#or a meaningful structure

[goblins-and-gloves]

Angry at parents hour!

Undiagnosed autistic fuckers are delulu.

[crescentfool]

it's that time of year again...

[jzargo]

I know we love to clown on Cassandra for shoving responsibility onto other people - making Cullen of all people the military advisor for some reason, forcing some rando to be Inquisitor - but I think this is very much a deliberate character choice for her. I don't think she makes a good leader, and I think she's at least semi-aware of this.

Cassandra is someone who needs authority; she needs someone - or something - to follow. She is the most broken by Divine Justinia's death, not just because she lost a close friend, but because she lost the strongest authority figure and source of stability in her life. She's desperate to find the real Lord Seeker, in spite of all evidence earlier pointing to him probably being dead or a traitor, because she needs an authority figure. When she finds out the truth about the Seekers, she asks the Inquisitor whether she should reform them or not, and if the Inquisitor tells her no, she doesn't disapprove, she thanks them. She needed someone to tell her to let them go.

And what happens when Cassandra is put in a position of leadership? What happens when Cassandra is made Divine? Does she take risks, or use the information she's learned about the Seekers, the Chantry, and the Inquisition to make serious reforms in the Chantry? No. She reverts immediately to how things used to be; she falls back on the structure that she's used to, on what's familiar and comfortable. Because she needs that structure as a sense of security, for better or worse.

[hungwy]

"what if there was a swampman and his life was completely meaningless"

[ghostlyheart]

This makes me sad in a way that I can't possibly describe

[peemil]

why do you hate found family trope

too many people see a group of characters fucked over by the dynamics of the nuclear family, smush them together... and then assign each of them archetypal roles associated with members of a nuclear family. it is also too often assigned to characters who are canonically coworkers and don't have particularly strong (let alone strong positive or family-like) feelings about each other

[notbecauseofvictories]

honestly if poor things did nothing but dramatize the moment when emma stone learns about suffering and almost throws herself into the sea with horror and grief, it would be enough.

[stephantom]

I’d need to watch it again to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Becket is the only character who independently initiates touch with Henry?

There are plenty of people whom Henry touches, and it’s almost always possessive or threatening: the villager woman in the first flashback scene, the Saxon peasant girl (and possibly the old man? I think he prods at both of them with his riding crop), Gwendolen (holding her shoulders/neck), the French prostitute (kissing, leaning over, sitting on, slapping her butt), his sons (pushing and kicking them), the bishop (strangling), his barons (clutching onto one, tapping one’s head to indicate his vapidness), and Thomas too—(clasping his shoulders when he realizes Thomas is hurt, holding his hand to put on the chancellor ring).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever see Henry touch or be touched by his mother or his wife. There’s the moment when he grabs/kicks their needlework, and later on he knocks all the plates off the table, possibly vaguely in their direction—so there are two physical interactions which are violent but still sort of… distant? And still the direction is just Henry to them (in terms of physicality, anyway—verbally, they do initiate conversations/fights with him).

Does anyone touch Henry? There are the monks who whip him in the end, but Henry has ordered them to do it. Likewise, there’s the servant/valet/page who begins to wipe him dry in the bath scene, but again, that’s someone performing a duty. Thomas Becket though, cuts in and takes over the drying, and the dialogue tells us explicitly that he’s not expected to do this, and doesn’t have to (“You’re a nobleman—why do you play at being my valet?”) but Becket seemingly wants to do it, and he knows Henry likes how he does it: enthusiastically, confidently, warmly, and freely (“No one does it like you, Thomas”). He towels Henry’s head, helps Henry put on his boots, and then casually uses Henry’s legs to push himself up to stand.

There’s the scene in Henry’s tent, after the French prostitute has left and the two of them are sitting on the bed: Becket sort of leans in and briefly clasps Henry’s arm where it’s lying in his lap, casually and warmly.

There’s also the getaway horse ride, where Becket is holding onto Henry, arms wrapped around him, and they’re both laughing and smiling. Henry’s shirt actually falls open a little and Becket’s hand winds up on his bare torso.

And then there are the thwarted attempts at touch, after the split: the two scenes where Henry accuses Becket of not loving him. Both times, Becket moves toward Henry and reaches out to touch him, and both times, Henry moves away and tells him to keep his distance.

