#it's simply genius

[oblivions-dawn]

"Beast blood" my ass

[chebyshevptera]

“actually jay didn’t make the bounty fly it was his dad” respectfully whatever plant you’re smoking i think you need to stop

[rahquaza]

— macdennis + their unspoken tension during s15

[pria-png]

So we already know that the family names are related to house numbers in tlt. And they're taken from various ancient languages.

The "Nav" in Gideon Nav is 9 in Sanskrit but you know what else it means? New. It means new!! Means she's the "new" Gideon!!

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Just a girl who wants to be her mother’s daughter in the ways that matter

[laginestra98]

The metaphisical Love of Sauron's and Galadriel's hands

"They part the theater with a semitouch, their hands abstractly close-up, separated only by the glass of the car window. This marvelous cinematic gesture communicates so much more than simple character and plot resolution. The abstract nature of the shot amplifies the significance of it, suggesting love of the highest, metaphysical order." The Films of Krzysztof Kieślowski: The Liminal Image, Joseph G. Kickasola, pp. 317-318

I was reading this book for my thesis when i came about this lines and something in my head clicked at "suggesting love of the highest, metaphisical order". And in that moment I thought about Galadriel and Sauron (indeed, why doing your work when you can think of them, right?). This kind of love, which is metaphysical and it's shown through a simple gesture such as an almost-tuch. Just to give you some context, the text refers to Three colours: Red, which is the last film of the "Three Colours tryology" and of Krystof Kieslowski's career. It's about a young woman who casually meets an old retired judge and, slowly, they create some kind of connection (this is a very summarized plot, but there's more to it than this). Anyway, the frame the text refers to is this one:

This is the last time Valentine, the young woman, and the judge see each other. Kieslowksi is a real master of visual storytelling, and this is a blatant exemple. This short frame converge, as the text tells us, a ralethionship which was meant to be, but never was. In a previous scene the judge says to Valentine: "maybe, I never met the woman... maybe, you're the woman I never met". This non-meeting hangs there between them, between their hands, separeted by a glass, suspended in a timeless and spaceless moment. In this void their story exists, not in the real world, but in an alternate, separeted one. Sadly, is a world of imagination, so there isn't a possibility for a concrete connection, at least in the present. Now, there's more to say about Red, but I'll stop there because I don't think you're interested in it (but if you like cosmic connection and complicated carachters, you're welcome to watch this masterpice). What I want to address here are the words of Kickasola: "the abstract nature of the shot amplifies the significance of it, suggesting love of the highest, metaphysical order", then he adds: "at the same time, the glass symbolizes a barrier: a romantic connection reached for, but impossible". I think this words are easily applied to Sauron's and Galadriel's relathionship. So, let's analyzed how their hands are shot.

In this frames their hands don't touch, but they enlace each other's arms as a sign of trust. This is the first form of connection they share, still, they keep their distance: neither of them dares to touch the other's hand, neither for a shake. So, they create a barrier.

Here, their hands touch, but there's always an object between them. Every one of this objects rapresent an idea or a desire which are important to them: hope (the simbol of the Southlands king), promises (Finrod's dagger) and power (the nine rings).

In these their hands are near, but never touch. The illusion is shattered, the promise is lost and, even if Sauron tries, he's not able to reach for Galadriel's hand.

I think is interesting that they never hold each other's hand, nor voluntary, nor involontary, nor for necessity. All their approaches are shaped first by formalities, then by ideals, finally by betrayals. Their connection happens in this space, better, in this non-space where they can hide what they feel, but will never say. Love is relegated in a place beyond phisical reach, hung in the metaphisical domain: is in the space between their arms, in the hold of Finrod's dagger, in the distance that separates their hands when Sauron try to catch her from falling. I think the last frame, more than the others, explain this. Like the one in Red, the nature of the shot is abstract, suspended in the air. The background is out of focus, their hands clearly visible. But, unlike in Kieślowski's movie, the distance here is accentuated not only by the fact that Sauron doesn't reach Galadriel, but also by how their hands are shot: they never overlap, so they can't touch neither in the metaphisical space. So is Love over, even in the abstract dimension? No, it persists, willingly or unwillingly, in the outer world, that may become visible (but still not phisical) if the theory about the bond made by Morgoth's crown is correct. This is shown by Galadriel's hand reaching for the wound = for the invisible connection:

Interestingly enough, the phisical manifestation of said love (the phisical touch) happens in an outer space, separeted from reality: in Red, it happens in a theater, the ultimate fictional realm:

in trop, this happens in an illusion, Sauron's illusion:

Like Valentine and the judge, their love can't be sustained by reality, it wolud be crushed by hopes, ideals and power, but is unlatched from reality, alive in a place that trascend time and space. They both feel it, but will they acknowledge this? Only time will tell.

With this I won't mean that their love is not real, but that is bigger than the real world they are in (regardless from their behavior and choices)

Disclaimer: this is just my interpretation of Galadriel and Sauron relationship, it can be fallacious and is not a universal truth.

