#literary analysis I guess

[unordinary-diary]

Blyke and John: the Followup

In my last entry, I pointed out the similarities between chapters 249 and 121, but I had hit the image limit and wasn’t able to embed screenshots. I got around this by linking the chapters, but this is probably my favorite parallel, and to do it justice I think I need to really put them next to each other.

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

It’s the same fucking scene but backwards and in a different font.

They’re the SAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!

This was definitely on purpose. Shit like this ^^ doesn’t happen by accident.

[worrywrite]

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around Men at Arms.

It's a fantastic book, but it is also so different from Guards! Guards! in tone. And maybe that's where the key is. It's not that the villain of the story is perhaps one of the most proficient killers in all of Discworld (all two and a half of them... D'Eath, Cruces, and The Gonne) and their goal is to actually kill. It's not even that the crimes that the watch are investigating are murder, because even though paid assassinations are legal death and murder are part of the setting. Death is literally a character here, though much more briefly than G!G!. Frankly, I don't even think it's because of the racial allegories.

The tone in Men at Arms is different because the first one to die is a clown. Because Pratchett literally killed the joke (the entire thing and all of its subsets). There's nothing funny about a clown funeral, the dogs are the biggest allegory for racial issues, a gun really is evil, Cuddy literally draws the short straw. It's all literal. Everything is extremely literal. For once, Ankh Morpork isn't a joke. For once, the city feels like a city. And it's the book where Carrot, the most literal character there is, becomes a man (literally and in every sense) and takes his mantle of leadership.

Everything in Men at Arms is literal. Because the villain killed the joke to death and it was the shining moment for Carrot to step up.

There's also an extensive running bit that even the silly construction of the silly, courtesy of Bloody Stupid Johnson, is actually stupid. Within the narrative itself, the book is calling itself out. It is saying that this absurd veneer that we have found ourselves on is just that. This city was built on itself, on its own bones, on the the bones of empires--fueled with the blood of many. The architecture beneath Johnson's flawed works, the aqueducts and sewer systems below the city, are vast and strong and powerful--maybe even beautiful. But they're dangerous. The past is incredibly dangerous. Even Carrot, whose potential is very much rooted in the past of the city, is dangerous. His victory is not one I expected in the moment it came. The line about how you must hope that whoever is looking at you from the other end of their weapon is an evil man... Was harsh and true and honestly a little frightening for a story which also contains a scene where a sentient rock man chucks a dwarf through the skylight of Schrodinger's pork warehouse to save both of their lives.

Perhaps this puts the rest of the book in context as well. Especially the things that made me cringe when I read them. Like everything about Coalface, Angua being included in the story because she was a woman and every book needs at least one (preferably one that can leap over a building or deadlift a draft horse), the high school clique-ificarion of all the guilds, Vimes talkin to the nobles after dinner and almost letting himself believe he could be like that (even though he ends up laying into them with some excellent biting sarcasm), Vetinari not being in control and not realizing it. It's all very real, but real like a real serial killer in real life and not a crime drama. Maybe even real like a normal guy in a costume with their mask off.

Maybe not.

It's not a perfect book (which bites, because G!G! was nearly there), but it remains a very intentional book. I feel like less people have read it than G!G!, and I can see why. It's messier, it's not as funny, there's a lot more allegory and it's a lot more blunt.

But it's still extremely topical (sadly). I retain my opinion that it may be one of the most important books I've ever read. And I'm beginning to understand, finally, why.

[lemonavocado]

i have something to say!!! about the differences between victor and elizabeth in the way they experience/express emotion, and what that means for the themes of gender in the novel

i briefly begun (began??) to talk about this in the tags of this post by the magnificent @frankingsteinery (i wanted to add this on to the original post but this ended up being kinda long) and i would like to clarify and expand upon what was said because i theorized a bunch of stuff unsubstantiated like an idiot 😭 raving under the cut

for context here are the tags that inspired my thoughts:

i left my little analysis in the tags because i was really just spitballing on the spot and when i do that i'm usually wrong 😭 but i'd actually find it fun to substantiate some of what i said w evidence from the text

to expand on my ramblings and robin's own additions in their reblog (with brilliant quotes that i did not even consider to search for because i am quite stupid). when i try to explain exactly how elizabeth and victor have differed in their approach to an early parentification role (elizabeth moreso in being groomed to emulate her mother in role and spirit, forced to remain domestic, unworldly, and unable to even entertain self-actualization, since the moment caroline dies she is the eldest female figure in the immediate family and must assume that role of maturity) (victor moreso in the fact that he literally. made a guy when he was like 20), i find this quote from alphonse quite telling:

"...but is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance or immoderate grief? Excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society."

victor immediately dismisses this advice as being:

"...totally inapplicable to my case; I should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends, if remorse had not mingeled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my other sensations."

he acklowledges what is expected of him from society at large and actively claims himself incapable of it. he is not the reliable figure his family so desperately hoped could be upheld before they came to realize that he is really, irrevocably capricious and mentally unstable.

on the subject of the other quotes added, i think that in them we can see this shift in the family's perception of victor: they begin by expecting him to assume his prescribed role as the family's eldest man (besides alphonse cause he's old and useless) and caregiver, to be a stable and unshakeable foundation on which the family can always rely, but as victor remains on the trauma conga line and spirals into worsening mental health, the happiness of the family is reliant on victor's rapidly fluctuating states of health.

"Come, my dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth..." (side note that after this quote he immediately starts taking about caroline, a bit of a freudian slip on alphonse's part in that he conflates caroline's very existence with a comforting and reliable disposition, and elizabeth is explicitly asked to 'take over' for caroline when she dies)

at the time alphonse writes this, henry (<3) has been purposefully concealing the extent of the "nervous fever" victor has suffered; alphonse is not aware of the trauma his son has undergone and how it has changed him, and so he automatically assumes that victor, upon returning home, now older and more educated, will embrace these expectations.

