#obvious and textual

[bombusbombus]

Thinking about Kryptonian language and Batman and the nature of loss again.

Imagine being the last person to speak a language, the last person to hold on to the customs of a dead world. It feels almost hopeless, like all this knowledge would die with you. Nobody else has reason to care that the culture isn't quite dead.

And then motherfucking Batman comes along and goes, "I'm learning this language." And what the fuck? He says he's interested because it could be useful somehow, and maybe he learns languages freakishly fast, so it isn't a big deal.

But Clark, his parents are dead.

Hundreds of little traditions only live on in him now. He has Alfred, and his children, but it's never quite the SAME, is it, they all mix the traditions up to make something new, and maybe that's just how life is, maybe that's the fate of all diaspora, but you know there's something deep in Bruce that feels homesick for the past. You know that feeling.

So you learn his traditions, the way he remembers them, right? You speak your almost-dead language and he teaches you about the way his mother sang, or their old recipes for sufganiyot, and just between the two of you, the dead are alive again.

It's not quite mourning if you're sharing.

[autisticandroids]

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.

[youtube with closed captions]

dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.

(via @closetoyou1970)

[verminfang]

so in Clawverse they actually tried this

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

The thing about, for lack of a better phrase, "tf2 villainy discourse" is that no one is ever acknowledging the fact that the tf2 mercs are "the good guys" because they are funny and therefore likable. Like it's videogames we know killing people is always bad. Medic tf2 is excusable because he's hilarious but Cheavy (and co.) isn't because he's immensely boring. That's literally all there is to it

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Something else I keep thinking about:

The barricade had been well-planned.

Hugo spends pretty much all of the tenth book of the fourth tome talking about the different ways that the Amis' barricade is straegically sound. After Enjolras returns in the fifth tome to announce that no one will be coming to help, much of the "downtime" in the first book is spent setting up "the perfect martyrdom," effectively. 4.1.5 indicates that the people weren't content and were in a state of agitation and prepared to rise. This was the third revolt like this in the past several months. Hugo even spends an entire chapter (5.1.20) explaining that sometimes, France works against progress, just like that.

A take I see a lot in fanon is that the Amis (and especially Enjolras) are out of touch with the people, that they were underprepared, that they didn't know what they were doing. However, Hugo really gives the impression that everything that could have been done to prepare for a successful revolt, had been done.

So why does this matter?

Because sometimes, as Hugo says in 5.1.20, the time isn't right. The world is still catching up. That doesn't mean that the people are wrong for wanting more, or for agitating for more. Indeed, says Vicky, there are many times that the only way forward is through a revolt. However, he also encourages us not to become discouraged by such setbacks.

It's all progress.

The living may not be wrong, but the dead are right.

[apuff]

i kinda love how dungeon meshi takes place in this generic middle ages-esque fantasy world but the main character is STILL an autistic aroace furry

[kaurwreck]

oh, i figured out aya's skill.

[astralleywright]

it is so wildcrazy seeing ppl who have been incessantly complaining about Ashton recently suddenly hyping him up or acting like he's a completely different person after this last ep. this is the exact same guy. they're gonna say something next episode that makes everyone throw a fit in the tags

[porcubus]

i feel that even more as time passes kromer's relationship to nazism has been forgotten, minimized, or used only as a joke etc "crazy fans think im a nazi for liking kromer" (which i personally have not seen but i have seen a lot of complaints about it). what kromer actually does in-story is not 1-1 with nazism and is more often (fairly enough) compared to ableism, or said to be left vague enough that it could be interpreted as multiple different things. i do agree with most of this, that you can make parallels to a lot of different types of bigotry from her language & that ableism is probably the clearest thing you can take from it if you focus only on who she actually targets. i also think that the way this is written is confusing and leads to people saying its not that/not as bad, because its "mostly rich people/more absurd fantasy prosthetics" rather than the type youd typically see in real life. to me this is kind of a failure on the writings part more than anything but thats not what i wanted to talk about. i disagree on the vagueness of what she actually represents

kromer (and nagul & hammer) is textually a nazi allegory. she is a white german fascist with inspiration lifted from christian inquisitors committing targeted genocide against a group she views as impure/heretical. something much less brought up from what i've seen but could do well being circulated more is that her title "One who Grips" is lifted from an essay by carl jung on hitler and nazi germany. its a translation of the title "Ergriffenheit" meaning one who seizes (notably cg jung and hermann hesse, the author of demian, actually knew eachother and were inspired by eachother's work, which this may be a reference to)

kromer is a villain, this isnt a complaint about how bad you can make a bad person or me saying you cant enjoy her for what she is. i do think some things could have been changed or handled better in regards to this but more than anything i just want to remind people that it is in fact what she is based on and not "People being crazy Woke Haters who just call everything nazis" or whatever. this is a core part of her character that i would say cant be handwaved away but seems to be overlooked regardless

