#it is a narrative cop out

[loversandantiheroes]

Like not to put too fine a point on it or anything but I'm really tired of the post apocalyptic media thing where somehow the edgy, shocking thing is people dying. It's the apocalypse, Steve, of course people are fucking dying. The shocking thing is when they live. Against all odds and reason, against whatever departed god wrote the rules of the universe, against logic and their own wishes, they are alive and now they must contend with that in a world that is as baffled at its own persistence as they are.

[bookishjules]

Hi just wanted to say that your tags on my percy post are so spot on. You're so right, rr uses him as some kind of metric and it's frankly hurting his character so much. Also yes there's really no one else he can measure up with being momma's boy so that's really the only thing about percy that stays intact. Like you said, other characters can def shine on their own without it having to tie back to percy's achievements or low moments in the series but sadly rr has this capitalist need of name dropping percy in everything he writes about. Sorry for the yap session just wanted to say you're soo right <33

yes it's so capitalistic! i really feel like percy has become little more than a product to rick. one that can be sold and polished and reconfigured and resold. like the hercules merchandise in disney's hercules, and we're reaching the point when herc looks around at the room full of cheap imitations and feels empty. or like captain america when he's first being paraded around and all his natural heroism and humility is being hidden by something flimsy and marketable. but the difference between those characters and percy is that those obstacles were built into their stories for them to overcome, whereas percy is helplessly trapped in this story where the integrity of his character is being corroded by the ever-present push to appease the market.

and i might understand this more if it were disney hyperion who were pushing for this kind of exploitation, but given that rick essentially is to dh what sjm is to bloomsbury, in that he can do pretty much anything he wants, i'm not inclined to believe that to be the case. especially especially because this name dropping is not existing without narrative consequence, which you so brilliantly pointed out in your post.

it's as if percy's a loaf of bread that keeps being brought out for other characters to tear off and claim pieces of until all that's left of him is small and stale. and yeah there is still a good chunk of himself he has claim to, but percy's always been so much more than just a mama's boy yk. and it's not fair to the other characters to make them subsist on percy's shadow, even if they are getting something out of it, because it robs them of the possibility to create their own measure as individual characters.

[pande-monty-um]

When Jacob is the architect of his own misery.

An Until Dawn style au but Jacob developed a way of making his own little brainwashed wendigo army.

[fishandshesmygills]

watched mulholland drive and didn’t get it. they’re going to kill me and take away my dyke card and delete my tumblr.

[jesncin]

went back to rewatch Ma'al's first episode on Young Justice to take notes. Part of the appeal of his character for me is the way the narrative keeps trying to insist that he's in the wrong because "his methods are too extreme therefore he's a despicable villain" when if you remove the methods (that are an obvious distraction so you don't have to think too hard about it) Ma'al is completely in the right :y like:

"But a war isn't won on defense. It's won by giving reign to our righteous anger."

sorry but that goes hard though

[grandpasauce]

im gonna be forever evil over the Gale-ification of Solas that was committed in Veilguard like Solas was so much better in Trespasser when his whole motivation was freedom and reclamation of the elven people and not just ‘Mythal made me do it and now everything I did and everything I was is all because of her’

Just…. Nearly everything about Solas and Mythal’s relationship was ruined by this game for me. And it could have been so. interesting. but then they did…. This.

And now this version of Solas and Solas + Mythal will forever been seen as canon including all its relative implications and it just makes me….. so……… soooo sad for Solas’ characterization pre-veilguard

[vaguely-concerned]

I've landed on some stuff about rye's awful ex-boyfriend: his name was Maxellan Anaxas, the youngest and most woefully superfluous child of the Duke of Cumberland. By the time of his early 20s he’d managed to make enough of a party boy menace of himself back in Cumberland that his family sent him off to Nevarra City to stay with an aunt in the hopes that she'd straighten him out. (it's hard to know whether this was intended as a punishment more for him or for her. Fambly politics!).

wanting to reinvent himself as a hashtag Intellectual upon his arrival at the capital yet blissfully free from any genuine intellectual curiosity or desire to apply himself to gaining any skill of his own, young max hit on the perfect idea: to revive and expand after a brief lull — in his aunt’s name, of course, he is but a humble servant to the family name — the grand tradition of the 'Duchess Games' of the late Duchess Ravria Anaxas (I'm a bit unclear on the timeline here, so for now I'm imagining that this would have been his grandmother or great grandmother and thus aunt’s either mother or grandmother in turn. I feel like she was a more private introverted person and resented the way the tradition had completely ruled the household while she was growing up, and she shut it all down upon ravria’s death half out of spite, even with the way it tanked her own influence. Five fucking minutes of peace and quiet with my cup of tea without some umm actually cumberland scholar infodumping at me PLEASE. Actually looking at it like that I kind of get her lol). 

