#is this the longest post on this blog

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Recently I saw this post by @god-has-adhd (I'm not reblogging it because I saw the people they tagged and realised very quickly that it's quite likely that us reblogging the post will be unwelcome, to put it mildly. I'm tagging the OP here anyway since it's a direct response to the post and it seemed only fair to engage in the conversation. I hope they don't mind.) OP urged everyone to watch the video regardless of the political leaning so in the spirit of giving everything a fair shot, we watched it. 'We' here refers to both me and Mod G. There are things we agree on with the guy speaking in the video and there are things we disagree with/think he didn't properly research. However, there is one thing that's most relevant to this blog and to me, personally so I'll be talking primarily about it. This is your long post warning, I'm afraid.

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"The Real Story of Eklavya"

The context for people who haven't watched the video is that the guy brings up two stories, one of Satyakama Jabali from the Upanishads and that of Eklavya from the Mahabharata. He brings up both these stories in the context of caste, he helpfully titles it and everything.

What I found interesting is that he frames himself talking about the story with the words "The real story of Eklavya". If you know even the basics of storytelling or filmmaking, you know that this is quite important. This implies that you, the viewer, do not know the real story and the one you know is either incomplete or false.

He begins, in a memorable instance, by asking ChatGPT for a summary to grasp the popular interpretation of the story of Eklavya and Drona. I have THOUGHTS about using a machine learning tool that is trained on data that is infamously biased and lacking when it comes to anything that isn't American, but that would be digressing from the point. ChatGPT provides him a summary that mentions that Eklavya was denied Drona's tutelage because he was of a lower caste. After this, the guy proceeds to recite the lines where Eklavya is mentioned in the Adi parva of the Sanskrit Mahabharat that we refer to as Vyasa's Mahabharat. He expresses surprise at how Eklavya is introduced as being the son of the "king" of the nishads (I think leader is a better word that should've been used but the Sanskrit text has a notorious habit of having just really questionable ways of referring to people, if you've read it you know.) Which is found HILARIOUS. Bro, what do you mean you're surprised? This is COMMON knowledge, I fear.

He mentions how being the son of the nishaad's leader/king effectively puts him on the same level as Arjun and that they're both princes. He says that this means Eklavya isn't shudra or dalit (there is a word that's curiously absent here that I'll mention in a bit.) Now, this one of those parts where the choice information he presents the viewer with is bizarre. Since I promised I'll give it a fair shot, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a fault of him not researching enough and not willful omission. Maybe he just doesn't know. The information he's given here is correct, mostly. What he DOESN'T explain is who the nishads, as a group are. I'll fill in the blanks for him.

The nishad are said to be a group of tribal people who reside in the hills. The text he reads out even has the word "tribal" in it but the guy sort of glosses over it? The nishads are sort of like an aggregate grouping of different tribal populations and not the name of a specific tribe. Kind of. But the mention is still significant. See, the Mahabharata, especially the Sanskrit text, has this Thing™ that it does where it's incredibly rare to find a mention of tribal populations who are said to be human, many of the other mentioned tribal groups are demi-humans or non-humans or just straight up rakshahsas.

Eklavya is said to be the adopted son of Hiranyadhanus, the aforementioned king/leader of the nishads. The Harivamsa Purana part of the Sanskrit text (which is a giant-ass genealogy section where it traces the family line from the start of existence to the birth of Krishna) mentions that biologically he's the son of Devashrava, Vasudev's brother, which makes him Krishna's cousin by blood. Eklavya was abandoned by Devashrava in the forest and Hiranyadhanus found him and raised him as his own.

This makes Eklavya a tribal boy, I would use the word adivasi but people might disagree so I'll just say he has a tribal heritage, not by blood but by his upbringing. The man in the video says that Eklavya isn't a shudra, or dalit or untouchable, which is technically true. There's a missing word here that's doing a lot of heavy lifting for him, though. He says that Eklavya is a Kshatriya, which is DEBATEABLE because in the epic we've seen time and time again that blood doesn't matter and it's the society that does. With this, hopefully not to y'all, new information we might understand how the guy's assertion that Arjuna and Eklavya are on equal footing is shaky at best.

He continues to explain that in the text the reasoning why Drona refuses Eklavya is because he'd already promised he'd make Arjun The Best Archer. Since, he's bound by obligation to the Kurus, he can't afford to let Eklavya outshine his kuru students. The man proceeds to assert that in the text there is no caste-based discrimination happening here. Ergo, he concludes, the story of Eklavya doesn't have a caste aspect to it. If you believe otherwise, you're uneducated and need to learn the Truth and not fall into Propoganda. (I'm trying to be charitable to the guy but his tone when he says the word "propoganda" is dripping with disdain and it's making it very hard for me to remain charitable.) He ends this section this way.

This guy says he's given you all the facts. He's cited his source and he's said the complete truth. He hasn't. In this man's viewpoint, the complete and true Mahabharat is the Sanskrit text. Which, as you know, ISN'T what the entirety of the Mahabharat is and claiming that it is is a narrow perspective to see it. (Which is FUNNY considering this guy has a whole section towards the end of the video about Nuance and it's ironic that he's unwilling to provide the same nuance about the epic to his trusting audience.) Maybe he just isn't insane enough like me to know that it isn't the entire Mahabharat. It's possible.

