#if that's the narrative you desire

[pavo-dence]

finally finished ghost trick

[lorephobic]

“the class commentary in saltburn was shit” WHAT CLASS COMMENTARY???? NOT EVERY MOVIE WITH RICH PEOPLE HAS TO OR SHOULD HAVE CLASS COMMENTARY. EMERALD FENNELL KNOWS VERY WELL THAT SHE IS NOT THE RIGHT DIRECTOR FOR A MOVIE ABOUT CLASS COMMENTARY WHICH IS WHY SHE DID NOT WRITE A MOVIE ABOUT CLASS COMMENTARY.

[tiredandoptimistic]

So, we know that Abed is the one who invited Annie, Shirley, Pierce, and Troy to join the study group. Annie and Shirley make a lot of sense; they're both relatively friendly and clearly intelligent, it's easy to imagine either of them having brief positive interactions with Abed that would lead him to thinking of them. Pierce, while not someone I think Abed would seek out, is 100% down for inserting himself into situations. I bet he overheard Abed talking to Shirley or someone and invited himself from there. Troy, though? Troy is a little more complicated. I know that Troy and Abed are the iconic duo of all time, but it took time for that to develop. I have trouble believing that they just somehow had a good chat or something before the pilot, because in the episode Troy refers to Abed as "slumdog millionaire," which makes Shirley call him racist. I know that Troy was leaning hard into his asshole jock behavior during the beginning of season one, but I truly do not think he would say something like that if he had actually interacted with Abed. We know that Troy thinks incredibly highly of Abed once he gets to know him, and that his adoration is what pulls Troy out of his shitty high school persona. Even if he wasn't immediately able to acknowledge that he aspired to be more like Abed, he wouldn't be casually dismissing him like that if they'd ever really interacted. So, this leads me to the only possible conclusion: Abed just had a stupid crush on Troy from day one and wanted an excuse to spend more time with him outside of class. Abed might pride himself on his objective observational powers, but even he isn't perfectly logical. He'd probably tell himself that it's because a jock archetype would round out the ensemble cast dynamic, but in reality Abed is not in fact immune to Pretty Boy.

[shorthaltsjester]

it is quite funny to me as someone who studies philosophy and has had to have the conversations that bh and ludinus have been having many times over and often with people who like ludinus do not have any reading comprehension and truly like. the notion of “this shouldn’t exist” is almost always one that comes up regardless of whether it’s a discussion on the metaphysics of a potential God(s) or divinity, high political powers, or vehicles of systemic oppression. and what anyone who cares about people more than their ideals (even, sometimes, ideals that started out being about people but quickly come to be about the ideals themselves) realizes very quickly in a philosophical discussion about what should and shouldn’t exist is that it does not matter if what you’ve decided ‘shouldn’t’ exist does in fact already exist. like that tends to be the difference between sociopolitical philosophy that actually has teeth and substance in the world — a willingness to engage with the world as it is, not as it should be. because you can have the perfect image of a just and wonderful future world, but if you do not at every step reckon with the unjust world from which you are aiming at that future, you’re doing nothing. ideals are helpful because they aim us toward goals and hopes, but they’re nothing without a reality that grounds them.

and so people like ludinus, who in the real world would play the role of a graduate student with critical thinking skills that make every professor he comes across question how he arrived at his level of study, they don’t have Wrong ideals, there’s obviously plenty of reasons why an exandria without gods might in fact be a better place for mortals (there are also many Many reasons why it would not). but ludinus has also chosen his ideals to weigh heavier than the mortals he claims to uphold them with. i think ashton is also interesting, because i think a lot of their positions have a fun fluctuation between being ideal focused and person focused, where sometimes they’re focused on how unfair life is in a very nihilistic position, and at other times they seem quite clear about how much ideals help no one if they’re not second to the desire to help others. and i think that made their role in the convo with ludinus in 102 especially interesting and irritating (but in a narratively fulfilling way). anyway, truly so fun watching ludinus argue with the amount of fallacies and undeserved confidence of like right wing first year students in an ethics class explaining how actually the ends justify the means and thanos had the right idea actually if it means no more starvation. get a grip old man.

[crazy-ache]

I’m never going to buy the “Elain is a spoiled rotten child” interpretation that I see floating around fandom. To me, Elain is a chronic people pleaser.

