#sick. sick and twisted thing I did.

[dellamortethelesser]

I have made a horrible choice as a mercar

[vaguely-concerned]

just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)

'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help

[oldbutchdanielcraig]

informative flowchart i made

[nattikay]

ahh I feel like I've made a bunch of rant-y posts this week, sorry about that y'all, but I've got one just one more to slap down real quick 😅

This video came up in my YouTube recommendations, and while it makes some interesting points, I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that "Avatar's story wasn't very good because it wasn't complex enough".

Here's the thing: The good/bad scale and the simple/complex scale are SEPARATE. A story does not need to be super complex to be good. A good story can be complex, certainly! But it doesn't need to be. A simple straightforward story can still be a good story. And so it is with Avatar, in my opinion.

Same with the character criticisms. Sometimes we just don't need to know every minute detail of a character's life for the character to work within their story, we just need to know the parts that are relevant. Selfridge, for example...do you really think we needed to have part of the runtime set aside to flesh out every little detail of what led him to become a greedy corporate middle manager? Would that tangent really have inherently enhanced the story being told here? Or would it just have taken time away from the intended focus, that being the wonder of Pandora and Jake's journey?

More complex does not automatically equal better. A good story is one that is told well: the audience can follow what happens, they resonate with the emotional beats, there are no gaping holes or inconsistencies in the plot or worldbuilding, characters grow and change in a believable way. And that can be done in complex stories AND in simple stories!! Just because your story doesn't have a gazillion wild plot twists and intricate 10-page biographies justifying every decision every named character makes doesn't mean it can't be well-executed enjoyable story!

Avatar's story is not a bad one. It's simple, sure, predicable even—and if that's a turn-off for you, hey, that's totally fair—but it's executed very well. No, we don't know how Quaritch became head of RDA security, we don't know how Norm came to be part of the Avatar program, we don't know what inspired Grace to become a botanist...because we simply do not need to. Those details just aren't all that relevant to the core story being told. Could they make for interesting trivia? Sure. But is it needed to understand the heart of the movie? The message? The story? Not really, no. In fact, depending on how it's implemented, adding extraneous details like that could actively bog the story down.

Simple movies can be good. Simple movies can be bad.

Complex movies can be good. Complex movies can be bad.

"It's too simple" is, therefore, a rather silly criticism. Totally valid as a personal opinion! But kinda meaningless as an analytical criticism.

[m00ngbin]

Uh so there's a baby crying in the background. Btw.

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

Watched a video about how the Scott Pilgrim anime was bad actually, planning to come in with an open mind and really acknowledge some of the flaws of an admittedly flawed piece of media I like, only to have to RESTRAIN myself from making a essay long comment about why they have to be willfully ignorant to think "Ramona Flowers had no arc and it was entirely useless to have her as the protagonist in *Scott's* show and she was super boring and the whole thing was plotless and a lazy excuse to do a who-dun-it." Shut up. Shut upppp istg.

[grahamcarmen]

Dumb question but you keep mentioning how Carmen broke the window and I don't really get it, could you elaborate.

Its really not a dumb question LOL

I think im the only one who freaks out with that specific phrase when i mean

SHORT VERSION:

The absolute iconic way they framed the way carmen breaking the window in the himalayas

I relish the dramatic way its framed and how beautiful it looks that his face is so red compared to the rest of the episode and the shards of glass bite at the edges while she says goodbye and he does his little :( 

But personally it feels like a layered decision when it come to both carmen and gray’s mentalities to visualize it as a break in a window

And even if it wasn’t its layered TO ME!!!!!

And thats just how my brain words it lol

LONG VERSION

You know what’s real cool? Gray was stuck in that little room. stuck with professor maelstroms version of who he was since he was VILE aligned and his own convictions on who he is

and the window plays a bit part in it?

His memories of carmen on the kiwi date telling him he’s a good person  [even tho after his memories return he accepts he’s not] are from him zoning out while looking at his reflection in the window

And then maelstrom projecting the memories of who he was in between the window and him and AGAIN carmen’s memory interrupts and breaks him out of his solemn acceptance of “darkness” and “authority” that the VILE memories and Rorschach test riles up in him

Because why oh why does someone as good as carmen exist there?

she literally shouldn't be anywhere near there yet she is???

And the final time the big old window is his backdrop to reclaiming Crackle while admitting that he DIDN’T want to kill her, it was the thing he actually perceives as WRONG WRONG WRONG since its the only thing he regrets doing on VILE’s orders

and a part of him even hopes that care he has will not have to leave the room if she will just stop

AND SHE BREAKS THE WINDOW!

The real her is there, saying goodbye and HIS FACE FALLS!

she broke it!

the world isn’t just VILE and him 

It's her too. 

Its not just that little room and all he knows in there!!! 

