#ingratiate

[mohntilyet]

still i think the one of the more fun differences drawn between illario and lucanis that was lost would be illario's ability to endear himself to others but serious lack of empathy, vs. lucanis' (self perceived) inability to be charming but how much he cares. it's interesting that the game has gone with the "lucanis' ability vs illario's lack thereof" because i think illario being the dellamorte 'best in show dog' vs. lucanis' attack dog would have made me so unwell.

lucanis is... awkward. he's not unlikable, because he is usually very polite, but he doesn't speak much and only seems to care about the other dellamortes. he once sent viago de riva a knife with no note (who knows what he could have meant by this). he does what caterina asks of him, and by his own admission, cannot say no to her. he is a dramatic and prolific killer, and that makes how untouchable he is even worse.

and the crows like illario, sure, AND he's a good assassin! he's even a good crow! he's so good that he can make lucanis smile, and so he is the charming, sociable one. he's the one that stays in treviso and can be relied upon to care, illario's even the one people prefer over caterina and lucanis!

but illario is decoration. he's the prize poodle, and even if poodles were bred to be working dogs, nobody will ever pick him to protect the house over the german shepherd that regularly mauls intruders. anyways the analogy is getting away from me. the point i'm trying to make is that i want illario to have a different kind of jealousy/hatred that's not just over 'being bad at killing' but also an arrogant loathing for everyone around him that is getting harder to hide, because they've forgotten he can bite and is just itching to rip someone's jugular out. illario is very good at hiding his family resemblance to caterina, while lucanis suffers under his grandmother's, and his own, reputation.

[mollysunder]

The Medarda arc of s2 struggled to be good, because the plot viciously smothered it. You can argue that Arcane was never about politics but you cannot say the Medardas were never explicitly a family defined by politics. So when the show shifted it's priorities from a drama steeped in political conflict where even though the setting was fantastical the stakes were grounded to a shift where magic is the end all be all threat to humanity, the Medardas are rendered largely irrelevant.

In s2 Mel's agency over her own story is both largely stripped from her and poorly communicated. Arcane has Mel abducted from the plot to be the Black Rose's captive. Even when Mel manages to free herself it's not through the traits the audience understands are her strengths, her cunning and social intelligence, it's through an innate instinct that natural to her and indecipherable to the audience.

Ambessa as a character is more or less a villain of convenience, which would be fine if she wasn't immediately following Silco's act. Once Mel is removed from the story Ambessa is largely disconnected from any emotional tension fuels conflict between the characters and previously drove the plot in s1. She's there to play the worse bad guy for Caitlyn and then give Viktor the man power for the Glorious Evolution.

It's frustrating to see the Medardas used the way they are in s2 because when they're together I can see how it could be good. When they're together Mel forces emotion out of Ambessa. In Act 1, Ambessa proved she could do circles around Piltover's court, which could actually put Mel in a tight spot.

Their final scene on paper sounds like a good idea where the true resolution to Mel and Ambessa's story was that Ambessa saw Mel's own ruthless behavior as she not only betrayed Ambessa to the Black Rose, but used her as BAIT to double cross LeBlanc. Ambessa died proud that her daughter killed her the way she did, and that's so cool and tragic, but the execution was a flop.

One, their final fight is completely unimportant to the actual Glorious Evolution, Mel's grief can't even be a highlight because it's interrupted by Viktor's mind trap. Two, their fight didn't rely on any of Mel's actual strengths, just magic and the poorly explained MacGuffin LeBlanc gave her. How did Mel even know it would do that?

It's like the writers had the bones for a great story for the Medardas, but then they're like the world's worst archeologists and fit those bones together in the worst way possible because they were convinced the bones made a stegasaurus instead of a T-rex or something.

[st-just]

I'll be honest tumblr is where I spend like 70% of my time online so it's gonna have to get real shitty before I actually give up on it.

But when it does, I literally have no idea what I'll do with myself.