"'We all... depend on you, and if you are miserable, what must be our feelings?'"

at this point of the novel, however, elizabeth knows how mentally unstable victor is, and is begging him to come back happier than he left. everyone in the family at this point is so conscious and aware of victor's poor health, and thus his explosive and outwardly demonstrative emotions affect the family very deeply. in short their dependency on him shifts from perceiving him as a source of stability to perceiving him as a source of instability.

back to my original comparison!! jesus this is all over the place thank god i'm not an academic.

to reference alphonse's first quote that i referred to. it seems to me that elizabeth, unlike vic, takes alphonse's advice in stride. contrast victor's response to alphonse's quote with this description of elizabeth:

"She indeed veiled her grief, and strove to act the comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life, and assumed it's duities with courage and zeal."

indeed, she demonstrates this; victor often describes her as handling her grief in silence (literal silence, but ykwim):

"...a thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute, and she bade me a tearful, silent farewell."

"...I turned to contemplate the deep and voiceless grief of my Elizabeth."

in fact, the only time she comes close to being as expressive as victor is when she blames herself for the death of william, and in part her extreme reaction stems from the fact that she percives herself as having failed the duty that her mother bestowed upon her - it is unmotherly to allow such a thing to occur under her watchful, feminine eye.

even in childhood they had a very stark difference in temperament, elizabeth's more traditionally and overtly masculine:

"Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition, but, with all my ardor, I was capable of a more intense application..."

and, especially for a female character, she defies the will of her father several times:

"At first I attempted to prevent her, but she persisted, and entering the room where it lay..."

"Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see my cousin. My father wished her not to go..."

all this considered, i don't think it's much of a stretch to say that while it should be vic's role, elizabeth is the "man of the house" (a sexist idea in its own right, but im communicating this in terms i think mary shelley might have intended).

tldr i just think this is such a fascinating exploration of family dynamics in frankenstein, and a brilliant portrayal of two opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to people dealing with the undue parental and familial responsibilities they are made to uphold in youth. the lack of academic attention these themes have attracted is absolutely bonkers to me. anyway elizabeth the girlboss and victor the malewife <3

[goldenspirits]

Marco and Polo TVGLOW are very... Queer coded, in a way that I cannot quite articulate. They just hit that "Hays Code Era Queer Coded Villain" spot in my brain, you know?

[i-am-trans-gwender]

Aslan is usually said to be an allegory for Jesus but that's possibly not true.

At the end of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" Aslan says “But [in your world] I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

So in conclusion Aslan is not a metaphor for Jesus but instead is his fursona.

[captorations]

just saw someone criticize tlt for having too many epithets and. that is. the worst take i have seen in a long time. tell me you have fanfic brain poisoning without telling me you have fanfic brain poisoning.

look, i'm firmly on the side of being careful with epithets. it's actually a pet peeve of mine. seeing people repeatedly referred to by their hair colors or race or other physical descriptors is the fastest way to get me to close a book or hit the back button on a fic, far more so than grammatical errors or the like. that's not because of the epithets, but because of how they're being misused.

it is possible to use epithets just for variety, but that should be kept to an absolute minimum. a far more valid use of epithets is to draw attention to traits which are currently relevant. if one character is being manhandled by another, referring to the former as the smaller one, or the latter as the larger one, or even vice versa depending on context, is an excellent form of imagery. but that's a relatively pedestrian use. effective and useful, but not necessarily powerful; not phrases you can build stories around.

but you can build stories around epithets, because the best possible use of epithets in fiction is to tell you what the pov character is thinking, or not thinking, without saying it directly. it's one of the most powerful methods of showing rather than telling.

the first time gideon calls harrow "her necromancer" in tlt is crucial. it's blink-and-you-miss-it, but it marks the first time gideon sees harrow as hers. which is both negative, in that it's possessive, and positive, in that it means she actually fucking cares! which before then, and for a good long while after, she couldn't consciously admit to herself, much less harrow!

for the record, gideon first calls harrow her necromancer after having spent days wrestling with herself over whether she should care about harrow being apparently missing, wavering back and forth before giving in and searching for her, and eventually finding her unconscious because harrow is a moron who kept working until she passed out in a haunted basement. gideon calls harrow her necromancer as she is carrying her, having confirmed that she is unharmed but dehydrated and having just seen her briefly struggle back to consciousness for the express purpose of bitching at someone.

every time it is used thereafter, it carries the weight of every time it has been said previously. the necromancer-cavalier dynamic in the world of tlt is fascinating, both on a conceptual level and in every example we are given. hell, it's the closest thing their society has to gender roles, but that's another essay, and a very pretentious one i have no intention of writing.

tlt is a master class in using epithets correctly. again, if you're just so fucking sick of epithets being misused in fanwork, i get it. i'm right there with you. but epithets are not inherently bad, no more than alliteration is, or goddamn semicolons.

on the other hand, if the person meant the silly nicknames gideon keeps giving harrow, then i'm even more baffled. at that point you just have no taste or sense of humor. but as a rule i prefer to turn venting into lectures that are potentially helpful to others; it's not like i've tagged the person who i saw do this, i'm not here to start a fight.

anyway. to summarize. epithets used randomly to replace calling people by their names: generally bad. epithets used to create imagery or remind the reader of details relevant to the situation: good, useful. epithets used to show changes in perspective and show rather than tell: fucking excellent.

[valtsv]

hi! do you have any advice/ tips on reading Hamlet/ Shakespeare on your own? I read some in highschool, but it was always with the aid of the teacher and course material. now im older and wanna read Hamlet, but i find it sorta daunting with the old English, heavily symbolism etc. etc. feels like im not completely understanding what im reading. basically, how do you go about reading and annotating Shakespeare? ty in advance!

hmm. well a lot of copies come with footnote annotations that help to translate some of the more unfamiliar words, phrases and things that might not make sense without context that the original audience would have been familiar with but have since been lost, so try to get your hands on one of those if you can. sparknotes also has a very good translation (just search online "sparknotes hamlet translation") into more contemporary english + annotations which can be helpful to bridge the gaps in your understanding of the original text (and there's no shame at all in that; i didn't understand a lot of the original text without guidance the first time i read it). my only other tip is to use a pencil to make any annotations directly onto the text itself if you have a physical copy, so that way if your interpretations change or become more complex as your understanding grows you can easily edit them and don't have to worry about "ruining" the pages with crossings-out or corrections. it can really help you to feel comfortable expressing your thoughts, because you don't have to worry about making mistakes.

