#is there actually a throughline here?

[demonbarberofbeepbeep]

not sweeney todd but i'm just realizing how much i love the musical trope of a puckish political radical narrator mockingly describing the events around the female main character's life

[july-19th-club]

forced myself to finish this book even though by the last hundred pages or so all i was doing was picking apart the post-catholicism of it all. bc i feel like it's important to read shit you don't gel with . just because. even though the whole way through i was like they HAVE to prove it's not real. they HAVE to. so not the point of any of it but i was desperate for them to Find The Body etc. and of course instead they have mystical time travel experiences and all that because that is the kind of book the actual star is but i was desperate for them to realize that the star you see is the actual star. and then it wasn't

[javaberrychip1998]

I need a trans woman who likes the show Wicked to talk to about the “elphaba as a trans woman” parallels because I think there are so many of them but also because I’m cis there is the possibility that I’m using stereotypical ideas about the transfem experience in my analysis

[pynkhues]

https://www.tumblr.com/pynkhues/769063810095087616/im-curious-about-your-thoughts-on-something-i?source=share

Okay this whole post just blew my mind

Ahaha, I hope in a good way!

[nordfjording]

the thing about Michelle Remembers isn't that there are parts of it that are debunkable. it's that it is impossible for any of it even one single thing in it to have ever happened.

and it's not even good? by the time the ritually sacrificied dead babies start racking up you're bored out of your mind. the only thing this book is and ever should've been good for is as an exercise in marking red flags in a client/practitioner setting.

[vigilskeep]

colour symbolism breakthrough

[dreamaze]

to watch or not to watch the mv of a song i don't like simply for the visual parallels

[viviantimmet]

my notes app, currently:

Me, reading my scraps of fics in my notes app: oh, that’s good, I really like that. Someone should finish that.

[artbyblastweave]

One moment from Adventure time that stuck with me big-time when I was a kid was the episode where the Lich first showed up, because in the climax Finn is pursuing him and he chases him down into what are clearly the ruins of a contemporary subway station. And that blew my little mind, because up till that point I'd been parsing it as one of those impossible gonzo mishmash anything-goes constructed worlds, and then abruptly without fanfare here's strong evidence that there's some kinda throughline between the world you recognize and the inexplicable fantasy setting on screen. Here's some strong recontextualization of what Finn the human means, in the singular like that, now that we've got a subway recognizably built by modern humans. I mean this was my statue-of-liberty-on-a-beach moment, except it wasn't even the salient twist of the episode- it was just there, a background setpiece which didn't have especial attention called to it beyond being where the bad guy of that week's episode had been chased off to. Love shit like that, clear but understated signifiers that you're actually been looking at a post-apocalypse this whole time.

[grandwitchbird]

Dragon Age has been doing a really clever thing with its protagonists and the heroic power fantasy that only fully comes together when you look at the series as a whole, so let’s do another ramble. Under a cut to save your dash.

Origins is a traditional RPG power fantasy. It likes to tell you that it’s not by gesturing at Loghain and alluding to unreliable narratives, but what it shows is the power fantasy. No matter what your warden does, they’re the hero. Are you a casual genocide enthusiast? No problem you can still ride off into the sunset looking for a cure. Also hey you have a critical weakness/flaw (the calling) that kind of dooms you or gives you cause to vaguely ride of into the sunset. Very heroic indeed. There’s a layer of textual interest added by the presence of unreliable narratives, but ultimately it’s the hero’s choices that shape and determine the world and story, right down to very gamified relationships. The origins system itself, the fact that your warden could have been anyone, is the actual textual proof that this isn’t all that’s going on. It just only really gets paid off by later games, and that’s pretty important given where this franchise ended up.

—

Enter DA2. Hawke is a champion, not a hero. Hawke fights for those who can’t fight themselves. Hawke can’t save the world. They can’t even save their family or city. It’s a battle of attrition that sees them somehow worse off no matter what. The still-gamified but now more nuanced and challenging relationships become the focus because they’re really all Hawke has. Now the power fantasy is still lurking around the edges. It’s just challenged at every turn. You can free Kirkwall, but Anders is always going to blow up a church.

