#i wish they were handled better

[basslinegrave]

pin-up

b&w originals

[khaopybara]

❝This is your only chance, Ai'Mook.❞

CHANYA AMARIT as VIVI and AYA ORAPAN as KAIMOOK episode 8 of LOVE SEA

[flaskoflethe]

I think the most significant metaphor in I Saw the TV Glow, of only in my interpretation, was the fucking inhaler. It's the device that gives enough temporary relief from the suffocation of being buried alive and not even knowing something's wrong, not by temporarily making it not wrong but by making you not notice that specific problem. It's still there, you're still suffocating and crushed under the ground dying alone and with your actual self torn out of you, while the fake version of you huffs the inhaler again and again with growing despair because it never addressed the problem, you were just told it would fix what was wrong

[ladystarksneedle]

Alicole expectations from the first episode:

What we got

[mars-ipan]

danganronpa is so fucking crazy bc it’s like “hi. this is a game series with a fucking amazing premise. unfortunately the writing sucks and is bad and you will spend half the time going ‘eugh why did they write that’ but you will play the whole thing anyways and get attached to your favorite characters and cry when they inevitably die. also it is filled with romance subplots that will stay in your brain forever” HUH??????

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

So Witches We Became

YA horror

a girl and her friends go on vacation to a house on a private Florida island, but when a strange mist and toxic tar surrounds them, trapping them there, they have to find a way to survive and/or escape

while she’s being haunted by a traumatic experience with her friend’s boyfriend - who just showed up - that she’s been unable to tell anyone about, and by a shadow from her childhood that she fears might have something to do with what’s happening

sapphic, explores complicated friendships, and surviving assault

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Happy 1st anniversary to Looking Glasses by @ferronickel :) (edit; whoops forgot to remove the space in the tag, sorry i know you've already seen it haha)

[yuridovewing]

like guys i promise im aware blossomfall is meant to be a glass child. i just think she’s a poorly written one lmao

[silvermoon424]

Finally finished Avatar the Last Airbender!

I'd been putting off watching it for over a decade when my partner @joestarluxe convinced me to watch it with her, lol.

I might put all my thoughts in a bigger post later on (when I'm not tired after work lol), but needless to say I really enjoyed the show! I was most impressed with the worldbuilding; ATLA really does have incredible worldbuilding and I'm excited to watch some video essays delving deeper into that aspect.

Oh, and all forms of bending are so cool!! Going off the worldbuilding point, I really love how bending is something that's foundational and deeply enmeshed in the world of Avatar. It's not just an afterthought, you really do get the sense that benders have been around since the dawn of civilization and their unique talents have shaped the way society functions (this is especially evident in the Earth Kingdom, particularly the big cities like Ba Sing Se).

I also really appreciate how subversive a lot of the morals are, especially when you consider that this was a children's show airing on Nickelodeon during the War on Terror. The Fire Nation in particular has a lot of uncomfortable similarities to the United States (they even make their children recite a pledge of allegiance at school!).

Anyway, great show and I'm mad at myself for not giving it a chance sooner. I've heard a lot of mixed things about the Legend of Korra so I'm not really interested in watching it, although I may look into some of those spinoff comics/novels.

[valentinemesis]

on glenn

[jamesheathridge]

anoes 2010 isnt like. a great movie. but its definitely not as bad as a lot of people say it is. i think people are just put off by how blatantly they made freddy a predator which like. has always been the case. it's in the original movie. but i guess if you actually make that the point of the movie people get upset.

[senespera-ffxiv]

I feel like the story needs to more obviously indicate how Yotsuyu sublimated her anger towards her parents for being pieces of shit into just straight up hating all Domans.

Cuz it took me a bit to realize that it's supposed to parallel the relatively common thing where second generation Asian Americans seem to feel some sort of shame towards their parents' culture compounded with the generalization made from having shitty parents that "oh it's just a cultural thing, all Asian American parents are assholes" which is. not accurate lmao.

Like I can see where Yotsuyu's coming from if only because I've had similar thoughts before and am kinda familiar with the stuff she's going through but it does feel kinda disconnected without having a lived experience like I do y'know. Wish the writer's could've conveyed that specific feeling a bit better, of hating the people that have hurt you so much that you start to direct it towards everyone that looks like them, even yourself.

It's even reflected in Tsukuyomi's design I feel, what with the bunny ears. It's a reference to Chang'e and her bunnies on the moon, and the addition of Chinese mythology to Tsukuyomi feels a bit Off until you realize that this is Yotsuyu summoning Tsukuyomi so there's parts of her reflected in her appearance. Her Doman heritage is something she can't get rid of so even though she hates it and tries to minimize it, it's still there. It just ends up relegated to a functionally useless piece of what is essentially decoration, but is still glaringly obvious enough to be ashamed about if you are. And I mean, what with all of the self-loathing and hate towards Doma in general, I'd say Yotsuyu's got a lot of that.

