#media analyses

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

The kind of Christ Figure the writers intended Jack to be: pure, glowing, wholesome, REALITY-BREAKINGLY POWERFUL DONT WORRY ABOUT IT, too-good-for-this-world White Bread Midwestern Evangelical Second Coming

The kind of Christ Figure Jack ACTUALLY became: everyone debating whether he IS God, or whether he and God are two aspects of the same being, if he counts as "Divine", is he a demigod etc etc etc

@jackgirlbluntrotation @very-offkey-kazoo @wrenchenthusiast

here. im not sorry

[flutishly]

At a family-adjacent event, someone from the other side of the family (who I know fairly well at this point) asked me "Have you ever read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall?" She knows that I love reading and like talking about books, so it wasn't completely out of left field, but given how much I adore Wolf Hall, it caught me off guard for a moment. Yes, I replied, it's actually genuinely one of my favorite books.

She then started talking about the reasons she mostly hated it. And it wasn't from a perspective of dismissing my love or tearing it down. She talked about how much she admired the writing and about how much she disliked the characters. "He's such a difficult main character," she mused. Yes! I cried, he is!

The whole time, we had this conversation while explicitly coming from different places in terms of engaging with this piece of art, coming from different generations (classic Boomer versus Millennial), and seeking different satisfaction from the art itself. She had just finished the book and I read it years ago, when it came out. But even though we had fundamentally different experiences reading the book, we forged a fascinating conversation. We argued over the literary merits of having such a flawed, difficult protagonist, about what it means to like that (as I do), and more.

And it's these sorts of conversations that I think are sorely missing from fandom. This debate wasn't an argument and it wasn't passive acceptance of someone else's other opinion with no pushback. There were aspects that were obviously just down to taste, but other things were interpretative or contextual. When I compared Wolf Hall as a contrast to the film "A Man For All Seasons", she brought up "Anne of the Thousand Days". Our interpretations were different. Our experiences were different. But that didn't prevent us from finding the contact points.

I love being able to engage with art (as should be pretty obvious by this entire blog). I love watching or reading something and going "ah yes, here is something I liked" and then discussing it. I also often like saying "ah yes, here is something I deeply disliked". My dislike usually doesn't negate my like (if I have it) or even someone else's like (if I don't). Today, gifmakers will often bristle at the idea of tags that don't fully embrace the characters or scenes depicted in the gifs. But for me, part of sharing something is having that discussion. If I'm sharing a gifset, it's because I like it and I want to be able to address something particular in that gifset. Sometimes, I find a relationship compelling without necessarily shipping them; does that mean I can't/shouldn't share something that comes from a place of viewing them romantically, while elaborating on that thought? Maybe, maybe not.

"Make your own post" is the common refrain, but that's exactly what I find missing. Smaller fandoms sometimes manage to have these conversations, but there's a sense that it's always the exception. Fandom revolves around the love of a thing, often leaving little room for truly nuanced discussions of what does or doesn't work for others. Ultimately, I'm surprised and gratified to have found exactly what I was looking for at a child's birthday party, discussing a book I really loved between the salad and the cake. I just wish I could have it within my other fandom communities as well.

[werewolfpurfect]

So yall I'm making a substack to write my thoughts on various media! I am really excited about this, as I always wanted a creative outlet for that kind of thing! First post will be on 2022's Poison Ivy comics and the way they portray humanity and inhumanity! https://substack.com/@errohle

[descendant-of-truth]

Shipping is fun and all but I swear every single time someone makes a comment, whether as a joke or in a legitimate analysis, about there being "no other explanation" for a pair's interactions, I lose just a bit more of my sanity

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

In conclusion: stop telling me that I don't understand the story if I don't interpret the leads as romantic, I am TIRED

[buggachat]

honestly just in general it's very exhausting to try to analyze media that is literally meant to be analyzed, only for the replies to be filled with people arguing not against your analysis, but against the premise that the media can be analyzed at all.

i don't even know what to say about it without starting to really betray my frustration, so i'll just settle with— just don't engage with analysis posts? I'm serious. if you're typing a response to a media analysis post, reread what you've written and ask yourself "is this comment/response against the very concept of analyzing the media at all?" and if the answer is yes then delete it all and go sit in the shame corner. throw your curtains away if you want to so bad and stop telling me that I'm not allowed to hum and haw at the fact mine are blue

[arcanegifs]

rewatch the show yall. it gets even better if you do.

[neutron-stars-collision]

It's incredible how much everything changes when you rewatch p1, after seeing the whole thing at least twice. Especially episodes 1-2. The context of Colin's feelings, his confounding feelings, makes everything even better.

Because imagine this: he's on the tour of the continent, living the life, only no one responds to his letter or seems interested in his whereabouts. And if it were only the family? He'd probably be fine. Salty, but fine. Except it's Pen, his dearest friend who doesn't respond to his letter. Not once.

So, Colin spirals, decides to change his personality, become the man he thinks society expects him to be, starts documenting things in his journal where usually he'd write about them to Pen. Perhaps with time he stops writing letters to her completely, but he still misses her so much.

He comes back, a changed man, everyone's attention on him and his newly acquired swagger. Debutantes swoon over him and his new look. It's everything he wanted, except... Pen gives him the cold shoulder. Twice. Doesn't seem at all interested in his new persona. The flirting, which he has tried out on many unimportant women in the Ton doesn't work on the one woman who actually matters. He's confused and lost.

Once he realises what he has done to garner Penelope's anger, he instantly makes amends. Sheds the newly acquired armour to tell her just how much she means to him. Or at least as much as he's allowing himself to notice by that point. The confusion is still there, and it gets worse after the handshake because you cannot tell me he didn't feel a spark right then? He definitely did. And it was bewildering.