[wallbeatjournal]

Could you elaborate on jughead and his bad Moby Dick takes?

he's basically representing the most boring and smug "what you see is what you get, authorial intent is the only way to interpret a story, and also the author is ALWAYS upfront about their intent with the public" angle on literary analysis when he argues that it's pointless to try to read subtext into the book. famously a crummy way to read moby dick and a crummy way to read riverdale and all the context around it as an archie comics adaptation. no metaphorical readings allowed unless the original creator says it's OK??! OK!!

it's a viewpoint he explicitly grows out of in season seven. the jughead of the more character-optimistic s7 reboot becomes very invested in metaphor and subtext and the idea that someone could write about a milkman murderer but make him something else to skirt censorship and then deny the connection publicly. (and also veronica critiques the unintentional incel undertones of his writing and he needed that ❤️)

[saintsukuna]

there is something nuanced to be said about how the Zen’in clan is full of commentary about tradition and gender roles and how Naoya is a misogynist but is rather feminine looking and speaks with a girlish dialect and he dies how he says disobedient women should die and his curse form looks like a vagina and his domain expansion looks like a womb… but unfortunately my brain is soup and all i can say is Naoya transgender

[kakushigotofanclub]

I haven’t talked about this one in a while, but for my Da Capo Al Fine AU—the one where Tanjiro’s reincarnation remembers everything about his past life and most people think he’s crazy—my little sister Mabel came up with an amusing idea for how he tracks down Inosuke lol.

While Tanjiro’s looking through databases and social media and things online to try and find him, the tv is on in the background and a documentary comes on about children raised in the wilderness…you can probably see where this is going 😂

I don’t know if that’s how I’m going to do it when/if I actually write the fic but I thought it was funny

[findher-ogg]

A very interesting takeaway from the Farseer Trilogy so far (just started Assassin's Quest so no spoilers) that I have so far is that not only is Wit an unintentional allegory for queerness but it's also an even more unintentional allegory for autism! As an autistic person reading quite a few of the characters come across as autistic to me anyway, but focusing on Fitz specifically he has

- a very poor grasp of social cues

- a very specialised interest in both animal care and assassin things

- immediately after being revived after his month with Nighteyes he's on a similar level of functionality as an autistic person with high support needs, and in relearning to be a man he is relearning how to mask/cope

- continuing this, his constant dilemma of if he is more man or more wolf reminds me of my own personal struggle with how much of my personality is me masking vs my autism

Additionally

- Burrich's own internalised ableism (such as when he scolds Fitz for talking to Nighteyes or when he "kills" Nosy)

- whatever the fuck is going on with Kettricken

Honourable mentions go to the Fool, Patience and Verity who are also very very autistic but get differently stigmatised for it

[starsunfirelight]

A Literary Analysis of pov: dating homelander

A lesson in toxic relationships, for everyone to see-✨:sigh:

By: Me

July 14th, 2024

Most recently finished July 28th, 2024

Ah, where do I begin. This afternoon, I was looking through Spotify to find songs that reminded me of a theme. I liked TheKidLaroi’s recent release “GIRLS”, and I was wondering if there was an equivalent to this song from the opposite perspective. I remembered Charli xcx’s “Boys”, and I went to look that up. I found what I was looking for, but, while it did have a chorus related to “boys”, it thematically, felt kinda different. Oh well, there’s always another day, I guess. But in my search for more songs, I came across something, interesting. Something that would change my life forever. Introducing:

 pov: dating homelander by Beatrice bagelish

Now, when I first saw this, I got curious. I was familiar with the series, as it was something I’d seen before in my youtube recommended, but I had not watched the show. And, coincidentally, I had a conversation with someone who had seen the show not too long ago. So, curious, I took a listen. Sooner or later, I discovered, there was a story the author was trying to tell. Here is my understanding of the story:

Who is homelander?

Homelander is a character from Amazon Prime’s television show The Boys, a satirical take on superhero society, if they were to become real, as well as a reflection on real life current society, if you pay attention, close enough. In this show, Homelander is known as an over the top, cartoonishly American superhero, who is nationalistic, and is meant to be the villain, though we see the show through his viewpoint. He resembles real life political figures like former president Donald Trump, among others. I have not seen the show, but through watching clips and reading a synopsis of the show, this is what my assumptions are about the show and his character.

The title

The title of this playlist is “pov: dating homelander”. The title is stylized in lower case, indicating that the title follows a meme format, popularized by TikTok, where people would film themselves acting out certain scenarios, from a character’s point of view. Though, in my experience, most people show the character from a 2nd or 3rd person point of view, rather than a first person point of view. Regardless, the idea is there, and the character they are talking about is intended to be somewhere in the video, whether literally or figuratively. From this, we can guess that this playlist, if it followed typical spotify playlist etiquette, could go in a few directions. Is it meant to be a playlist of songs that a person potentially dating Homelander would listen to? It is meant to be a playlist of songs that Homelander would listen to if he were dating someone, though that would be a misinterpretation of the title? (something that you can’t rule out, as this happens on Tiktok). Is it meant to be a playlist consisting of the “general vibe” of the situation? Is it meant to be a playlist featuring songs that play out this scenario, from a third person point of view? Is it meant to be a playlist from all of the perspectives? Could it somehow be a combination of all of these things? I guess, we’ll just have to listen, and just wait and see.

Also, a note here after listening to the whole playlist, pov: dating homelander doesn’t specify that you’re the one dating Homelander, so we get to see the whole situation from multiple different points of view! :D Oh boy, you’re in for a ride!

What is the importance of the picture of the playlist?

