#silvia rambles

[mybrainisalibrary]

Prayer request

Tumblr friends, I'm getting surgery today and kinda freaking out. I'd appreciate any prayers for mental peace and for the surgery to go smoothly 🙏

[hobiebrownismygod]

Oh look it’s little miss/mister loves the found family trope because they find the idea that someone would love them without feeling obligated to a fantasy 😐

[takemetodragonstone]

in succession 2x08 dundee when logan says “the past is all made up” i really do think that’s the thesis of the entire show btw.

like, the roy kids’ conflicting memories of their childhoods that are never clarified through any kind of flashbacks or confirmation, the entire fucking cruises scandal and the coverups of major crimes, kendall’s accident and how he even tries to rewrite the past in the finale (“that didn’t happen. I made it up”) as logan so often did in both big and small ways (from denying his knowledge of the cruises crimes before congress to small moments of “I told you this already” and “did I even make contact?”)

the fucking poem Dreamsong 29 by John Berryman that all the season finales are named after. this is just the last stanza:

“But never did Henry, as he thought he did, / end anyone and hacks her body up / and hide the pieces, where they may be found. / He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing. / Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. / Nobody is ever missing.”

And we never have real confirmation that logan did know about cruises because the characters (minus kendall) deny it to the last. but we know. we keep our plausible deniability because we don’t know, but we know. the show essentially makes us complicit in the same way that the characters are. most of them don’t know that he knew, because they never had any explicit proof, but as kendall says in season 3 “C’mon. We knew.”

the narrative continually shows us that logan “keeps a watchful eye over his whole empire” with perhaps the best example being how he buries the evidence of kendall’s accident and manslaughter at the end of season 1. that’s a very clear parallel to the cruises situation and that’s so skillfully and subtly woven throughout season 2 when the cruises scandals are coming to light and kendall is still reeling from the accident and his guilt.

and all that’s not even touching on the whole matter of ATN and the debate over how involved logan really is in what news stories and political views his network pushes (which could be a whole separate post of its own). very similar to how the cruises thing is handled, the line is always that logan isn’t involved, while the narrative shows us otherwise.

there are a million other examples both big and small that i could pull but this post is already such a disorganized mess. someday i’ll write an essay about it i swear, or maybe somebody else out there already has, but i just needed to point out how brilliant and subtle the show is about this as i’m rewatching season 2

[solarwreathe]

i don't care if there's a nightmare plague sweeping the lands, you're coming into work tomorrow.

maia is the witchy mc of @bleaksqueak's comic solivaga, captured here just a millisecond before registering the horrors. her face in the next millisecond was less flattering.

bonus under the cut

a close up

audric, the main antagonist of the story, caught cruelly shutting down an independent woman owned business. when will he be stopped

[nellandvoid]

when you try to flirt with the weird guy from the cabin in the woods but he’s so depressed that he doesn’t even look at you while you’re talking to him

panels from a scrapped first meet concept (ended up changing how they actually meet) but i love how they look aka: i spent so much fucking time drawing them that i couldn’t just not show y’all

they do still first “meet” when stan does his first tour and takes ford’s identity, but they don’t actually meet-meet until about a week later

she worked as a janitor at dusk 2 dawn at the time and would deliver groceries to the actual ford when he stopped doing his weekly restock (he helped her clean up a spill once so she decided she owed him her life) so they have their first one-on-one convo when she goes to drop the groceries off and stan invites her in to look around as a thank-you when he recognizes her from the tour, and she agrees cause she was originally very curious about why ford never let her into his cabin before when dropping off groceries and then became even MORE curious when he just. randomly charges everyone to come take a tour of the place

[thecartoonrambler]

Why Wander is such an important character

Very long post below!

Ill be rambling about Wander over Yonder, specifically, WANDER!!

The show in itself is already amazing, the episodes are short and fun, each character is oozing with personality and fun interactions and there are always ways in which it is all connected. Further on the animation of the show and overall look is absolutely adorable!

For me personally, Wander is simply such an important character and not for few reasons.

I love that Wander's silly happy go lucky personality is so addictive. He's a happy person, who gets happy by helping others in need, even to points where he gets himself in trouble (every episode LOL) But regardless i think they are such an important character traits to have (Happiness, altruism, Optimism).

In today's depressing and violent world, where everyone just fights with each other, a character like Wander can be a sense of hope or inspiration!

Of course, many main characters have these traits as well, but i think a key difference between Wander and many other optimist protagonists lies in their EXPERIENCE IN LIFE!

