#it undercuts the whole premise

[flameraven]

Was reading a period* arranged marriage story and had to give up because it was just TOO historically inaccurate.

(*Which period was unclear. I think they were aiming for Victorian but it was so vague it could've been any time from 1800-1915ish)

Like, I am all for hand waving historical accuracy for a good story, especially if you want a queer romance or just don't want to deal with period racism. Bridgerton does this and while I think there are some issues with their approach, overall it works and it's clearly very appealing to a lot of folks.

No, the thing that really got me about this story was that the character was said to be quite wealthy, but lived in a relatively small house with no servants. There was mention of a cook who came in one or two days a week. That is where my suspension of disbelief just gave up.

Because like, even if you're going to ignore the social aspect of this wealthy person not having servants and the gossip that would create, even a small household, without the benefit of modern appliances, involves an enormous amount of labor to keep up. You need servants. Not just A Cook, but a cook and several kitchen maids to assist her to do the hard labor and menial tasks, because you can't just pop into the kitchen and cook something up quickly. There's no just turning the stove or the oven on, you have to build a fire and manage to to get the right temperature and keep it even. Household heating, too. You need people to clean and also to manage fires or your house is going to be freezing. Someone needs to change out the linens and also help you dress! A lady's maid or valet weren't just for prestige, the styles of the time meant you genuinely needed help getting in and out of clothing.

Also the characters' ideas about consent and levels of sex education were all jarringly modern. Again, I don't mind some of this but on top of all the other stuff it was too much.

Overall the story felt like it was a modern setting where people were wearing period fashions. And if you're not going to engage with any of the details of the period... why are you even writing period fiction?

[comicaurora]

In the latest trope talk you used Odo as part of your examples. I think You've talked about Star Trek: The Next Generation before but not Deep Space Nine and I just had some questions about what you thought about the show.

What did you most/least enjoy about the series?

What did you think of DS9's syndicated episodes compared to contemporary trek's (TNG, VOY) episodic nature?

How do you feel about the Dominion storyline as a whole? Did you feel like it went against Star Trek's utopian future?

Which characters stood out to you the most/had the most engaging development?

What do you think gagh tastes like?

Any other thoughts about the series?

Oh man, DS9.

I have this very consistent pattern of thinking that the star trek I have most recently watched is the best star trek. When I watched TNG it was the best because of its standout episodes that let Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner show off. Then when I watched Voyager it was the best because Janeway was incredible and 7 of 9's arc was a beautiful iteration on the "inhuman character explores humanity" star trek trope. Then when I got to DS9 I was like "Oh, so this is what actually good Star Trek looks like." I do think I'm actually right this time, though.

I think they really took advantage of how different the core premise of the show was from previous Star Treks. Because the setting was very consistent, the episodic variations on the formula weren't dedicated to seeking out Weird New Shit, but to focusing on the characters and their dynamics with one another. Correspondingly I think the best thing in the show is the character writing and how everyone's arcs are built up. This was something I think they were building towards with the previous series; TNG would occasionally have character-focused episodes, but for the most part everybody on the ship operated like a well-oiled machine, inputting the Weird Thing Of The Week and outputting a solution. Voyager destabilized the formula by yeeting the heroes halfway across the galaxy and well outside the safe confines of federation space, so you got a lot more opportunities for drama caused by limited supplies or existential despair, and a lot more character-driven conundrums without clean or flawless solutions. DS9 is kind of the apotheosis of this shift away from "seek out new life and new civilizations, boldly go etc etc" because instead of our heroes briefly interacting with Bajor and then fucking off into the end credits, they're sitting right on top of a planet undergoing tumultuous social restructuring after the end of a long and horrible military occupation, and they're there for 7 seasons. Because they aren't following an adventure-of-the-week formula, absolutely everything they do has consequences they have to deal with later down the line, and that lends itself very well to longform character arcs.

I liked the Dominion storyline well enough, and I think the existence of an evil space empire to fight doesn't preclude the Federation being a utopia. Utopias are internally perfect systems, not worlds that have absolutely no conflict. I think the part of DS9 that does undercut the utopia is the whole thing with Section 31, but I think that's part of a very intentional move on the writers' part to highlight that Section 31 is not as necessary as they think they are, and that doing all this stuff unethically is a moral concession and a shortcut that demeans the principles of the Federation. That's part of why I like that they serve as a nemesis to Doctor Bashir, who has very personal reasons to despise the idea of taking the easy way out.

Character-wise, I have very predictable favs. Jadzia Dax is fascinating to me, and I love the way they play with her past lives and centuries of experience to create this very layered character packed with plothooks. Also I have very simple tastes, and "woman fills narrative Man Role trope and nobody is weird about it" is an itch I so rarely get scratched despite how not complicated it is. Jadzia gets to be a swashbuckling romantic hero with a tragic starcrossed lover; she gets to be a wise yet cheerful mentor to Captain Sisko; she gets to be a noble warrior honoring debts from a lifetime ago. And I adore how her dynamic with Sisko plays out over the seasons - another completely uncomplicated trope I so rarely get to enjoy, male and female leads who are profoundly ride-or-die for one another and have absolutely no interest in making out. I am still so mad about how Jadzia gets iced, but that doesn't mean I don't like Ezri, and there is something very beautiful about how when she gets Dax'd and her existence becomes an absolute mess of confusion and conflicting memories and she doesn't even know who she is anymore, her single point of stability is Sisko.

That said, Garak is probably my overall fav. The man is an absolute drama hound and since he's not technically main cast it's a rare treat to get him focused on. He is so much fun on a rewatch when you can see exactly when and how he's lying and when he's telling the truth in a way that everyone thinks is lying, and what I think is most interesting about him is how absolutely everybody else on the station has him figured out. There's this "I know he knows I know they know" loop underlying almost every interaction. Everyone knows he's a spy, he knows everyone knows, and they're all just vibing anyway. It's like his entire character is built on telling the truth in a way that sounds like a lie, to the point where it always manages to surprise people when he does something absolutely ruthless. He's been saying he's a bad guy the whole time! People seem to keep forgetting!

Also, fun fact, the very first chunk of DS9 I caught was the back half of the episode "The Wire", and when I was mentioning this to my dad, I was like "yeah I don't remember their names but these two guys seemed extremely married-" and he immediately went "oh, Garak and the doctor?" so that's very telling I think

[cardentist]

I just wrote up a more, emotional? reactive? take on this whole thing here [Link], but I wanted to try to say this in a way that's easier to parse.

people insist that trans mascs don't have any unique experiences (as Opposed to trans fems).

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face misogyny.

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face physical violence.

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face medical violence.

or if they Do, it's lesser than/misdirected from trans fems, to the point that it's presented as Wrong (if not active bigotry) to focus on/acknowledge them in conversations about these topics.

(even when, as we've established, people have actively invoked trans mascs to deny them these experiences).

in other words, trans mascs have been facing Active Erasure from within (and sometimes from Outside Of) the community, specifically intended to deny them their experiences and then Also frame any attempt from them to counter those claims as aggressive rather than defensive.

and this all hinges on an Extremely binary and gender-essentialist premise. both in denying trans-mascs their experiences based on their gender (asserting that there are innate properties to Being A Man that trans mascs invoke by being trans masc), AND by presenting trans fems and trans mascs as Opposites.

there is a seesaw, and if trans fems experience one thing then it must be presumed that trans mascs Don't, and so if trans masc try to insist that they experience these things Too then it Must Be that they're trying to take that experience away from trans fems.

and what's important to understand is that this framing is wrong. not just because of the harm that it causes to trans mascs, but because of the harm it causes To Everyone.

and I mean that on two fronts:

1: this is not a case of trans fems vs trans mascs, the seesaw Is Not Real. it's not trans women putting trans mascs down, it's Gender-Essentialists enforcing a gender binary within the trans and genderqueer communities. this rhetoric comes from all sorts of people, cis people, trans neutral people, trans masc people, and (yes) sometimes trans fem people.

and just the same, it's people who are Against gender-essentialism who speak up about the harm that this causes, and often those people are trans fem! and that Both means that nobody is served by directing negativity at trans fems AND that it is not appropriate to assume that trans mascs defending themselves and speaking on their experiences is causing harm to trans fems inherently.