They’re quick little things, but if they are actually the only instances of anyone touching Henry affectionately (or even of their own volition) that we see over the course of the movie, it does support an impression of Henry as fundamentally isolated—maybe there is truth to his claim that Becket is the only person who’s ever loved him.

What’s tragic is that 1) Henry doesn’t really know how to express love himself (see: Henry expressing nothing but violence and entitlement to everyone else around him, and even to Becket for the most part), and 2) Becket’s love, albeit huge in Henry’s world, is conflicted and unfulfilling—for both of them.

Becket might be the only person who’s dared to reach out to Henry and meet him on something close to a human level, and Henry loves him for it, but why does Becket do it? Part of it may just be an instinct of Becket’s to fulfill a need where he sees one, if he can, and if it benefits him. I think it’s so interesting that Henry seems obsessed with the question of whether Thomas really loves him, when it seems the truth might be that Thomas actually doesn’t know; maybe it’s an unanswerable, even nonsensical question to him. Like, what else could he do? I don’t know. “Insofar as I was capable of love, yes I did [love you].” But the fact that his last words, unwitnessed and private, are, “Poor Henry.” Fuck me up.

Ok, that last paragraph got away from me and now I can’t stop. Tempted to draw comparisons to “Beauty and the Beast” (this is a sad version where no magical transformation happens… unless you take a particular Catholic stance and consider that both of them maybe took real solace and meaning in Thomas being made a saint and that Henry maybe found real absolution through his penance).

I also want to compare all of this to “The Lion in Winter���, where it feels like, rather than a story about one lonely monster in a castle full of people he sees as objects, it’s a whole microcosm of traumatized and power-hungry people, reaching out for power and security and love and stabbing each other in the back, over and over. (Like, of course his mother and wife and kids have complex feelings for him—some of which involve love!) I think that depiction is better and less myopic, more true to life and probably a more accurate portrait of the historical figures involved (even when it comes to Henry and Becket—Becket was of that world too, after all), but I think I’ve rambled enough about all of this, so I’m going to end this post now. I’ll just say that there’s something nevertheless appealing about the boiled-down fairytale melodrama of “no one else ever loved me but you!”

[txttletale]

is it morally okay to enjoy british panel shows and shows such as Taskmaster or does that make me a wee bit cringe. Please im in such a panic

what am i catholic

[mummer]

barry being obsessed with going all YourFaveIsProblematic on 'great men' as a way to justify himself because if they could do bad things and still be regarded as great then so can he. he’s “doing” the “work” of “bettering himself” and berating sally for being drunk because it “sets a bad example” and hiding guns behind live laugh love decor. He’s literally putting on a wholesomecore front lol, he’s play acting as a ted lasso type and using lib therapy language which is indistinguishable from when he’s using evangelical language which is all utterly meaningless and he uses it as a violence. Ha ha ha

[astragatwo]

In contrast to my last two Rain World OC posts, these guys aren't one offs and are part of my current core OC group. More info about them under the cut since it's lengthy.

First starting with The Serpent —

The Serpent is one of AV's many bio-engineered slugcats - if you can even call him a slugcat at this point - as part of a simple passion of experimenting with flexible slugcat biology

They share several traits in common with red lizards, those being constant hyper-aggression, tremendous strength, projectile spit and size

As for similarities with slugcats, well, a general elongated shape? Oh, mobility, unlike red lizards, the Serpent is very adept with vertical movement

AV didn't really have a clear goal in mind with the Serpent unlike the rest of their tube babies, they just sort of... happened.

The spontaneity of their creation though has been very interesting as despite initially being created with the solitary lifestyle of a red lizard, the Serpent still keeps his slugcat instinct of adopting random children they find

Though the Serpent seems at first, displeased with this development but rest assured that if you ever LOOK at his pup wrong they will kill everyone in the room and then himself

Though not pictured in his reference since he was my first Rain World OC, created with very little knowledge of the lore and started as a one-off, he has a citizen ID drone which AV uses to keep track of him

He was also simply created out of my desire to have a long slugcat and my obsession with red lizards combined so there's that, too

Speaking of AV, moving on to Administrative Violence —

Named after the song of the same name by Lauren Bousfield, you'd expect them to be - well - violent. They're not, at least not with those they commonly interact with

They are actually quite sweet with Blown Blooms, their partner, and Peach the slugcat

Weather conditions, all things considered, are pretty mild where they are but far, far off into the distance their partner Blown Blooms isn't so fortunate and natural erosion as well as other random unfortunate events unrelated to weather, has taken quite the toll on them

As a result and fearing for Blooms in every way possible but especially for their communication's inevitable severing and also Blooms being lonely all on their own, AV created a slugcat who resembles a strawberry lizard - a species of lizard Blooms is especially fond of

Peach was designed for protection and companionship first and foremost and an emergency messenger/relay secondly.