—

Which brings us to Inquisition. Somehow, you’re both as much of a nobody as Hawke and you’re responsible for more than the Warden. And it’s miserable. The power fantasy is constantly undermined. No matter who your inquisitor was, by the end of the game they’ve been completely subsumed by their role: turns out power has teeth.

In a move that delivers on the unreliable narrative throughline that Origins established and DA2 strengthened, the Inquisitor must play the hero and save the world. It doesn’t matter if your Inquisitor is a kind person doing their best or a racist power-hungry asshole, and that is now a systemic issue within the world itself. The erosion of your character’s personhood is explicit within the text as characters struggle to see you as more than your role and you’re asked to shape the faith of an entire world even if you don’t share that faith. The cost of this erosion is made incredibly literal with Ameridan’s story and then in Trespasser, where the anchor, both cause and symbol of the Inquisitor’s role and power, is killing them. Relationships become somewhat less gamified but more importantly, you’re given an explicit textual mirror in Solas. He’s there to reflect your behavior but also your loss of personhood to a role. It’s essential that he’s the one to save your life at the end of Trespasser. Even if you’ve never shown him a moment’s grace, here is your mirror to see you as a person one last time.

—

And then there’s Rook. Now we play a mirror to Solas, a character who has been the hero, Mythal’s champion, and a man subsumed by his role/s. He’s really the narrative gift that keeps giving.

We walk the dreadwolf’s path this time, and the dreadwolf is a classic tragic hero. He’s stuck in a story where he must save the world and where a critical flaw will always be his downfall. We’re Varric’s second who must step up to champion his cause after the events of the introduction. And we’re barely keeping ourselves together under the burden of leadership. And here is where Veilguard finally delivers everything this franchise ever promised. Because under all that we’re truly just some guy. Just like Solas is just a guy who got stuck in situations he never wanted. His response was to become the hero or play the villain (depending on the story) because that’s easier. But if Rook can truly choose the ‘hard truth’ that the world is never going to “stay fixed” (oh hi Inquisitor… and Hawke… and Warden) and that other people can have better ideas and make hard calls and their own choices? If we don’t have to ‘win’? Rook can reconcile the inevitable tragedies of this kind of story with their very human needs and escape the story altogether. The cost, of course, is the power fantasy.

[variousqueerthings]

#LITERALLY what i thought the whole time watchin it#like we establish hes anti government distrustful of authority doesnt believe all crime is wrong is willing to operate outside the police#and not only witnesses police misconduct and injustice but him and his partner are consistently the victims of it#but then......actually hes a cop lover 🥰🥰#insane#everything abt his character means he would say acab with his whole chest#he would use his police radio to barge onto every crime scene just to yell not to say anything without a lawyer#also the way itd fit so well with like 90% of the plots to just have him work against or at least not with the police#like they usually end up doing it anyway??? @skeleton-squid-boy

yeees that's it. it's not like... listen, we watch shows that have cops in them occasionally, we enjoy a crime show, we like to see a little bit of murder being solved, w know it comes with some of this and some of that, we're adults

it's specifically this show with this protagonist, it's like the writing hits a brick wall (or the audience does, like a loony tunes hand-painted tunnel you just smack into). it's not so much a "I want this character to be xyz because that's a fave," it genuinely is a "wait i really don't think he would say that" situation

elementary is very close to being a perfect sherlock holmes show, and I will say OG sherlock holmes did work with the police at times, (but not nearly this often and with some more ambivalence towards them), but its real failure is that it's such a procedural format that it sometimes accidentally became about policing rather than detective work, which is really a sign of the times it was made in. it's chill, we know how to watch things with An Critical Lens, but it's also... that cartoon tunnel

i will say -- and this isn't news to anyone who watches elementary -- but there's such a cognitive dissonance between the episodes where sherlock and/or joan are doing things blatantly outside of the law in order to protect A Victim (for example the episode where Sherlock knows the killer is the teenage boy who was abused by his father, or when Sherlock went to see Kitty as she was considering murder and kinda went "you may not like being a murderer, have you considered acid?") and episodes that are like. super pro-cops