2: this entire framing leaves trans neutral, genderqueer, and intersex people out in the cold. being an Inherently gender-essentialist and binary argument, these people who do not fit neatly into the binary are Heavily negatively impacted by it while Also being erased.

I have read someone (another trans masc, even), completely unironically, write the words "trans men have privilege over trans women because cis women have privilege over trans women." completely boiling trans mascs down to their agab and stripping them of their transness.

people are using tme (transmisogyny exempt) to refer to afab trans people (separating them Out from cis women), to deny these trans people experiences that they have had.

and this Does Not only affect binary trans men. there are afab intersex people who very actively experience transmisogyny, there are nonbinary people who are being boiled down to their agab, forcibly rebinarized and stripped of their transness, there are gnc people (cis and trans) who are treated as if they don't exist and actively attacked and erased if they try to speak up.

but the conversations is Framed like it's men vs women, the argument is presented as inherently binary.

and that makes it Incredibly difficult and frustrating to dismantle. just Look at this post, I had to very specifically go on an entire preamble about men and women just to begin unpacking the situation (and to undercut the ways that people try to actively silence people when they speak about it).

and even while actively Trying to be inclusive, trans neutral and genderqueer and intersex and gnc people read as a Footnote in the entire first half of this post that I wrote Specifically To Acknowledge Them. the very conversation itself Erases them, which is a Major Problem that's Incredibly frustrating and difficult to unpack.

to Say "trans people who I interpret as men/masculine are lesser than, and are harming trans people who I interpret as women/feminine" you Have to decide what Man and Woman and Masculine and Feminine mean. there is no trans inclusive way to do this, there is no way to do this without throwing people who challenge gender/sex binaries and gender norms under the bus.

(this even Actively Harms trans fems, whether those trans fems are gnc, genderqueer, intersex, pre transition, aren't able to/don't want to transition, or are just perceived as Too Masculine by these people vilifying queer masculinity. gender essentialism Is Inherently transphobic and harms All trans people.)

and in this case, it's Incredibly frustrating to talk about, because many people can't get past the idea that deciding that a gender is Innately Bad (just, the very definition of gender-essentialism) is Wrong.

trying to voice the harm that this causes to people Outside of the binary is bogged down by the first step. you can't unpack it without unpacking the essentialism being pointed at trans mascs, because people are Going to keep acting like this as long as they're convinced that they not only can but Should treat trans mascs this way.

and it needs to be said, that for as frustrating as it is to be put in this position we Have to acknowledge that the problem is with the situation, not with trans mascs trying to defend themselves.

I Do absolutely think that Everyone needs to make an active effort to think about and include All trans and genderqueer people in these conversations, to point out how incredibly exorsexist the conversation is Without just being a footnote or an aside or a gotcha. genderqueer people can't just be a tool we use to advocate for binary trans people.

but At The Same Time, the timeline of events cannot be

trans mascs are denied having unique lived experiences.

trans mascs are presented as not only lesser than, but actively privileged on the basis of their gender.

trans mascs assert their lived experiences and address the gendered violence they're experiencing.

trans mascs are criticized for framing their defense around the gendered violence that they're experiencing.

to say that The Reason trans mascs are in the wrong for discussing transandrophobia (or Whichever term you prefer) because there are no experiences unique to any gender or identity, while Not holding that same standard to transmisogyny or exorsexism, is very obviously singling trans mascs out and making it more difficult for them to combat their own erasure.

what's necessary here is Solidarity. Everyone needs to be put on the same playing field, to have All of their experiences matter. trans people need to be Equal.

and this means trans mascs and binary trans men making an active effort to include intersex, genderqueer, trans neutral, and gnc people in these conversations that affect them, and as More than just an afterthought.

and it Also means people recognizing that the conversation is inherently gender-essentialist, and that trans mascs have to be able to effectively advocate for themselves in the face of their own erasure and demonization. to blame them for the gendered violence they're experiencing isn't any more fair than the erasure genderqueer people are experiencing.

[zamjd]

ClockWork Mekas Reference sheet

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH OMG THIS TOOK AN UNHOLY AMOUNT OF TIME TO FINISH

I want to clarify They have the same body!

I redesigned it a little .w.

Also now that I have posted this I will open my asks about these guys (hooray noises)

heres some notes undercut

The main Inspiration for the design

It's one of the old design for the Suppression Specialist Meka

As for the whole "how do they transform" stuff, it's similar to how Furina does it except the colors switching to moon will have the Ousia arkhe alignment splash while switching to Sun will have Pneuma arkhe alignment splash (They still follow the whole lights off is moon and lights on is sun)

Edit 8:04 GTM+8:

Also height reference if Furina was 156.2 cm (aka fem traveler height i think)

Edit 9:12 GMT+8:

I should probably explain their current status so yall could get the general idea. They are entertainer bots in the opera epiclese and does theater performance as well as being Jesters, their rep varies from person. Some people find him entertaining and unique and would often praise them while some just finds him straight up annoying and wonder why they have a personality like that. But everyone agrees that they are the most diligent when it comes to keeping the opera clean and neat, it's technically their home and can't leave premises without the survey of someone trusted by Furina or the Cheif Justice.

I think that will be some of the details I'll send out now I need to do my other ref ajkdjakksks

[thatscarletflycatcher]

It's really interesting to compare The Nanny and Frasier as shows, because they started airing roughly at the same time (The Nanny starting just a year later), but today I was thinking specially about the dance episodes of Frasier 3x13/The Nanny 2x15, because both spin around the trope of the Dance Of Romance (have no idea if this is the name, but you get what I mean), and follow roughly the same line: Niles/Fran has a dance to attend, there's a motive of spite/self esteem involved in having a partner for that dance, and when their dates snub them, their love interest comes to the rescue.

But then how that is treated thematically is so very different! Maxwell has to be coaxed by British Niles into offering himself, but when Eric Estrada shows up, he does feel jealous*, indicating he does have an interest in Fran, even if he might not acknowledge it to himself. Daphne volunteers freely to teach Niles to dance, but the whole thing hangs on her being oblivious to his interest in her, and on her being thoroughly disinterested in him: she doesn't feel the slightest personal conflict over kissing Niles in front of everyone despite her being in a relationship with Joe. That's how extremely uninterested in Niles she is at this point.**

For the record, I don't think the writers of Frasier are failing at writing romance here, because I'm unsure they wanted to write it at all. There IS a lot of sense in the idea of Niles being so lost inside his own head and his attraction for Daphne, that he would believe that she would just adore him, while in reality they barely know each other. In The Nanny, the rescue is thoroughly and unequivocally romantic, and it does hinge specifically on Maxwell knowing Fran and knowing how and why this event is important to her. It responds to personal knowledge and interest in her as a person, her wishes and fears. Even at his most oblivious -when Fran is anxious about spending her life caring for his kids and retiring to loneliness and poverty in old age- he tries to offer a considerate and kind solution (like, yeah, the rich 90s and all that, but he's buying her a condo! Who of us wouldn't want a "free" condo!). Meanwhile at this point Niles' gestures of "generosity" towards Daphne have been... hmmm, that time he kept paying her fake dividends so he would get kisses from her (which Fraser calls out as Disney grade prostitution), and that time his nosebleed-of-truth forced him to undo his jealous defamation of Joe. I cannot remember any other, but my memory is not what it used to be.