These other protags are innocent, naive optimists, because they haven't experienced "the real world" yet. And while it makes sense to have characters like these (as an allegory to growing up), they get really tiring and repetitive really quickly. They also commonly showcase optimism and naivety to go hand in hand. And its why a lot if people commonly believe that "realsim" is inherently "pessimistic" (it isn't btw. Theres good and bad in life, denying theres good, is denying reality)

Its extremely refreshing to have a main character like Wander, actually be hinted at being millennias old, repeatedly converting villains to good throughout the eons, out of a sense of duty (and perhaps also Pacifist revenge for his childhood, where its hinted that his entire planet was destroyed and he was the only survivor.)

not only is this also something that one learns, the more one watches (keeping the viewer intrigued) but the fact that so much about Wander's life and past is a mystery is what makes him a fascinating character. At first glance hes just some helpful guy, and the more you learn about him, the more you more you think "who is this guy?" Not in a negative way, but in a complete curiosity. Is it possible he's as old as the universe himself? If so does he know it? Who is he? What actually happened in his past? How did he live before his hat? Was there a time he wasn't as helpful? What caused him to change? Who is he? But at the same time, the viewer doesn't NEED to know. Theres no stress to, no hurry to uncover a mystery. Its like "mystery but it's actually completely low-key". I like that. (Im the kind to get into conspiracy theories or get crazy over plot holes, so the show managing this is insane)

Traits like these, especially in contrast to their personality being so so happy, child-like, goofy, charitable, it makes for an extremely interesting and fascinating character, that one doesn't commonly see in media! Which is really awesome! Someone that's seen so much horrors, lived through civil wars, yet tries to help a skeleton get together with a butch lesbian??

Its awesome!

Other that just that alone, he's helped me out personally! He in many ways reminds me of myself as a kid, i too was altruistic, always trying to help, struggled to say no, was positive and happy go-lucky and adventurous (well, as all kids i suppose), recently rediscovering the show made me realise how much i missed those personality traits in myself. That i had hidden them away, due to people making fun of me of being "too naive" and "too childish". Eventually Making me not talk to people really, and develop really bad self esteem. Rediscovering this show, and specifically how these "childish" traits can be seen in a very positive charming light, helped me realise that being scared of "coming off wierd", "coming off as toxic positivity" will always be worse than not being positive.... At all.

Ive heard from other people too that this show has helped them through tough times, and allowed them to reconnect with more positive thought patterns. Which is why i think characters like Wander are insanely important for media!!

Too much is too depressing all the time! We can create media (ESPECIALLY ADULT MEDIA) that isnt depressed. Positivity and happiness are not a crime! And im so glad a character like Wander exists to exhibit that!

[cookiesandbiscuits]

I continued reading the M!IK manga up until the latest chapter and...

Absolutely howling at this lmaoooo

[misterpaws]

sorry guys this is a silvia fan blog now. in this house we love silvia

[melit0n]

One of my favourite lines in Higher is "Cause I look for scarlet and you look for ultraviolet."

The whole song is filled with these sorts of juxtapositions: "Fire" and "dry as bone", "Melody" and "silence" and "Danger" and "long way from home". However, as I said, this one is by far my favourite.

Of course you have the understanding that it's simply that; two juxtapositions that show the differences between Vessel and whoever he's talking about, but I wanna dive a little deeper.

Ultraviolet is obviously on the EM wave/light spectrum with a wavelength of around 10(-8)m, and is not visible to the human eye (hence its use of revealing things left unseen with fluorescence). You probably know of it because it's mainly used in crime scenes to discover bloodstains or other bodily fluids. The person looking for ultraviolet is looking for old wounds. Old blood long dried that they can trace back up to a scar they can pry open.

Plus, phonetically, Ultraviolet is similar to 'violence'.

With scarlet, outside of being a symbol for violence, blood, anger and love, can be traced to Infrared, which is also on the EM wave/light spectrum. Infrared doesn't have a colour, but will make things with heat appear scarlet. While they search for old wounds and things unseen to pry and pick apart, Vessel looks for affection and a warm body to attach himself to.

While the other lyrics are complete opposites, crackling fire to a feild waiting for the rains, melodies to calming silence, these two link. They're different and they're bad for eachother, but undeniably they click.

He is a danger, burning scarlet dripping from an open wound, and they, you, are a long way from home. From familiarity. And they are certainly in their right mind to keep the burning fire out of their home.

But the fire is warm, and he's looking for something that'll hold him and show him love anyways.

[littleeyesofpallas]

So I've mentioned before that Hisagi Shuuhei's given name Shuuhei[修兵]: "disciplined soldier" is a homonym with shuuhei[州兵]: lit. "state+soldier" but refers to both the organization and individuals of a "National Guard" and contextually the US National Guard specifically. And I've mentioned how it kinda plays into his characterization in relation to his zanpakutou. But something that maybe isn't as apparent is how he shares a very loose theme with Kensei.

Kensei's got a weird mix of things going on and it always felt to me like part of it kind of pivoted half way thru the series, and really the Visored in general, where he started with a sort of US military theme but got shifted into being more of a Japanese style biker gang leader instead(and how that plays into Mashiro's toku hero gimmick)

Among other things he's got the retroactively named move, BakudanTsuki[爆弾突き]: "bomb thrust" that has a subtle militaristic connotation to it. But then in context it's the same root word for "bomb" used in Bambietta's Schrift The Explode[爆撃]: "bombing(raid)" like in an aerial bombing from a plane.