She desires to please everyone around her at the expense of herself. It is why she so desperately wants to be seen. She is deeply unhappy. Symbolically, Elain is described as a trembling fawn because she is frozen like a deer in headlights in the face of what she wants vs performing what other’s expect of her.

She does this because she is suffering from self worth issues and does not believe her needs or wants are important—and that she doesn’t possess value beyond her complacency and her superficial beauty.

In fact, I believe her book is going to be about becoming selfish. I HOPE it’s about finally becoming MORE SELFISH, which she has never afforded herself to be. I hope she’s selfish and leaves the cage of limitations that has been created for her in the Night Court. I hope she’s selfish and chooses love and a mating bond because she wants it. I hope she’s selfish enough to finally put herself first in order to become the strong and brave female character she was always destined to be.

[wishesofeternity]

My problem with The Dragon Prince is that while it preaches about "breaking the cycle" and "choosing love", it repeatedly does so in a way that echoes the age-old idea of telling victims to passively accept their lot in life and the injustices inflicted upon them while their perpetrators never have to acknowledge their wrongs or face consequences for their actions. This is the kind of narrative they follow on both a personal and systematic axis, and it's exactly why the show will always frustrate me.

[aquickstart]

ok sure i'll talk about farleigh start. i'll talk about his tragedy of never being enough as it were and then having to deal with fucking oliver. sure. disclaimer: it's about class (and race) and the horrible reality of the rich. the horrible reality of living as farleigh.

another disclaimer: i'm white! and poc definitely pick up on everything i'm talking about here as it is, and better. i was and am specifically interested in farleigh vs. oliver but it's impossible to examine without considering race. definitely let me know if anything abt this sucks!

farleigh and oliver are similar. it's annoying because every intruder that is not himself is annoying, partly because felix's attention swaying from farleigh is dangerous; there is always a threat of being discarded, even if no precedent existed. the potential is terrifying.

but you'd think he's seen this before, every summer (if venetia is telling the truth) or at least often enough to learn to recognize it fast, so he should know this will pass. part of it is i think still the deep anxiety, and i think he hated every boy that was there before, and it is sort of routine.

but definitely a huge factor in farleigh's annoyance is the fact that he's a biracial (black for cattons, that's all they see) man in a white rich household. he's alert and exhausted all the time. of course he's angry at oliver, regardless of whether he's the first to crash at saltburn for the summer or the fifty-first.

but the important thing is this.

farleigh is very jealous of and angry and pissed at oliver because farleigh sees all the similarities between them. outsider, in financial trouble, whatever it is, in need of cattons; and yet oliver is preferred. and farleigh seems to be the only one to really consider it. felix does not pick up on the hint when farleigh brings up the birthday party vs. his mother. felix's clumsy "different or... anything like that" is as much about race as it is about class, of course. the "we've done all that we can" bit is felix absolving himself of guilt because surely they had, surely the mysterious collective cattons that he's not really part of had tried all they could do. to him, farleigh is different from oliver, because farleigh has been helped. felix is rich and white and twofold uncomfortable with farleigh, even if he's nice about it, even if he genuinely enjoys his company; he doesn't look too close at farleigh because he feels too guilty to come too close. and farleigh can't do anything about it. he can't nice himself into it. the fucking tragedy of him is that he's never enough in the world of the ultra-rich white, even if (especially because!) he's born into it.

farleigh is very pissed at oliver because farleigh also sees all the differences between them. you know who can be nice poor white enough to fit in? fucking oliver. felix says "just be yourself, they'll love you" when oliver first moves in. farleigh was also probably told the same thing, and felix also probably believed that farleigh could just be himself, but even if the cattons were magically not racist at all (impossible), it wouldn't make a difference to farleigh. he would still self-censor, keep in check, be in dangerous waters (because racism is not just about the individual, but about the system). we see that he'd won himself leeway by years of trial and error by the way he speaks to the family, but it's still within the boundaries of acceptable, built by the cattons. he's part of them because they allow it, and farleigh is very, very aware.

the annoying thing is oliver can be himself. like, truly, genuinely, he can just be. and farleigh can't help but envy that.