That shit was free real estate for a young man with new ideas and the urge to impress, though. That's right, max created a Salon tm where he befriended a specific set of the other capital nobles, called in some of his old contacts in cumberland, and rapidly surrounded himself with intellectuals, writers and artists of all stripes to act as patron for -- sunbathing in their reflected radiance until he too appeared to have a pleasing tan of intellectual merit. (he was actually pretty damn intelligent in his own right and especially good at deft social maneuvering, obviously, but he was also chased ever on by the snarling hounds of his many and crippling inferiority complexes from being raised as the kid no one had been clamouring for, the ‘oh. Yeah, and max. Of course. If we must’ of the family, and with very little ability to maintain his attention on anything that did not ultimately center on himself or could somehow profit him for any length of time. you know the type. He was is uncomfrotable when we are not about me. He may have been a little bitter that practical consideration meant he had to do all this in his aunt’s name and initially largely with her money.)

the deal he and his aunt eventually struck was that he managed her new growing art collection until it was the envy of the whole city with all the associated prestige and social clout (he had genuinely good taste and a knack for understanding and eventually guiding the market), and in exchange for handling everything public-facing or social for her she quietly sponsored his renewed party boy antics, art commissions and fancy dinner parties for his arteeste friends far beyond what his punishingly reduced allowance from his father would have permitted. (oh no how the family politics turntables, the fuckup family members have teamed up). And once a year it all came together in a series of debates and competitions to prove who was the smartest specialest little boy (gender neutral) in all the land etc. even the mourn watch received gracious invitations to leave their grave tending for a few days and participate. the levels of backbiting, in-fighting, professional envy, intricate rivalries and love affairs with associated duels and near-constant inebriation going on within his circle of influence as some of the greatest minds of a generation mercilessly competed against each other for maxellan anaxas' attention and generosity were, of course, near radioactive at all times, and that's exactly how he liked it.

now please imagine 19 year old rye ingellvar -- gangling, naive and self-conscious, just at the beginning of his transition, having barely ever spoken to anyone outside of the mourn watch before in his life and thought a little odd even among them, talented but too restless to consistently apply it to anything and so starved for any kind of affection after renn's death eight years prior that his subconscious was ready to do fucking Anything to obtain it who needs self-respect I am so lonely I could gnaw myself to the bone without help from any beetle -- dropped straight into this piranha tank of nevarran high society :') he never stood a chance, especially when max immediately sniffed out the possibility of adding a promising young watcher to his own private collection of devotees. ("he collected art for his aunt, and peple for himself," rye tells lucanis many years later, while lucanis vibrates with 'please please PLEASE can I kill him for you, I will pay you to be allowed to kill this man' energy. 'that is very sweet but you’re late to the party, unfortunately — I heard he already went and got himself killed in a duel a couple of years ago over fucking the wrong person’s husband' 'given the proclivities of your people, may I go out there and put him down again?' 'huh. there's a thought. let me think about it. also I love you <3')

I only have the barest outlines in my mind of the professor who served as rye's mage mentor growing up/shathann equivalent in his life, but I feel like rye getting together with max (after an intensely effective charm offensive on max’ part, he was very good at making you feel like the most special person in the room and even meant it this time, probably, at least until he got bored) would be the thing that made that relationship permanently cool after already getting strained as rye grew up and continued to be 'difficult', unfocused and underachieving despite his potential. she meant well and was right to try to warn him because as you can tell the writing was pretty much on the wall from the beginning (and for all her shortcomings in a parental capacity she had loved rye since he was all but a baby and didn't want to see him hurt), but a) in all of human history literally when has well-meaning sensible advice ever gotten through to a young person in the throes of their first big love and b) she was not particularly gentle with her advice.

in hindsight it was perhaps not a promising start to order him into her office to tell him "he is not good for you. he is not good for anyone, least of all himself. Yes, I wager he can be nice from time to time if he feels like it, but he is not kind, and you are too good to be just another addition to his inane collections. WHY are you wasting your time with some noble whelp instead of focusing on your studies, these last crucial years of your training??? did I teach you to be so careless with your duties?" and that's when resentment built up over years (especially since most of the actual nurturing part of parenting had been renn's domain and she'd been kind of helpless to help rye with the grief after he died beyond the odd watcher truism and awkward ‘chin up sport’ pat on the shoulder) finally broke its dams in rye's heart and made him snap back. (despite having some parallels here, the biggest difference between rye and taash’ base temperaments is probably that rye would never dream of talking back to any of the adults in his life growing up the way taash does with their mother lol he was more of the people pleaser who nevertheless couldn’t seem to please anyone/high masker. More given to Flight and Fawn than Fight overall, but with that repressed rage building up even banished to the deep even more for it, of course.)