Outside of worrying for Blooms' condition and yearning & longing for close physical proximity to them the way creatures who aren't supermassive structures have the luxury of, AV spends most of their time studying their bio-engineered slugcats.

Each and every one of them is given a citizen ID drone for ease of tracking as well as general classifications

They couldn't give a shit about whatever problem the other iterators are working on - just these funny little slugcats

They take the occasional interest in other animals too but it's mainly slugcats

And finally, Blown Blooms and Peach —

Blooms, like AV, is named after a song of the same name by Lauren Bousfield. Peach is just named after her colors.

Blooms, like their partner AV, has a complete disinterest in the great problem and a very big interest in bio-engineering

This time with plants rather than animals though they have a soft spot for small critters but they're usually never the subject of any experiments - just study and admiration

However, due to a deteriorating state, Blooms isn't quite able to use their equipment to manipulate genetic information like they used to - which is upsetting

So instead, they help AV with their current studies as well as keeping tabs on their own prior experiments

They have Peach now, though, which brings a much appreciated break from constant studying and nice close companionship

Peach will often catch prey outside and come back to eat it with Blooms and occasionally Blooms will play around with Peach and levitate the prey around for Peach to chase in anti-grav

The event that pushed AV to create Peach was when a creature entered Blooms' chamber and attacked them, partially damaging their puppet before being killed and then expelled from the chamber

Blooms is absolutely still capable of themselves and ultimately damaging the puppet a bit is nothing when taking account the sheer scale of an iterator - but AV will be AV

Plus, Blooms isn't complaining about getting a cute little companion from AV

And general trivia/info —

Everyone here is aroace. All of them. AV & Blooms' relationship is non-romantic in a sapphic way

The Serpent's pup's name is Pipsqueak

I know rudder tails shouldn't curve like that but I decided that after I finished drawing the Serpent and I wasn't about to redraw anything at that point

The other Iterators in AV and Bloom's local group are Illuminated Crown of Fire, Projections of Watchful Eyes, and an unnamed lunar-eclipse inspired iterator.

I have little information on them right now, but they are each based off of solar eclipses, stars and lunar eclipses respectively

In all, this local group is just a bunch of experiment freaks to varying degrees except for ICoF whose presence is often forgotten because of how little they speak but is also ever looming

And that's all! Thank you for reading this far in <3

[namimikan]

actually. maybe wolfwood & livio is the equivalent to going merry & thousand sunny.

you genuinely have to mourn and cry your heart out before you wholeheartedly adore the… successor, and it’s almost instantaneous.

you can’t just say to me that going merry is just a ship. no!!! she meant more to me than that! she traveled the seas with the strawhats, they loved her and she loved them back, she risked her life to save them!!! that love was reciprocated!!!

i cried real tears for them!!! for their deaths!!

these characters meant so much, and their deaths were devastating, and yet… it was so so easy to love their successors

i can’t call thousand sunny an extension of going merry, the way livio is to wolfwood. but. going merry knew. that she’d be sailing no more.

(and it meant everything, usopp’s love and loyalty to going merry, to kaya. that’s why the usopp vs luffy fight is so brutal. why usopp makes his choices and i cannot fault him for not wanting to give up. but it wasn’t enough.)

but livio… livio is the embodiment of wolfwood’s sacrifice, yk?

[thisbrilliantsky]

u ever read a book that has cool ideas and compelling characters and the writing itself is decent but. there is just a total lack of actual storytelling skill. and it's 1000+ pages.

[1o1percentmilk]

something that bothers me is my inability to see people as people and rather more as a collection of themes/motifs/objects/skills

[rustchild]

.

[jacksonlamb-official]

You know… I think I’d enjoy bridgerton more if it engaged in its stakes more than it engaged with its payoff. You know. Like all the jane austen’s novels it’s trying to chase through charm