as a side note, oliver is obviously jealous of farleigh in the beginning as well, because regardless of the reality of farleigh's situation, he was born into it, and hence, at least in oliver's mind, has his position solidified. oliver's whole thing is unquenchable thirst and hunger for whatever and everything the cattons have (including themselves!). he wishes to have been a catton from birth. to oliver, at first, there's nothing farleigh can really do to lose it. and until he figures out the cattons completely, he can't help but envy that.

but i think farleigh senses something different about oliver early on. at least on the level of the text, we have "you're almost passing [for] a real, human boy", which is so important because farleigh is the first to point out oliver's weirdness. the next to do so is venetia in the bath scene calling him a freak, but it's too late. farleigh is too early.

and i like to think he clocks oliver too early because he sees the jagged edges that he recognizes in himself. i think that one other thing that farleigh envies is oliver's freedom to let go. freedom to let go is very similar to freedom to be, but not quite the same.

to be is about perception: farleigh knows he cannot fall out of line, but would like to, and oliver does not have to worry about it at all (i mean, he does, because oliver also performs for felix, but farleigh doesn't know that).

to let go is about the self: farleigh is too scared to even want what oliver eventually does, to even consider the possibility. oliver can let himself want. oliver can let himself act. oliver just can do things and want things. i'm not sure farleigh can.

and so in this scene, when oliver's wants and actions have landed him nowhere with farleigh, felix, venetia, the cattons, of course farleigh gloats. he can let himself do that, because if the cattons are slowly discarding him, farleigh can allow himself this one small victory. he's relieved because despite the dangerous similarities, oliver is, thankfully, not really the same as farleigh, right?

but like. this movie is a love letter to all things gothic. oliver is a white man. he prevails. the brief performance that oliver put on did eventually end up more effective than farleigh's lifetime of constraint. my heart fucking breaks for him to be honest.

the issue that remains is the fact of farleigh's survival. i like to think that oliver came to respect him. oliver is smart, but farleigh is clever. he picks up on everything oliver does (to refer back to the karaoke scene, farleigh immediately retaliates in the cleverest way, in the moment), and he's the only one to do so consistently (venetia, again, for example, comes close, but too late; oliver doesn't like that, there's nothing to work with). hence, stay with me for a little longer, the paradox: farleigh survives because he was never enough for the cattons, but he is very worthy of oliver's attention. in his own freaky way, oliver wants him. look at that.

so. farleigh. farleigh might come back. he always comes back. and i think oliver wants to try harder next time.

[athina-blaine]

I think the reason your labru fics managed to keep me hooked when i normally don't like a lot of fan content about them is that it's reciprocal. Laios and Kabru both look out for each other and take care of each other, when normally a lot of content for them is focused on Kabru being there foe Laios without much focus on the reverse. I love, love, love Nourish especially, with Laios not really understanding what Kabru's talking about but trying to engage and pay attention anyway, making him a tasty meal so he'll sit down and let himself unwind, and just showing how he cares about people

Thank you so much! You can assume whenever I'm writing from Laios' POV at any given moment I'm beating back the urge to spoil Kabru rotten. I want to give him a wardrobe of full of nice clothes. I want to make him dinner. I want to find him falling asleep at his desk and carry him back to bed. If there are 0 Kabru simps, I'm dead. The threat of complete and utter derailment looms large with every fic I write and I must tread carefully 😤

It doesn't surprise me that a lot of labru stuff focuses more on how Kabru supports Laios than the other way around, since that's how it largely manifests in the series. Laios, being the main character, has a lot of plates he's spinning in the air, but Kabru is uniquely focused on Laios and how Laios relates to his own goals. I'd be curious to count up the panels that has Kabru referring to Laios, both verbally or mentally, and compare it to other characters outside the main party, because I think the results would be quite funny haha

But while there is a disparity, the scenes where Laios reciprocates this support, in my opinion, are arc-defining. Laios, with zero prompting, realizes Kabru would be hungry after his resurrection and makes him something to eat with his own party's supplies. It's Kabru's aversion to monster cuisine that factors into his emotional bid to Marcille, in that you can't make a perfect menu that looks the same for everyone. And, crucially, Laios promises to share a meal with Kabru that doesn't include monsters. For the entire series, Kabru wanted to know whether Laios could be interested in people as much as he was interested in monsters, if he could prioritize people over monsters, and this is where he gets his answer. This is what convinces him to put his trust in Laios enough to help him escape from the Canaries and to let him try and talk down Marcille. Because Laios demonstrated he was capable of taking people's i.e. Kabru's wants and needs into consideration, even if it had nothing to do with monsters.