There is a viewpoint that declares that the Sanskrit Text is the primary source and everything else isn't "canon". There's a SPECIFIC word for it but I will not say it because it's like a boogeyman word on hindublr, at least, so I'll omit the word in this post. This man, from what I've seen, shares this viewpoint.

I disagree.

The Mahabharat, is first and foremost a collection of oral traditions of storytelling that were written down much later. This means that the entire corpus of work that is this mammoth of an epic consists of the thousands of written texts, poetry, plays, songs, folk tales, recently it also includes cinematic adaptations, bedtime stories that your elders might have told you, and lastly, popular culture for better or for worse. This is my viewpoint and I feel it provides for a much better lens to engage with the story. Otherwise, you're denying the story of the rich tradition and heritage it was forged in.

The guy in the video wonders why the story of Eklavya is more popular than Satyakama Jabali and there are a lot of reasons for it. First is that the epic is simply more popular and, in many ways, more fun than the upanishad stories. Second is that the story of Eklavya captured people's minds because it's a story that has strife and the ending is unsatisfactory. Tragedies inspire emotions and connection in a way that comedies do not. There are many more reasons but I'll stop listing them.

It's not a coincidence or happenstance that there are caste dynamics added in the popular interpretation of the story. There are even seeds of this in the Sanskrit text, if this guy is truly only looking at that alone, Eklavya being a tribal kid, the way his physical appearance is described in the text, the way he's stopped from sharing a space with the kuru princes etc. If a variety of people who have historically faced similar things especially when it comes to education and find themselves mirrored in Eklavya? That's not Propaganda, as the guy puts it. It's just how stories naturally evolve and grow. It's people reading between the lines. There's no conspiracy at play. Just people finding something to relate to when they cannot relate to any other character.

I can write essays on how caste and varna show up in the Mahabharat (and I might, if even ONE person asks me for it) but to sum it down, it's a task of examining exactly who and what KIND of people are absent from the story. The Invisible People, if you will. You can count on your fingers how many shudra, dalit and adivasi figures are in the Mahabharat.

Drona is a teacher who fails at being a teacher in this instance. (The Mahabharat in many ways is a story of people failing to do their Duty. There's a certain peacock feather wearing guy who does a whole song and dance about it. It can cover a whole book. It's quite popular. Maybe you've heard of it?) Even if you ignore the caste dynamics reading of it, you cannot deny that the man just sucked at being a teacher in that moment when he denied education to a student, whatever his reasoning may be. He brutally asks for the kid to maim himself and again, even the Sanskrit text describes this action of Drona as cruel. He creates a barrier for Eklavya to stop him from continuing to practice his archery.

It's not surprising that Drona is read as a stand in for an education system that sucks at being an education system that does its job. Again, it's not a conspiracy or propaganda. It's people trying to connect to a story through the prism of their life experiences.

It is not my place to tell people what to believe and what not to believe. It's not the guy in the video's either, despite what he says. People's interpretations are personal to them. What is my place is to remind people that it's wrong to deny people their interpretations. There are versions and interpretations of the story that I hate or dislike but I'm not standing here and telling you they're not the Truth. This is the nuance that Mahabharat requires that the guy lacks. This is also why I believe his sources and research is lacking in this department.

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Beyond Eklavya

There's a lot of other thoughts and things I want to share about the rest of the video. I'll try to summarise the highlights.

There's a part where he doesn't understand what systemic patriarchy means, exactly, even though he himself gave an EXCELLENT example of it towards the start of the video with Satyakama Jabali's mother's heritage not being considered when it comes to his gotra. It was frustrating because he SAID it. He said the perfect example himself. I almost thought he set it up as a complete circle moment but he hadn't.

I appreciate him bringing a Shaivite perspective because I'm honestly tired of so much Vaishnavism at all times. I love to see different schools of Hinduism actually being practiced and not just one dominating and subsuming the others.

Towards the start of the video, Mod G predicted that the man would go on a "Periyar sucks" rant and I was so delighted that G was so right.

The guy in the video neglects to look at any contemporary research and scholarship about the linguistics and the Aryan migration theory(which he calls the invasion theory, obviously) including the genetic studies.

There's a funny bit where whenever the guy mentions Ambedkar he has to assert that he thinks Ambedkar is anti-hindu. Even when he's praising him. It happened multiple times.

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TL;DR The man in the video fails to provide his viewers with the full picture about the story of Eklavya even when he claims he is.

- Mod S

ALSO

The structure of his arguments are poor especially in the section where he talks about why the North-South divide came about. Does he not know about the field of linguistics and how root languages are established? Telugu as a language has a 'Dravidian' (he seems to hate that word, even though Dravida is not just the anglo word for the southern parts of India) root because of certain features it has. Notice how North Indian languages use Gender. And then, notice how Southern/central or even Adivasi languages use gender. One main reason why Dravidian languages have been speculated to have another root language different to Sankskrit is the counting systems. Its not wrong to say Telugu has sanskrit INFLUENCE, but again, look at WHICH people within the language group use that type of Telugu (spoiler alert, its the 'proper' upper castes). He dismisses that entirely and makes it a whole issue about how the North South divide happened.