The Nanny undercuts the romantic scene by having Fran's dress malfunction, and both her and Maxwell having to leave the premises in an awkward manner because of it. It cuts, but it doesn't take away from the gesture or the romance of what happened. In Frasier, the episode ends with Niles taking the card of the woman who offered to go out with him. If he cannot have Daphne then he can have someone else and it will be fine.

IDK. Maybe it'll get better later on! But I'm just pondering along as I watch, and trying to make a bit of an autopsy of the writers' process as they made the seasons. So far it does seem to me they were from the beginning very reluctant/uninterested in treating romance in general, not just with Niles' character, but with everyone.

*I don't remember Maxwell ever attempting to sabotage Fran's relationships, even if he seems chagrined by them; he does seem to understand that if he doesn't make a move himself, then he has no right to interfere or complain. Yeah, Niles' sabotage of Daphne dating Joe really bugged me XD

**Speaking of, I know this was the 90s, and I know I live in an echo chamber, but boy is this series extremely casual about cheating. Mind you, there are other things where I strongly feel the intent of the treatment is irony, but that doesn't seem the case with cheating in particular. Again, maybe I'm just so super out of touch and so much on Tumblr, but I think general attitudes towards cheating have become more censorious in our own time. People seem to tolerate it less nowadays. If that is the case, it'd be really interesting to know what caused it.

[okkos-ferrum]

Unorganized helluva boss apology tour rant cuz I think I'm going crazy

Disclaimer, cuz I know helluva fans can get defensive: A lot of this is probably my subjective opinion. I'll state my tldr as my actual objective piece of criticism, but otherwise my gripes throughout this could be based on my tastes and expectations. I genuinely don't want to take away anyone's enjoyment of this show nor hate on anyone involved, so if u just want to enjoy helluva, totally skip this :]

I think I'll actually have to give my hot take here and criticize this episode, because everyone has given way too much praise for an episode I think - in the long run - hurts the show

Im not gonna even bother organizing my thoughts I'm just gonna rant, but to start, i think the decision to start the ep right after full moon chronologically wasn't the best move. The full moon episode cliffhanger was an impactful scene and a dramatic way to start the rift between stolas and blitzo. It's where the dam of two-ish seasons finally breaks, where to me, stolas and blitzo have already said everything needed to be said, at least at the emotional maturity they currently are at. Any changes in said conversation about their relationship would require growth from both separately in order to foster a healthy discussion.

So to undercut that tension by IMMIEDTLY having blitzo somehow wiggle his way back into stolas's private property to have both double down on their stance diminishes the weight new moon's finale had. The conversation, while it does add further clarity, feels repetitive and emotionally taxing to watch, because the show has literally zero scenes of either of them reflecting on the previous night. So it's just them starting up the same fight with the same talking points we already know.

Yeah, maybe it is in character for blitzo to demand a conversation after new moon, but it shouldn't have been the path the show took. It should've allowed the story to stew in the feelings brought out in new moon, both in a narrative and meta sense by taking a break from stolatiz.

Cuz honestly I'm a bit drained of it atm. The show sells itself on the premise of blitzo being a "boss" (a hell of a bos-) and him working with imp. But all of s2 has had this obsession with stolatiz ever since the popularity of ozzie's (for good reason that episode was amazing and one of my personal favs still).

Just abt half the eps in s2 carry an emotional weight around the stolitz relationship. (where s1 has stolitz is make out sessions and the occasional threat to their life, s2 takes it up to actual life or death situations and full backstories) . This increased tension and focus draws away from the intial episodic format to become a more serialized (and imo) melodrama abt the status of the stolitz relationship. Rather than concern itself over any of the imp characters and their emotions, helluva has made all of its emotional beats and stakes throughtout the whole season relate to stoltiz in some way (or it's parallel with fizz and Ozzie in ep 7).

To return back to the ep, I also take issue with its writing of verosika. I will admit that this could be subjective, as my partner, who loves verosika and was worried abt her writing going into the ep, enjoyed how the ep integrated her. But idk, I think it is so lame that an ep like full moon, which is marketed to be abt stolitz, is fine wasting its time writing the cherubs for 90% of the episode, while can't bother making verosika a larger character in her own ep.

Like she's a SINGER, but no she's back up for STOLAS'S SONG this ep. And it's not stolas's hasn't had the chance to sing love ballads before, he's got plenty. But no, the host of the party can't even be a duet to stolas, she's gotta be back up. Like it couldve been a way stronger connection between these two if they sang a duet, rather than the show AGAIN prioritizing verbalizing stolas's emotions again.

We get a full flashback to blitzo's relationship with both fizz and stolas, but nothing on his other significant relationship??? Just a line or two of how it went down and that's it??

Side tangent: It gets on my nerves how so many people are realizing now that verosika is not a bad person. Like it's clear from even in her intro ep in s1 ep 3 she's angry rightfully for how blitzo screwed her over. But now that she actually is being nice and forgiving to stolas and blitzo respectively, now she has earned the fandom's respect??? Like the amt of comments of "Oh wow, verosika isn't a villain, she's an anatognist" drives me insane

Like to me, this ep should've stepped away from stolas directly, and focus on blitzo and verosika. Have blitzo go back to ignoring his feelings by jumping back head first into business, now with the asmodeous crystal. Then bump into verosika somehow. However it may happen, verosika and blitzo, either angrily or calmly, reflect on their own past relationship at the end, which might have blitzo making a realization of how he is repeating his past mistakes. Use the episodic format to slowly allow blitzo to mature so the next time he meets stolas, he won't just double down like he did in the beginning of the ep.

I think, personally, the decision to have verosika host the anti blitzo party diminishes her as a character. It chooses to again define her by how blitzo hurt her, rather than touching on the other underdeveloped parts of her character. She has shown to be very petty yes, but to go through all this effort seems too much, since she is a pop star and should have better things to do.

Maybe explore how she, a succubus, who is meant to have primarily sexual relationships, goes abt on her day to day as a celebrity who went to rehab. Or her relationship with maybe knowing barbie. Or the other ways to explore the set ups for her in ep 3. But no, she plays second fiddle to her second focus ep for the stoltiz drama. But yeah sure, let's have full moon be abt the cherubs.

On a final and likely my most pettiest point, this ep made me cringe a lot. I'm sorry, this is very subjective of me, but I need to say it. So much of this ep felt like fanfic. Always hammering in how "he's a prince and you're an imp" kind of deal. Stolas getting overly drunk after taking a swig of one drink to have blitzo handle him being drunk. The million puppy dog eyes by blitzo, like it felt too pitying. The rushed pacing felt like a result of this indulgent kind of writing, where it priotizes creating the cute shipping scenes before thinking about the actual plot and its effect later on. Again, just my taste tho

Alright I think I ranted enough but ...