[badbookkeeping]

feeling like a lot of ppl who hate kant are forgetting that hes being legit blackmailed by the police into doing all this. he clearly wouldnt ordinarily do smth like this (think of james' account of kants kindness), but whats worse?? helping put hitmen behind bars (despite coming to care for one of them) or going to prison himself and leaving babe all alone to fend for himself? what happens to babe if kant is gone? we already know that kant is willing to resort to theft for babe's sake. he would do anything to protect babe, and the lengths hed go thru to do so are what makes his character so compelling

[lady-phasma]

Many of the posts I have seen about this article have focused on the sexy aspects of DM. I find this answer equally interesting. The actors don't know what exactly will happen next season, but I like Assad's take that it didn't happen right away. Louis told Armand not to touch Daniel that night. How long did he wait? I don't believe Armand to be a rash creature at all. What interesting possibilities this could open up for the storytelling!

[thekirammanjinx]

The more I think about maddie being a mole from the start the more my head spins because she really was and they actually did such an amazing job with the subtlety but when you rewatch you're like all the signs were there. Like no it actually was so well crafted.

[whydotheycallyouchimney]

in the crossover episode the whole episode it's shown as tho Eddie is interested in Marjan but then with that last line about following Buck back on insta changes the whole tone of their interactions as something Eddie did to warm up to Marjan so that she would change her opinion about Buck. which is. So insane of him.

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

Current Mood:

(while watching a theory/review video for agatha all along epi.7)

[magiefish]

Something I've kind of noticed about a lot of the academic scholarship I've read about Frankenstein / Dracula / Jekyll & Hyde is that everyone just seems to completely dismiss/ignore the characters as actual characters most of the time unless they're the Main Guys. Like, they'll go really in depth about Victor or the Creature's motivations and backstory and spend ages talking about Jekyll's relationship to Hyde and stuff, but the second it comes to characters like Enfield and Elizabeth or Lanyon and Clerval or frankly the Entire Rest of the Cast of Dracula, they just immediately seem uninterested. They'll just sort of vaguely gesture in their direction and go 'Oh yeah X and X thing happens to this character and here's a one sentence summary of their personality which doesn't really matter because this entire cast is interchangeable, anyway, onto the next theme' and half the time their One Sentence is just textually incorrect (looking at the New Woman/Traditional Woman descriptions of Lucy and Mina). And the reason I find this so baffling is because with other analysis I've read (e.g. Great Gatsby stuff) people seem to actually slow down and consider the characterisation and motivations of the cast as a whole with like. Nuance. Like they sit down and treat the characters as multifaceted and complex and having actual relationships with one another, and then you get to these books specifically and no one seems to care? Like they'll go really in depth with various interpretations and historical context for the Big Guys, and then never apply the same sort of examination to anyone else, and if they do, very rarely and probably only for one other character e.g. (Utterson or Mina).

If I had to posit an explanation, I would say its a combination of the archetypal nature of the title characters and the admittedly patchy writing of these books (which arguably lends to their archetypal status). I think academics kind of assume that the primary draw of these books are The Big Guys and the expansive themes and ideas they cover and that everyone else is just a pawn there to enable the narrative around the Big Guys, and the propensity for film adaptations to scrap or rewrite characters probably compounded this impression. And while I think this is at least partly true, the thing is, these characters were not always archetypal Big Guys. They originated in stories alongside *these* other characters *specifically* and it is worth asking what it is about the rest of the cast that makes the story interesting as well. Because, let's be real, if there was approximately no interest in the fucking *narrators* of Dracula, the best friends of Henry Jekyll, or the victims of the Creature, the original readers would have been completely bored out of their minds for most of these novels and public interest in them would not have been as great as it was. All of these novels were stories before they were myths, and academics should not be letting pop culture eclipse them unless they're specifically talking about the relationship between the two.

Overall, I just feel like academics are not only shooting themselves in the foot, but also doing a disservice to these stories by not bothering to investigate the other characters because frankly. It's lazy. It's lazy to dismiss an entire cast and basically skim read any sections involving them just because it's easy to focus on The One Guy. If you people really cared about themes, you'd understand that characters are inextricable from them. Like shit dude I see more care given to characters in essays about Greek tragedies, you guys are waaaay fucking behind

[gwaedhannen]

Maedhros & Maglor Week day 5: New Horizons

(It's still Thursday somewhere, right?)