Its very clear to me that he has no intention of representing any of the counter arguments to his premise in an honest manner and is instead single mindedly trying to create more propaganda.

-Mod G

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[scrapoddles]

is this avoidance

[flowersforthemachines]

Some facts about Taash (and also the Lords of Fortune, the Qunari, Dragons and other related things) gathered from the banters

Featuring Shathaan's stories about the Crows!

I went through all companion banters on DanaDuchy's channel after playing the game to write down all facts about companions/the world that I haven't seen brought up anywhere in the game as a writing reference (and for funsies).

Note: This list may not be exhaustive. I might have missed some something or didn't write it down because I considered it common knowledge. If you have anything to add, please DM me or send an ask! (do specify what banter the information is coming from, though)

Note 2: Posts from this series (mostly) don't include information from banters specific to quests or between companions and faction members. I plan to do another playthrough to capture more of those and will add any relevant info to the character posts.

Other characters' posts: Bellara, Davrin, Harding, Lucanis, Emmrich, Neve. I'm also planning a post about just the Lighthouse some time later

About Taash

General: 

Taash gets grumpy if they stay inside for too long

Taash may polish their treasure hoard or clean the dishes (even somebody else's) to get out of their head

When Taash is feeling sad, they ask somebody else about how they are doing, so they can focus on somebody else instead of themselves

Taash doesn’t like talking about their feelings because it makes them sad (Lucanis can relate)

Taash doesn't read books before bed because they have a tendency to stay up past their bedtime to finish the exciting parts

Taash seems to care quite a lot about fibre and digestive health (they are so real for that). For example, they enjoy the smell of coffee but don’t drink it because it’s bad for their guts

Taash drinks alcohol 

Taash once requested Bellara/Lucanis to cook them a demon (the suggestion was disregarded) 

Taash liked Lucanis’s deep-fried peppers 

Taash liked Bellara’s stir-fry 

(If Rook is in romance with Taash) A spirit of devotion appears next to Taash after they enter a relationship

Taash doesn’t want to look for more dragonfire tablets because “they are just more orders”, and they already have enough  

Taash doesn’t kill in cold blood and needs to get angry in order to kill someone

Taash has good taste in gemstones, knowing which colours match which (based on the banters where they recommend gemstones for Emmrich’s lich helmet). They say it’s a Lord of Fortune thing, they have to know how to make gems look good 

Taash isn’t afraid of the Fade, because the spirits there mind their own business and don’t try to possess anyone (or anything) 

Taash thinks that even if the Nevarrans almost brought their dragons to extinction, they will still come back eventually

Taash is extremely excited to hear that Morrigan can (potentially) turn into a dragon and wants to ask her about it next time they meet 

Taash doesn’t mind finding no loot when hunting dragons because as long as you survived an encounter with a dragon, you have a new story to tell 

Taash doesn't think of dragons as monsters since they are a natural part of the world and have been around longer than anyone else

On fire-breathing: 

Taash started breathing fire when they were a toddler

Taash needs to eat greens after breathing fire, or they get headaches 

According to healers, fire breathing hurts Taash’s lungs

Taash accidentally set their first female partner’s hair on fire during their first sex

Taash once tried to cook with their dragon breath and accidentally melted a pot and set the kitchen on fire 

On Taash’s sense of smell:  

Taash got their heightened sense of smell after they got sick and couldn't breathe through the nose for a couple of months. After they recovered they could suddenly smell everything

Tassh can smell when someone is ovulating. They can also smell who had been in the room before them, and who is hungover 

Taash could also tell Neve got together with Rook or Lucanis from the smell even before anybody told them

To Taash, Minrathous smells rainy and ‘like rich people hurting poor people’

Early life and the relationship with Shathann: 

Taash learnt to swim before they learnt to walk

Shathann sometimes wouldn't let Taash play/go swimming until they finished their studies (like being able to tell the difference between some pottery shards)

Shathann gifted Taash axes during one of the gift-giving holidays when they were younger. They were simple kindling choppers, but Shathann helped decorate them to make them look like Qunari weapons. During a conversation with Bellara, Taash realises that may be the reason they are still using axes to this day

Axes are also good at lodging between dragon scales and allows them to climb up

Taash grew up poor, though they didn’t realise it because Shathann always made sure they had enough food, even at her expense (like pretending she didn’t want to eat because “Rivaini food is too rich for her”)

Taash spent the money they made from their first job as Lord of Fortune on buying Shathaan a dress. Shathann didn’t appreciate it, instead urging Taash to buy themselves boots or some other useful things 

Shathann hated apples because their skin would get stuck in her teeth (“Evataash, that fruit is stupid!”)