Tl;dr: Apology tour messes up the pacing and focus of the show by continously centering itself around the stolitz drama rather than allowing time to reflect by themselves

[hockeyisforthegays]

did you read 264 and 265 chapter's of jjk? if so what are you thoughts? you don't have to answer i'm just curious about what you think because i feel like you have really unique observations

(love you writing, thank you in advance if you end up answering)

oh shit anon let me write you an essay. and by essay i mean a disjointed series of long ass bulletpoints. also im gonna be focusing mostly on 265 because as my friends put it i am "ceo of itadori yuuji" or the proprietor of the "itadori cinematic universe" so you could say. that i am biased

okay. one. as an overall thing. i wish that for pretty much everything . that they would just lean into it more. theres a lot of concepts im into but everything lately seems to be presented without exploration or followup. like im about to analyze this to shit but i feel like im gluing meat to a skeleton. help me out here gege

FOR EXAMPLE yuuji's ultimatum to sukuna. i wish. i wish there was more here. like in theory this is really cool to me. yuuji says You Choose Whether I Eat You Or Kill You. Will You Live With Me? Or Will You Die Alone?

I lay my Body down as a Sacrifice

but more so as a Prison

but most of all as a Mercy

the first to my Friend, the second to my Curse, and the third to the Person i hope is buried deep down inside that evil.

aaaaand then this is kinda undercut by sukuna's reaction to me. not that i need him to go full on mahito quaking rabbit ass on us tbc. but the stubborn non-engagement with the premise just makes me roll my eyes and groan. i wish gege had found a way to let this reveal SOME new or unexplored aspect of sukuna's character? one chink in the armour. one stray thought that we wouldn't expect to hear from him. something. something to latch onto.

this may be unreasonable also given that gege is writing in literally a different language but i hope we find our way somehow to the double meaning of the phrase "flesh and blood" btw. like. sukuna is yuuji's uncle and they shared a body. yuuji is trying to make sukuna come back to that body. theres something there i swear it.

sukuna, come home. we're family. you're my flesh and blood.

(while beating his ass)

like make it scary. god PLEASE put some metamorphosis stank on it. gimme that I Am You flavourrrrr

okay now also. yuuji's domain. i want to talk about yuuji's domain so bad. one thing i noticed was that he doesn't name it. at first i was pretty disappointed because im a weirdo and i love their weird word salad names, i love that e.g. fushiguro and mahito just bust out full poems on i guess instinct when they use their domains for the first time!! so the fact that yuuji didn't get one felt at first like he was being... slighted by the convention almost? but.

this is again a thing i think could have been cool if leaned into, in a few ways. ive just been having these ideas about how yuuji's domain is different from other domains, one of those ways being in its lack of a name.

first of all from a character perspective - yuuji's whole persona in battle is like warpath, tunnel vision, beat your ass shit, so it does kinda make sense that his domain would be just as no muss no fuss just get it the fuck done, in a way. once again. lean into this!!

but also, i started thinking about what we saw with characters like gojo and sukuna, and the idea of jujutsu as the art of elision. when those characters wanted to juice their big moves, they reverted rituals that included vocal incantations. that exact word salad shit. i started thinking - those word salad domain names are like, that, you know? maybe this is explicit and i just missed it somewhere. or i forgor. but perhaps invoking a domain's name makes it more powerful, or easier to establish, or something

(i so much dont want to reread to figure this out. RIP)

if this is the case, yuuji not using a domain name would say a darn something about his power huh???

LEAN INTO THIS. LIKE SUKUNA COMMENT ON IT FOR FUCK SAKE i know you are allergic to acknolwedging your nephew but its for the AUDIENCE'S SAKE NOT YOURS

gege i am fucking inventing lore for you to make it cooler. why wont you. come back here

but anyway. what IS yuuji's domain and what does it do. he learned from kusakabe, so it's at least somewhat akin to a simple domain, but we also know yuuji's body holds the memory of malevolent shrine - does that have any influence on how the domain turned out? it seems pretty... big, for lack of a better way of describing a mental projection. no other simple domain really HAD projections. are there no techniques imbued in it? what about vows, like sukuna with his whatever barrier bullshit? yuuji's forces sukuna back into the yuukuna body. why? how? we've seen how domains can make its targets abide by rules, what rule is this? sukuna also acts nonviolently for as long as yuuji strings him through illusory sendai, and i dont know if this is a choice by sukuna (which idk whether i do or do not understand as a character choice at this point) or if it's enforced by the domain somehow.

(I feel like, these things either need to be More or even Less clear. like i understand just enough to have burning questions. if this were more obtuse and symbolic, i would probably be content to ride the vibes, actually. BUT IM NOT. ANSWER ME GEGE. YOU'VE TOLD ME SO MUCH LORE I DONT CARE ABOUT!!! WHAT OF MY SON!)

anyway closing thoughts wrt 266 you may be able to tell from my Fucking Fanfiction but i have literally been waiting for yuuji's own fingers to become cursed objects for EVER. i was imagining scenarios while watching season 1. im crazy stupid about it. i hope i hope i hope this finger shakes out into something WORTHWHILE. and sorry again this is entirely yuuji centred my only thoughts about the characters who were in 264 is the frustration of the way they got sidelined so carelessly RIP

[princess-of-the-corner]

Sorry, some more, "Not mean just rude" thoughts, but like, I honestly can' tell if Adrien in this context would be bothered by any of Chloe's behavior before getting like, enough experience with none mean people to start making connections.

Making Mylene cry?

Well everyone was getting frustrated, Nino was borderline yelling already & its not like it was an unfair question. It was inelegant and crudely put "Hey!", so it didn't help the situation but it wasn't mean, just confused.

Destroying Rose's gift?

Audrey does that to her own daughter &let's be real here, Gabriel 100% does not let most fan gifts anywhere near Adrien. It was blunt, Nathalie would have just taken it & tossed it out when no one was looking, but it was not cruel right?

Stealing Marinette's design?

While Gabriel's ego is too big to take ideas form others, he 100% uses his connections to stay ahead of the curve, as well as to undercut or sabotage his rivals, so again, that's just business. Adrien might not do it but that's cos he (Allegedly) hasn't needed to & doesn't really care about modeling.

Embarrassing Kim with is bungled confession?

Entire game shows and TV hosts seem to base their whole premise on lying to humiliate people or just being assholes to make them upset for ratings & otherwise rubbing people's noses into the dirt to make the losses sting. Adrien doesn't cos he was raised to be well mannered but its not like he or the rest of class don't watch those shows, so again, not mean.

The only thing he might consider out of pocket may be locking Juleka in the bathroom.

Mostly because its more physical than he's likely used to outside of groupies where the physical side is done in self defense and cos if there was like, a fire Juleka could have been trapped in there.

But even then (Waves and vaguely) Kinda fifty fifty, he might still see it as normal cutthroat behavior. Or I could see him getting Chloe to apologize for that one.

yeah exactly!

[zarekthelordofthefries]

I think Dot And Bubble kinda sucks. There's individual parts I like in concept, I see why it works for people, but it's way less than the sum of its parts, it doesn't come together well.

I like the idea of the ending. It's taking a big swing at big themes, the last scene is genuinely pretty chilling, and it's set up well through little moments throughout the rest of the episode.

But god does it fall flat to have the episode switch to a big discussion on racism after 50 minutes of "it's because you be on that samn phone."

I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, like "oh this recontextualizes it, maybe the Bubble isn't about social media per se, it's a metaphor for the racist social bubble the characters keep themselves in," but...I really don't think that holds up to scrutiny. It is absolutely a you be on that phone episode. It's what most of the comedy of the episode stems from. Lindy can't WALK without her phone telling her where to go. It's not subtle.

At first I thought they were doing interesting things with Lindy being flawed but sympathetic. Like, when she first sees the monsters and tries to go back to work and ignore it because she's terrified, I thought they were like...saying something there. Like she uses distraction by social media as a shield from The Horrors, as we all do sometimes. But as the episode goes on it became more and more clear we aren't supposed to sympathize with Lindy. She is a bad person in a completely unambiguous way. Which I think really undercuts the tragedy of the ending! Like, why should I be sad about the Doctor being unable to save these racists if their racism really Is their defining trait as people? If they're swlfish and stupid and have no other qualities as people? You can't play the ending for tragedy when I WANT them to get eaten by the slugs.