The picture of the playlist accompanies the title pov: dating homelander. There is writing in the TikTok font, which confirms the relation to the meme from TikTok that was mentioned earlier. Also the fact that they are referencing TikTok specifically, when it could also be something that appears on YT shorts or Instagram Reels. They also include a picture of Homelander, and the caption reads: “I can fix him”. They included a picture of Homelander to show, pictorially, the character that they are referring to, in case they had a different “vision” in their head, but also, the pose seems to be a generic pose from the show. Perhaps season 1? He looks proud, and stands tall, almost as if he is looking at the person that the playlist mentions that he is dating. So it appears, at first glance, that everything seems to be going well. Perhaps the author chose a generic frame, to make sure that it fit the playlist as a whole, kind of like a book cover, in a sense. Either way, for whatever reason, this picture sets the tone for what to expect, going into the playlist.

There is a caption on the photo that reads “I can fix him”. This implies that the person dating Homelander is doing so, not because they desire a stable and happy relationship, but because they believe that by being in the relationship, they can change Homelander’s known problematic behaviors to be ones that are… less so. They know that he is problematic, yet they romanticize a “fixed” version of him in their head, much like is common in real life relationships. This is toxic, however, and ultimately, most people find out that they will never be able to fix the person that they are trying to fix, and they must face a decision of whether or not to walk away from the relationship themselves. People cannot change, unless they are willing to change themselves. And, knowing Homelander, it is foolish to think that he could change. This is a fictional setting, so the kind of person that would date Homelander would certainly not be a person who believes in a healthy, stable, co-nurturing relationship, so in order for this playlist to be more realistic to the character, it makes sense that the person dating Homelander would not know that the relationship is toxic, or else they would have left a long time ago. From what I’ve seen of the playlist so far, and keeping this theme in mind, I think at first we will encounter their initial naïvete in the initial stages of their relationship, only for the person dating Homelander to eventually realize that they really can’t “fix him”, and make the heartbreaking decision to move on, which is what is ultimately better for them.

Now, onto the actual playlist!!

Arc 1: The honeymoon phase

Note, I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics, and didn’t really start to do that until I got to the Lana songs. Also, some of the lyrics were not available through Spotify. But it’s ok to summarize the playlist arcs, or this would be really long lol.

(We know that in this pov, the person dating Homelander is a woman, as I presume Homelander is aggressively nationalist American, for the memes, but also because of songs you’ll see later on) Here, the girl, and Homelander are just having a great time. They have just started dating, and they listen to classically American songs, as is reminiscent of Homelander’s character. Though, there is a message within the patriotic songs that this isn’t right, with the song “Tainted Love”. Crucified has a message of “I know this isn’t right, but leave me alone.” We’ll see Christian imagery come up time and time again. This goes on for a while. All the way up until Layla, I imagine. Here, we see a shift, as this song still has that classic American feel, but it has no lyrics. Perhaps, this is where the girl starts to have a shift in mood.

Arc 2: Trouble in Paradise

The musics stops being highkey energetic, and is more lowkey.

Here, with GOLDWING, we get a song telling someone to remain pure and untraumatized, as the interpretation on Genius reads. This could be a message to Homelander, as the girl naïvely thinks that the critics are all wrong, and Homelander should stay just the way he is. It could also, and I think this is the more likely interpretation, be a message to the girl dating Homelander to please stop seeing him, as things could go bad real soon, if she doesn’t get out.

Later the girl probably realizes that she doesn’t really like Homelander and dates a girl instead, like in Good Luck, Babe! → LUNCH

I looked ahead to the songs I recognized

Alright, here’s the full summary:

Alright, so it’s been a few days, and I think I’m ready to tell you what happened. Sit down, because it’s a long one. 

Ok.

First, Homelander and the girl were all happy. Yeah, sure, the girl knew it was toxic, but who cares! Meanwhile, we have the other girl, who stares at their relationship longingly, knowing it’s not right, and hopes that she would be better off dating her instead. We get a message, saying girl, don’t let yourself be harmed and go through all this trauma. Well, if she did hear it, she definitely ignored it. Important to note, they have kids, whether it was from a previous arrangement, or together. Also, the girl is rich, has tan skin, was from the streets, but she sure knows how to make a man go crazy over her. Well, after a while, the initial excitement of the relationship wears off, and things start to not seem as perfect as it was at the start. Homelander is kinda detached, starts partying around and seeing other girls, and he just mainly sees the girl as a toy. The girl, kinda feeling dejected, goes to see the other girl, and they have an affair. She spoils her with her wealth, and they just have a good time. Homelander eventually catches wind of this, and he’s furious. The two of them have a big argument, and then they break up. We see a song that doesn’t make sense right now, but really, it’s foreshadowing what’s going to happen in the future. A whole “half your age” thing comes up. I might be missing something here. But anyways. Moving along. Homelander is miffed, and he’s upset that she would do this to him. But, as time goes on, he starts falling for her, and realizing what he missed. He gets crazy, and starts stalking her, begging her to get back together with him. Eventually, he’s had enough. He’s out for blood. Out for revenge. If he can’t have her, no one can. He threatens to bomb a school, unless she marries him, and the girl, fearing for her life, agrees.

…

Years pass, and the two of them are married. They have the kids, and the household is dysfunctional, yet seems to be running alright from the point of view of the public eye. The other girl, remembers her, and knows that they are in a unhappy relationship. (For the girl, anyway.) She seeks out the girl, finds her, and they have a fling. But, the girl won’t commit to the relationship, and pushes her away. This troubles the other girl. Homelander finds out, and he assaults her. He then tries to manipulate her into staying in the relationship by asking “remember all the good times we had?” but she starts to realize just how bad of a person Homelander really is. The other girl gives her the confidence/encourages her to fight back, and then Homelander goes away. He swears to get revenge, but just as that thought is forming in his brain, Homelander dies. The causes are unknown, though I assumed it was a lightning strike of divine intervention. Or just a coincidence. He is punished hard in the afterlife, while going “tell me, this must have been a mistake!!!” 

Now the two girls are happy together. But. oh boy, this is where the real/even worse trouble begins.

