#theme: capitalism

[alethianightsong]

"I miss when movies weren't political-"

ALIEN is about a megacorporation coercing some salvagers into transporting a dangerous creature without telling them what it is, all because the creature could be a great bioweapon for them. When a survivor of this failed transport mission wants reparations, they screw her over to avoid a scandal.

ROBOCOP is about another mega-corporation experimenting with a cop's body and declaring him their property, trying to reduce him to an obedient killing machine who can maintain the status quo for them.

JURASSIC PARK is about a rich billionaire going all out to make a dinosaur-themed amusement park, not caring about the real-world implications of resurrecting giant lizards. He also underpays ONE guy to maintain the entire park's security systems so predictably, that one guy betrays him at a crucial moment.

The best movies weave their politics with plot & character, so you can enjoy them as entertainment but can also notice the themes. Movies without themes wind up being all spectacle and no substance, just noise and color like Michael Bay's Transformers franchise. Yeah, they make money, but they'll be forgotten in 2 generations.

[lucidloving]

Gwen Benaway, Holy Wild // Clarice Lispector, "The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels" // Warsan Shire // Chelsea Hodson, Tonight I'm Someone Else // Anne Sexton, "The Double Image"

[permian-tropos]

is the mouthwashing fandom ready for these piping hot fucking takes

some points of clarification:

the horse can both be anya and the baby. I definitely do think it's also the baby. but a horse baby would have a horse mother

I wrote this stuff before seeing the end of the game while knowing plot points of how it ended. I've seen the end of the game now

I could add some stuff about swansea's ending speech about how trying to be a good member of capitalist society was ultimately worse than being an alcoholic but that's a whole other can of worms

@excalibutt has been wanting to portray more of anya's side of things with her role as nurse being akin to HR but that might come later

[amphibianaday]

day 1398

[stardustedknuckles]

It's looking like there's a growing divide between Campaign watchers and Tlovm watchers in terms of like. We're here for the characters. 12-episode seasons aren't. They can't be. I'm already making peace with everything we'll lose in the Mighty Nein show, and I know I will enjoy it for what it is but I also know that almost nothing that made the story so special will translate to the screen, because turning it into a show automatically means (in this day and age) that plot must be the number one priority. They've already come out and told us it's going to be different, the characters we know and love but new stories.

Because that's how this has to work. And I feel bad for campaign one lovers, because while it is certainly the easier of the two to translate to a big, overarching story, even though it's a more "traditional" high fantasy story with easier archetypal characters, the archetypes and the plot aren't what cemented most people's love for the campaign. So much of the love for critical role is stored in the interpersonal dynamics and the payoff that comes from hundreds of hours of tiny interactions that one day become cornerstones of development and even affect or dictate the plot.

There's no room for that. There's no room for Bard's Lament in a story that cannot afford to remove and replace a main character. A lot of tlovm is for people who have been here for all of campaign one. Most of it, however, isn't. It's for a new crowd. While CR may have creative control, you can bet your ass that there were months and years devoted to figuring out how to map a character-focused love of the show into a plot that hits the right beats to be viable in the show market.

And it worked. Tlovm has consistently high viewing numbers, and its popularity has brought and will continue to bring new people into the universe who have never interacted with CR previously. That's not a bad thing - imagine finishing your favorite show and discovering it has another FIVE HUNDRED HOURS of the equivalent of behind the scenes content. That's incredible for these newcomers. But man, it is in many ways a loss for us.

[katabay]

original thief series basso & garrett :)

ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels

there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.

anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)

[lily-on-the-fence]

Ahhh the Human Domestication Guide might be taking over my life >w<

I read the original and then started reading Dog of War yesterday and spent nearly the whole day readingg :3 Honestly it's so good and sweet and has just a liiiitle~ bit of tension to keep things fresh.

God it's such a dream of a setting I can't wait to sink my teeth into it and maybe write a little something or other!

[jerreeeeeee]

no villain speech has ever stuck with me like robert moses’ short manifesto from his conversation with kingston. people think they make choices. they think they’re gonna steer left, or steer right. but they didn’t build the roads. the big choices already got made for them, a long time ago.

because he’s RIGHT. not about his takeaway, obviously, which is just “and that’s how it should be.” but the statement itself is true. they DIDN’T build the roads. people are told over and over that because they “make choices” the outcomes of those choices are their responsibility, and that it’s freedom, even. they think they’re gonna choose to steer left, and then they crash. they choose which auto insurance they have. they choose what new car to buy. and that’s freedom. but they didn’t choose to be required to drive a dangerous vehicle an hour away to work their life away at a job they don’t care about just to keep themselves alive. they can only live their lives in a narrow framework, a structure sustained by a threat of imprisonment and violence. they didn’t build the system. they didn’t build the country, or even the concept of a country. they didn’t build the laws, they didn’t build the city, and they sure as hell didn’t build the roads.