Labru appeals to me because of everything they have to offer each other, yes, but mostly because of everything Laios has to offer Kabru. Here you have this character who is routinely seen to have a suppressed appetite, who makes himself smaller in order to be more appealing to the people around him, who makes space for and services everybody but himself, and here you have this other character walk right up to him and say, "You look hungry. Let me make you something to eat."

[finalgirl1984]

I’ve been thinking about faith and kendra. On faiths side it’s like this is the girl that came before you, she had to die for you to become who are, she gave you her strength. You don’t know whether to curse her or thank her for that. No one wants to talk about her but the girl you want to date be friends with keeps her stake, calls it a comfort item. She was just like Buffy, so perfect and a much better slayer than you. If she couldn’t make it, what chance do you have? Then for Kendra it’s, this girl is your replacement. A living breathing reminder of your failure. She’s just like the girl you want to date be friends with and they’re both so reckless and free. All you were good for in the end was to bring a weapon to the hero. You did everything you were supposed to but look where it got you. A slash across the throat and a grave in the place that killed you.

[greensaplinggrace]

the darkling says “fine, make me your villain” because he is. what’s not clicking

[heliomanteia]

"Sunshine and the grumpy one" misrepresents all the nuances of solangelo dynamics, to me.

[vulturereyy]

i deleted this ask after screenshotting bc i didnt want to even give this the time of day but this is objectively the funniest anon hate i think ive ever gotten. i am holding this person in particular alone at gunpoint to see gay old man bugs. have u ever heard of muting tags and blocking people. you come to the lurimol coiner's blog and ask me to not post lurimol. death by 1 thousand suns blast

in conclusion, thanks to @salthien:

[aroacettorney]

in defense of ludger cherish being referenced in most AUPs narratives instead of heathcliff van bretus despite the revelation of his true name since long time ago:

heathcliff van bretus: although this is his (second) birth name, he spent most of his time under this identity getting thrown around by everyone around him. from lumensis to the bretus royalty, and sometimes even grander, his choice was completely stripped from him since his birth: being reborn as the holy grail, being branded and going through many assassination attempts for being an illegitimate child, and getting picked up and raised to live a harsh wanderer life by the legendary vampire. he never had his true freedom until he finally ran away in his 20s and threw away his birth name like it was his dead name.

his cosplay identities: although these identities were chosen by him with obvious deliberation, they were him but also not him. if anything, he certainly got a tad too carried away with the projecting and roleplaying, which makes one wonder if this is how he copes with his identity crisis while trying to find his true self in the strange new world — by taking comfort in cloaking himself in familiarities from the old world. in other words, one could say this was his questioning phase.

ludger cherish: unlike his previously fake identities, this one was unexpectedly forced upon him. despite so, this turns out to be the one that gives him the most freedom of self thanks to "ludgers" suspiciously convenient, fake background. if HvB is the godly vessel that he unintendedly fills up with his own soul and shapes for his own needs, ludger cherish is the human vessel that he subconsciously fills up with his own humanity. ludger cherish is a blank canvas — as this identity is not an earthly literature character, he has no references for how he must act or what he must do. what else can tell better about a person if not the way they fuck around and find out? coincidentally, ludger cherish just happens to be the peak of HvBs fucking around and finding out. despite his desperate need to hide himself, his talents, his kindness, his philosophy, his rationale, his emotions, his desires, his personal choices and acts — his everything cannot help but gradually leak out and become the essence that makes ludger cherish who he is to this day, to the point that it wouldnt be incorrect to say ludger cherishs personality is his true personality and ludger cherishs self is his true self. ironically, his most authentic self after his first life might have been the supposedly fake ludger cherish after all.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I am no longer Ransara pilled I am Ransara injected. I was filled with Ransara. I cannot turn back from this

[hottreesinurarea]

Don't think about the fact that "dream demon" is probably a title humans assigned to Bill and not what he actually is. ESPECIALLY don't think about how much it others him from everyone else in his home dimension.

[taz-writes]

here's a hot take for today

the narrative function of sex is the same as the narrative function of fight scenes is the same as the narrative function of songs in a musical

no i will not explain