#the symbolism is certainly there

[shuffleoflove]

one day i want to make a really in-depth post about the film posters on tao's wall but for now i just wanna point out that the in the mood for love poster was NOT there in season 1 and that film is notoriously about falling in love and the pain of loss... jesus christ tao that's the one thing you're sensitive about

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[phoenixcatch7]

I get that calling white lotus lbh a sticky little 'sheep' is a canon translation and stuck in the fandom now anyway, but I do feel the intended spirit of the original word wasn't the sheeple/dumb herd animal that's more common in the western world, but instead something actually conveying sweetness, innocence, purity and youth - lamb.

Famous for being utterly adorable and following around their mothers, gambolling in sunny meadows, curly white wool shining.

And NOW we can talk about black sheep/wolf in sheep's clothing metaphors.

[vaguely-concerned]

how much have the crows actually been sanitized outside of the very narrow view you get of them both in place and in time in veilguard, and how much is caterina deliberately putting her most presentable and pr friendly foot forward because she needs HELP with both the grandson and the antaam situations and is already playing from a weakened overwhelmed position. is she going to show off all the dirty laundry the crows undeniably have in front of the people she's courting for an alliance? is rook going to be looking a gift crow in the beak too closely when help is offered, go digging through that laundry basket on their own initiative on principle, knowing what you might find further down in it isn't pretty and might still be sharp, while the world is burning? is it entirely coincidental that the people caterina picks to interact with you most is teia -- the youngest, most charismatic and notably most weirdly idealistic of the talons -- and viago -- who is perhaps none of these things naturally but is dependable and logical and sharp and also down so cataclysmically bad for teia that when she runs in shouting 'TEIA YES!!! >:D' he sighs with longsuffering resignation and goes '...viago also yes. I suppose. under duress, let the record note' and follows.

surely parts of how each house functions would be left largely up to the individual talons, right? as long as they produce crows capable of doing the job and keeping up with the competition, I doubt the first talon micromanages how they get there (...for good or ill. lots of dead fledglings buried under that laissez faire policy, probably). they're very far away from a monolithic structure, they're constantly competing merchant houses/families striving to gain the upper hand held in check by little except 'if enough of the other houses shake hands and gang up on us for pushing our luck we're fucked, so don't push it too far'. like I believe lucanis says at one point, even calling them an organization is stretching the definition to a breaking point in some ways lol this is fully herding cats territory. all this to say that in this game we spend most of our time in teia's house. andarateia cantori, of the firm genuine conviction recognized as mildly unhinged by all the other talons that the crows truly are her family, who loves them with her whole unstoppable foolhardy thinks-she-will-die-young-and-live-eternally-in-song-and-story heart for it. teia, who won't leave the cantori diamond even to go home to sleep because she doesn't want the fledglings to have to see the place empty. do I think the way teia cantori would run her house is indicative of the average experience of being trained as and living as a crow? no. obviously. why are people seeming to assume that so immediately? sometimes I do wonder if I'm going insane.

between that and the antaam situation -- which turns the romanticized image antiva already is eager to reach for with the crows (the same way european literary tradition through the ages sure LOVES a knight, no matter what knights were actually like when you had one kicking around in real life) into an effective and recognizable symbol of resistance from an outside force (at least these awful little guys are home grown in a way we're kind of proud of despite it all and also they are deeply inescapably cool)... perhaps indeed a symbol of resistance and freedom that momentarily covers for a multitude of sins. I don't think we need to draw definitive conclusions about what the crows are like universially, historically or in different contexts from what we see in veilguard. sort of like the british in the pop cultural understanding being 'the good guys' when we think about WW2, and the sheer ludicrousness of that characterization of the british empire seen in any other context or angle lmao. I DO think there are some genuine writerly '*handwaves established ugliness aside aggressively* just uuuuuh don't worry about it! not important right now! you can feel at least ok hanging out with the cool theater kids but with murder they're like. comparatively chill in this context it's fine and they're fun' going on too. and you know what. they are fun. invenci is unfortunately objectively right, but the crows are sooo much more fun. and in fiction land that trumps all. absolutely baffling writing choice when you read through to the political/ideological conclusion that's reached from it of course (sort of accidentally? I think???), but would it really be a bioware game without a few of those. it's how you know you're home (derogatory and affectionate)

in short there are writing problems by god are there real problems here. obviously. and it'd take smarter and more knowledgeable people than me to properly untangle all of that. glorifying organized crime is a time honoured tradition in fiction that perhaps... shouldn't be quite so much and is uh risky, you're always playing with fire there. but I frankly don't think the 'de-edgeifying' for lack of a better term is that much of an inescapable one or that it erases what we knew of the crows before, we're just getting the angle on them in one very specific time and place in history and with specific individuals involved setting the tone. eight little talons killing off most of the established leadership beforehand so it's mostly only teia and viago who get to keep their full power base (even caterina and the dellamortes takes some losses in the apparent death of lucanis before the start of the game) probably figures into that somewhere too lol

[harrietvane]

Doorway onto the Renaissance spiral staircase in the Château Royale, Blois

[blackhholes]

teen wolf meme: [3/5] motifs -> resurrection

It's different now. I think dying did something to him. It did something to me, too. But none of it was good.