[puckpocketed]

19/10/2024 - WSH @ NJD

seriously?

[spoopy-moose]

mouthwashing so interesting cause you can see the characters getting warped by the fandom perception in real time

[bikananjarrus]

if yord had lived he'd be leading the hunt for qimir and osha and we would've gotten the most delicious tension between him and qimir. qimir would start out frustrated that yord got away, intent on finishing what he started. and yord, once hunted, now hunter, once an exemplary jedi, and now solely focused on revenge disguised as righteous justice (which it is also a bit of that). and qimir starts to enjoy the game, the chase. and in this timeline, sol still dies, osha still goes with qimir, but yord was unconscious, recovering in a bacta tank, so all he knows when he wakes up is that qimir is out there and took osha, his friend, away. so then you also have the tension of that confrontation, the realization that osha has willingly turned, and that maybe yord can't blame her for that, because what has he been doing these past many months, years, maybe, but give in to the selfish desire to finish what he started too?

[akicklineisinevitable]

something about Hatchetfield is so Hadestown coded. something about how it's a sad tale, but we sing it anyway. as if it will turn out this time. (i'll find you in the next timeline). something about how not everyone can make it out, and those that do don't make it out unchanged. something about love that was doomed from the start (wait for me? i will) (when you shipped out, i thought i'd wait for you). something about how the scenery changes, but the stories are the same. something about it was a world of gods and men (there are monsters and there are men).

[pkmoth]

MOTHER SERIES TUMBLR EVENT?! ASK-A-PALOOZA INTEREST CHECK

Hello mother series enjoyers!!! Or, more specifically…. hello askblog enjoyers!!!! this event is for you!!

So, here's some background from me: I've wanted to make an askblog for a little while, but the idea of dedicating myself to a single concept/au/whatever is a little daunting (plus I would worry about how long I could keep it going for, etc etc)

Then, after seeing [this post] (hi zhari hi nana!!), my eyes were opened to the idea of temporary askblogs. And I thought wow, that sounds fun and much less daunting :D

SO THEN I thought: why not make a whole event about it? Where a bunch of people turn their blogs into mother series askblogs for a little while!! (You wouldn't have to actually change your whole blog theme of course, just have your askbox open and give some indication to askers that you're participating!!) You could also interact/rp with other askblogs/people participating and it'd be a grand ol' time overall!!

Would anyone be interested in an event like this?

If the results of this poll look promising, I'll make another poll for what week(s?) it should be!! Also, if you have any questions before you vote, don't be afraid to ask in the comments or dms!! I want everyone to feel welcome to participate :]

[whispsofwind]

I know they are jokes but I still utterly disagree with the people in the Dickens December tag going "Scrooge has a point/Scrooge is a mood" etc.

Because the problem with Ebenezer Scrooge is not that he dislikes Christmas and hates people forcing it on him, or that he refuses to give money to an unknown charity banging at his door.

The problem with Ebenezer Scrooge is that he is everything wrong with capitalism.

Scrooge doesn't refuse to participate in charity because he thinks it's a sketchy business and social problems should be addressed systematically at a higher level: he simply thinks any charity is a waste of money because to him, the problems are already taken care of. Poor people should be in prison or put to work, sick people should be in prison or in hospitals or even better, should be dead, and at the end of the day it's not his problem because he worked his whole life and he is perfectly fine and people die every day, so who cares.

And Scrooge doesn't shut down Christmas because Christmas is an over saturated, inescapable commercialised hell that he doesn't believe in. He hates Christmas because he dislikes anything even vaguely joyous, because joy doesn't bring money, or even worse, it requires money to be spent.

The only thing that counts to Scrooge when the reader meets him is to make money, and that drive shuts down any compassion in his heart. The more money he makes, the more miserable he becomes, and the more miserable he is, the more money he wants. Christmas is just a symbol of how utterly devoid of... Well, anything, Scrooge is.

Love is ridiculous, anything that makes anyone happy is useless because it distracts them from earning more money, and if you are poor it's your fault for not working hard enough.

And that's why the contrast with his nephew and employee in these first 3 entries work so well: because here's a man who married for love, and is as warm and ruddy as a candle in winter, and here's a man who would stop to play with the children in the street on his way home, just for the joy of it.

And then there's Scrooge.

[gayteensupreme]

insane how jerome fucking immolated himself because his weird best friend who he had a weird homoerotic dynamic with went to space for a year