I saw someone say part of the idea is that the Dot grows to hate them BECAUSE they're racist, but that isn't supported at all by the events. It hates them because they be on that phone. It thinks they're vapid and annoying like we're supposed to. Why would it even think they're racist? They're ALL WHITE. What opportunities does the Dot have to see them being racist if they live in a completely racially segregated community where all their media engagement is with each other?

And it sucks because I like the idea of this premise! I like the idea of an episode where the Doctor is trying to save people who don't want him, specifically, to save them, because they're racist. You can do things with that! You can explore that, have commentary on it! Have the Doctor struggle with it! But to just shove that theme into the last five minutes of a shitty Black Mirror episode, just have it swing in at the end and not even give the Doctor DIALOGUE to react to it, just him laughing and screaming in exasperation (great performance by Ncuti Gatwa to be clear), it's like...the scene works fine in isolation, it is emotionally affecting, but you could have done so much more with it. I want the episode to actually be ABOUT racism, not be about how nobody talks to each other in person anymore read a book you damn kids oh and also racism is a brain poison byeeee.

All that and also the episode is so badly paced. They agonize over the twist that the slugs are killing them alphabetically for SO LONG and it's NOT INTERESTING. If it's unintentional it's bad writing. If it's an intentional choice to make Lindy seem as stupid and annoying as possible for needing it explained to her over and over, it's still bad writing because they've been making jokes about that the whole time already, and it's not even interesting characterization that contributes to her story.

So yeah. Saw people predict this one would be the first stinker of the season and they were right but not for reasons I could have possibly predicted. Dot and Bubble reminds me of Kerblam in that it is fascinatingly bad. I want to dissect it in a laboratory.

[sumarak]

S4 of Camp Camp was a mixed bag for me because I like the premise of "Keep the Change" but not the execution. What the episode does is really good, but I don't like the episode itself. Anyway, I wanna talk about the whole "people can change for the worse and for the better" message.

Max changing for the better/being kind and David changing for the worse/being shitty has been set up since S2 - specifically in "Bonjour Bonquisha." For example:

Max being caring but doing it out of selfish reasons appears here for the first time as the plot revolves around Max inspiring the other campers to do something nice for David because he cannot stand him when he's miserable. This is later paralleled by the conflict Max has in S4, "Time Capsules," where he only helps Gwen to make himself feel better. Both have selfish motivation, but the difference is that the first attempt was genuine, while in the second he was forcing himself to be nice. More on this later.

David ends the episode by punching Jacob out of jealousy in front of the entire diner.

So both have previously established episodes that put their character progression into perspective. But an interesting thing about Max is that he is very much capable of care it's just that he doesn't recognize it as such. Max has several episodes where he saves/helps David and/or the camp (the two often overlap) for example: Order of the Sparrow, Bonjour Bonquisha, The Fun-Raiser, Dial M for Jasper, Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper, Camp Corp and Arrival of the Torso Takers. He also has plenty of episodes where the central plot revolves around comforting/or showing concern for Nikki: Camp Cool Kidz (trying to convince her Ered is using her), Anti-Social Network, Eggs Benefits, etc. He also stands up for Neil in "Culture Day" and learns how to be more genuine and kind to everyone in "Camp Corp". There's also the example of him learning to be nicer to Dolf in "Candy Kingpin". And all of that is before S4 in which he realizes how much he has changed and starts making an active effort to be better.

you'll notice that it gradually happens more often, but the one throughline is that even when he acts compassionate or caring, it is undercut by him using shady methods, complaining, or there being something that's in it for him. Like using David's credit card, getting people to beat up the councilors, asking for something in return (usually more dessert). But there are some examples of legit soft kindness like famously in Parents Day but also in "Dial M For Jasper" where after a remorseful look they decide it's better to lie to David and let him be content and happy rather than distress him further. And while he does complain or use shady methods, most if not all of these episodes demonstrate that he is capable of caring for and being kind to the people around him on his own accord.

now remember how earlier I said that in "Time Capsules," Max's attempts at being nice aren't genuine like in earlier episodes despite the two having the same premise? this is where that comes in: that ep is the first time he seeks character development rather than it happening TO him. In the time capsule, he struggles with the idea that he will never be happy or change for the better. the thing is, Max doesn't have to worry about if he's becoming a kinder person because he's already been doing kind things. he doesn't realize how naturally that development has happened and how genuine he can be.

like WHY save david in arrival of the torso takers? he does it because he wants to. he doesn't realize that all of the change he's gone through so far has not been directly intentional but it HAS been genuine. and all the care he exhibits from people doesn't need to be forced out of him because he's already proven he has a capacity for it multiple times.

like he cares abot people in his own flawed way thats often undercut by his little shit personality. its like he doesn't realise he cares for them while hes doing it. like why try to cheer david up? just. because. because he's annoying if he doesnt do it. why try to make nikki feel better? because it's dumb when she's panicking over platypus eggs. like he does care for people but its never an overt attempt to be kind, he just does it naturally. which is why "Time Capsule" wasn't genuine.

It's better to be genuine and flawed than to attempt to masquerade niceness as kindness. I've said it before but Max isn't meant to be nice. He is learning to be kind.

[cartoon-buffoon]

Random thought that's probably unoriginal but hay it's 4 AM and I've been thinking about this for awhile. Ever find it funny the comparison between Oswald's and Mickey's relationship with Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks'? It's a funny parallel that doesn't get talked about much largely because people seem to forget Ub Iwerks (ironic). WARNING: RANT!

Wanna note this rant is by a person who hasn't properly played Epic Mickey 1, 2, and 2.5 (power of illusion) so sorry if I get some stuff wrong yet I know the premise and key story points. Anyways:

For those who don't know Ub Iwerks was longtime friend of Walt Disney and basically the man who would lead the Walt Disney Studios into being what it is today Ub's technical influence on the animations shouldn't be dismissed at all. The man is responsible for some of the most iconic stuff in Disney history like the colors of Dumbo's "Pink Elephants" musical number, a photography technique for the rain in Bambi, creation of a specialized Xerox machine allowing for drawings to go directly onto cels for 101 dalmatians, and he himself earned an Oscar for his efforts in bringing the mix of 2D and live action together in Mary Poppins. He even directed and worked on while going went uncredited for his creation of the wartime shorts that saved Disney Studios during WW2. From there Ub went back to working on SFX after the war and was responsible for a lot of technical magicry behind Disneyland. Oh he also was responsible for some technical stuff behind Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" where he won another Oscar. So ya know the man had clear innovative talent. Despite this work Ub was a humble man and the only real reason why we know of most of his influence and his history with Walt is because of his grand daughter's own creation of a documentary involving him. Arguably Ub is the real creator of Mickey Mouse although that debate isn't what I wanna talk about and I'm neutral on the subject regarding it. What I wanna talk about is how Ub was always there from the very beginning, he and Walt were together way before Disney was the thing it is today and to get it there they bankrupted 3 different companies before finally making it big. Despite this Ub is mostly forgotten, his input on the legacy of Disney Studios being treated as nothing more than a footnote despite his feats. Ub stayed in the background being the hard working man and animator while Walt was a director and charismatic face. Ub did win two Oscars yet now and days he's severely undercutted and even forgotten despite making most of the original cartoons (dude made Plane Crazy aka Mickey's first cartoon in garage on a nothing budget FFS) and being one of the major catalyst for animation as we know it today.