so after he's shot back with uncharacteristic ferocity that "so when exactly am I going to get to have anything other than duty in my life? do I have to stay down here among the dead and wait until I join them to be allowed to have anything of my own at all??" and she's answered "...that is what the order asks of us, ella -- I mean, rye. watcher ingellvar" more perplexed to hear him raise his voice with her than angry in turn but completely at a loss for what to do with any of it........ there wasn't really much left to say. and so when the predicted catastrophe unfolded over the next few years like a very slow yet inevitable train crash with the relationship rye had hoped would be the big good thing that could make it all mean something turned increasingly toxic and controlling, there wasn't really anyone there to catch him as he crumbled nor help him pick up the pieces afterwards. (which then as now also has a lot to do with him not letting anyone in to help him; he did have some watcher friends who sort of tried but were gently rebuffed until they mostly gave up.) and that's partially why rye is the way that he is today probably. the first thing/person to get through to him and his depression after all this was varric almost a decade later, and that in turn is why the realization of what actually happened to varric sealed solas' fate so irrevocably.

I think rye and mage mentor did reconcile a bit before she died when he was in his early 30s, but in a way that mutually and ruefully included the understanding of the things they couldn’t be to each other and the acceptance of that. That might be the only funeral of someone close to him where he lead the ceremony, at her request — with renn he was just Baby and numb with grief, and with harding ( :’( im so sad) and varric he’s too torn up about it still and emmrich kindly steps in when the team come together to have a little memorial post-game for everyone lost. 

(re: the inferiority complexes and charm offensives: yes, max is who rye means when he tells illario he reminds him of his ex. (‘Not in a good way.’) And illario not unsympathetically is like ‘yeah I get that a lot’ and it’s ironically one of their most simpatico moments. During that interminable dellamorte family dinner party, they truly Got each other.)   

tl;dr: rye may have had a very bad relationship in his early twenties that almost ruined his life (he very nearly didn't finish his trials to become a watcher because of it, breaking up with max for good literally like. a week before the point of no return and having to do half a year's worth of work in that one fevered hungover week lmao, that orb he keeps in his room is a miracle in several ways) and that made him even weirder at intimacy than he already was naturally, but at least it permanently vaccinated him against the particular 'prove yourself to me and I'll give you my honest respect, trust and affection (prommy, this time for sure)' game that solas likes to play with people. I think even feeling the impulse to impress solas rise within him would make rye immediately nauseous and 'lmao nah baby I've been here before I've seen this room I've walked these floors and it sucked the first time around too. Fool me once shame on me fool me twice I’m ready to bite someone’s throat out actually.'

[goodluckdetective]

So on the suspect for the UHC shooting…I really don’t think this is a frame job by the cops.

Now I wanna be perfectly clear: this is not cus I trust the police! Nor am I saying this dude is guilty as that’s not my job nor do I want it to be. I just think there’s a lot here that really makes me skeptical this is a police set up.

My main reasoning? Mostly that A. This makes the police look pretty terrible cus they caught him not cus detective work but a random tip which makes them look completely incompetent and B. The suspect comes from money which means he can likely afford a good lawyer which is not something ideal in a fall guy.

Once again, not saying anything regarding this dude’s guilt, just I really don’t think this sounds like a frame job.

[snakedog-exe]

im not looking to get into internet fights about it but I was not expecting people to call arcane copaganda sbbdjdjdbd

[soobvape]

i need brownies so fucking bad rn

[lildoodlenoodle]

Your reminder that having Peter choose not to kill the Goblin and turn him in to the police in the corrupt justice system only to then have the goblin ambiguously die seconds later so Peter faces no consequences for that choice that would obviously have consequences is such a cop out by the writers.

Because if the goblin hadn’t ‘died’ and had gone to jail he would’ve eventually gotten out. This would be a great way to touch on spider noir’s morality and creates a whole other plot point(and enforcing the fact that the justice system doesn’t work)exploring what will Peter have to do to protect people and how far he is willing to go. Cause remember after his first kill, the vulture, the goblin is the first person he chooses to not kill when he could’ve.

[flocklings]

fuck the media.

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

Okay say whatever you want Wilson, but the task force weren’t the ones to fire the gunshots to kill Muse and the truth will eventually get out.

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

JOY IS STORED IN THE HORRID LITTLE COP

[starryeyed-seer]

Do you think at the deepest level of zenith there's an apocrypha called 'suncrab happy ending' or what

[catcatb0y]

Every time Helluva Boss or Hazbin Hotel has a glimpse of genuinely GOOD WRITING, I go insane. Both of these shows feel like edging to me, like they will tease me with these bangers and then leave me to dry EVERY DAMN TIME.