No he doesn’t just get to chalk it down as something he can run away from

A small precious part he can ignore as something in the past

some happenstance friendship that doesn't matter anymore

He hated hurting her but she will always exist in the world alongside VILE as long as its there for her to fight…

For him to…o.o do what crackledude?

choices are coming

VILE exists and he chose that, chose crackle!

But carmen exists too!

SHE BROKE THE WINDOW!!!

SHE SAID BYE GRAY!!!! AND HIS! FACE! FELL!

Carmen isn’t just a fabricated memory or an anomaly in what he knows! She’s there!!!

And she broke the space where he’d been assembling everything he chose to be more open to include the outside!!!!!

SHE EXISTS IN HIS BRAIIIIIN!!!!!!

SHE WILL CONTINUE TO EXIST OUTSIDE OF THE ROOM!!!!

AND IT STILL HURTS A LITTLE!!! DOESNT IT!!!!!!

THAT CHOOSING VILE IS CHOOSING GOODBYEEEEEEEE!!!!

[Extra fun.]

You know this moment where she tells gray off about how stealing isn’t a game? Especially when lives are on the line and he side glances at the window?And again how he was just facing that window before carmen tries to call him back ?

…

Because he doesn’t regret anything ?? feel bad enough about anything to change for the better?

…but she broke the window. His only regret is literally right there on de window .

SHE’S RIGHT-

SHE BROKE THE WINDOW!!!!

[Extra extra fun]

 You remember how carmen has no problems roundhousing him if he’s gonna be so rude [try and kill her] and the window doesn’t break and thus creates a neat little barrier between the criminal she lets get caught and her just returning to her new routine?

But we get the small brainwashing arc and that barrier fakes a disappearance?

Only for the truth to come back [he isn't gonna get magicked into being a good guy just so carmen can make the thing separating them something nobler she could accept]

And if he’s gonna make terrible choices well then he’s made his choice and they’ll go separate ways again

BUT THIS TIME SHE BROKE THE WINDOW!

SHE CAN TELL HIIM ITS OVER! GOOD!BYE!

And yet she’s less triumphant when she looks back? And has to acknowledge that distance and that follows her into her life for a second

there's a crack now in how she treats the fact of their estrangement 

A little more honestly [imo] than how she was initially gonna act like

The opera episode gave her that little room to say “I thought i lost him for good but this could be -” and now when the answer is still “we are enemies” she actually can’t just patch up the barrier between them as easily!!!

not when she saw that second chance and wanted it!

Not when she went there with so much hope no matter how misled it might've been [she’s soooooo not normal at all for this its great]

She’s looking back even as she’s saying goodbye on that broken window!

And then it happens again! tho to be fair in VERY different circumstances, conditions, etc.

She’s over it!

She can even kill him with no hesitation and even a bitter little remark at how this is on him because he’s a little traitor

…

AND SHE! BREAKS! THE ! WINDOW!

ON HER WAY OUT!

And when here memories are out she’s stuck with just that window

Like the show doesn’t even let her go to his body omfg

its

Not a break like gray on the train where its him trying to kill her and her rightfully defending herself that cools the relationship quickly into its most simple core of you are my enemy!

[but neither has broken through the actual barrier of what's nestled deep in them ->they do care they both just have some growing to do to accept this in a healthier way butthatsnotthepointimsorryi-]

Not a break like VILE did in the jail where she can separately mourn that its them who keeps getting in between her rescuing* him

Its …her.

SHE! BROKE! THE! WINDOW!

SHE BROKE IT! SAYING IT DIDN’T MEAN A THING!!

BEING SINGLE MINDED ON A GOAL AND GIVING HIM WHAT SHE THOUGHT HE DESERVED* AND HITTING THE ROAD! CAUSE SHE CAN LIVE WITH IT! RIGHT????

Gray as who she wanted him to be the most is who she killed and ran away through a broken window

gray the vile agent

gray her failed rescue mission

gray who changed but had done something horrible once upon a time and that hurt came back to haunt them

And this is a carmen who already in normal version was betraying the fact that she wasn’t ok with him being gone

[and imo dark!carmen throwing the crackle in his face was a betrayal of hurt too]]

AND IT BREAKS HER HEART! SHE KILLED HIM!

HE’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF A WINDOW SHE BROKE IN HER GRAND GETAWAY AND SHE THINKS SHE CAN’T UNDO WHAT HAS BEEN DONE!

IT BROKE IT BROKE! 

The broken window is as close as she gets to him at that moment.