[gardenschedule]

Silly Love Songs & musical unpredictability

Some interesting graphs (source here) based on this:

The study, published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, used mathematical models and algorithms to pinpoint three “melodic revolutions” — in 1975, 1996 and 2000 — that brought increasing simplicity to the two main components of melody: rhythm, or the pattern of sounds and silences in a piece of music, and pitch, the measure of how high or low the notes are.

The study looked at the top five Billboard songs every year from 1950 to 2023. Both rhythm and pitch became steadily less complex over that period, the study found. “Conservatively, they have both decreased by 30 percent,” said Madeline Hamilton, a graduate student at Queen Mary University who led the research.

I went ahead and circled where Silly Love Songs showed up because it's so far above the rest it's hard to notice otherwise...!

[randomsufff]

Ok, to the like 5 Michie girlies (I see y’all, I appreciate y’all 🫡) I’ve cooked a bit hear me out:

In Literal Monster one of the nerds says “I once was his tutor, then I regarded my future”- so that implies he needs a tutor/ is academically failing, right? But it seems he actually needed and valued it because the tutor seemingly worked for, at the very least, a day before quitting on her own terms… (DO YOU GUYS SEE THE VISION)

So- everyone lives/nobody dies AU where Richie is the one who saves Max, Max- who thinks the gang threw him this party+Richie saving his football season (cause he would totally value that more then his life come on)- is like, on neutral/ friendlier terms with the gang, bla bla bla something happens and Max asks (basically forces lmao) Richie into tutoring him. (Reasons why Max can’t just cheat off of Richie can range from him sitting next to Grace to Richie gaining a bit of confidence seeing Max ask him for help and saying no (but plz don’t kill me I’ll still help you)).

Bing Bang Boom, redemption arc for Max as he falls for the cringe ass failure of a anime weeb. Very slowly! but surely.

(Plus you get so many funny scenarios- The gang finding out Richies helping their bully-turned-maybe friend????(at least he thinks so), RUTH FINDING OUT (I KNOW that girl reads/writes hardcore smut fanfic), Max slowly getting into anime via osmosis (would he like Attack on Titian? I feel like yes.) etc. Endless possibilities here.)

[novelconcepts]

In watching more interviews with Liv about Van and the escalation of Van's pragmatism to such dark degrees, I find myself genuinely baffled that anyone could ever think Van the bad guy. I mean, I'm perplexed at finding ANY of these girls The Bad Guy. The bad guy is the situation. It's being lost. It's freezing. It's starving. It's being scraped down to the barest bone of being alive. They make choices that might be snippy, or cruel, or hard-headed, sure--Shauna refusing to just hash it out with Jackie; Jackie being too stubborn to come inside; Taissa refusing to discuss her situation plainly; etc--but by the time we reach the end of season 2, it doesn't even matter. Petty bullshit doesn't matter. Jealousy doesn't matter. Those things are still going to be present and complicated, because--for all their choices, for all the distancing they're trying to do--these kids ARE still human beings. But it isn't the point.

The point is survival. Plain, simple, straightforward. Van's pragmatism is survival. It is the difference between living another day with blood on your teeth or dying pretty. It is the difference between fighting forward through the fire and the snow and the hell of it all, and laying down to die. Van knowing, in watching the ritual violence of Shauna beating Lottie nearly the death, that they will be killing and eating one another soon. Van coming up with the cards for the hunt. Van not blinking when the moment comes, Van choosing a weapon that doubles as a tool to bring the body back, Van refusing to apologize for staying alive--it's not evil. It's not Bad Guy behavior. It's purely about survival, because there is nothing else left to her--or to any of them. They can play the pretty little Sweet Angel Girl game and die, or they can get dirty, bloody, horrific and fight. Van chooses the fight. Van chooses to fight for herself, for her lover, for her team, even knowing not everyone is going to make it out...because the alternate path there is that no one makes it out. Van knew the baby wouldn't live. Van knows the rest of them won't, either. Not unless they start making the hard choices.

And, honestly, the fact that Van sees this narrative coming. Comes up with this plan. Brings out the cards. To me, that is the opposite of Bad Behavior. That is as close to justice as anyone can find in the wilderness. If someone else came up with an idea, maybe it would have come down to voting--but that would have had such a human element to it, with bitterness or hostility or whatever ultimately petty shit always comes of humans selecting who to Other. The cards don't leave room for that. It isn't fair, because the situation isn't fair, because Man vs. Nature isn't fair, but it's as close to a just system as they could possibly find. It's the kindest solution to an unwinnable game. Not to bring it back to American Gods again, but all I can think is "it's easy, there's a trick to it: you do it, or you die." Van gave them that.

[celestialowlryxs]

The Dragon Prince + text posts (part 35 of ?)

[balkanlila]

what i am about to say is extremely ignorant, but i have to get it off my chest. it's always so baffling to me when people characterise my school and future profession as difficult because i never think of it that way and i never think of my courses that way. like i know this to be true and i know many people go through this complaining ritual on a daily basis and i support them in their struggle on an intellectual level, but a little part of me is somewhat annoyed at the sentiment and feels solitary in my own reception of all of this. i'll be talking about how much i love it without mentioning the difficulty and someone will always step in and mention the difficulty. i knew it would be that way and that aspect simply doesn't register for me, not in a significant way at least. but all of this just makes me feel incredibly inhumane and defective ultimately. i have yet to meet someone who welcomes learning as wholeheartedly as i do or at least doesn't think of me as strange for being this way. because sure, people appreciate me for my thoughts, but i always get the feeling that that they're disturbed by their foreign characteristics.