[thatboreddrake]

Heroism as a Loss of Humanity

Thinking again about how Fate/Stay Night is, at its core, a coming of age story about the sacrifices that the life of a hero inflicts on a person. I mean look at the cast of characters (more below the cut):

Cu Chulainn: a brash warrior who chose to trade a young death for a life of glory.

Heracles: a warrior stripped of his reason, yet he remains attached to his Master as a symbol of the family that he lost to the gods' wrath.

Medea: a sorceress who sacrificed her own family for the sake of love, only to be cast aside in the end.

Medusa: a woman whose humanity was taken from her by no fault of her own.

The biggest example of this imo is Sasaki Kojiro. In the lore of Fate, he's not even a true heroic spirit. The man known as Sasaki Kojiro never truly existed in history. Instead, the Assassin we know by that name is truly nameless, plucked from his own time to assume the name and title of another. Of all the Servants, he lost not only his humanity, but his very identity in becoming a "Heroic Spirit."

This culminates in the dynamic between Artoria, Emiya Shirou, and his future self, Archer.

Artoria chose to take up Caliburn, sacrificing her chance for a normal life for the opportunity to unify Britain and protect it from calamity, only to see her life's work torn apart by her very child, culminating in her death at the Battle of Camlann.

In a similar way, Archer chose to make a pact with Alaya, giving up his humanity and free will to become a tool to be used for the protection of humanity. In the end, however, he found himself broken by the realization that the protection of one group necessitated the destruction of its opposition.

Of all the Servants in Fate/Stay Night, Archer and Artoria were both summoned to the present with the intention of undoing their sacrifice. Having lived the lives of "heroes," their one true wish was to change their decision: to remain human.

Contrast this against Emiya Shirou, a boy who wants nothing more than to become a true hero. For him, the choice to become a hero or remain human, if there ever was one, was made for him when he became the sole survivor of a great calamity. For Shirou, he has no right to live a normal life because he owes too great a debt for those who died instead of him.

And so, when thrust into the events of Fate/Stay Night, Shirou sees his opportunity to finally attain his goal of becoming a hero who can bring salvation for the entire world. Across the three different endings of the visual novel, Shirou makes discoveries and comes to three different conclusions.

In the Fate Route, he remains naive of the sacrifices which heroism requires, inevitably setting him on the path to become the future self that Archer represents.

In the Unlimited Blade Works Route, Shirou comes into direct confrontation with Archer and the pain that will eventually result from following his ideals to the bitter end. However, this does not dissuade Shirou from his path. He looks into the future and sees what he must become, and he chooses to walk that path anyway. This is exemplified in Archer's warning, "Hey, you know that's hell you're walking into." He knows the sacrifices he must make, but he still believes that those sacrifices are necessary.

It is only in Heavens Feel that Shirou comes to doubt his convictions. In each other route, Shirou never has to reconcile the fact that seeking the greater good will often mean personal pain and loss for him. However, when faced with the choice to carry on his convictions and kill the girl he loves, or give up on all else and try to save her, Shirou chooses the latter. It is in this route, and this one alone, that Shirou realizes that he has not been deprived of the right or ability to live life as an ordinary human.

I love Fate as a series, and these same themes carry throughout each of the stories I've consumed. Even Fate/Grand Order questions how much of one's humanity one can sacrifice in the name of the "greater good" before one becomes just another villain to be stopped.

This is what honestly saddens me so much about Fate's position in popular culture. Because there are such rich themes and character development present in its storytelling. But at the end of the day, most people will never look past the framing device. After all, the series began with an erotic visual novel, and the magnum opus of the franchise is a greedy mobile gacha game.

But this franchise is very near and dear to my heart. For the longest time, I've latched onto and identified with Shirou and his desire to help and save those around him. Unfortunately, I can also identify with his desire to ignore/repress his own issues in favor of focusing on helping others. But this is where the messaging of Fate gives hope. For every Shirou, every Archer, every hero who sacrifices their own joy and humanity for a life of pain and suffering in service of others, there's the voice of another, sometimes a character, sometimes the narrative itself, screaming that there's a better way. You have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else with theirs. Other people are just as eager to help you with your issues as you are to help them with theirs. You just have to open yourself up to receive them.