At first, they are happy together. But, due to the girl’s internalized homophobia, (we don’t explicitly see the fact that this is a girl, but there were some references throughout so it’s a reasonable conclusion to make), she leaves the other girl.  She later explains how her father/her neglectful not really loving parents were the ones who made her feel this way. Still doesn’t excuse her from being evil though :shruggie:. The girl deals with this breakup poorly, turning to drugs and fame, and gambling! and other people. Through some series of events, they end up meeting again. The other girl is still committed, almost too much, to loving the girl. They “So… can we start over? Can we just be friends?” “Sure :)” They try it out for a while. They have a party time and then the girl explains all her trauma and backstory to the other girl. Again, this doesn’t excuse her from being an evil person :/. The other girl can’t take it anymore, she loves the girl too much. She confesses that she doesn’t just wanna be friends. She is like “please, just let me love you! I love you, why don’t you love me? Why do you insist on leaving me? 🥺” and frankly, starts to consider leaving her, at this rate. The girl is like “Noo, I’m broken, I like to break things, and I’m a horrible person!” (the other girl like you should just believe her at this point.) They still haven’t committed to seeing each other yet 😑. They have a mini breakup, and the girl like immediately starts seeing someone else. She talks to the other girl about them on the phone, and the other girl smiles at the girl’s pain.

Now, this part is a bit unclear to me, but I think, essentially,

 Eventually, the other girl decides that she has had enough. She’s gonna become Mr. Bad Guy. 

At some point here, the girl moves out of the other girl’s place she was staying at, and the other girl is like getting disinterested in the girl, like apathy and bitter resentment.

One fine day, she goes out and kills this person, leaving them to die in the girl’s arms. Now, they were both there, so either one of them could get in trouble for this. (The other girl: I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my issues.) (Though, it’s better than that and more well characterized in the playlist.) 

Or, the girl decided to murder them herself! Like Homelander threatened to do to her, years ago.

She couldn’t handle her own internalized homophobia, and just decided to kill them, to stop the pain.

 So, now, there are no obstacles left for the two of them being together. So, the other girl is like, “Why aren’t we together yet?” The girl starts liking her back. Almost… obsessively. The other girl, however, sees her own worth, and although they had like a movie date, starts finding real love and true fulfillment with the new girl she met earlier. She already mentally gave up on the girl a while ago. The other girl and the new girl meet up, and they kinda have a lovely affair. Then, it kinda feels like the situation when the girl was married to Homelander, in the sense that they’re in a relationship together, but the other girl isn’t happy. Also, there is the murder charge still on the loose, and they have to deal with that somehow. Just… not now. The girl has secrets, and she’s involved in some real shady business, as far as I can tell. Telling secrets in her sleep? Knowing who’s calling even though the number is blocked? Eventually, the girl decides to leave, (no, don’t go! -the other girl), on the run for her murder charges I think, and the other girl is “I’ll know wherever you go. You might be able to hide from other people, but you can’t hide from me.” They go long distance. But, the other girl finally has had it with the girl, they break up for like the third time and this time they have an argument and the other girl forces the girl to face her internalized homophobia, and basically decides to leave the girl for good. “Fine. You can date all the boys you want, just know that that will never be able to get rid of your true feelings. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”  

The other girl finds the new girl she met earlier (or maybe for the first time!), and they have a great time. Especially since it’s being reciprocated in such a sweet way ☺️. The new girl is a bit apprehensive, but the other girl is like “come on! don’t be shy! 🙂” and they’re falling in love. The other girl mentions, why aren’t we living together? (I think it’s from how they’re still in a long distance relationship, but it looks like it could be for the new girl here instead.) idk!

Gonna have to go back for that one!

 But here, we get another prophecy/foreshadowing song. This is supposed to tease the idea that even though Homelander may be dead, his ideas are not. And if you haven’t noticed already, the girl is well on her way to becoming Homelander 2.0. (:O this was a huge shocker to me when I was first listening to this playlist, and I think this is around the time that it all finally started to click for me.)  Then, the girl finds out that the other girl was cheating on her, (cuz like they still hadn’t made their on again off again relationship official???) and that’s when this time, the other girl fights back! They are now over for good! 😀 The girl realizes just how much she loves the other girl (Oh would you look at that, just like Homelander! 😀) and the other girl is nicer than the girl, so like the girl doesn’t die. But she starts getting all stalker and obsessive, just like Homelander did. The other girl ends up in jail, now that the girl wouldn’t cover for her murder charges, and maybe pins it on the other girl (“See? I have connections, thanks to being the wife of Homelander. Now, if you’d just love me back, I’d pay your $250,000 bail! I’m rich, remember?” “Yea No. 😐” “Ok… whatever you say.” and she leaves.)  Well, anyways. It’s over now! Party time with the new girl who actually loves her back!!!!! 😀  The girl tries coming back, but the other girl isn’t having it. The trauma affected her a little bit, but the new girl reassures her, so it’s all ok. This is nothing like before. That’s all in the past. Now, they have each other. 🙂 You try to mess with me? The AUDACITY! Coming back after all of this? No, I don’t think so. Get away. So, the girl looks on, sad, seeing them happy in public, “Was I not enough? 😔 (NO, and you should have done better, girl)” and the two girls the other girl and the new girl live happily every after. The other girl knows her love is real love this time. ☺️ The End.