and yeah yeah any show related to crimes will have copaganda, it's not an indictment of anything more than what happens on a million other shows however I do think it's more whiplash in this one, because those episodes are like. "Cops. we look out for each other. Cops who narc on corrupt Cops are more the enemy than the corrupt Cops themselves. I will literally begin a harassment campaign against this civilian (Joan) for looking into whether a Cop was corrupt even though her findings cleared her. this is not A Bad Person Thing To Do. because I am A Cop. and if you try to complain about harassment I'll know you're not To Be Trusted around Cops. who put their Lives on the Line. Brothers In Arms who can never ever be questioned because of The Sacrifice. that episode where Gregson's daughter had been assaulted by her partner and she was begging him not to do anything about it, because it would tank her career." and none of this ever has real follow-through in any way, because then the show would have to be about how there are a lot of corrupt cops and even the ones who aren't are bound by an immoral system, which would defeat the point of crime-of-the-week format (although I note they could've solved this issue by just not going so hard on the weird pro-cop episodes in the first place and just left it at an ambient amount of expected copaganda)

it's an interesting insight into the tension that exists between some of what the show is sort of trying to do with Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson as the main protagonists (acting outside The System), but someone on that writing team has the most cognitive dissonance about what that means in a show that's also about policing. maybe everyone on there.

but it introduces a whole different set of ideas than intended (if you're the kind of audience that isn't super unquestioning about police) which is, "hey this is like. really messed up. cops really think like this? that's kind of culty. anyone else think this is culty? and this is pro-policing??"

I think a different show that had a similarish remit in characters, that is "protagonist is investigating crimes but is operating outside of the system, and there are also cops" could do something with this attitude by having the protagonists go "huh. that. is messed up. get a different job if you all have PTSD? also how many people have you manhandled who were innocent, just... curious. and uh... how many internal crimes have you covered up for the Good Of The Team?"

alas, this iteration -- while certainly getting us some of the way -- will not have Sherlock sincerely questioning the American prison system. but it will have Joan challenging a cop to an Honours boxing match and winning, which sort of nudged on the above ideas so, will take it and play with it in my mind

[tackykachowch]

Silco was set up to be Fishbones from the start

Disclaimer: I won't take season 2 into account At All, because it can't work with setups and payoffs even if its life depends on it.

Alrighty. As we've seen Season 1 paid a lot of attention to set up canon things from LoL into the show as naturally and logically as possible, and at least from my point of view, it handled the job with flying colors. Jayce's hammer, Vi's gauntlets, Vander/Warwick etc, nothing felt out of place. But how does Silco fit into this at all? Let's get down to business to defeat the huns

First of all, what even is Fishbones? In the canon of LoL, it's one of if not the most iconic weapon Jinx has. And it is not only a weapon to her, but a loyal and "beloved" companion, as it's described in one of her skins. She constantly talks to it, and in contrast to her chaotic and impulsive nature, Fishbones is very pragmatic and calm. Sounds like a certain someone, doesn't it? But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But how does Silco go from being Jinx's father to one of her weapons? There are a lot of points that support that actually, I was surprised myself ngl.

- Silco is the only character in the entire series who is directly and tightly connected to water and underwater creatures. Silco was "reborn" in the water when Vander tried to kill him, the first office he had was placed under the water, with a huge observational window. Silco is also fond of underwater creatures, and while other people call and see them as monsters, Silco pays no attention to it, as he thinks that there's "a monster inside all of us". And here's Fishbones, who is designed after a shark, arguably the most famous "underwater monster". But what is more interesting is that it debuted is the finale of season 1, which is titled "The monster you created". Quite a throughline there.

