#social symbolism

[lionofchaeronea]

In the Month of June, L.A. Ring, 1899

[petorahs]

[retellingthehobbit]

As he lay in bed he could hear Thorin still humming to himself in the best bedroom next to him:

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away, ere break of day,

To find our long-forgotten gold.

Bilbo went to sleep with that in his ears, and it gave him very uncomfortable dreams.

This moment from chapter 16 of The Hobbit comic adaptation symbolizes the core of the relationship between Bilbo and Thorin, in this version of the story.

Bilbo and Thorin are both awake long after everyone else is asleep, kept up by their anxieties over the journey.

Bilbo’s room is decorated with a bunch of little objects; Thorin is in a spare room that is completely empty. It’s a “visual reference” to the idea that Bilbo has a home in Bag End, and tons of little treasures of his own that he’s very attached to— but Thorin has none, because the Lonely Mountain and its “long forgotten gold” was taken from him.

(You can read the full comic adaptation here on tumblr, on Webtoon, or on Ao3, and tip the artist/preview the next chapters on Patreon!)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wardrobe Woes

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[jayrockin]

I just had the dumbest idea but I think it's funny: Do some centaurs grind down their teeth into different shapes as a body mod because they continually grow, like how humans dye and style hair? I imagine that would be wildly inefficient for eating but it could theoretically work if you were careful and I can definitely see it becoming a trend among teens to sharpen some of their teeth to look cool.

Eughhh...... maybe in the multi-clan cities with access to reliable, processed foods and utensils they're doin that.... If you get too wild with it, you would absolutely fuck up your ability to eat food, or risk dangerous abscesses...

Aesthetic teeth grinding I think would not be being teenage counterculture thing, but a social status signifier. Grinding down the teeth to be LESS pointy would ironically probably be the most common (and safest) version of this, particularly for social roles intended to be non-threatening, like mediators, entourage members, spiritual guides, and doctors. Another person in the asks inquired about tooth engraving, which strikes me as more likely than grinding teeth into wild pointy shapes.

[k9emote]

Eye contact is hard for me emoji? Need visual for aac!

EYE CONTACT ISSUES

Coming right up because we needed this too

faceless eye contact issues (white)

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eye contact issues (white)

eye contact issues (yellow)

upset eye contact issues (white)

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X-ed out eye

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[spotsupstuff]

char. design stuff and map update

The greek alphabet name system is for more technical classification, while names like ,,Children of Eos" [group Epsilon] and ,,Wish for Tomorrow" [group Tau] are used more by public and for grandioser introductions in political meetings.

[coloncurlybracket]

Athena calling Antinous a dog as an insult vs calling Telemachus a wolf as praise

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Hey, I was wondering why you think Roxy was destined to end up with Eridan? I get the shared wizard interest and the quirk foreshadowing I guess, but that still seems like a large stretch. It's kinda like saying that Equius and Dirk are going to end up together because they both like robots and horses. It's just seems like the sort of character remixing that Hussie uses a lot in Homestuck. But what do you think?

Roxy

- fucking LOVES WIZARDS

- is a hipster and literally wears a colorswapped version of eridans scarf

- is pink and bubbly

- uses riflekind

- has a perfectly opposite powerset to eridan (can create anything by stealing its void away vs. can destroy anything with pure belief) and are connected to each other through the matriorb

- has a crush on a troubled, eccentric prince so you know that's her type

- quirk cameo with momlonde

Eridan

- Is a wizard

- Is a hipster and literally wears a colorswapped version of roxy's scarf

- Uses riflekind

- Had a huge crush on Feferi, a bubbly pink girl whom he (wrongly) believed to be so nice she might not even be capable of pitch, so we know that's his type

- The equal and opposite powerset & quirk cameo

At the end of the day I can't tell you what to ship, nor am I interested in making anyone ship anything, but I'm kind of just saying, the things that make Roxy predisposed to liking Eridan are, like, the biggest parts of her character, and Eridan is very easy & would pretty much say yes to anybody, but Roxy is also definitely His Type and Eridan is a simp who thrives under any sort of positive attention & would do anything someone asked if they were giving him positive feedback. or attention at all. case in point kanaya fucking hates him but at least she talks to him and he's constantly praising the shit out of her