[conchiferrous]

question about the extent of the hana hana no mi's capabilities

[ID: Nami holds Usopp in her arms while he has a gaping hole in his chest. Usopp wearily says: "Nami, level with me, am I going to make it?" Nami, panicked, responds: "Uh. Don't think about it too much." After smearing hand blood on Nami's face, new skin suddenly forms over Usopp's wound with a few pink flower petals floating down from the area. They both say "What." in unison. Usopp says on the spot: "Perdoname, I was pretending to not have regenerative powers, which I have btw, because if the enemy knows about my powers they might take advantage of that knowledge." Nami looks behind her to see Robin doing a thumbs up with a pained expression while holding her other hand up in the I'm using my powers position. /END ID]

[purpleleafsyt]

{What will it be? It's your choice.}

Inspired from this fic, this scene would be in chapter 13, below the cut is some of the writing that inspired this :D

[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???

[apocalyp-tech-a]

Eye of Sauron Vibes?

Perhaps representing Hemlock's use of the operative as 'eyes and ears.' Perhaps it's more like a goggle lens, representing CX-2's intelligence and power. Don't we know someone else who is very intelligent and kind of overpowered and has eyes that are often alluded to? 🤔 Not over this dude until we find out who it is and if it's who I think it is, I will never be over him.

[dailypearldoodles]

Day 520

Ok i finally succumbed to the brainrot and threw Pearl into FMA because. because.

yeah anyways I wanted to focus more on her terraforming skills and named her the Shifting Earth Alchemist! She specializes in earth alchemy and has exceptional range with her transmutations, so she's able to transmute large plots of land at a time. Her transmutation circles are made up mostly of the Earth symbols and also a bit of water, and theyre tattooed onto her palms. She also has little earth symbols tattooed onto her face because. I needed to keep the little markings i give her somehow. They dont do anything except look kinda cool

[delawaredetroit]

I appreciate that this is one of the few moments where Izuku isn't prioritizing someone else's needs above his own.

He acknowledged Bakugou wanted to vent, but above anything else Izuku wanted to beat him. He wasn't pulling punches in this supposedly purposeless fight either. Dude was planning to kick Bakugou in the head with the brand new 8% Full Cowling that he had never used on a person before. He wasn't playing around.

Izuku's motivation was entirely about his own goals here. What it came down to was "All Might chose me as his successor so I must win to prove myself and overcome this wall in front of me". Izuku believed Bakugou was one of the hurdles he must overcome in his path to become the next symbol.

It's one of a handful of moments where Izuku doesn't go out of his way to humanize his opponent, and really the only time he doesn't when his opponent was another hero hopeful. Whether that's because of the bad blood Bakugou caused between them over a decade, the inherent objectification in viewing a person primarily as a symbol, or some combination of the two, it's an interesting moment of characterization for Izuku.

[ilynpilled]

I like Jaime appears as face glowing with light in Bran's dream and then a lot of Bran's arc is him using darkness as a tool to hide and develop his powers

I don't think it's a bad thing for Bran's arc, I like how GRRM is trying to subvert the light=good darkness=bad trope and show it's more complicated than that and this is also obviously shown with the Kingsguard wearing bright white armor but obviously not being the super honorable knights everyone thinks they are.

half the cast laying eyes on jaime

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

It had started because some people had misheard something Phantom said. One singular letter was responsible for the mess he was in right now.

They thought Phantom had said "Dad"

He had not, not this time at least, he was, admittedly, rather prone to accidentally calling Jack "Dad" because the man actually was. Though those moments were nothing compared to this.

It had spread like wildfire throughout the school, and then the city as a whole. Phantom had a dad, a dad who was visiting next week. That's what they knew, and theories and questions were already abound. Was Phantom's dad alive? Or dead too? What was their relationship like? Was this mysterious dad Phantom's blood (ectoplasm?) father? Or was Phantom adopted? How similar were they?

Dan just laughed at Danny over the phone when he tried explaining the situation to his older self before he came by to visit.

[seastawright]

back to the place where it all began. ☃️ final expedition banner for Quincy since they've never had one by me 💗

[shannonsketches]

an incomplete list of animals i'd like to see utilized in gerudo valley + canyon + desert + highlands