One person gets all the credit and is the face of a company while the other who helped create it is usually left forgotten and only really known by a certain group of people who are more invested in history. Sound familiar? Of course Oswald isn't as important to Disney as Ub was (sorry Ozzie) yet I still find the parallel really cool and thematically fitting. In Epic Mickey there is a statue that parodies the famous one of Mickey and Walt holding hands, yet Oswald made it about himself instead with him replacing Mickey. This no doubt shows bitterness and resentment and the plot of Epic Mickey features the two eventually making up after it all. Not after ya know after Oswald gets mad and releases the blot and all that after rightfully getting pissed knowing his world was put in danger and his wife was basically killed by Mickey. Everything works out in the end thankfully and in the second game the two are on much better terms of course, in the first game Oswald also does make an attempt to be nice to Mickey because it's what Ortensia would of wanted.

Despite them reconnecting and acting as brothers I still feel like Oswald would hold some sorta grudge. If not for the fame stealing thing at least for the whole "you ruined my world and turned my wife to stone" thing. Oswald is petty enough to make faces at Mickey behind his back, no way is the rabbit THAT mature to forgive Mickey 100% for everything. Still, I feel like the only real way Oswald could ever get over the fact that Mickey took his spot as the mascot and face of Disney is by learning about Ub and his input. This is a neat little head canon I have that Oswald would embrace Ub as his creator instead of Walt. There would be something so fitting if Oswald learned he had two dads and his creation was a joint effort and actively learning about Ub and his contributions to Disney. I feel like instead of yearning for the attention his brother has he'd take a page out of Ub's book, he'd sit in the background and let the fame and popularity go to another despite the fact that there would be no popularity without him.

I made this rant because I was too lazy to draw this but: the idea of Oswald making a statue featuring him holding Ub Iwerks' hand as opposed to Walt's is such a cool and cute idea to me. It would not only show Oswald's acceptance of not being in the spotlight yet it would also honor the legacy of another who was "forgotten".

Anyways rant over, I'm excited for Epic Mickey rebrushed and can't wait to experience it and I probably need to sleep for classes i got later.

[a-iya]

Hiii ＼(ﾟ∀ﾟ)／

Sooo what do you think about the Haikyuu! Movie without knowing anime? 😀

(I'm sending this ask to discuss our impressions in the comments (and recommend this series a bit haha)

Have a nice day ♡

hiiii!! i didn't realize this was going to become a full-on essay so 💀 apologies in advance for the long-windedness. i don't blame you if you don't feel like reading all the way through lmao (there is a tl;dr at the end if that's the case)

my sister actually got into haikyuu after S1 (pretty much a decade ago at this point 😭) so i've at least known about it and understood the gist of it for a while now. i myself didn't get into anime until a few years ago though! so i've been slowly building up my watch catalog. normally i like funny animes so haikyuu definitely fits the criteria, but due to the fact that 1) it's a sports anime 2) i have very little interest in sports and 3) there would be a LOT of episodes to catch up on, it's just been sitting in my to-watch list for years lmaooo

as i started to follow more people on tumblr, i also started to see more haikyuu content, so i recognized some characters just by their appearance (hinata [obviously], but also kenma, kageyama, and atsumu miya [the guy with the undercut, who i don't remember seeing in the movie]). but anyway, my sister had been saying she wanted to watch the movie once it came out. and over the weekend, i happened to see a lot of people posting about going to watch the movie so i told her we should go! and so we did!

the movie was so hilarious and i thoroughly enjoyed watching!! the rivalry between the 2 teams was sooo funny. i knew i was going to like the movie, but it did end up being a little bit fast-paced for me cause i basically dived in with like. 0.4 background,,,, like ya girl was strUGgLinG trying to keep up. but that's no one's fault but my own 😔 i was kind of hoping it'd be like the demon slayer mugen train movie (which is actually what got me into anime! but that's besides the point). where the premise would be simple enough that you wouldn't need that much context before watching. i knew the movie would basically be just one really long volleyball game so i figured it would be fine... alas, i was wrong 😭 i don't know the rules of the game or any of the characters/their positions so it was all i could do to just watch and try to understand everything as it was happening ;-;

another thing i wanna mention is that now that i've long since graduated from my "beginner weeb" phase and become a full-on weeb, i'm familiar with a lot of voices and voice actors so it's difficult for me to see new characters and their voice actors (that i already know from somewhere else) as one entity 🤔 i'm not sure if that makes a lot of sense ><

for example: the whole time we were watching the movie, i felt like kenma sounded a lot like yuki kaji (who voices shoto [mha] and eren [aot])?? but also didn't at the same time. it was bothering me the whole 2 hours but i looked it up after it was over and i was right 😩

i also immediately recognized kuro as gojo [jjk]/hawks [mha]/greed [fma]; so kuro wasn't even kuro to me, he was just a volleyball au gojo with a completely different look 😭 i feel like that kind of gets in the way of my viewing experience personally, because i couldn't pause and think about where i know this voice from (like i usually do when i start a new anime). but it bOThERs mE because it's like on the tip of my tongue and my mind caNnOT rEST until i confirm my suspicions 😩

anyway, going in, the only people i knew about were like. hinata and kageyama... and it was surface-level knowledge at best. but i've seen kenma around enough where i recognized his character design so i thought i might like him. and he ended up being super cute!! i loved him, but i also really loved kuro (he is very handsome 🥰) and the tall glasses guy from karasuno. he was funny as fuck. but i'm definitely interested in watching the show to see what other lovable goofs the story has to offer. i'm always on the hunt for more blorbos

tl;dr basically i loved the movie, i thought it was really funny; now i have to actually watch the show so i can really enjoy the experience the movie had to offer. the production was honestly great. my sister wants me to get caught up so we can watch it again while it's still in theaters lmao. we'll have to see about that... the first 2 seasons are 25 eps each and then there are at least a few more seasons (even if they are less eps) after that 💀 when i got into mha last year, i was able to blast through 6 seasons within a week,,, but that costed me 3 full days worth of binge-watching and several work nights to catch up 😩 idk if i can do that again

thank you for the ask and interacting with me 🥺🫶 i know your day just started so i hope it goes well!! have a nice rest of the week also <3

[dwreader]

Can I ask what has made you think the season isn’t Louis/armand/claudia centred? I know the fandom is annoying but I’ve yet to see anything to convince me that the actual show itself isn’t going to be completely centred around them. Daniel is just a part of their modern day narrative, he has to have some character exploration or there’s no point to him/ no vehicle for the interview to take place. Lestat is just a part of the past narrative, I think the flashbacks are mostly going to be about Armands past with the theatre which involves Lestat and Nicki, Armand needs to be fleshed out a bit as a character cause I doubt we’ll get to a TVA season. I just haven’t seen anything yet that makes me think it’s Daniel/Lestat’s story they’re just a part of the overall story. Idk I’m just hopeful I guess but I don’t see why we’re doom posting before we know what we’re actually gonna get, unless there’s something you’ve seen in particular?

I think the interview happening because of a daniel lost memories arc completely undercuts the story as being louis's no matter how much or little screentime they actually devote to it. I don't rly think there's going to be a lot of screentime on young daniel just based on how little the actor was there (even nicki's actor was on in prague way longer) but the central question of the season/second half of the book being what happened to claudia and does louis know turning into what's been erased from daniel's mind completely changes the show's centrality. It's not necessarily that daniel is suddenly going to be the main lead which he's obviously not but what the show deems an impactful reveal does affect how we view the importance of the characters and relationships. And to me throwing in a whole amnesia storyline about the white guy 100% takes away from the premise of the interview altogether. Its very very jarring when in the book daniel was entirely irrelevant to loumand but in the show suddenly he's the main figure in the room... very deliberate choice and kind of screams they have no confidence in loumand carrying the show on their own.