Of course. It would be devastating to her.

any mask that she could cobble together that "losing gray isn't that bad for her" is just like ----aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

...and i dieeeeeeeee

-> sorry i rambled but the breaks in the windows also mean TO ME!!! that carmen is also having a shift in her thinking slightly as well

she's always been pretty bummed to part with gray but the window breaks feel like no. carmen i- i think pretending its just how it be is... its kinda deeper than that for her no matter how strong she has to be at whatever moment to move on for now

she broke the barrier, she can't pretend she's actually accepted it in any type of ok way no matter what led to the separation happening

Extra extra extra fun detail fun for me

The window kinda looks like a broken crackle rod to me with the way its a light green strip in the middle of 2 dark strips lol

[caffernnn]

Besties… I fear another devastating song has hit the Makoto playlists

[tenwhiteandalusians]

pertaining to the idea of tenax’s band of strays i do think it’s touching that the kids are the ones who saved him and waited outside the door to make sure he’s okay. for all tenax claims to be harsh and cruel it’s a fine indicator of his character that the kids won’t rest without him and are there every time he’s in danger.

[pallaspally]

i love people and humanity and should not explode them ilovepeopleandhumanityandshouldnotexplodethem

[featherymainffins]

The Line is a genuinely amazing song but I feel like it was created for incredibly evil purposes and nothing but evil purposes. Song engineered in a lab specifically for causing harm.

[vaguely-concerned]

I was just ambushed within the turbulent halls of my own mind by some headcanons about rye ingellvar's childhood that did 15000000 points of psychic damage to me and my heart personally and also made me almost sure of how I want to play it all at the end (very very differently from how I imagined going in!). some 'oh holy fuck this changes everything' rocking my own world bullshit going on in my neurons right now I'm reeling

[simping-on-the-daily]

I think it would be really funny if Malleus actually gains his Unique Magic during Chapter 7. Something happens and he sounds something badass and something cool happens and he's like "Huh. What did I just say"

[yuukei-yikes]

haruka and takanes last thoughts before dying still make me so fucking sick. like youve got to be kidding me. what a fucking joke

last thoughts being i have to tell you vs please tell me. literally gonna throwup

[loveryoushouldvecomeover-mp3]

louis really is the unreliable narrator ever truly like he recalls his birthdate a year off, it was winter when his brother died but also it should've been near autumn and by the time his sister was getting married? he leaves out certain details deliberately, whether consciously— did you eat the baby?, or unconsciously— except you made sure lestat wouldn't really die didn't you? he recalls certain things a lot differently sometimes because he refuses to think about them plainly and sometimes because he really can't remember, he's guilty over how claudia came to be, well, claudia but throws almost all the fault on lestat by not acknowledging his better half in turning her, he corners a teenage journalist drugged out of his mind and fucking bitches all the way to hell about lestat only to wax poetics about the man again to the same guy decades later, and so he's a little brain fogged and a lot biased and you can't take any of what he says to scripture, only to find out that!!! his companion!!!! of 77 years!!!! was also!!!! not only Entirely Lying to him on accounts of Huge events of Much significance in his life but also has been abusing his ability to erase whole memories from his head to the point he can't remember fucking attempting suicide and alters memories so terribly too not just with physic powers but also through a lot of manipulation tactics (you Asked me to erase it!) so really the season finale leaves you wondering what better part of paris was all entirely wrong, what of armand and louis' relationship was just entirely fiction or just completely skewed? turned on his head? the man already lost so much to age and the odyssey of recollection now we learn his brain fog is also largely attributed to a whole other person fucking around with it, someone who we know used it A Lot by that point too and probably got careless after the fucking... seventieth decade doing this that louis suddenly noticed his photos being swapped out... armand has gotten so careless and used to power he said shit like well... maybe You put those photos there....well You asked me to erase it.... and louis fucking believed him too!! what of any of it is real, and he must be wondering too after all of it, he wanted this, to remember, he's been wracking his head for details about whether or not claudia was dreaming next to him that night a million years ago and her killer is right there at the table next to him. when he's crying recounting the death of his daughter to the guy who orchestrated it what has he ever really known at all.

[volfoss]

like heres the thing- at surface level, you can really be impressed with rices inclusivity. like in a world where things were not horrible, to have a prominent black vampire in merrick, have an intersex genderfluid character in blackwood farm, billions of bisexuals etc, it all seems really nice. and then you look more into it and find that the way she writes anyone who doesnt fit a very specific mold is written horribly. merrick is treated as a sex object and a temptress as early as.. age 14 or so. she is never given the pov during the entire book that is TITLED AFTER HER because its all from a white guy who's been objectifying her forever. petronia (the character in blackwood) is misgendered often and treated as inhuman often in a very jarring way. her way of "inclusivity" with sexuality often includes very large age gaps between adults and minors treated completely normally and never really unpacking the damage that does to the victims, as well as incestuous relationships that if anything are fetishized to the point where i am positive she had a kink for it. her idea of representation is so incredibly surface level and doesn't really seem to examine many viewpoints outside of her own, nor take any care to handle any topic with any sensitivity. do i need to bring up the gay disabled vampire who is the only disabled vampire ever and is greatly treated with mass amounts of ableism from the woman who supposedly cares about him (if we are to believe rice's narrative that every slave owner just lovesss their slaves and wants the best for them and its GOOD for them to be enslaved). we are supposed to believe an author with this bad of a track record actually cares?