I kinda joked about this in chat with a friend but Yotsuyu really just. Did not survive the generational trauma and proceeded to traumatize an entire fucking country alskdjhlkdjsf. And I don't know what her parents' parents were like because the story didn't need to mention them, but she did not end up deciding to break that chain of trauma. It always seems to be harder to do that with the first generation, anyways. You don't really know about the concept, you don't feel like you have any obligation to prevent such a thing from happening, all you know is that your parents were pieces of shit and if they've fucked you up then, well, it's not a you problem. Except it is, it is 100% a you problem because you yourself are choosing to be a piece of shit to other people.

Anyways a few more thoughts about Yotsuyu's character, referencing back to my previous analysis that she might've been a parallel to Daji, I kind of rescind that if only because the path they decided to take in the patch quests felt keenly like they wanted to do something specific with her character that wasn't done in the original story of the overthrow of King Zhou of Shang. I still feel that her role in the base Stormblood expansion was more or less that of Daji's, just an interesting inversion hinting at some sort of traumatic past that's caused her to be this way, humanizing her past a typical femme fatale trope. They just decided to turn it around into commentary on this specific flavor of self-loathing that's kind of relevant to members of the Asian diaspora. I could also just be projecting here but, y'know, media is what you make of it and all lol.

tl;dr Yotsuyu good. Not as good as she could've been because I think they stumbled a little on truly showing the sheer rage and confusion that causes someone to become like her, but good nonetheless.

[girlbob-boypants]

Gyre can't have any innate defense because she's a dps frame but she doesn't have any innate way of dealing with armor and there's only one ability you can use for that. And then her mod building is so limited because the ability synergies that are core parts of other frames and important for doing well are restricted to an augment mod and then you still need that armor strip and defense so you better hit strength caps and im so normal about this and not at all frustrated

[randomaphmauthoughts]

Something more people need to acknowledge about Aphmau (the channel) is how badly her videos actually impacts little kids who don’t know better. Things like unhealthy age gaps, men making really weird, perverted comments, and not taking no for an answer was normalized for me. Jessica made it normal through Aarmau and characters like Garroth, Laurence, Dante, and Travis.

[bonebabbles]

im curious, do you think there is any good way to portray a redemption by death? like, can a character truly be made a better person by dying? or is it just an all-around bad trope? i vaguely saw what the authors were trying to do with tom and sandgorse's situations, but they just sucked too bad and gave it the absolute wrong effect imo

I think there's a way to make anything work! So I won't say "NO NEVER." But personally, I have a big bone to pick with it so I avoid it

A redemption death doesn't give the character time to meaningfully change, imo, or truly make up for their actions. That all has to come before the death itself. And even the very idea of giving your life up to "redeem yourself" just... sits uncomfortably with me.

Dying never makes a person better. It just kills them. A person who's dead is not changing nor growing.

So Tom and Sandgorse... what their deaths are supposed to do is re-frame everything they did before that point. With no apology on Sandgorse's end for how badly he hurt his son or wasn't there for his mate, he was a good enough person to die for someone else and thus must be forgiven. Tom thrashes two women and they both die because of him, but he was still willing to heroically throw his life down for his child, and so he is 'worthy' of being avenged and honored.

No growth. No change. No acknowledgement. The death is supposed to add sympathy to them, while there's no actual reckoning of how they hurt their victims. Not even a real consequence. "Their intentions were good, and this is proven through the ultimate sacrifice." As if that changes anything. It doesn't.

I think if there's an decent example of a redemption death in warriors, it's Bluestar's. I still have problems with how it believes Stone and Misty have to "forgive her" for some reason, REALLY don't like the fact that this series has always equated redemption and forgiveness... but that aside? Just focusing on Firestar, ThunderClan, and Bluestar?

I think what makes the moment so strong is that it is a moment of clarity through her cruelty arc. We saw the heroic person she was at the start of TPB. We know that her actions are coming from anger, spite, and paranoia. That is never shown as a thing to be excused. But while she's wrapped up in her own misery, Fireheart is being the leader she isn't.

And her last life is a return to form, spending it the way she is supposed to, as a leader, and as his mentor.

Her arc could never be about 'growth' because... she WAS a great leader. She WAS selfless, long ago. Her redemption death is a return to that, and a plot necessity. Bluestar and Firestar cannot both exist.

But, anyway, it's generally a trope I'm not fond of. I think that nearly anything can work in the right context, but I think it's so situational that I personally avoid it when possible.

[stuworbutwithchipmunks]

I think we should talk more about how CGI Brittany has the career 80's Brittany always wanted.