Jane and Jake also have their introductions IMMEDIATELY followed by talking about how they've got a thing for "cobalt" hunks and "cerulean babes" respectively, so setting up roxy with eridan also fits into a pattern of the b2 kids being set up to date a dead troll. still rereading this part of the comic, but it really jumped out to me how blatant it was for jake and jane

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Something that drives me absolutely crazy about Jon and Rickon is that while the rest of the Stark kids love Jon, they’re all too cognizant of his “otherness”. Robb, Bran, and Arya love him as one would love any brother, but he’s always separated from the rest of the family: Ned Stark had five children, and then a sixth who was separate. And even when the Stark kids think of the direwolves, Ghost is always set apart from the rest of them. We’re always reminded that six pups were found in the snow, five huddled together and one who was white as snow separate from the rest of them.

But Jon is not separate in Rickon’s mind. During the royal feast, at an occasion where the social schism between the Stark children is all too apparent, Rickon is too caught up on “where’s Jon? Why is he not here among us? Why is he separate? He should be here!” And we see this when he waddled to where Jon was sitting with the squires, only leaving when big brother set him back on the path to the dais, thus enforcing a social boundary that he himself was not aware of. And the crazy thing is, Rickon is a bit of an other in a way. Shaggy, Rickon’s familiar, is not brown or grey like the other wolves. He’s black with green eyes, a visual representation of northern mysticism just as Jon’s Ghost is.

And it’s going to come to a head when Jon’s true parentage is revealed to the world. And Ghost’s difference becomes even more pronounced. But what a stark (pun intended) reminder it will be to know that Jon is not alone, and he is wholly accepted just as he is. Rickon is so young and full of ignorance. But that childish ignorance could go a long way, especially in reminding a very insecure Jon that he does indeed belong, all differences be damned.

[stimboardboy]

socially selective embroidered dog patch

[ari-just-ariririe]

S1E5, 17th minute roughly, Will and Hannibal in his office

"Jack gave you his word he would protect your headspace, yet he leaves you to your mental devices."

'-' -=- "..You trying to alienate me from Jack Crofford? "

"I'm trying to help you understand this angel man that you seek"

"Oh, huh, help me understand how to catch him. "

This is such an interesting piece of dialogue between them. Of course, every piece is interesting, but this one especially!

Will is smart, you can't really manipulate him without him noticing, not really. Hannibal already saw him react quite quickly and actively to actually working with HIS mind (from S1E1 introduction of the two to the words that come right before: will noticing that Hannibal changed the topic to his mental state, ridiculing him for it but allowing him to proceed). So Hannibal knows Will knows when his mind is messed with in a psychiatric manner.

Will always asknowledges. He calls it out twice just in this scene, first the analysys and then the manipulation.

Now I wonder if it actually works — because the ridicule and the callouts are Will's coping mechanism of sorts, but the problem was now brought to his attention, and could he really keep himself from seeing all of Jack's actions through the question "has he been dismissive of my state" now?

But what I truly think Hannibal is doing here is shifting the focus not necessarily ON Jack, no, that would be too forward for a man-that-speaks-in-implications. He's shifting the focuse elswhere, away from himself, for now.

And truly the next two lines need to be analyzed in a separate post because they're about another thing entirely, but they go together so why not. Or do they?

The next two are.. Subtle and brilliant. Hannibal reveals his true intention here, to make Will empathise with these killers even more, to make him go into their heads deeper and deeper. Maybe to observe Will do it. But overall, it is truly just for Will to understand the new killer. He does not care for the killer to be captured, the motive is the empathy itself. In fact, he may benefit more form the criminal not being caught, since the longer the investigation, the deeper Will goes (see Hobbs's case).

For Will, he would rather catch the killer faster, so he doesn't have to do it at all. The empathy is even less than a tool, it is an UNWANTED tool — he hates when he has to use it, yet it is helpful, so he feels like he kind of has to. Because not using it means he is allowing people to be killed, basically.