You cannot save the world, no human can. You cannot save everyone, that task is beyond any human. But you *can* save *your* world. You can be a light to those around you. You can be a comforting embrace, a word of encouragement. And in turn, when your world needs saving, when all you need is someone to tell you "it's going to be alright," maybe there will be someone to do the same for you.

The important thing is to keep trying, but don't try to go alone.

[mirage-coordinator]

i finally got my Umineko Tattoo and i think it captures a lot of aspects / imagery from the story rly well <3

[vazaha-tya]

the fact that fans consider snape a poor and abused orphan and a hypercompetent prodigy at the same time is... interesting.

i suppose it's canon-accurate, the man does contain multitudes. when it's time to highlight how much the marauders suck, severus snape is defenseless against his horrible classist bullies. when it's time to show off how smart he was, he knows a wide array of curses and potions and invented some himself. the gap in canon comes when someone asks if he just fantasises about using those in his textbook margins, or if he actually used them. if he did, then against who, and why was is it never addressed by the narrative?

maybe because then the author would have had to work harder at writing a proper redemption arc instead of killing him conveniently and revealing he turned to the right side because he was childhood friends (and/or in love) with lily evans.

don't get me wrong, i want to like snape. i want to like the talented yet emotionally stunted potions professor who made the wrong choices and despises harry but still wants to do right by him and the wizarding world. i want to like the spy who hates kids but is forced to endure them because the dude who made sure he didn't go to jail is his former headmaster and he wants to keep him close at hand. i want to like the abused kid who was radicalised because he was offered power and a way to be vindicated after spending his life subjected to a horrible family dynamic where his father's hatred of magic features heavily.

but he's a bad spy, his motivations for switching sides are not compelling and the marauders-snape conflict, which could have been a smart way to represent a microcosm view of the wider issue i.e the clash of ideology and the brewing civil war existing at the time, instead becomes about a girl. eyeroll.

(but that's part of a wider conversation about how all the death eaters who turned against voldemort turn out to have done so only for selfish reasons and not because they saw his ideology as wrong. sigh. i'll headcanon it away as much as i can, but that's the textual information the books give us. thanks, i hate it.)

i even think it was a good idea to make the death eater an underdog who joined because he yearned for acceptance and respectability and also despised his muggle father while the front kids on the light side are two posh purebloods who have "no" stakes in this. it adds some complexity to the conversation, introduces nuances, and... is plainly something jkr couldn't handle. because she doesn't really do nuance.

and some fans can't either, i suppose, since i just saw a post saying that when remus and sirius talked about snape knowing more curses than half the seventh year while they just entered hogwarts, they actually meant curse words. eyeroll. why do you want him to be blameless? let him be a cunt. he's more interesting that way.

[vaultsixtynine]

i fully just dont get labru and this is not an invitation to be convinced. isnt it so much funnier and true to character and text for kab to hate laios' guts (not even in a sexy way) but continue to try to suck up to him because he's #girlbossgaslightgatekeep and laios just being. clueless because kab is incapable of communicating with him in the fashion he understands. it's funny Because kabru hates his guts and laios is just thinking he's a nice guy, that's like Thee point. not a one-sided secretly-pining doomed love story.

also if you're so desperate for gay sex, mithrun is right there and kab actually has any rapport or dynamic outside of the comical w him.

[aauroralightss]

i love reading peoples' opinions on trigun but sometimes i will see an opinion that is so like. bewilderingly wrong it actually makes me doubt my own interpretation of the source material

[aristhought]

as a trans person i really do relate to kendall roy (almost certainly unintentionally) from a trans/queer perspective.

his life long struggle to perform and live up to a role that was imposed on him from an early age. the inability to shake the confines of expectations that slowly suffocate and break him. the trauma that comes with an utter lack of inner agency and autonomy. the desperation for self actualization but the inability to achieve it when he’s constantly just fighting to keep his head above water. the alienation of existing in a society/culture that is utterly incompatible with and hostile to his deepest most honest self.

regardless of whether or not kendall as a character can be read as trans/understood through that lens, i do find it moving how relatable he is in this respect simply on a personal level.

[thesaintofnevergettingitright]

So you know when a fandom has a main ship and instead of making the ship canon, the writers either A) create a queer character unrelated to the ship or B) make one half of the ship (usually the less traditionally masculine one) canonically queer but have them date other people?? I’ve been calling it Queer Placating. I feel like I’m seeing it a lot recently. Have other people noticed this??