(we know it’s a new girl because of songs like good luck, babe! and more importantly, LUNCH! :D) Waterloo is the perfect end to this all, because it wraps up the lesson that we learned, that history will repeat again, time and time again, and they end up getting married. YAY!!!!! 🥳 🎉 🎊 💒 👰‍♀️👰‍♀️💍 💕 💘 :happily ever after, The end! 💗🩷 🎈🙂 🔚

She knows her love is real this time

Character cards:

Homelander: Loud, aggressive, toxic, charming, the villain

Songs/Artists: Charlie, Fall Out Boy

Headcannon brown hair -> black, brown skin

The girl: rich neglectful parents who don’t really love her, but she knows how to get what she wants, is from the streets, looks like Esmerelda, rocks a dress in pink, pearls, loves to spoil her girlfriend, has status and power after marrying Homelander, has kids, also is hot to people, really knows how to get men to love her, for some reason (or maybe that’s just Homelander idk)

Lana, Crazy Girls idk wow we don’t really see her perspective as much, huh Guys My Age

Marina, unfortunately. I mean, if the shoe fits? 🤷‍♀️

Madonna is like them (the girl and the other girl) together :0 

Headcannon brown hair dyed blonde -> black, pale skin but idk

The other girl: Not rich, poor, sweet, soft, butch, (or is the girl a butch? Update: more lore makes the latter more likely???), loves the girl, is strong, and wants her to leave her relationship with Homelander, is very hot to everyone, seasoned traveler, a world renowned heartbreaker, guess it was never that serious until she met her 🥹, is younger than both of them(?) a hopeless romantic 💕

Lesley Gore, Harry Styles, Brittany Spears, Lady Gaga

Lily Allen describes her to a tee>>>ya! Oh D:

The New Girl: Trusting, loyal, kind, sweet, a work of art, actually knows what a healthy relationship looks like…

Songs: Sarah Smiles? Nah, You Should Be Dancing, Got To Be Real, the good girl in Karma, etc. Waterloo :) (they’re endgame! Lol)

Charlie’s Inferno into Here Comes The Sun is DIABOLICAL

You can feel the sun in that song….. ☀️ ☁️ ⛰️ 🌊

and now the universe is giving me what I deserve - karma

Side note, there are tons of brilliant callbacks in this playlist. Like, I didn’t think that the fact that the girl was rich would be mentioned after the first time, but it remains a recurring theme throughout. It even serves as a way to symbolize whose perspective we are seeing, most of the time (until perhaps the very end of the playlist, when perhaps the other girl has acquired wealth of her own.) We see songs that foreshadow future events, like GOLDWING, Rumor Has It, and Happy Nation.

-other continuing themes

-Homelander was a cannibal in the figurative sense, and then so became the girl

-Homelander used campy and upbeat songs to symbolize his craziness, and as the girl gets more deranged, the songs become more upbeat and campy.

-Each character has a distinctive style of song they get attached to, and there are some recurring artists that usually symbolize one character.

-Homelander mentions wanting to die, then threatening to blow up the school

-the girl having brown skin (Esmerelda, Harry Styles)

-the use of happy, sunny songs after escaping from a bad relationship is just wow

-using the same song twice really sells the idea that the girl really has become Homelander 2.0

-the whole history repeats itself theme was brilliant, and I really did not see that coming. 

-loving you is cherry pie comes up again, lol

The Ballad of Mona Lisa

There’s nothing wrong with a little taste of what you paid for

WHAT DOES THAT LINE MEAN?????

within the context of this plotline, I mean

Please tell me!

-payed for the alcohol with money

-payed for the relationship??? No??? What?? Why 😭

The other girl has been giving so much and getting little to nothing in return 🥺

The rumor has it foreshadowing happens after the fight with homelander, hmm what a strange place to put it

But I guess it makes sense.

You leave me, I leave you!

Like the story gets all hectic and busy after this, and like this is a good place to put it like as a filler episode,, and like a break from all the action from the before and after this takes place

Songs mesh together really well, and it’s giving theater kid! But like, I feel like the amount of talent and skill it takes to make a playlist like this kinda require it

Most of the songs are super popular songs, and also popularized from tiktok

Makes sense given the title and picture on the playlist cover

Back to the main story!!!! (after the commercial break after Rumor Has It lol)

Batphone

I sell the fact that I can’t be bought

Line hits hard after you know the context by this part of the playlist

The other girl used to get spoiled by the girl, but she isn’t taking it anymore. She’s done.

It’s crazy the lore Billie puts in. I mean, the bail? It’s huge! An exact number???? WOw.

Good luck babe!

I told you a lie, that you were the love of my life

Was it casual, now?

Cuz girls is players, too.

>I said it all before and I’ll say it again

>I’m interested in more than just being your friend

She’s said it to the girl before, and got rejected, and now we have her! 

It’s like you can feel the whole world collapsing in on that statement

The girl picked up smoking, just like Homelander

-smokin out the window’

-exes house

-lay all your love on me

The girl also wasn’t treating it seriously, until she fell in love in Lay All Your Love On Me

Like the last half of the playlist really kills it

Or maybe it’s because I can really understand that part, and the message is clear post foreshadowing with happy nation

L’amour de ma vie and I will survive are like oddly perfect for what went down over here.

This story serves as a cautionary tale, that we should all be well aware of. It’s the foundational basis for the feeling in the song Casual by Chappell Roan. Oh yeah, now you know why she was bitter (if you didn’t already know, and in that case, I’m so sorry for you 😭) This story tells us many things. Just because you're the protagonist of a story, doesn’t mean you can’t do wrong. Just because a person is a woman, doesn’t mean they can’t be a manipulative conniving abusive partner, like you might have expected from other people. (Really, this could be everyone. Anyone is capable of this, and that’s important to know.)

This story lets you reexamine biases that you may not even know that you had.

I mean, there are always villains in media. But when’s the last time you’ve seen a villain be a woman? And a lesbian, at that? 🤔

Blew my mind. (kinda sad I hadn’t seen it before, I should have expected it, tbh)

This playlist taught me a lesson, and they taught it well.

Good and bad can come in many forms, it’s all just a matter of perspective

History repeats itself. The cycle of abuse repeats itself. That was the main theme of this story, I think.

Just because someone is a person who suffered from abuse, doesn’t exempt them from becoming an abuser later on. In fact, it’s super likely.

The abused become the abusers

It takes a special kind of person to love someone really messed up

And like sometime that ain’t a good thing

Don’t give it all away to someone who can’t even love you back >:(

save your tears for another day

I understand a fraction of Chappell Roan’s pain 😔😔👍

“I can fix him” NO YOU CAN’T. LEAVE< NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The author could be reflecting on their own real life experience, which makes me really sad 😥

I’m going to leave you with this song, as a conclusion, while you see the list of patreons on screen. Thank you. And have a good day! 😀

California - Chappell Roan

Casual - Chappell Roan (this one hurts so maybe not 😖)

This album literally changed my life. I am now, forever changed, I carry the burden of the lives I lived, used to know, and maybe somedays will be. Beatrice bagelish, this one’s for you.

