#they bring up all this shit right?

[lesbiantrish]

i think i could heal if people were more crazy about spydoc. btw

[casualavocados]

Learn from who? Learn from you?

Chen Bowen as CHEN YI & Chiang Tien as AI DI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)

[giantkillerjack]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[shakingparadigm]

may i ask your opinions on what ivan is truly like ?

( without pretending to be someone or something else entirely ? )

Okay !! Finally back to answering asks !! Once again, please be mindful of the fact that these are mostly my own personal thoughts. Always take them with a grain of salt.

The thing is, Ivan is an incredibly difficult character. He was written to be complex and multi-faceted, literally having more than just one "face". His actions almost always have another layer of depth to them and he tends to contradict himself, further complicating people's perception of him. It's not easy to pin him down, and that was exactly the intent. They made sure that the viewers wouldn't be able to fully grasp his emotions.

( I find this fact rather funny, because in one of the behind posts QMENG herself says that sometimes Ivan does things she cannot understand. The creators just allow Ivan to be complicated. He is what he is, and while there are undoubtedly reasons for it, the full truth remains unknown to us. )

Regardless, this is what I personally think.

Ivan seems to define himself by his imperfection, so much so that his actions and perspectives are influenced by his deep self-hatred. It's established that Ivan is "lacking" something, he is fundamentally different from others. Ivan builds himself around this since he literally has nothing else. He defines himself by his lack of definition. The fact that he is different and needs to be "cured". Ivan grows attached to the qualities that he "lacks", drawn to the biggest personality in the garden like a moth to a flame. He is fascinated, not envious, and I think that says a lot about him. He places those qualities on a pedestal, believing them to be so much better than himself. He feels that it's something he will never achieve or deserve, something he can't have.

It's interesting that the only time we can pin Ivan as "envious" is not when he's faced with his opposite, but with his parallel. Someone he believed to be just like him.

One thing about Ivan is that he is (unsurprisingly) lonely. Since his entire life is defined by this feeling of separation from others (either literally through the segyein's selection or more intangibly through his mental and emotional difference from others), Ivan feels constantly isolated. Nobody has been able to properly understand him, which further worsens the feeling that something is wrong with him.

When he finally finds someone that he can relate with, it brings him a sense of relief. Note that when Ivan refers to (what he perceives as) their similarity, he uses derogatory language. Twisted. This is how he views himself.

( translation is by @sorrowcure ! )

Compared to his interactions with others, his confrontation with Sua is uncomfortably honest. Ivan is most critical with the person he relates to, further emphasizing how deeply critical he is of himself. Ivan is not envious of Till or Mizi, who are so fundamentally different from him, he's envious of Sua because she is just like him yet has something that he doesn't.

It may feel unfair for the one person you saw yourself in to accomplish something so out of your reach. Her love was reciprocated in full, adored and revered by the person she loved most. They weren't the same, after all. It reinforces what he always believed to be true: he was alone.

( translation by @/oreganocactus on Twitter! )

There are many other instances of Ivan's self-deprecation and low sense of self-worth that leak into his behavior, such as down-playing himself in his interview, referring to his own feelings as "shallow", convincing himself that he was never truly cared about, etc. His deep dissatisfaction of himself rises to the surface quite often, shown in the way that he takes pride in his achievements (his work), yet cannot view himself as a person in a positive light.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think is your charm?

IVAN: I can't really think of any, because I think I have more flaws (haha),

To me, a lot of the "actual" Ivan can be seen in his younger self. It's not a complete display of what Ivan is truly like, obviously. He was a child and hadn't yet developed in certain areas. Still, it's a period in Ivan's life where he didn't mask or play up a different image. The quiet, stoic, and blunt Ivan seems to be a more genuine side of him, at least compared to his more charming persona. QMENG considered Ivan with his hair down to be "most like himself", and I think it's no coincidence that the most memorable version of Ivan with his hair down is his child self. The infamous Bowl Cut Ivan.

With this fact in mind, I also find it no coincidence that in ROUND 6, where Ivan is presented as a "perfect actor" in costume, he starts off with his hair slicked back.

And when he finally drops the mask, when he acts out of his own volition, his hair falls onto his face. Hair down, most like himself.

Another notable instance of Ivan's hair being down is the casino/karaoke room scene, which was quoted as an example for Ivan's emotional immaturity, his supposed "childishness".

There's so much to be said about Ivan, including the neurodivergent/autistic traits that have been discussed by other people in more depth (notably his difficulty in understanding/expressing certain emotions, his masking, his often misconstrued actions, etc). There's also many of Ivan's more conflicting aspects (which seem mostly confined to the patreon? so I'm not sure if they're still planning to incorporate it into the publicly official content or if it was overhauled), but I'm going to stop here because I feel like this post is already pretty random and disconnected.