As for the Lestat/Nicki/Marius/etc flashbacks, I just think it's not relevant to the Louis + Claudia arc in the book at all? and you'd never in a million years see a Lestat-centric TVL season be shoehorned with random bits of Louis or Claudia backstory that occur w/o Lestat even there and have little to no relevance to the main plot. In fact, you probably could've dropped some TVL bits in s1 since it's clear Louis does know about Nicki already in NOLA but the show doesn't go there cause it doesn't feel the need to (as Lestat is already a co-lead in s1 and has a lot of screentime as is). But I think once they were given the OK to make the book into 2 seasons they realized the second half was going to be almost entirely louis-armand-claudia with only a brief lestat appearance at the end... and yeah. If they really have the confidence that the show would get multiple seasons then why try to cram so much later book stuff into this season? Supposedly AMC wants 10 seasons and like theoretically you'll have plenty of time for all this when Louis's main arc is over so why are you doing this now when he actually does have a story left to tell? Or do they think if they don't sprinkle this shit now, most of their book loyalists will bolt since they don't care about non-white characters without a white person tether.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The One That Takes Place on an Adult Film Set

So if Grave Peril was where we really got to know the Red Court and really dig into one type of vampire, this is where we get the rest of the vampires. This book is a weird amalgamation of Harry breaking an entropy curse on a porn set and Harry LARP-ing the fast few chapters of Dracula. There is just so much weird mirroring in this book too, everything from Harry learning about the real nature of his relationship to Thomas, which mirrors Lara and Inari's relationship to Harry's "porn stars are people too" stance that gets really contradicted by the fact that the only non-Ex-Mrs.-Genosa casualty is the single mother of two who keeps a roof over their heads and food on the table by starring in porn films. Like...For all Harry's protestations of open-mindedness, the entire *premise* of the adult film chunks of this book are "we are punishing porn stars for being porn stars." So let's talk Blood Rites.

This is your SPOILER WARNING and also your CONTENT WARNING for discussions of sex, pornography, and mental assault.

There are three main thrusts to this book (pun sort of intended, but I feel bad about it). There's Harry's Family Stuff and the White Court, there is the Black Court, and there is Arturo Genosa and the adult film. Let's take those in reverse order, because that just feels easiest.

The thing that pulls Harry into this book is Thomas Wraith showing up and asking Harry to help a buddy of his who is cursed. Arturo Genosa apparently really likes sticking his dick in crazy, because he has three ex-wives who have banded together after finding out that he's planning to marry again, but the new bride does not have to sign the same prenup they did, which will screw them out of their shares of Genosa's estate when he dies. Unfortunately, because fax machines are not great, the name of the new bride is smudged to hell and back, so rather than trying to decipher it and target just one person, the ex-wife brigade adopts a spray-and-pray method (double entendre also intended, and I feel less bad about this one). So they basically curse the studio and every woman around Genosa is in the firing line, which is what Harry has been hired to stop.

This gets WEIRDLY slapstick at times, since someone tries to take Harry out with a blowgun, and a frozen turkey quite literally falls from the sky. What is decidedly not slapstick is the sheer level of catty woman-on-woman violence, pettiness, and vitriol. Like, yes, this bullying and violence dynamic exists and deserves page time, but the point is WILDLY undercut when you drop the whole conflict into a highly sexually charged environment and trip into classic horror tropes like the final girl, the brides of Dracula (which is absolutely the vibe in the Wraith Deeps), and punishing sex workers for sex work. You've just basically undercut any other point you're trying to make, because you haven't subverted jack shit and you are so buried in tropes and heteronormative sex that any sense beyond "women are literal monsters" gets completely eclipsed. Like, I'm genuinely shocked that Butcher didn't somehow work a vagina dentata or a sarlacc joke into this book.

Now, running in the background of Harry and the Porn Film is Mavra, a Black Court vampire who is full-on coming for Harry and working to rebuild her court. Harry decides that the best course of action here is to go old school: Find the nest and burn it out before the baby vamps can hurt anyone else. Which, frankly? I support. The Black Court can and should get wiped off the face of the earth. And for the most part, this section is just fun to read. Harry, Murphy, and Kincaid--with Ebenezer McCoy as their wheelman--track the scourge of vampires to their lair in a homeless shelter and proceed to wreck shop on them. Harry even manages to get a group of captured kids out of there in one piece. Well, the kids are in one piece. Harry gets his hand dry-roasted because his shields aren't designed for thermal regulation. That's going to be extremely relevant in terms of lore and character building for the next few books, until Butcher basically forgets about it. But in general, it's a kickass quest and is largely successful.

My only real beef with this scene is the five or so minutes where Murphy is traversing a set of lasers wired to claymore mines and Kincaid has to take her pants off to buy her a quarter inch of space. Which like, is fair enough in practical terms, but Kincaid, Harry, and the book itself sexualize this in a way that is just absolutely gross and unnecessary, and I'm pretty sure it was 100% just so that Harry could smirk about Murphy gunfighting in panties with a little bow on them. Which made me want to take his staff and clock him across the jaw. Multiple times. This was not required, and it just keeps adding to the pattern of sexualizing women in deadly situations...holy crap, did we accidentally wander into a Joss Whedon project?

This scene does set up Murphy and Kincaid's relationship though, which will be relevant for like...maybe one other book? So fine. It also highlights that Kincaid and the White Council DO NOT get along, since he and McCoy draw on each other on sight and Harry almost doesn't manage to talk them down. So we do get some interesting insight into who the White Council does and does not approve of.

I suppose I have to stop stalling now, and actually address the White Court and the Family Stuff.

For any of this book to make sense, we need to know a little bit of history. Mostly that Lord Wraith, Thomas, Lara, and Inari's father, had just the biggest boner for Harry's mother, Margaret Le Fay. Margaret spent a lot of time in the White Court, gave birth to Thomas, and then peaced out. On her way out the door though, she cursed Lord Wraith so that his hunger--the demon that makes him a White Court vampire--couldn't feed. So he hasn't been able to feed since before Harry was born, is dangerously weak--but somehow still strong enough to be STRONGLY implied to be grooming and assaulting his children--and is losing power internally. So yes, Daddy Wraith is a piece of utter garbage, and when we start the book, Inari and Lara are both working for Genosa. Thomas is trying to spare Inari from ever becoming a White Court vampire, while Lara is actively yeeting her AT HARRY to try to awaken her hunger. This is just a bad situation all around.

That said though, this is the book where Harry starts to really gather family--blood family--around him, because in addition to leaving a curse for Lord Wraith, Margaret left mental messages for both her sons that they unlock in this book, so they would know who and what they are to each other in case she wasn't there to connect them.

And as much as I hate to admit feels for anything in this book, the messages she left and the emotional rollercoaster of discovering that you HAVE a brother and that you actually LIKE that brother gave me feels. Harry and Thomas desperately need each other, and now they have each other, and they can trust each other. That's huge for both of them. They both have to play that information very close to the chest, but THEY know, and that's kind of the important thing.

That also makes the end of this book, in the Wraith Deeps, even more complicated because family plus politics is never NOT messy. Lara full-on stages a coup to take control of the White Court, thanks to Harry outing Lord Wraith's curse and utter disregard for any of his children to her. The way it shakes out though, is with Lara in charge, Inari free, and Thomas living with Harry because Lara banished his ass.

Again though, we have Murphy being mentally and physically assaulted in the Deeps, and no, Butcher, him being "the lord of the freaking nation of sexual predators" (p. 330) does not go any distance to excusing or defending it. Like...Perhaps we could STAHP assaulting women everywhere? For five minutes?