[farragoofnotes]

What are Gil and Tarvek discussing, with huge eyes, and little anime sparkles as a backdrop, and why is it so intentionally distinct from Agatha's background, which is colored to minimize the anime sparkles as well as emphasize the lightning rod?

I don't like this.

[ikamigami]

DOCTOR'S HEART

Most of people assume and I think rightfully so that Simon Smoke was contained in the tube were Doctor's heart was stored before.

Many of those who believe that Doctor isn't dead think that he's still alive because we didn't destroy his heart.

Honestly it's a really probable scenario but there's one thing that bothers me if that's what would turn out to be true.

Why Doctor's heart would be more important than his brain for his survival?

That's why I mainly focused in my theory on Doctor transferring his consciousness elsewhere cause the theory about heart keeping Doctor alive didn't make much sense to me.

Don't get me wrong. It's horror game with pseudo-science so basically anything could happen. But Mob Games still try to ground the experiments in reality. Even if the line between fiction and science is really blurry here.

Doctor fully transferring his consciousness into digital world with his own great mind combined with computer performance within 10 years is possible considering what he was capable of up to this point.

He was able to successfully transfer human brains and nervous systems into completely new bodies and make it work.

And he was working on his own brain so he knows exactly what works and what doesn't work.

Let's say if he was able to transfer his consciousness into digital world what would he need his heart for?

Clearly his heart wasn't in the place we expected it to be. But why Doctor saved his heart and not his brain that was definitely more important to him?

You wouldn't expect him to save his heart. He definitely doesn't seem like someone who values his heart over brain.

I was thinking about it for quite some time cause this is important.

Devs definitely didn't leave more than one loophole for potential Doctor's return because it would create plotholes if eventually Doctor will come back.

If Doctor returned via his heart not being destroyed then fans may think that it's too far fetched and it's an asspull because his brain is what makes the Doctor to be who he is.

But on the other hand if Doctor returned as digital entity then fans will definitely ask about his heart.

For a long time I couldn't come up with reasonable explanation for this issue.

If Doctor would come back as digital entity he wouldn't need a heart anymore.

But if he was alive simply because of his heart then it would be still easy to kill him. We would just have to destroy his heart.

But then why bring him back at all? Just to kill him again?

I can only imagine such scenario if Poppy Playtime had a good ending. But horrors usually have bad endings so I doubt that with Poppy Playtime it'll be any different.

Bringing Doctor back just to kill him isn't an option.

Sure they may not bring him back at all but they left many hints to let us believe otherwise.

Could it be that Doctor just destroyed his own heart himself cause it was reminding him of his emotional turmoil caused by trauma that I'm pretty sure that he has even if he may not be aware of it himself (he may not realize it or consider something a trauma)?

Or maybe Doctor hid his heart somewhere where no one will find it? Not even us. Not even the Prototype. (see what I did here? :D)

But why would he even do that?

Exactly because of trauma and his own emotions that he doesn't understand and is not even fully aware of.

I think that Doctor's heart is something more than just his heart. It's a symbol. This is exactly where devs can apply the metaphor. A metaphor for Harley Sawyer's trauma.

His heart is hurt (lol I know sorry ;D) from however he was treated in his childhood and from all the betrayal and backstabbing he experienced later.

Even if he isn't aware of this it definitely left an impact on him. Like I said in one of my previous posts Doctor is still a human but a very broken one with very twisted mindset.

I can imagine him wanting to get rid of his emotions entirely hence why it'd make sense for him to destroy his own heart. But on the other hand he may keep his heart not even understanding the reason why.

Doctor's heart locked away somewhere where no one could find it may symbolise his wounded self being hidden and unreachable for anyone.

It's like a last attempt at protecting oneself to not get hurt anymore. But in this case it's not literal but symbolical.

Doctor won't die if we destroy his heart. It just means that no one can reach to his heart. In his digital form he's untouchable. No betrayal could ever hurt him. Not anymore. It's like building walls around your heart.

I think that this would really make Doctor more humane.

He's a monster but he wasn't born this way.

[bikefuckersoftheworldunite]

my period is in a few days and I already can feel the bi-monthly crash out concerning a rivalry from 20 years ago approaching <3

[lizasweetling]

Ok, ballsy, but it's not like slow playing at this point has any specific bnefit

so you might as well deny the time to your enemies

[texanmarcusdavenport]

OK but based off of Marcus & Douglas' conversation in Bionic Showdown, Marcus participating in extracurriculars isn't usual for him, which makes me think he may not have been lying when he said he'd been homeschooled for most of his life. Additionally, it brings to mind Sadie's mom (from Steven Universe)--Douglas is the type of parent to go completely overboard in supporting his kids' hobbies and just unintentionally push them too hard and make it all about him.