I can’t be who I was anymore. I literally became an adult because of you. Chappell Roan may have taught me the ways, but you made me grow up. I will remember this, forever. Even though I may forget, the feeling will be carried with me, til the end of time. I can’t ignore who I am anymore. ( just really love this music in the playlist, and can’t deny that I love it anymore.)

[miirshroom]

Loki as inspiration for Radagon

I have seen it many times where people are able to interpret Marika as having attributes connected to Odin - trickster, hung on a tree and stabbed with a spear, dropped an eye (scarseal) down a well - but less often do I see identified Marika/Radagon's thematic ties to other Norse gods and especially Loki.

From review of the literature Radagon alone is something of an amalgamation of many myths and stories: Loki, Illmarinen/Kullervo, Orion, Xolotl, Gollum/Smeagol, the Rebis and/or a literal interpretation of man and woman becoming "one flesh" as described in Genesis in Christian bibles (and a handful of others). All under the combined names of gods Ra and Dagon. It may even be appropriate to think of him as a mimic on a meta level, given all of these inspirations pulled together.

And of all of those inspiration one stands out as especially synergistic with a mimic character - Loki the Trickster and shapeshifter. Maybe it's a pop culture recency bias of people getting hung up on the hair colour, since the Marvel black hair version of Loki is its own thing while most scholarship on the matter has Loki as either red-haired or (more likely) blonde. But specifically the version of Loki that appears in Wagner's Ring Cycle in the mid-1800's is red haired because Loki is conflated with the fire giant 'Logi' for that production. And on the other hand it also makes some sense to associate Radagon with the explicitly red-haired Thor who wields a hammer (more on that later).

Anyways, the main point is the characteristics of Loki that apply directly and indirectly around Radagon:

Half giant heritage. Radagon hates his hair the colour of fire giants - this one is clear.

Shapeshifter who has had children in male and female form. Radagon has fathered children and Marika has been mother to children. The 8-legged horse Sleipnir does not make an appearance but perhaps a spiritual analogue does: the Royal Revenants are 8-limbed. Godfrey is described as "scion of the Golden Bough" and a scion is a limb taken from a tree, so perhaps it is meant to be that in the empty space of the narrative Marika was mother to 8 children of the Golden Lineage.

Had three children with a giantess: Hela the queen of the underworld who is half dead and half alive (Ranni), Jormungandr the World Serpent (Rykard), and Fenris Wolf who has the most convoluted mythology of the 3 but is most known for having a voracious appetite (Radahn eats corpses and howls at the sky). The twist on the classic here is that none of the three were born into these roles and instead all grew into them.

Loki wagered his head in a bet with a craftsman who forged 3 treasures: a ring for Odin that generates 8 copies of itself every 9 days, a golden boar for Freyr, and Thor's hammer Mjolnir. Again, two of the treasures have direct parallels in the Elden Ring and Marika's Hammer. The third is less obvious but there are indeed boars in the Lands Between. And now a man riding boar in the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer. When he lost the bet the craftsman had planned to behead him, but Loki pointed out that he had not wagered his neck, so instead the craftsman sewed his mouth shut. My main point is that the Preceptor's Mask associated with Radagon's journey to Liurnia has the mouth "sewn shut", and Glintstone crowns in general have associations with beheading.

Was imprisoned for his role in tricking Hodr - the blind Norse god of darkness - into killing Baldr - Norse god of light. Parallel to the death of Godwyn. This has led as least some people to match up Ranni to Loki, which itself is not incorrect because this is an original story and not a 1:1 recreation of myth. But to the theory that Marika/Radagon orchestrated the Night of Black Knives, this is a point in favour.

Is credited in the Prose Edda with inventing the fishing net (same pattern as Radagon's rune). This also connects to an incident just before Loki was caught where he takes the form of a salmon and the gods use his own net to help catch him (Radagon's rune blocking entry to the Erdtree). However, there is another connection to Ranni here as it is said in the more reliable Poetic Edda that Loki actually borrowed the net from Rán, goddess of the sea.

Obtained from craftsmen a wig of golden hair for Sif - wife of Thor - to replace the hair he cut off for a trick by shaving her bald. This one is not explicitly invoked - aside from the tendency for demigods to be shorn of their hair and have it included in their helms. It is more an exercise of extrapolation after identifying a pattern with other Loki stories and also drawing upon that imagery of Radagon wielding Thor's hammer. Imagine Radagon divesting himself of his red hair and replacing it with golden hair as part of becoming Marika as a preferred identity. Sif also was known to wear a veil in the time before receiving new hair - and Marika wears a veil in her church statues. The statue of a bald monk appears to be symbolic of the beginning of Marika's Age of the Erdtree.

Altogether, the point is that there are many ways to understand what it means that Radagon and Marika are the same person. Mythology is one of those ways - so often in myths identities are fluid because they represent a set of stories that drifted in retellings and were later brought back and merged into a single entity by selectively choosing the new canon. The two aspects of a single god are interpreted as two different gods due to language barriers, wander apart for a bit as the stories diverge when told by different storytellers, and merge back together or get subsumed into the identity of another god entirely.

Edit: As pointed out in the reblog, scholarship speculates that Loki originated as a disguise of Odin as Trickster God. However - to nip in the bud a conclusion that could be made from this - I would not say that this indicates that Marika started as a genderswapped Odin who diverged to become a Radagon Loki. Because FromSoft has stated explicitly who most embodies Odin: Gideon Ofnir. Ófnir is a name meaning "Inciter" and attributed to Odin by Snorri. Gideon synergizes well as a Tarnished version of Radagon - representing a previous version of him from a certain point in time. If you like, consider Gideon to be a companion who joined Radagon on the campaign to Raya Lucaria - he had to make an acquaintance of Seluvis at some point after all. Gideon claims to know that Marika wishes the Tarnished to struggle forever, which places him on the same line of thought as Radagon's eternal agonized hammering of the ring (and Gideon's weapon is a type of hammer as well). Radagon has been noted to use only incantations in his fight despite having spent time learning sorcery at Raya Lucaria. These traits of combining incantations and sorcery are instead displayed by Gideon who gives payoff to the characterization of Odin as wizard.

