#she could lie there!!

[watchmakermori]

of all the things that the his dark materials tv series changed from the books, the one departure I really cannot forgive is that lyra is not a liar

this baffled me back in season 1 and it still baffles me now. lying is such an integral part of lyra's character. she doesn't just do it out of necessity - she does it because she enjoys it, she's bloody good at it, and it's one of the best tools at her disposal. iorek quite literally names her 'silvertongue', and she adopts that over her family name 'belaqua' because lying and manipulation are part of her identity.

at the most basic level, I resent the change because Lyra is a less interesting character without her lies. She’s not as unique - heroes aren't often so joyously deceitful, especially female heroes, and I like that book!lyra gets the space to act this way. it also makes her less resourceful. In the novels, lyra's first instinct is to lie her way out of trouble. Without that, she has less agency and less influence over what happens to her 

But it's also a matter of symbolism. Lyra's dishonesty balances wonderfully with her mastery of the alethiometer, an instrument of truth. In the books, the value of truth is something that she has to take time to learn. when she goes to the land of the dead, that is the first time that lyra really understands the importance of honesty. she’s confronted by monsters who can see her lies for what they are, and so her falsehoods have no power there. lying cannot help the ghosts, but truth can. she tells the ghosts real stories about her own life, and the harpies are drawn to them because they are nourishing and honest. she reads the alethiometer and tells the ghosts the truth of what will happen when they leave the world of the dead, and it is that knowledge which convinces them to go with her

the conclusion of the trilogy only pushes this further. lyra spends most of the books taking her skill with the alethiometer for granted - she masters it with effortless instinct, and she has access to its guidance all the way through the series. while she spins her lies, she always has access to the truth - until the very end, when she loses the ability to read the alethiometer completely. only when that skill is gone does she fully appreciate the power of it. and when she sets out to relearn that craft, she does so in the knowledge that it will take a lifetime of study

it’s such an interesting aspect of her character, and it’s almost entirely lost in the tv series because tv!lyra is not a liar. she tells lies occasionally, but it isn’t a part of who she is. when she is confronted by the harpies in the world of the dead, it just doesn’t hit the same, because it doesn’t force her to reconsider her outlook, doesn’t challenge her to resolve things in a new way. it removes the personal growth from her voyage

I can understand and accept many of the changes made in the tv series, even if I don’t like them. I know that they’ve been pushed for budget and runtime, and that some aspects of the books just wouldn’t translate well to a live-action television programme. but this change to lyra is something I cannot forgive. it alters her character so fundamentally - it makes her less interesting, less unique, less resourceful, and it strips out the foundations of her narrative arc. there was no good reason for it at all

[tragicotps]

What age was Gillian Anderson in The X-Files? (x)

[morganmnemonic]

I can't stop thinking about the relationship between Jon and Helen as perhaps one of the most important ones in the entire show. They are narrative parallels for each other, and they both know it. They've both known it from the very start!

Helen walks into the Archives, paranoid, unsure of who to trust, and Jon sees himself in her. And he thinks "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." Then he can't save her. The next time they meet, she's a monster. They're both monsters. There was never any other way their stories could have gone, their fates entwined from the very start.

And Helen answers his original thought with one of her own: "Maybe if we can help each other, there's hope for us both." But Jon looks at her and sees everything that he fears becoming, and so he turns her away, and refuses to accept that their stories are still one and the same.

Helen went to the last person who was ever kind to her, the only person who both knew her as a human and had the context to understand what she'd become, and he hated her. He hated her because he liked Helen, and told her that she couldn't be Helen.

So she stopped trying to be Helen, and embraced being a monster. Reveled in it even. Then Jon wakes up from a six month coma, more monster than person, and tries so hard to cling to the things that mattered to him when he was human. Even with no support, even with the entire archives staff against him, he chooses humanity and compassion over and over again.

And this is a direct threat to Helen's world view. Their stories are entwined. If Jon can continue to be a person even after everything he's been through, then she could have clung to her humanity too, if only she'd tried a little harder. And that terrifies her! She wants to conceptualize herself as someone who was completely overwhelmed by forces beyond her control, who never had a choice but to become a monster. She want's to be an innocent victim. But Jon argues with his actions that they'd both had choices.

And, Jon, in turn, holds out hope that she might make better choices until the very end.