So Hannibal tells Will the raw truth. With a bit of omission sprinkled on top, because the context prompts anyone to believe that Hannibal would want the investigation to succeed too. Only the viewer has this context, and can therefore understand Hannibal's true motive. Will doesn't know, so he can't. But he feels it somewhere in his empathetic guts, and therefore his emotional reaction is to call him out on it. He is annoyed with himself for not getting everything first try, always. And he doesn't quite know it, because Hannibal ruffled his feathers right before by psychoanalyzing him, but Will is annoyed Hannibal is not exactly helping him. Not in the way that hi wants.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

People are still truly out here asking their fiction to act as models for real life instead of letting them be symbolic. Like, yes, we can def add to our realistic representations of people's lived experiences of poverty and queerness, but maybe the campy ghost show isn't the best example to ignite your criticisms about realism???

[appri-dot]

@sodabranch the Nutcrackers are catfishing eachother/j

Dialogue:

[J: What a tall human! Nice face! He's so...WRONG.]

[W: Such a pretty shell! It's not attacking me, it's kind! It's so..Perfect.]

[kaurwreck]

OH YOUR VERLAINE AND RIMBAUD POSTS AND THE TENDENCY OF ASAGIRI TO FLIP FLOP THE MENTOR/MENTEE OR ADMIRED AND HOW RIMBAUD WAS THE YOUNGER ONE BUT IN BSD VERLAINE WAS SOCIALIZED BY RIMBAUD

With Rimbaud and Verlaine, it's worth remembering that bsd!Rimbaud is Verlaine. His skill is Illuminations, but he gave Black #12 his birth name, Paul Verlaine. bsd!Verlaine was not originally named Rimbaud, but his youth, passions, and duality are Rimbaudian, while bsd!Rimbaud's more coddling temperament, at times paternal and at times impassioned, and last sentiments for bsd!Verlaine, are seemingly references to irlVerlaine's poetry about irl!Rimbaud. (Such as Watercolors: Green, an English translation of which I shared in a separate post.)

Notably, Verlaine published Illuminations on Rimbaud's behalf and influenced the content and arrangement that was published. His legacy is often related more to his relationship with and publication of Rimbaud than his own poetry, according to the journal articles I've been reading. bsd!Verlaine's Brutalization incantation also comes from Arthur Rimbaud's Les Sœurs De Charité.

But the bsd iterations of Rimbaud and Verlaine aren't wholly distinct either, each carrying fragments of the other, sometimes blurring together. That, too, is a homage to the philosophies of the irl!poets. For example, Rimbaud, at times, writes from Verlaine's perspective in Une Saison en Enfer.

Rimbaud's poetry is also marked for its dialogic perspective-shifting, and he wrote through and lived within a philosophy of ambiguity, duality, and self dissection (at least during his youth):

irl!Verlaine, too, had a dual personality at times:

So, I don't think Asagiri flip/flopped Rimbaud and Verlaine's roles; I think he's commentating on, illustrating, and interpreting where their poetry, legacies, and passions became thoroughly entangled, as filtered and processed through bsd's themes. I think Asagiri enjoys plucking tragedy from reality and asking, "What would it have taken for them to have found reason and purpose absent any?"

That said, I also don't think Asagiri is ever really inversing mentor/mentee roles, even in regard to Akutagawa and Dazai. irl!Akutagawa was not irl!Dazai's mentor, he was a profound influence who lived and wrote just prior to the era of modern Japanese literature in which Osamu Dazai made in his name. I think Asagiri is commenting on (i) where they were deeply alike in mind and heart, which is why Dazai found solace and reflections of himself in Akutagawa, and (ii) on the stylistic dexterity Dazai could have lent to Akutagawa had he been in the position to do so, specifically regarding the way Dazai intepreted the I-novel genre through perversions of the truth as a means for expressing sincerity and gut-wrenchingly raw autobiographical candor without flaying himself apart the way Akutagawa seemed to when bullied into confessional literature by the cultural zeitgeist.

(Akutagawa was criticized for his sharp brilliance since the era was consumed with confessional literature, in comparison to which Akutagawa's stylistic precision seemed to many distant and aloof. Parasocialism is older than Christ, and BookTok is a descendent, not the progenitor, of corrosively vapid takes.)

The choices in bsd are playful but sincere inquiries into + conversations with the works, legacies, emotional turmoils, and overwhelming humanity of the referenced authors. But, while I think there's immense profundity in call and response, especially across eras, literary cultures, and artistic mediums, I also think Asagiri is more consumed by revelations than reflections.

I'm also not so sure whether we can call Rimbaud socialized by any contemporary connotation of the word—