If Taash chooses to pursue Rivaini culture and wear Shathann’s horn as jewellery, they have a blacksmith do runes in the old Qunari language along the edges and get a Seer to bless it

Shathann stopped telling stories about the Crows after Taash once climbed on the roof to play as a Crow

The things Shathann taught Taash about the Crows:

Antivan Crows make themselves invisible to dragons by imitating the dragon's shadow

Antivan Crows coat the beaks of actual crows with poison so that the crows can kill people by pecking

Antivan Crows can slow down their breathing until they become invisible

Antivan Crows come through houses at night and kill children who aren’t in bed

Antivan Crows can do a special move that stops their enemy's heart

Antivan Crows can strangle a Qunari with their own dar-saam (but only if it’s tied incorrectly)

Relationships with companions: 

Bellara gives Taash advice on cooking dinner for their mother

Davrin teaches Taash to use buckets filled with water and sand for lifting

Taash has never flown a kite before and asks Harding to teach them

Harding's mother sends Taash a letter with homemade candies after Shathann’s death, calling it “a hug from afar” (Taash appreciated the gesture and liked the candy) 

(If Rook is in romance with Taash) Taash asks Lucanis about what Rook likes to eat, and Lucanis offers to teach them how to make coffee/tea/chiocolata calda 

Taash isn’t scared of Spite, and even convinces (or more like intimidates) him not to talk about how other people smell without their permission

Lucanis agrees to teach Taash how to kill targets with flair (with varying degrees of success when it comes to cool one-liners) and then plans to ask Teia to make a Crow cape just for them (Taash is very excited about it, as they love crow capes)

Taash insists Neve should get some trophy from Aelia (a ring, or an amulet with her name) to show everyone she beat her, and doesn’t understand why Neve isn’t interested in something like that 

Taash offers their blood to Neve for blood magic purposes (Neve doesn’t take up the offer)

Taash thinks Neve’s ‘dresses’ are pretty

Taash thinks nobody can go toe-to-toe in magic with Neve

Taash offers to hook Neve up with their jeweller to get her a discount (in case she wants a new leg) because “Neve deserves nice things”

Lords of Fortune:

Lords of Fortune have a drunk game where they throw a goblet made from fool’s gold into the water for others to find. Whoever finds it gets free drinks for the rest of the night. The game has only one rule: no punching in the junk

There is also another drunk game where drunk Lords jump off a giant cliff. The only rule is not to hit the water face-first

Even if those are “drunk games”, you can participate in them sober, as long as you are willing to be as stupid as the drunk people

The Lords of Fortune pick new jobs by Isabela throwing daggers at a map or racing nugs (the winner picks the job - could be its owner, or the nug itself)

The lords used to blindfold Mateo (the faction merchant) and spin him around in circles until he tripped on something like a map. They stopped doing that because a Seer told them to quit (the whole thing gave Mateo headaches) 

After Shathann is gone, Taash is in charge of appraising Qunari artifacts for the Lords until they find a better expert

The Lords of Fortune work with a Dalish clan keeper Shivanas (Taash calls them ‘Shiv’) who appraises artefacts for them (tells them what’s okay to sell and not to sell etc.) 

After losing his hand, a Lord named Bernst got a lock-pick hand prosthetic decorated with gems

About Dragons:

Different breeds of dragons can mate and produce offspring. That’s how ice- and lightning-breathing dragons came about

The muscles of dragon wings’ are vulnerable behind. Another weakness is the underbelly

Fighting Dragons is all about making them come to you, either by having them see you as a threat (so they come down to assert dominance) or prey (so they come down to eat you) 

There is a dragon called Wildervale Spitter, which can breathe fire or poison gas. The “fire breath” is actually just poison that burns when the dragon breathes. Most dragons always ignite their breath. The Spitter's special for being able to choose whether to light it up.

Dragons have an extra eyelid that they shut while breathing fire in order to protect their eyes

About Qunari etc.:

Eb-ketarra means something like “growing memories.” When you graft someone’s horn onto yours, you also add their strength to yourself

Qunari food uses a lot of oil for frying

Qunari have a much better sense of smell than humans

Qunari can bury their dead with large jars inlaid with a flame pattern. It’s called ‘issalatar’ and is empty inside, representing that the deceased’s body is also empty now that their spirit is gone

The Rivaini armada can hold its own against the Antaam fleet, but only in good weather. They can’t match the Antaam in firepower, but they can outsail them

Isabela is apparently still a captain of the Siren’s Call 

[fraternum-momentum]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT FINALLY HAPPENED YEAHHHHGGGHHHHHYHHGYGVGGG

[lotuspeacock]

what the fuck even happened episode 8????

like, plotwise i know what happened but like there’s so much new info i’m processing.

rei dresses like that not for the professionalism of the job, but because his father expects him to look high-class even when he’s murdering people

anna’s musical talents literally traumatize children.

rei’s father has a god complex about his bloodline

the “organization” is more or less run by rei’s father. this is why kyutaro said that rei should know best what happens when you betray the organization, because every childish rebellion was treason on the organization.

rei doesn’t get too close to kazuki because the consequence if he does are dire.

side note: when rei says he has something to protect, he’s not just talking about miri. there is no mistaking that kazuki is precious to rei.

when rei is asked “did you find true belonging on the outside” he denies it. this is probably because he wants to protect kazuki and miri but it could also be because rei genuinely believes that he doesn’t truly belong in their little family. i believe this changes by the end when rei sees that kazuki and miri were waiting for him just to see him smile.

this is from a few other posts i saw, but rei’s mission was a warning. a peek into the consequences of forming attachments.

a continuation of point six, we see rei standing in his family home, feeling completely estranged while he’s on the phone with kazuki and miri being told to be back by dinner.

rei never seemed to be affected by his job before. but in the car with ogino he expresses shock at the picture of his mentors murdered wife. and the picture seems to be taken in the goriest way. rei is opening his heart to his family and as a consequence, he has to face the reality that he is not just killing, but taking lives.