This is the conflict between them for all of season 4 and 5. Jon wants to prove that they can both be decent people, and Helen wants to prove that they were never going to be anything but monsters. This is why she's so devoted to trying to goad Jon into enjoying his newfound godhood. She knows that they are the same, and wants that to mean that he has a spark of evil inside of him, and not that she was always capable of doing good.

When Jon kills her, she loses her life, but wins the argument. Helen is nothing but a dangerous monster who needs to be killed for the good of everyone, and in the moment he decides that, Jon dooms himself to the same fate. Their stories are one and the same. "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." he thought. But he couldn't help her, refused to, even, in the one moment when it actually mattered. And thus, there was never hope for him.

[hollytree33]

Ghilan'nain

So I read the Horror of Hormak

[pangur-and-grim]

we do a lot of communicating

[wisteriasymphony]

plot bunny: What if Lila/Iris was a random person who found Ladybug dead and decided to impersonate her so that the city could still have their hero.

[in-kyblogs]

Delainey being adorably surprised by the crowd at the sdcc 2024 iwtv panel going wild for her (as they should!) <3

(source)

[buckleyreid]

Bucktommy brainrot thoughts:

After their daddy issues conversation, Buck jokingly saves Tommy as "daddy" in his contacts and it's really not an issue, he kinda forgets about it even, until one day he's hanging out with Maddie and while he's off washing dishes or something, he gets a call from "daddy".

Maddie thinks the caller ID is kinda strange but picks up anyway, "Hey dad!"

There's absolute silence on the other end of the line for a couple of seconds before she gets hung up on and proceeds to walk into the kitchen.

"Why do you have dad saved as "daddy" on your phone?

She sees the confusion morph into horror in her brother's eyes as soon as she asks. They're both silent for a moment and she can tell Buck is trying to come up with a convincing story.

"That wasn't dad, was it?"

"Nope"

-----

The idea of Maddie not knowing peace ever since she reentered Buck's life is so funny to me. First, he walks in on her showering because he thinks she's Abby, then Chim tells her her brother was fired for having sex in a firetruck, there's the ring cutter thing last season and now the daddy kink that brings so much potential for another funny and awkward sibling moment from them.

[s-lycopersicum]

[firestorm09890]

Penny stardewvalley makes me so sad because she's SO sensitive to, like, basically everything you tell her (telling her that you can't stand children while two children are nearby is a pretty lousy move but -1500 friendship?? being a jerk to other characters' faces typically loses you about 50 points, and if you choose the option labeled "creepy" and ask Leah for a kiss in her 2 heart event she physically hits you and kicks you out of her house but that's only -100 friendship…) and so if you want to befriend her it's a whole lot of lying and tiptoeing around her feelings (2 hearts: George was right but saying that makes her feel bad. 6 hearts: her food sucks but even if you try to be polite about it she feels like a failure; only a bald-faced lie pleases her. 8 hearts: saying you don't want to be tied down with a family loses you a little bit of friendship and she's only happy if you say you want kids) and I can't help but think she's a product of her environment. She lives in a trailer with only her mother, who gets drunk every night and has something of a temper. Penny's like a skittish rescue animal who won’t even come out from hiding under something unless you leave her lots of treats

[cherrywhite]

Silt Verses protagonists // Returning Home

[giddlygoat]

mario + peach is such a good ship istg they’re so good. straight ship so good it feels gay

[gods-perfect-idiots]

was overcome with the urge to draw "wade tenderly caressing logan's face while he's Feeling Big Angsty Stuff" and then the parallel urge to do a follow-up of "logan kissing wade's hand/holding onto him for dear life"

(anyway hope you like it - I have been looking at this for too long and so of course I hate it now 🫠 art is hard guys lol)

some details below the cut because I am happy with some small aspects - still really enjoying the painting part of doing Wade's scars for example (thanks again @woof-verine for that inspo it is just baked into my psyche now, and also for being a forever enjoyer of pointy ears Logan - sorry couldn't quite get the fangs in this time but they are there trust me!!)

ps. was listening to She Calls Me Back by Noah Kahan for this one. idk it just hits for me in my poolverine-addled state lol

[the-one-with-spider-brainrot]

I've never doodled chemach on this blog before which is a CRIME because I love her so so much-

[zarnzarn]

y'all think Penelope pulled a "if it weren't for the baby" peeta mallark style on everyone present there to marry odysseus or

[childoftherock]

catsitting