But, still, being the oblivious man he is, Colin pushes on with the mad and spontaneous plan to help Pen find a husband. Mostly because it gives him a chance to spend time with her. And suddenly this is all he wants to do. The only thing that provides genuine joy. Only in those brief moments with her he can be himself. He can be accepted.

And episode 2 showcases all of that perfectly. It shows Colin in a permanent state of confusion because not only are those moments with Penelope the only times he feels like his old self, but also now there's more. The constant desire to be alone with her, to trample over any left rules of propriety to steal just a moment of her attention. To help her because this is the only thing he's good at. To be useful. Then jealousy begins to brew because he has to watch Pen be her charming self with men that are not him. Slowly he begins to realise that perhaps he wants more than to be her friend. That perhaps she's never been just a friend.

By the time Pen asks for that kiss, Colin is terrified because he wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her while knowing that it will mean something. It will mean something to him. Because Pen is home. Pen is everything he was looking for. And now that he has realised it there is no chance he can forget. The kiss only signs off that which was inevitable.

[prokopetz]

Some of y'all will call Joseph Campbell a little bitch, then turn around and act like TV Tropes has cracked a universal code underlying all human expression.

[otaku553]

I have an agenda.

Long hair teenage sabo.

[bisexualfagdyke]

I saw someone say that Jinx got a satisfying ending because she .... was suicidal and finally got to die? Uh. Yeah, that's not satisfying dude!!!! The idea that the only happy ending for mentally ill characters is death, is such a god awful message. She struggled for 2 whole seasons and never got a break, and her whole arc ended miserably and it's so unfair to her character. I know characters can be entirely tragic, but I truly believe it is unfair. Especially because she was DOING BETTER when she had Isha, demonstrating she can begin to recover, only to have that ripped from her so she could truly give up on life again and become suicidal. I am so unhappy with Isha's character, the way she was used as a plot device for Jinx's development only to die and then Jinx's development goes down the drain and she dies too? What was the POINT?

It also makes me bitter that caitvi sex scene happened in Jinx's jail cell, not long after Jinx had directly communicated suicidal ideation to Vi and went off to attempt. It's almost portrayed in a way where Vi chooses Caitlyn (an enforcer, an oppressor) over her own sister. It makes me bitter that caitvi got a good ending despite everything Caitlyn did, which she never apologised for, and it was never properly addressed. The oppression Caitlyn and the enforcers caused the zaunites was entirely swept under the rug.

This isn't even mentioning the other characters who got terrible endings. Ekko, especially. I am happy for caitvi and jayvik fans but I think ppl are so preoccupied with YAY! LESBIAN SEX! YAOI! That they fail to see how unsatisfying the ending was for other important major characters, or they just don't care cuz their fave ship got a decent ending. Don't pmo 😭😭 IDC IF UR FAVE GOT A GOOD ENDING!!!! IT SHOULDVE BEEN MY FAVES (JINX AND EKKO) INSTEAD!!!!!! I would've preferred to see literally any other character die than Jinx.

[dlldior]

i made the mistake of searching up dadbastian on twt and found a bunch of proshippers screenshotting my captions of my dadbastian edits and dragging me on there 💀

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

definitely less coherent/well-spelled than usual, still getting used to Twitter lol (im just on there for shows, art and myths. NEVER get current events stuff via twt holy SHIT)

anyway, post-show update to this is that apparently, you can't force open Janus' gates, it has to be done by choice. ....however, strapping his kid to a bomb is still pretty damn forceful.

also I'm currently trying to figure out why Rebecca has SO MUCH IN COMMON with AT LEAST FOUR DIFFERENT GODDESSES

who IS she

pspspspsps @jackgirlbluntrotation @wrenchenthusiast @very-offkey-kazoo come get yall's Janus

@maniac-reboggles idk if Roman Mythology is ur jam but here's some Deep (mostly CW Gotham Knights-Relevant) Two-Face Lore

@about-faces the (equally weird) companion piece to the whole Gilda Gold Grendel's Mother thing. I'm very normal abt seasonally-linked gods lmao

no time to copy-paste the full incoherent rant uhhh Here Yall Have Some Myths

@very-offkey-kazoo

@jackgirlbluntrotation

@wrenchenthusiast

@maniac-reboggles

[trans-androgyne]

I wince every time I see the documentary Disclosure celebrated as a great description of transness in media. It just hurt me too much to watch that for a trans studies class only to feel unseen and be told that transmasc invisibility is a "privilege" compared to what trans women get. Yeah, it's such a privilege that before 2006 I could only find exactly 9 depictions of transmasculinity and basically every single one is problematic in some way, including painting us as freakish and violent. How about considering that both situations are problems.

[potatosaresweet]

me : it sucks when people describe fengqing's dynamic as either They Absolutely Despise Each Other or Omg They're So In Love And In Denial because their dynamic is so incredibly nuanced and layered it doesn't quite fit with the other two statements they're so much more than that and watering it down to either one of those situations actually does a huge disservice to their characters

also me : they should fuck.

[ray935sworld]

"Max is the bad guy"

You mean the Max that was telling the interview host that his behavior (clear protest against FIM regulations regarding interview statement) is not towards him and he doesn't wanna upset him?

The one who said no comments but promised the journalists more answers outside?

Him? Yeah... Right.

[gayjaytodd]

just saw thee dumbest black sails take of all time on twitter

"the really inane gay subplot concerning Flint" you meant the plot? you mean the thing that's Flint's entire character motivation?? the thing that kicks off the entire rebellion against england??? that inane gay subplot????