I stick to my original assessment of what it means that "Radagon is Marika" and Radagon is both Marika's other self and yet to become her. Marika is a persona constructed by Radagon in imitation of someone else, and an identity assumed through shapeshifting. He tried to disappear completely behind the persona of Marika to cover his flaws but could not do so because she was a hollow imitation and repressing the core issues instead of confronting them only caused them to fester. It's like the theme of God of War Ragnarok (2022) as in the Detail Diatribe by Overly Sarcastic Productions: generational trauma is the Hidden Hand of Fate. When those festering doubts resurface Radagon as Loki as an offshoot of Odin tries to solve the problem like an Odin: by tortuously hanging on a tree for knowledge, plucking out eyes to drop down wells, and so on. That's the generational trauma bit - it's a cycle of pain. It's why it was important for Ranni to shed her bloodline connection to Radagon in the context of the narrative. And then slay the Hidden Hand of Fate (I.e. Manus Celes). It frees her from the cycle and from continuing the mess of complexes that was Radagon/Marika. She is the queen of the underworld that is represented by the Lands Between and she is doing it on her own terms.

[somewhere-south-of-neutral]

So, I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of Community (I like it, but I don't love it), nor have I watched very much of it (some random full episodes and clip compilations they put on YouTube), and of the core cast Britta might be my least favorite specifically because I really dislike the "straw feminist/liberal rebel without a cause" character archetype, but I have to admit that she might be one of the best written and least offensive versions of that archetype because the writers clearly understand why the kind of person she is parodying is annoying.

See, the tropes Britta embodies are almost always used to belittle or minimize real activism and feminism. Characters who fit them almost always either make actual real good points that are implied by the narrative to be foolish, naive, or harmful, or they are making actual strawman arguments but are painted as accurately representing the entire movement thy parody.

Britta, however, is neither of these. What she is instead is a somewhat heightened but generally true to form depiction of a White Feminist™ who has never once examined her own biases or heard the word "intersectionality". When she is the butt of the joke, the point is almost always not the idea of activism, but the fact that she herself is so obviously bad at it.

A great example of this is this classic scene:

The butt of the joke here is not the concept of opposing animal cruelty, but that Britta finds it more offensive than racism.

Her approach to Abed's neurodivergence, and disability in general, is similar. Community has often been lauded for it's autistic representation, and I think it's worth noting that one of the ways that the representation is good is the way other characters, especially Britta, have a tendency to infantilize and patronize Abed and are almost always shown to be in the wrong and/or working under false premises. Again, in cases like these, the butt of the joke isn't disability activism, but the fact that Britta's conception of disability activism doesn't include disabled people.

Her approach to queerness is also like this, with the clearest example being her depiction of the Dean in her imagined season 7 in the finale. Her decision to make him a trans woman and the speech about "not [being] a joke anymore" the clarification that this is a "real thing" and the claim of "representing the trans community" is both a specific betrayal of every aspect of the Dean's complex relationship with gender, sexuality, and the highlighting of such (he has repeatedly refused to explicitly label his gender and sexuality because he doesn't like to be put in a box and there is at least one episode entirely about him not wanting to be the token sanitized queer) and a general demonstration of her inability to respect or admit the reality and validity of any queer identity other than binary trans person, gay person, and maybe bisexual. And, again, the implication of the scene is not "trans funny" or "nonconforming genders funny" but "lets all point and laugh at the idiot who is so small minded and dedicated to the idea of using the 'right' language while just remaking the gender binary that despite claiming to be an ally her attempt to demonstrate her allyship only leads to her explicitly misgendering and fundamentally demonstrating a disrespect for someone she has known for years because she refuses to acknowledge the infinite complexity of human gender and sexuality".

And the thing about Britta is that, unlike most straw feminist characters, there are actual people like her, and many of them are on tumblr right now sending anon hate to gay people for using what they refer to as "the q-slur".

And yes, that's right, I did just write a multi-paragraph character analysis for a character I don't really care about from a show I don't really watch purely as a preamble to probably the coldest take anyone has ever had on this website.

[acewizardinspace]

The truth is, sometimes there is no watsonian answer.

Lets say for a moment a character is established to hate the color green. Then in one scene we see them wearing a green scarf. This is never mentioned or explained. It can be fun to come up with watsonian (in universe) explanations for this behavior. Maybe he got it from this other character who loves green, or maybe he changed his mind. But when those explanations actually directly contradict what happens on screen, then there is a problem. Lets say it is impossible for him to have met this other character and gotten a gift, or he mentions his hatred for green again two episodes later meaning it is impossible for him to have changed his mind.

Now your fun watsonian headcanon instead of adding meaning actively detracts meaning. Now it makes the story worse not better. Now the story stops making any amount of sense because you insist on calling attention to something the creators never wanted you to. This can be fun for AUs and headcanons, please keep with it! But it is a shit basis for shit literary analysis.

The truth is, sometimes his scarf is green because that is what the costumer designers had on hand. The truth is, sometimes there is no watsonian answer.

[firestorm09890]

hey it's that anon from the other day about meursault. I am also an autistic individual with low empathy and can therefore only partially sympathize with Meursault. I think that you've done a reading of The Stranger that is very sympathetic and that there is value in that, but I've always read The Stranger as both a story about the absurdity of connection and a story about a Frenchman in colonial Algiers who doesn't understand himself or his own biases. You mention heat stroke but I think it's worth considering: is Meursault's perception of events realiable? Could he be unconsciously struggling with his complicity in oppressive violence against a colonial subject?

You raise very good points. I will be considering this. It’s a bit late to change the wording on that og post though