Overall, I think this is one of the more forgettable early Dresden Files books, and it falls into horror and vampire tropes way too easily, even when Harry himself is trying to insist that he's open-minded or chivalrous. Clearing out the Black Court hideout was fun, and Harry and Thomas knowing about each other was lovely, but honestly the rest of this book is SO WEIRD about sex and consent and lust that it really did out me off.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT MOUSE!!! Mouse is the goodest boi, and the best thing to come out of the book. He is a Foo Dog who adopts Harry, and that's basically it in this book, but keep an eye out, because Mouse is the BEST.

[fsaxjack]

I know I'm not the first person to say this, especially since I played the games because of Jacob Geller's video, but I really, really love BJ Blazkowicz as a character and the Machine Games Wolfenstein series as a whole.

Not a lot of devs would be brave enough to have a Polish-American Jew (albeit seemingly non-practicing) be their main character. They even make him a blond-haired-blue-eyed badass who any Nazi not in the know mistakes for a perfect Aryan - a demonstration of just how asinine Nazi beliefs really are.

He's a kind, gentle, loving man who adores his wife and daughters, he never lets his pride get in the way of the mission and goal, and he truly tries his best to be a true ally of the revolution, accepting orders without complaint or hesitation and showing respect to the diverse groups that the Nazis oppress. He's vulnerable, human, and gives everything he has to the causes he cares about.

But he extends none of this kindness to Nazis - unless someone's disavowed the ideology outright, he will gladly slit Aryan throats without a second thought. His sheer hatred of their ideology, of their footsoldiers, leaders and hate, wakes him from a vegetative state to slaughter an entire platoon of the Wehrmacht, perfectly ready to continue World War II where he left off!

On the same note, not a lot of devs would demonstrate that White America in the 40s-50s was more than willing to accept the Nazi worldview, even as their conquerors treat them like backwards hicks and turn minorities into second-class citizens at best and outright slaves or corpses at worse

For that matter, there's certainly something cathartic about having a black man thoroughly lecture BJ on how the American ideal he fights for has never been a real ideology, the high-minded ideals tainted from day 1 - the Nazis borrowed American frameworks for racial segregation and marginalization to construct their own atop its foundations after all.

The games aren't perfect - there's one particular death that feels a bit fridge-y, Max feels a bit mishandled at points (kinda evokes the idea of, uh, I've heard it described as r-word strength) even if I do appreciate that those familiar with his needs do what they can to respect his sensory needs and triggers, and something about a Jewish mystical secret society who devised crazy advanced technology doesn't sit fully right with me (it makes sense thematically - the Nazis steal that technology to help them conquer the world, basically acknowledging that the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology wasn't realistically going to win without a big leg-up, but it still feels a bit iffy). But it's a rare treat to have a game that acknowledges why the Nazis were and are truly reprehensible, idiotic, and doomed to fail in one way or another, and that despite their belief otherwise, white America is not so above those noxious beliefs...

Watch Jacob Geller's video - "Judaism and Whiteness in Wolfenstein." It's a fantastic breakdown of a lot of these ideas and outlines what Jacob - being a Jewish man himself - would like to see in the next game.

I have some similar feelings about the mod TNO: Last Days of Europe - I find the premise of the mod really interesting: basically, it gives the Axis plot armor right up until they win the war and bring the remaining powers to the negotiating table, and shows just how unstable they would be once that plot armor is taken away and the absurd ego projects of a bunch of self-important genocidal druggies start blowing up in their faces. It acknowledges the horrors of the Nazi regime, of their use of slavery and genocide and war profiteering/looting, and demonstrates that these are not sustainable in any way. But the inherent jingoism of the HOI4 foundation does undercut the message at times, IMO - I've seen people on Youtube fight tooth and nail to actually conquer the world during that one Germany path even though you're supposed to hit a wall where expanding any further will start a nuclear war, but not expanding any further will collapse your economy.

[oddygaul]

Quick Hits #4 - Prey, Across the Spider-Verse, Flavor Girls

Prey

Honestly, I just loved the setting. Seeing the Great Plains relatively untouched, and the Comanche living and thriving there, with a fairly thorough recreation of their village and lifestyle, captured my imagination in a way lots of fictional settings fail to. All of our heroes were bad as fuck, too – Naru’s axe-on-a-string is absurdly cool, and then her brother is out here shooting the Predator with a bow and retrieving his single arrow from its flesh after every shot. Hell yeah.

This is the first Predator movie I’ve seen. I loved the design, especially its bone helmet, but was a little mixed about the whole invisibility thing? Putting aside how unfair it seems (how you gonna tell me they care about having a ‘worthy’ hunt but they’re allowed to be invisible when fighting like, A Small Dog?), it was a little dull visually. It certainly sets the Predator apart from other movie monsters, I get it, but there’s something anemic about a fight scene in which one of the combatants is just a shimmer. Full invisibility is cool – Ghost in the Shell’s cloaked fight scene is iconic, as if someone’s fighting air – but when someone’s just visible enough that you can clock them, like this, it feels like the worst of both worlds.

We get a lot of uncloaked fighting in the back half, so, c’est la vie, I guess. But imagine the grizzly bear fight without the camouflage!

Across the Spider-Verse

Still fuckin’ rules. 

This watch, I was left wondering why this movie’s comedy works for me so much more than all of the MCU movies’ humor. It’s commonly held that the bane of the Marvel movies is their relentless undercutting of serious moments with jokes, which prevent any drama from really landing properly. And yet, the Spider-Verse movies do a similar thing, and it… works here for some reason?

I mean, sure, the writing is just better. That’s a factor. “Stop telling us about your holes!” Comedy gold. Simple as.

More than that, though, I think it’s that these jokes legitimately feel like they’re written for the character, not the scene. They’re not pithy observations about the situation, meant to show how disinterested the heroes are in the movie they’ve found themselves in; they feel like genuine reactions from the character about what’s happening around them. Miles’ quips don’t feel like wisecracks from an above-it-all action hero, they feel like the nervous ramblings of a scared kid. Gwen’s zingers give off a confident, no-fear vibe whenever she’s working with other heroes in the public eye, but the second she’s alone, the mask comes off to reveal how anxious and unsure she is of her own situation. And so on.

Truly love how they made this mf look straight out of Mob Psycho

Flavor Girls

Fun, but not amazing. The Sailor Moon-esque magical girl shtick is played pretty straight, with no real twist that I can see. The characters are enjoyable, because a motley crew of clashing personality archetypes learning to become a team is always enjoyable, but none of the writing really stands out. The premise, too, is fairly boilerplate.

So, a lot of the charm comes from Locatelli-Kournwsky’s art, but the art itself is in a very weird place for me. He’s clearly a very skilled artist: the character and outfit designs are all incredibly cute, the anatomy and posing is great, he’s a talented storyboarder with an incredible eye for layouts and shot composition, and the environment art, especially the composition and perspective, is confident and incredible. I particularly love the straight-outta-Bayonetta baddie designs, the cutaway architectural interior illustrations, and the videogame manual-style character profiles.

But the rendering is just so loose! It feels like no thought is given to the beauty of the line, to the finish of the page, to the technique and application. There’s moments where the looseness fits, like when characters do Big Anime Reactions, but much of the book made me feel like I was looking at sketches or thumbnails rather than final pages. Locatelli-Kournwsky’s talent bleeds through anyway, certainly, it just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. At the end of a day, in a comic, no matter how good your composition, anatomy, creativity and designs are, all of that gets run through the filter of marks you ultimately put down on the page.