- Silco was the reason behind Fishbones' creation in the first place. While it does seem that it all started with Jinx, who stole the hex gemstone on the Progress Day, we also need to remember WHY she did it. She did it to impress Silco specifically, to make him to be proud of her. This want was triggered by her screwing up the smuggling mission earlier that day, and while Silco didn't scold her for it much and only advised her to rest for a bit, she saw this as him thinking that she's weak. So, after all of this Silco asks Jinx to make a weapon with the use of gemstone. Not necessarily to use it against Piltover, but to have it as a wild card if his plans go wrong. Jinx agrees and attempts to reverse engineer it, but it triggers her memories when she killed Mylo and Claggor with her bomb, so she tells Silco that she can't do it. He then goes to the river he was nearly killed in with her, and "baptises" her to help her let go of her fear of pain. This seemed to have worked, at least for a little while, because she managed to finish the weapon. So, in conclusion: Fishbones' creation was triggered by Jinx's want to impress Silco, and he helped her with its creation on every step of the way.

- this point is somewhat meta, but I'll use it anyway. In previously mentioned episode 9 Silco tells Jinx that everybody around them betrays them, and they have only each other to love and lean on. He says, quote: "Everyone betrays us, Jinx. Vander, her. It's only us". At the same time, in LoL Jinx says this line to Fishbones: "It's just you and me, Fishbones!". Well.....it's certainly a callback if I've seen one. Like- it's not even funny. They couldn't have written this line on accident.

- now onto the most interesting part for me personally. We all now that there are no accidents in animation, like. At all. Even if there are this is extremely rare, as every frame is created intentionally. Now, we do now that there are quite. A few discrepancies between writers and animators of arcane, but I don't think this applies in this particular case. Now onto the actual point. So, in the finale of season 1 Jinx kills Silco, and it's shown to us like this.

He's turned with right side ("human") of his face to the camera, while the left side ("monster") side is hidden.

As Jinx fires Fishbones at the council

It's positioned with its right side to the camera, which alignes with Silco's "monster eye". Also, Fishbone's eye has a black scar pattern around its eye, which again, resembles Silco's damadged eye. That could mean that Silco is once again "reborn", and now continues to live on in the monster Jinx created.

And here comes the most awesome part in all of this. When Silco adopts Powder, he hugs her and tells her

Do you see how the frame is positioned? Exactly. It is exactly the same framing scene with Jinx and Fishbones has. And, most importantly, when Jinx pulls the trigger, we hear the exactly same line on the background: "We will show them all". It simultaneously shows: that Jinx's attack on the council is her way of dealing with grief of killing Silco; her way of honoring Silco's fight against Piltover; and a direct transition of Silco into Fishbones. Although he's dead in body, but Jinx's memories of him and his voice now continue to live in Fishbones, her new eternal companion.

I am at awe with the fundamental work that's been done with this setup, and although s2 never followed up on this, I still can get enjoyment from the clear intent creators put here originally.

[mias-back-from-the-dead]

so this was a line in a fanfic I recently read but it has me fuckign crawling up the walls and watching D&W in a new light

it's part of a larger oh/oh moment paragraph rant wade goes on but the line is:

"I would have happily gone on assuming that this Wolverine is canonically a fuck machine who only sleeps with women ever and that I could hit on him to my dick’s content and never have to worry about the possibility of real rejection"

and that last line COMPLETELY reframed half of wade's actions for me in the movie.

Cuz on the surface level there's the hee-hoo deadpool hits on every single hero joke of it all, which is probably all the writers were thinking about when those lines and directions went onto the script. They needed the throughline of wade being seriously still hung up on vanessa for plot reasons but didn't want to give up all the ridiculous flirt jokes.

From a hollywood writer's perspective, the solution is an easy 'Okay, he flirts with dudes ONLY, no prob, there's a Logan shaped comedic 'straight man' for him to do that at for 90+minutes'

But like. There's Implications to that as a Choice, when you characterize a dude that's so rejection avoidant and purpose-seeking that an avengers' dismissal kills all motivation for putting the suit on at all.