Dialogue-only snippet for today yesterday's @maedhrosmaglorweek prompt, about a post-canon reunion.

“Nelyo, you look—you look well.” “And you look like shit.” “Well excuse you, is that how a disciple of Lady Mercy should address their long-lost brother? But yes, perhaps I should have bathed since arriving.” “This disciple of Lady Mercy just so happens to be on leave, and may say whatever he wishes to his over-delayed brother. Who needs a bath.” “As if you would smell any better after a moon at sea, with an elderly halfling and your half-wild husband for company.” “Oh, husband? My congratulations. And condolences. Have you told your wife yet?” “I will burn that boat when I get there.” “...Pray, do not tell me that has become a turn of phrase in Middle-earth.” “It has not! It is my own invention, composed along with many other twists of language that would make father blush, alone, at the seaside. By myself. Alone. Brotherless. Did I mention alone?” “Kano…” “Ah! No, no, do not cry! You are on leave, no sorrow allowed! Aye, you left me, when I had chosen to follow you, to whatever end. And that hurt! Not as much as the Silmaril, but it hurt!” “I… I have envied you, after a fashion. That you were strong enough to walk away where I could not.” “I thought it cowardice, at the time, that I could not have the strength to follow, to give myself up to Judgement.” “And I thought it cowardice, that I chose death instead of life, that I fled from you who had given so much for me.” “…” “…” “Heh…” “Heeheehee…” “Ahahahahahaa! Look at us! A pair of sorry old cowards! Well! I have not survived three ages of the world by running away from all troubles; and you, dear brother, are bold yet in ways I cannot fathom, to be willing to face the crimes of our house and those whom we wronged greatly. Which I suppose I must now get around to doing. Do you think I should apologize starting from the first crime or the latest?” “I think you should start with a fucking bath.”

[foursaints]

i just saw one of your reblogs and i NEED to know more about the carrows… gracias 😋

in the vein of irene's rosier family post, i've been meaning to do a large write-up of the carrow family and the troubling ways they dote after one another in canon... the twins behave disturbingly close to husband and wife. it's fascinating.

they've been pored over endlessly by the mutual circle (and especially in saintsivy dms) but i'd love to see the carrows featured more on the dashboard.... maladjusted death eater twins! a vicious boy-heir and the girl-twin he is unfailingly subservient towards!

there is a scene in canon where amycus lays down meekly in order to be magically bound, side-by-side in silver twine, to his sister. this is compelling. it is interesting to think about this set of dark-haired twins (who never left one another) in contrast to the rosiers.

[nomouthtospeakof]

gale & karlach on the brain. karlach venting (ha) about how badly she just wants to be touched and how she wants it more than anything (except MAYBE to go back home to baldur's gate). gale nodding absently while rolling over possible alterations to mage hand in his head, thinking about how to incorporate fire-based ingredients (perhaps even ice-based ones) in order to make it resistant to fire...

[eggmacguffin]

I kinda got the vibe that S1 Bobby, Hen, and Chim each privately considered S1 Buck to be their sidekick

[heich0e]

trigun college!au where knives doesn't think you're good enough for vash, and hates how close the two of you seem to be getting as your friendship develops. so of course the obvious solution is to fuck you within an inch of your life on a semi-regular basis so that you don't get any ridiculous ideas about trying to date his little brother.

[suguwu]

aventurine who wants to see you in things he's bought you and things of his but also gets flighty when you do so because it feels like a claim and that's almost too much for him

[fideidefenswhore]

the downfall and execution of a tudor queen (2023) / the boleyns: a scandalous family (2021) / the king's pearl: henry viii and his daughter mary (2017), melita thomas / anne boleyn (tv miniseries 2021) / the mirror and the light (2024) / elizabeth (1998)