in mock resignation but also a hint of frustration Okay Valentino is a cool villain I guess

He's like. Genuinely unsettling. Wish the show struck a better balance with his character sometimes (like sometimes when he's onscreen I have to skip over because I feel queasy and sometimes he's so unsubtle he feels more like a prop than a guy who's going to be a Huge Deal in s2)

[marcmorrigan]

According to the artist, when it was suggested that a smile might benefit the look of the finished portrait, Attaché Nohell reportedly replied, "I thought the purpose of this was to be honest."

Super fun commission of @waterloggedsoliloquy's OC Sicely Nohell (they/them) and their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad lusus figure Commanding Officer.

[lurkerdelima]

me getting way too deep in a rant about linguistics whenever Louis’s accent comes up on IWTV

[molinaskies]

Sonic Broke. What's Next? (IDW)

For those who might know, quite some time ago I wrote about Sonic’s next emotional arc in the IDW comics, where he won’t be so immediately trusting of new faces after what happened to Mr. Tinker. I analyzed how this new dynamic is characterized through his interactions with Belle and was justified by the events of the metal virus arc and, more specifically, the way in which everyone piles onto Sonic for his decision to keep Mr. Tinker alive.

Espio’s done it. Shadow’s done it. Zavok’s done it. Metal Sonic’s done it. Starline’s done it. Eggman’s done it. Sonic’s done it. So many people have put Sonic down for this one decision; this one decision has backfired in so many ways, but Sonic, ultimately, never lost faith, never lost hope, never lost his optimism for a better world where everyone has even a little bit of good in them. This optimism is one of Sonic’s key defining characteristics that shines through every single continuity of this franchise and every single iteration of this character.

But this is it. This. Is. It. Chekhov’s gun has fired, and Sonic has fucking broke.

This collapse hits Sonic in two waves, the first one being his first confrontation with Surge.

Surge says everything the others have said regarding Sonic’s “moral code,” but her specific language illustrates the key difference between her and everyone else—and why it hits Sonic so hard. Everyone else in Sonic’s life is adjacent to Eggman’s terrorism, but Surge is a victim of it. And what makes matters worse is that she’s only brought in this mess through a chain of command.

If Sonic ended Eggman, Starline wouldn’t have been able to bring Eggman back, nor experience the apprenticeship that turned him against Eggman and sent him on the path of creating enforcer cyborgs—which means that Kit and Surge would not exist in the state they do now, and they would be able to live happy lives. Even if after ending Eggman, Starline would have still surfaced on a track of “Eggman Avengement,” the same argument could be made, because Sonic would have directly spared Starline, too, and he knows it. If only for a second, something clicks.

The collapse finishes in one fell swoop in his third confrontation with Surge, where she spells it out for him further, and where a technical fault on Eggman’s Device, of all things, saves his life by almost surging hers.

Sonic has now, for the first clear and objective time, seen the true consequences of his decision, and for the first clear and objective time, he cannot fix it.

This isn’t the same as Metal Sonic, who, as a (sentient) robot, serves a purpose outside of replicating Sonic (he’s a protector, an attack robot, and a companion to Dr. Eggman). Surge once had a life of her own, one she no longer remembers because, through a sick and twisted train of events, Sonic has deprived her of those memories, that freedom. Surge isn’t a robot. Surge isn’t an android. Surge is a real, tangible person that Sonic’s decision has thoroughly fucked up, and Surge has just framed him—not his choices, HIM—as the key reason she’ll never be free. She will either kill him or die trying, and either way, Sonic cannot win.

In the first second he can breathe, let alone process everything that just happened, Sonic… can’t. He has nothing to say—not in front of Tails, at least, but maybe nothing, at all. Until this point, Sonic has wondered if he, specifically, was to blame for Eggman’s actions because he was the one to let Mr. Tinker go. However, this is the first time where Sonic seems to question whether he should have let Mr. Tinker go, at all.

When Eggman emerges from the rubble, Sonic isn’t smug. He’s not amused. He’s not even bemused. Sonic is gutted and disgusted by the fact that Eggman’s still alive. He might even feel guilty that he’s still alive.

Eggman doesn’t know sympathy, doesn’t know remorse—not in Sonic’s eyes, not anymore, and it shows, because when Eggman has the audacity to ask for another truce—

—Sonic could fucking kill him for it.

Sonic’s always hated Eggman, but he’s also always had faith in his ability to be good. However, what Sonic has learned from all this—what Sonic finally believes down to his core—is that Dr. Eggman is lower than the scum of the earth. Sonic finally understands why Eggman helped stop the arc, why Eggman worked with him to fight the Deadly Six, and why Eggman helped eradicate the metal virus. Sonic finally understands that he mistook Eggman’s ever-cunning, manipulative mind for a shred of benevolence.

Now, what does this mean?

Now that we’ve witnessed the breaking point, I think it will take a fair bit of effort to pull Sonic back from the brink of rage. He’s not going to give up on Surge—not at all—because if he did, he might truly fucking lose it, but there is no way that Sonic will be entirely unchanged by this. In the future, when he’s placed in another complicated situation and given a difficult choice to make—especially if it has to do with Eggman—we might not see even a shred of lenience.

I thoroughly believe that the primary narrative purpose of the IDW comics, as they currently stand, is to investigate Sonic’s tenant optimism and push it far beyond its limits. This story’s purpose is to interrogate and observe Sonic’s declining psychological state until it shatters. This story’s purpose is to stand by one of this franchise’s biggest arguments: Sonic’s big, big emotions cause problems, and his inability to cope with those emotions makes problems worse.

When Sonic’s happy, he’s ecstatic, when he’s confident, he’s cocky, when he’s sad, he’s depressed, and when he’s angry, he’s livid. And all of these emotions, without balance, can come crashing down around him.

We’re seeing this fact so prevalent in the movies, Sonic Frontiers and especially Sonic Prime (which takes the direction that the movies do and turns it up to eleven). However, in the same ways they weaken him, Sonic’s emotions give him strength. Without his optimism, Sonic would have fallen, long ago. Without his optimism, Surge will never have a chance to see a better future for herself. It’s all counterbalanced by how big his heart is and how much he evidently wants to be better and do right by others.

And if there’s anything he’d die trying to do, it’s that.

[kang-yo-han]

So I had a sudden idea where I was like “Oh, hey, I should compare the Jingoo characters I’ve seen with guns” and it led to me staring at this and going (not for the first time) “How the FUCK are these the same person”

[laurrelise]

happy (late) 21st birthday to the lovely aidan gallagher, try not to to drink as much as five does 🔥🔥🔥

[tekkenenjoyerblue]

Geese Howard for the simplified style collection‼️ maybe I should make the rest of the ‘96 boss team to go with him…

[youreviltwin]

dan harmon is, in no small part, responsible for the objective best good autistic representation (abed nadir) and bad autistic representation (rick sanchez). do with that information what you will.