“for the concept” WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN???? this man makes me so uncomfortable he is so goddamn psychotic. he definitely kills for fun even though he pretends its some big philosophical thing. essentially he was saying people exist to die. also his fucking blue eyed stare 🧿👄🧿

WAIT WAIT WAIT THEYRE TOTAL FOILS OF EACH OTHER. rei and his mentor that is. they both have that single slut strand.

miri is extremely insightful. she notices when someone close to her is hiding their dissatisfaction with life - what she calls “sadness”. her mom was dissatisfied with her life as a single mother and rei is dissatisfied with living under his father’s boot.

rei didn’t tell ogino his mentor’s last words because they weren’t meant for him (but probably also cuz ogino is a creep sob). rei “didn’t hear” anything because the words were directed to someone already gone.

this is less a plot point but more a personal analysis - i was sorta hoping that kazuki would show up during the fight and save rei, and he does! he saves rei, but not during the fight because that’s not really where rei was struggling. rei needed to be saved from his own belief that he was irredeemable, and kazuki did that perfectly bu showing rei that no matter what, he’ll be there. unconditionally. i mean, the man didn’t even ask about all the blood on his suit. (another i won’t ask i wouldn’t tell moment)

kazuki cut rei’s hair and decorated the apartment. when rei said “but then you suddenly started cleaning”, he’s saying that he didn’t care about kazuki until kazuki taught him how to care. when kazuki barged into rei’s apartment and cleaned the blood stained hands of a child assassin, he also cleared a space for himself in rei’s life. (side note: of course the undercut was kazuki’s idea)

“you think we can change?” god this was such a good quote. and the way kazuki doesn’t put up a front and say “of course” because he’s trying to figure out if he can change too, so he just says “dunno” but its so sincere and hopeful. i love the dichotomy of kazuki not knowing if he can change because he’s spent the past 4 years trying not to and rei not knowing if he can change because he doesn’t know how to. at the root, it’s because they both see themselves as unforgivable.

continuation of points six and eight, rei smiles when he’s home with his family.

oh my god the angst just doesn’t stop.

[taiistired]

If Martyn meant nothing to him, he couldn’t see it in the golden glow of Scott’s joy. “I love you,” Scott said.  Martyn squeezed his hand. “Love you too.”  He resisted the urge to say, my liege, and instead, bit his tongue hard enough that he tasted blood. 

— the final lines of @apollothetransboy's it’s better to leave than to be replaced may or may not have changed my brain chemistry irrevocably

[mwagneto]

okay phew. my thoughts on watson episode 1. might put a readmore coz it'll probably get long. anyway um

so 💥 IN MY OPINION 💥 it was not good but it wasn't bad either it's the exact perfect mid i usually get with american episodic tv especially one trying to adapt something from england. not even a complaint btw i would've been shocked if it was good. i do think they needed a much stronger pilot but it was like... fine? like i had a good time with it overall and then sometimes i went HRHRGH WHAT. but anyway let's go category by category otherwise this'll be even more incoherent than it already is. so yeah cut incoming this is gonna be long as hell i was right

1) characters

watson: i elaborated on this topic in an earlier post but to sum it up, i think watson's personhood, by nature of being the pov character in the novels, revolves so strongly around holmes that it's an incredibly difficult task to define who he is without holmes, and especially to portray it. so far nothing this watson has said or done made me go "he wouldn't fucking say that" but at the same time nothing's made me go "he WOULD fucking say that" either. no actually him immediately jumping into a waterfall without any hesitation coz he saw holmes go in was extremely in character he would fucking do that. but like that just comes back to the whole issue of like, that's in character for him bc it's about holmes. but the rest? like who even is he? esp here where he can't even be defined by his position in his society or his era or his city because he's in modern day americatown instead of victorian england. so like overall i like the guy but as soon as the scene isn't about holmes he stops being watson and just becomes generic medical show leading man. i'm very curious to see if they can manage to make me feel like i really am watching dr john watson instead of just a random guy. but again outside of not really being watson i like him he seems fun

adam and stephens: i don't know why the showrunners would fuck themselves like this like why are you making your job so much harder by having 1 guy play 2 guys. edit ok apparently it's literally coz the showrunner wanted something challenging. well i hate it. also i don't think the twin thing works on any front it just makes me very uncomfortable to watch a guy trying his absolute hardest to pretend to be two separate people. it sucks. hopefully their plots will be interesting at least. calling it now there's gonna be a plot where they switch places

ingrid: i like her she's really hot imean interesting but her energy is so millenial i feel like she's gonna drop an umm that just happened! any second now. but that's not the character's or the actor's fault it's just a vibe i get

sasha: i had to look up her name on wikipedia icl but i only know the other people's names because every time a name was mentioned i rewound and paused and said OK THATS [insert name]. DONT FORGET. she just didnt get a proper namedrop ig. anyway i have 0 thoughts abt her other than her first line being about her accent which then proceeded to completely disappear in her 3rd line and then come and go as it pleased for the rest of the episode was really funny. the adoption thing is interesting tho let's see where they go with that