(The other attack there is just SANDBAG BEAT[サンドバッグ・ビート] which doesn't feel especially thematic, but I guess does kind of evoke him being in something like a more western boxing gym, rather than any kind of japanese or samurai specific aesthetics like you'd expect from Soul Society. And his given name is written as "West(ern) Fist")

And then his zanpakutou, Tachikaze appears to be, at least in my mind, evocative of the Tachikaze class destroyer ship. Although I admit that's largely on the back of my own kind of wild/broad speculation about the Visored more as a group than anything supported by just him specifically.

Shuuhei ka tsuyosou na namae janee ka! Nakuna![修兵が強そうな名前じゃねえか! 泣くな!]: "Shuuhei is a strong looking name isn't it? Don't cry!"

It feels too obvious to need spelling out, but he's not just giving the generic pep talk, he's very specifically pointing out the Shuuhei's name means "Disciplined Soldier" so he should act like one.

I wish I could find it again but I swear there was some transcript of an interview where Kubo more or less reiterated stuff he'd been asked in other similar Q&A but mentioned that he doesn't really design characters with a background in mind, he just draws what feels cool and comes up with a story and personality to match the look. And mroe over that he similarly doesn't design characters with their relationships in mind, he just takes the characters he's already made and imagines which ones look like they'd get along in some way or another. (Among other things this explains why the same women keep showing up in 8th division, not because Nanao and Risa, or even Risa and Kyoraku were ever meant to be meaningfully related but because Kubo just keeps making these women who look the same and ends up pigeonholing them into the same basic network of characters.) Again i can't seem to find this specific Q&A though so take that "factoid" with a grain of salt.

Still it's with that in mind that it feels like Shuuhei and Kensei ended up together. Not because Kensei was ever actually meant to be Shuuhei's childhood hero but because they both had a soldier gimmick and so Kubo's brain filed them into the same general corner together. And it's from that link that he specifically made their meeting in the TBtP arc punctuated with this line about Shuuhei's name.

Also Shuuhei's got his whole motorcycle thing which is weirdly never actually brought up in the context of Kensei's biker thing and his hollow form made to look like car parts; although it's Shuuhei who's only briefly nodded to as the orbital factoid around Jackie's whole gay leather biker daddy themed Dirty Boots. (Very funny that between that and Mashiro's Kamen Rider homage that we have two implicitly motorcycle riding kicky ladies in Bleach. "...two nickles..." and all that...)

[mybrainisalibrary]

Week 5 of wondering if/when my coworkers will clean this coffee pot

I don't drink coffee but I walk past this thing every day and 🤢

And you might say, 'Maybe no one is using it at all and that's why it's like this' and I wish that were true but I saw my coworker make coffee with this thing 2 weeks ago, when mold splotches were already visible

[hobiebrownismygod]

pics from @hobiesdump

HOBIE MY LOVE

THE EYE CONTACT IS SCARING ME BUT I LOVE IT

HE LOOKS SO SARCASTIC AND DONE (this is when Peter B. shows up so it’s understandable) I LOVE HIMMM

AND THE ORANGE AND BLUE COLORS LOOK SO PRETTY??

@tatumis-a pretty boy alert⁉️🚨

turns out the yellow in the background is actually his GUITAR I thought it was some random box 😭

[star-critter]

Star-Critter has officially snapped. I have gone insane. Out of all the disturbing things I have learned in this world, trying to comprehend octopus anatomy has sent me over the edge. What the fuck is this. WHAT THE FUCK IS ANY OF THIS- Dear Gaia I can't believe I still want a degree in zoology right now this shit is FUCKING INSANE. I am speechless. I am done. I am taking a break from my research and drawing for the rest of today. For the first time in A VERY LONG TIME, the animal kingdom has truly left me horrified.

[february65444]

I’ve completely lost my mind over lorde so look at me try and mesh my two fixations (lorde and stranger things)

ribs is the Most stranger things one to me mostly bc of the themes of growing up thst I love… I mostly see it as a byler song but I can see it as will & the party in s3

especially this part (I mostly see it as like. Will’s perspective on the party changing in s3 but also very byler)

and this one (especially byler to me…)

[willowshimmer]

Silvia appreciation post

She's SO FRICKIN CUTE!!!❤️

[leporellian]

and thats what don giovanni is all about.

(fluxdeconnaissances.com/don giovanni/'children's stories made horrific: curious george' by daniel mallory ortberg/wikipedia/'moonlight on the river' by mac demarco/letters from medea by salma deera/don giovanni/richard silken/wikipedia/'moonlight on the river' by mac demarco/100 essays i don't have the time to write by sarah ruhl/'accident report in the tall, tall weeds' by ada limón/don giovanni/'watching him fade away' by mac demarco/bojack horseman/don giovanni/letters from medea by salma deera/bojack horseman/'watching him fade away' by mac demarco/npr interview with mac demarco/don giovanni/bojack horseman/1990 metropolitan opera production of don giovanni/wosu.org)