Pointing affections at literally any direction other than people who MIGHT take him seriously. Flirt on his favourite heroes, antiheroes, maybe even a TVA employee or two instead. It isn't that he's not ACTUALLY into Colossus's giant metal ass or Logan's oiled up tits, I'm sure they rev the engines like anything else, but I'm super willing to explore the idea that he's way more comfortable in throwing himself in directions where the rejections aren't 'real' to him. If the writers never thought about that implication, I'm going with concept that Wade doesn't even realize he's doing it at all unless he's in a fanfic universe with a decent oh/oh moment.

It makes me wonder what style of bluescreen he'd go through the second Logan yes-and's in a way that might be interpreted as flirting back. It makes me think of the countless number of dudes he's hit on in the comics despite most of his longer-term relationships being with women. Don't get me wrong, I KNOW the Doylist perspective is likely that most writers go down the straight relationships, gay jokes avenue but it's SO much more interesting to play it watsonian here. it's just a really good fanfic direction to lean down, this fucker is made up of exactly 50/50 emotional anguish about rejection and shitpost dick humour and I just wanna read more works where they feed into each other instead of being tackled separately

HHHHHHh I dUNNO IF I KEEP WRITING IM JUST GONNA GO IN CIRCLES JUST GO READ THE FIC ^

[wardensantoineandevka]

frankly, I'm mostly confused what the exact GOAL is. like, I'm understanding there's a worry about preventing someone else, in this case freshly re-bodied Ludinus, from releasing Predathos, but I'm like kinda confused what the plan is here about how going in themselves is preventing that. like, I'm not actually understanding the logical throughline of the plan and the goal or how this is accomplishing it in their minds. I'm struggling to understand the steps of this plan and how it is specifically preventing the release of Predathos. I'm having a hard time connecting the stated motivation to this as an actionable step they're taking.

[dani474]

man okay like. i am not trying to be an asshole! i'm really not! but when you add tags like this onto my meme post about nhs having to do jgy's job post-canon

while my initial reaction is mostly just annoyance, i'm also just... really tired. because just based on what we know about nhs and what he does to the qinghe nie in the intervening years between nmj's death and the guanyin temple confrontation, he is... not. going to do a better job than jgy as xiandu. he's not even going to do an equally good job as jgy as xiandu. i'd argue that he's going to do a much, much, much shittier job, because he ran his own sect into the ground.

"ohhh see he was only pretending to be a bad sect leader to lull everyone into a false sense of security!!"

listen. at some stage, after you have spent a decade and a half committing to the bit of being a bad sect leader for the purpose of furthering your revenge quest, to the point where completely unaffiliated strangers on the street know that the qinghe nie are languishing under your leadership, you're not just pretending to be a bad sect leader anymore. you are a bad sect leader.

nhs is not going to be a good chief cultivator. he's not even going to be a more-or-less okay chief cultivator. he's going to be bad at it.

[voxhypno]

25 DAYS OF HYPSMAS - DAY 7

"Hivemind"

The concept of a hivemind has been bouncing around my brain recently.

The idea of slipping certain phrases into my files, little nudges here and there to help my dear listeners reach conclusions and think thoughts that, as far as they're aware, they came to on their own.

Thoughts about how good obedience feels, the best settings in which to listen to hypno files, the proper way to speak and dress.

These listeners finding each other through commenting and discussions under my posts, sharing ideas and tips to get the most out of these words that slip so deeply into their brains. Giggling as they share jokes, babbling and cooing in pleasure together as they discover that it feels so, so much better to play with themselves when they know that their fellow listeners are doing it right alongside them.

And as the discussion, and the trance, goes deeper and deeper, these listeners will, I think, discover more and more that their ideas and thoughts line up with each other. A single throughline of obedience and arousal, overlapping closer and closer.

Until it's just a chorus of mindless, happy voices repeating the same triggers and phrases to each other, always on the same page. Every mindless, blank little drone feeling nothing but submissive and horny and so ecstatic to be a part of the whole.

Every mind working seamlessly together to take everybody deeper, make everybody happy, and help keep everybody brain-drained and cumdrunk.

Just a thought, of course. I don't have any plans to actually implement this idea.

...None that you need to think about right now, anyway. You just listen, okay?