mary: mary-s (maries?) tend to be very strangely written bc every time they're included the writer wants to do a subversion of the generic irrelevant wife from the victorian era stories so she's usually a plot relevant badass which like. i don't think that's necessary. like you don't have to be doing all that. like i don't mind i'm usually neutral abt any given mary i just think it's annoying that they all default to that instead of doing literally anything interesting. so it's a relief that i actually like this mary coz even though she's still the usual plot relevant badass, it's not accompanied by her being watson's epic cool girlfriend she gets to be her own person. like as far as i can tell they're not gonna get back together #i ❤️ divorce. she's even bisexual!! sweep

shinwell: whyyyyy does he talk like that omg. please. also guy from the east end is a criminal duuuuude thats crazy however do they come up with these. sucks so bad. i'm gonna like him out of spite but he's such a bad character what are we doing

moriarty: what can i fucking say man. why is he here. also the acting was so bad??? like wh??? ???? why was it this bad. i guess you could blame the script but like, second takes exist yknow. you can do another one if the first take sucks. are you aware. anyway i hate it when moriarty is a big bad but we'll get into that in a later section... can't say much abt his character he was only in 1 scene. usually i'm a huge fan of colourblind casting but i don't get making him a poc if you're gonna make him the horrible evil mastermind but hey at least he's not a black woman killing orphans for money like in enola. still don't know why they did that. getting off topic anyway why did he also get hit with the yankify beam. does anyone remember england. sherlock holmes was there

2) the plot

the episode's plot: it was... fine? like it was stupid as hell but it's a medical drama so whatever. patient needs mouse bites to live. this vexes me. etc. i do think the whole today☝️ we're 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 NOT ❌ doctors ⚕️ we're 😎 detectives ���️ was kinda cringe but it's like the entire premise of the show so it's very much a megszoksz vagy megszöksz situation. how do you say that in english. my way or the highway. take it or leave it. you get what i mean

the overarching plot: i mean obviously this was one episode so i can't reflect on the entire thing but i CAN look at the setups and think about them. it's nice that a major part of this show seems to be watson coping with the absence of holmes. i think they should focus on it slightly more, like acd watson's life was essentially over and pointless post reichenbach and i don't think they fully emphasise the severity of that but we only have one episode so we'll see. i am very very annoyed that moriarty is a presence at all in this show and especially that they didn't even have enough faith either in the audience or their own material to wait a bit before revealing him. episode one bam he's there and he's immediately named. it sucks. we do not need him. hold my hand. look me in the eye. it's ok to write a holmes adaptation where moriarty doesn't keep coming back from the dead. it's ok to have a different villain. or just regular ass criminals that aren't masterminds. it's fine. it's ok. you can just have moran if you're desperate. in fact you SHOULD have moran we're literally post final problem pre empty house this is moran's main time in the spotlight. but whatever what's done is done. i just think what's done is dumb as hell

3) the technical stuff that reviewers love talking about to make themselves sound smarter

the dialogue: chief. it's not good. like it's not outstandingly bad but there were some lines that made me go 😬 and some of them are just. so bad. eugh. like i alluded to in ingrid's section, if a script feels like it could smoothly fit an mcu style quip without it feeling out of place, maybe reconsider the lines you're writing.

the lighting/colours: i actually really like this, i think it gives the show a very distinctive look. i do think it's weird how ambient all the lighting is in this hospital but it's a lot nicer than the horrible white and blue you'd normally get, plus as a serial surgery haver i would much prefer to have this to the inhumane buzzing leds. not to mention i'm eastern european so compared to our hospitals, this place is like a spaceship.

cinnamon topography: i just watched brilliant minds last week which had some of the most beautiful shots i have ever seen and easily the most beautiful shots i've ever seen in an episodic medical drama which is unfortunate for this show because it's also very competent in this field but my standards are all the way up. but yea overall the shots range from generic-good to pretty good so no complaints there. i really liked the shot of watson and mary talking with the garage pillar separating them, and the overhead shot of a board that says WE LIE in big red letters made me laugh really hard

4) miscellaneous

my cat just crawled into my lap while i was trying to spell meschallenios everyone shut up. ok she was there for an hour and then left so back to it

acd story references: i always think these are fun and very satisfying to clock, and by god there were a lot of them in just this one ep. my episode was like 240p so i couldn't really observe the background details (to be remedied once i get my paws on 1080p) but even then there was a ton of stuff to go duuude 🫵 at. the 1881 robot (year study in scarlet is set in) which was then immediately revealed to be called clyde (elementary turtle) was really funny like why are we referencemaxxing. like i mentioned in the john watson post, i hope they won't overly rely on them, but it was fun to pay a little extra attention to everything to see if there was a reference hidden anywhere

5) overall

my general faith in this is. very little. a lot of people have a lot of goodwill for this show, both because of elementary (which i haven't seen sorry) and because of morris chestnut (who i didn't know before this but i'm very much the kinda person who prefers to not even know the names of actors) but neither of those have any impact on my opinion or my trust in the show, nor do i think it should. even if elementary was my favourite show, i'd still expect watson to win me over just by itself. i'm also very worried about some comments the showrunner made, especially the one abt adler being holmes's lover (what?? 💀) none of which inspire confidence but again that's not part of the show either and if the show itself is good, i don't care what the showrunner thinks.

but is the show itself good? i mean, it's not bad and i never expected it to be good. i'm a huge fan of holmes adaptations and have seen way too many of them (pretty much every single one that's not unwatchably bad, and then some) so i'm always hyped when there's a new one. i don't hate this by any means, i'm glad it exists and it was a fun way to spend 2 hours watching something that's 40 minutes long and then an entire day writing a review of it.

like i said at the beginning of this unnecessarily long post, it's perfectly mid with some tentative swings in both positive and negative directions which is probably why i was able to write this much about it. if it was good i would've just said IT SLAPS YAYY YIPPIE and if it was bad i would've said "holy shit this is the worst thing i have ever seen" and that would've been it but instead here we are. hope you're glad you spent the past 7 hours reading this instead of war and peace. thank you for coming and hopefully my review of episode 2 will be a more managable size coz lowkey what the hell am i doing lol. goodbye

[whimsyprinx]

I feel like now is a good time to announce that I’m in the process of moving blogs! Im doing so for a few reasons, the main one being paranoia, so for that reason I won’t be saying my new urls publicly so like please dm me if you’d like my new url so you can follow me there! I’ll be reblogging this post a lot so ppl can see it (so sorry if you get annoyed by that)!

I’m also remaking my discord account as well so if we’re friends on there then feel free to message me for my new username!

friends and mutuals please do reblog so shared friends/mutuals have a higher chance seeing it!

[burningsolarsystem]

Sometimes system culture is realizing a little "quirk" you have is actually another alter.

(Not saying you can't have "quirks" or that they are all alters. But there have been a few times where something I would do I'd often be like, "Honestly, no clue why I do that. I just do." Only to realize it was another alter's influence.)

[cloudabserk]

i’ve had this blog for a decade now, since i was 11 years old! and i’ve been posting my original drawings for 4.5 years, since i was 16. when i started posting my own work i had <100 followers, and yesterday i hit 5000!

i’m so grateful i get to share my drawings with this many people and i get to add happiness to the world in that way. thank you guys for being so kind and supportive of my dumb cartoons :)))

also for fun here’s the ten blogs i’ve been following the longest (who are still active):

@mimiadraws @thexfiles @marisatomay @pentheos @darkseldarine @8pxl @adrianicsea @hyrude @skeilig @walterwhte

[violinist-rachel]

Rachel, did you love karl again

"H-huh?... Carl who...? Sagan...?" "I -hic -enjoyed watching his show growing up, but I haven't -hic- met him in person before..."

[homestuckreplay]

💙 John Egbert's Glorious Return! 💙

(page 843-847)

JOHN IS BACK!! HI JOHN I MISSED YOU <3

He is not doing so hot though. On top of making the dangerous, precarious decision to fight with an impressively bouncy weapon on a small platform above a bottomless pit, he’s clearly outmatched by these two giant ogres. The infinite loop of this animation is really well done, it genuinely feels like these two teams could stay in this stalemate for a while – until Rose gets back online and turns the tide, perhaps. And I laugh every time the grainy ‘Sassacre’ gets stamped over the otherwise very clean art style.

I’m really looking forward to Rose entering the Medium, so we can find out what’s specific to John’s game and what’s general to Sburb. For example, is it part of the game that a sprite will try to protect their assigned player? Or is it John’s nanna specifically (or the harlequin doll, I guess) who has that instinct? Do all sprites have the same powers (eye beams that destroy imps and heal players) or do the powers vary based on what’s prototyped?

I also want to know more about Jade’s predictions; it’s a fun narrative trick to have the reminder on her finger transition into another character, but has she literally seen a vision of this event in the same way that the Wayward Vagabond might watch this moment through a screen? (If so, is it possible she has these visions via her strange holographic computer?) Or does she have more of a vague understanding of things she shouldn’t, just ‘happening’ to be right as she does with the memory modus and the gadgets she’s created, a general sense of ‘John and his benevolent guide will have a challenging battle’?

I am DELIGHTED by the return of ‘Years in the future…’ followed by GameFAQs, and the fact that different characters have taken over these pages to mark a different act. In Act 2 we eventually learned that WV and Rose were in the same location; in Act 2 we already know that the Peregrine Mendicant and John are in the same place. I barely know the Peregrine Mendicant but I think they are so cool. They met a giant metal worm and got so angry when it ate one of their mailboxes (!) that they immediately reached for their sword, which incidentally is the first cool sword in Homestuck (not sorry, Dave). The cross on top of the sword looks like the cross usually found on the king in a chess set, so this must be a powerful sword from the dark kingdom, while PM is from the light. Could this be a clue to what happened in the battle of light and dark in John’s Sburb game?

Page 845 (incidentally one of my favorite pages in the comic so far) is the first time we’ve seen longform writing from John, and it’s a WHOLE new side to him. His character voice is a little different in this medium, but still recognizably John. And he is SO SO SMART, I apologize for everything I have ever said about John being bad at things and not sticking with them, because it turns out that ‘You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT’ (p.4) was just John’s low self worth and dismissal of his own skills, like here when he says ‘wow ok that pretty much looks like shit, but you get the idea’ about his cool ASCII art. Like, the John of page 843 is not in his element, he’s fighting two gigantic deadly foes when before today he’s never seen worse combat than being pied in the face, but the John of page 845 knows his shit, has reverse engineered some pretty complex mechanics from just a few punched cards, and is explaining it in terms easy to understand. And he’s making all these really clever leaps and he does brag about his ‘leet haxxor cred’ and he’s clearly excited about what he’s writing about, but I still feel like he doesn’t have much confidence, as he ends by deferring to Jade’s skills. I love how these two John pages are juxtaposed, and I cannot describe the pride I feel in seeing John really shine at something.

Goth queen Rose Lalonde has gone from cat mausoleum to vast, ominous green science lab full of uranium and/or slime, and I’m happy for pages like 840 and 847 that are primarily atmospheric, something I don’t think we’ve seen much of before. The lab’s logo reads ‘SN’, not the cool S, but one with an atom symbol in the upper curve and a spirograph in the lower – both familiar symbols, as both appear on Jade’s shirt (p.794), the atom appears on some of her inventions such as the wardrobifier (p.793), and the spirograph has appeared regularly as a symbol of Skaia. Could SN be SkaiaNet, developers of Sburb, first mentioned on page 114? If so, could Rose’s mom have something to do with the development of Sburb, potentially explaining why Mom knew to build a tunnel from the mausoleum to the lab if she’s had some visions similar to Jade’s. I think that would suck for Rose, as she’s worked hard to be independent from her mom and have her own interests, and to find out that her mom has been controlling her life in a pretty major way the entire time would probably be really hard to come to terms with.

I have been having loads of fun with this punch card calculator; more great work from Gankra, who has programmed several of the interactive pages including p.253. I would punch so many cards if I had a designix.

> John: Take another look at that rocket pack.

[venusmage]

Venus. You're giving me a crisis rn. Why does the tiger person in your last post have bedroom eyes and why is it working on me?

SEE THIS IS SO FUNNY TO ME. Most of my (active) follower base has been from the past two years so a lot of you guys aren't aware that I've been drawing sexy animal-people before I was drawing sexy people-people. I'm like a furry sleeper agent.

edit: Drac is my most well known OC so I should even add that, originally, he was my guild wars 2 commander and he was a rat back then. so,

[forthevibe-w]

as usual with me, we have to take it slow the first time that i peg her.

despite her usual docility, she guides my strap to her hole. i'm sure she'd prefer if i did it, but i need help for the first time.

so she positions herself, then slowly lowers herself onto my strap. and she moans so loud, undoing herself before me, fucking herself on my dick. i will just watch with fascination, figuring out how to replicate what she likes. if she sounds so pretty now, i wonder what she'll sound like when i do it.

after a few moments, i will stop her. i'll grab her neck, or her hair, or even her waist, and tell her to stop. i'll remove myself from her hole, and flip us around, and pin her to the bed. i'll kiss her pretty lips and wait her her to beg for more. she's so desperate at this point, i doubt it'll take long, but i won't rush. i will touch her softly and bite her hard until i hear her ask for me to fuck her. if she rushes, i'll curl my lips into a smile, and whisper "be patient," until i'm ready.

this time, i'll fuck her myself. i will position myself over her aching hole and listen. when she begs, having tasted my strap but not truly been fucked by me, i will give her more than a taste. she said she likes it rough, so rough i will be. i'll slam into her with brute, unpracticed thrusts. i don't know how to be gentle, and would i even want to be? seeing her, i always want to take. this time, seeing her pleading beneath me, i want to fuck her at my will. i watched her do it, i know how she likes it, so this time, i'm letting her lie back and i am fucking her.

i'll watch her squirm beneath me, those huge eyes rolled back, helpless and consumed with pleasure. i'll listen to her pathetic noises moaned in sync with my rhythm, watching her hands go above her head without my action. i'll watch her become overwhelmed, crying, and incoherent. and then i'll watch her cum harder than she has in a long time.

and after she finishes, i want to hold her tight. i want to take her in my arms, and kiss her forehead, and make sure it wasn't too hard. i'll take off the strap and trace patterns into her skin while she comes down. i want to keep her there until the after tremors have faded and she's able to say more than "wow."

all this say, i want to fuck her, but we'll have to take it slow the first time. at least, slow at first. i'm sure i'll get used to it, but it'll take me a moment.

[reallyrandomtj]

MUN PSA

Once again. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and patient with me especially in the last 3 days! Even if it was a like/comment here on my posts or yeeting yourself at me on Discord with words of encouragement and reassurance. I truly adore you all ~

Under READ MORE is more information.

My Hysterectomy was completely KEYHOLE surgery which has the shortest recovery time ( 4 to 6 weeks ) in comparison to what I originally feared which is an incision that closely resembles a c-section ( 6 to 8 weeks recovery ) !!

Personally, I do not know how long I will be staying in hospital. Originally it was 3 days and 2 nights but a nurse told me due to how long it took me to recover from the anesthesia + strong pain killers they may try keep me in longer for observation especially due to my heat/humidity/trauma triggered Epilepsy.

I will likely know more after a blood test + I start to walk independently. I'm still prone to falling asleep randomly without warning but my oxygen levels have been strong and I have informed the nurses during hot days I basically try to sleep through the day and stay awake at night.

I will give myself more time to rest and recover so I intend to lurk here on Tumblr. Once again, thank you again for all the words of support and encouragement!