The gist of it is that I don't think I can give a solid answer on what Ivan is truly like. I'm not even sure if he can answer that, as he seems to be at war with himself quite frequently. Ivan, under his charming and cheery facade, is unable to feel or express emotion in the same way other people do, which causes difficulty and struggle in many other aspects of his life. Not like the one he has is completely his anyway, but, you know.

[beatcroc]

homest[ar/uck] posting. this was meant to be supplementary to the gerome comic as him 'explaining the joke' but i uhhhhhh forgot.

i'm not much for crossovers in the the traditional sense, but it IS one of my favorite character exploration exercises to just go like 'if x media existed in this universe, who would and would not be a fan of it?'. and these ones are pretty notorious and always very fun to mess with for that and so here we are

[cent-scratchnsniff]

it was just going to be a few warmup doodles but then she infected the rest of the page like the ever eternal and spreading spores. hod!!! hod. hod :)

[puppypeter]

I want to read about Jamie courting the hell out of Roy, wining and dining him, bringing him coffee in the morning, leaving him pastries on his desk with a sweet post it note, buying him flowers, making him hella flustered and panicky at the lack of control because that's always been Roy's role when dating someone

[tin-can-iron-man]

I'm just gonna say it again real quick:

Yes!! Iron Man is a tragedy! It has and always has been since the very first appearance in 1963 which describes itself, Tony's life, and legacy, as such.

Tony causes most of his issues himself, he is his biggest villain, a majority of his rogues gallery are caricatures of the worst versions of himself brought to life (when they're not just being racist cuz...60s...). The worst thing about being Tony Stark is that he can't stop being Tony Stark (he tried!!) That is the point.

The majority of pain Tony goes through, is pain he inflicts on himself, whether intentionally or inadvertently. That is the point.

He is not A villain (at least. Not usually. There are...some rough moments and arcs that are. Not great. As there is with any character as old as he is). But he is his own main antagonist.

[navree]

i'm sorry but this is sending me into the goddamn stratosphere, if you send people to physically attack my mom, torture my sister, cut my six year old son's head off, threaten to murder my toddler, and then also threaten to rape my six year old daughter, i would be very happy and jovial in declaring war on your psycho ass for pulling that shit on people who literally didn't do a thing to you.

consequently, if i sent people to physically attack someone who never did me any harm, torture my sister who never did me any harm, cut my six year old nephew who never did me any harm's head off, threaten to murder my toddler nephew who never did me any harm, and also threaten to rape my six year old niece who never did me any harm, i would be very full of regret and sorrow for what i've done, because those are bad things that i did.

[the-owl-tree]

I think your conclusion on Thistle’s whole character also sorta tracks with how the writers just. Write characters. Thistle does terrible things and is a bad guy, but what he actually does doesn’t exactly matter for how the authors want him to be? I mean like. Clear Sky does horrible things but is (somehow) a good guy anyways despite never changing or addressing any of what he did and then continued to do all throughout his life. Stormtail I think is more in a middle ground where the authors both don’t want us to see him as an entirely good guy but they also don’t hold him responsible to his neglect to his daughters (and never look sideways at how he pursues way younger cats in very clearly weird ways), he’s not nice bc of how he treated goosefeather and maybe some of his neglect but the rest doesn’t matter actually. Brains not all the way on but just thinking after reading your conclusion

Yeah. I used Onestar, Dustpelt and Stormtail as examples not because I think they're being deliberately written as predators (they aren't) but because the authors have included uncomfortable age gaps before and not really cared. So why bring it up now? Why bring attention to the relationship between an apprentice and a warrior when these relationships have existed prior (Tigerheart and Dovepaw (yes, even if not written to be like that, it's still worth acknowledging), Stormfur crushing on Squirrelpaw and Brambleclaw getting into that love triangle, Feathertail and Crowpaw)- Thistleclaw is bad so therefore that action is bad and no longer can be ignored. Stormtail pursues Moonflower in the nursery...but much like Thistleclaw, who is bad because he trains in the Dark Forest; Stormtail is bad because he's bad to Goosefeather.

I'm not using any of the above example ships as reasons to harass anyone, mind you I like TigerDove, nor am I claiming who likes them is irredeemable and #problematic or whatever - I discuss them because they're worth using as comparisons. When do the authors arbitrarily decide something is crossing? When they deem the character bad or the action bad?

TLDR: literally me just agreeing but rambling lol it definitely falls back on the author's ideas that there are ontologically good and bad people and good people can do bad things and still be good (even if they don't actually put in the effort to fix their mistakes) and bad people are destined to be bad forever.

[mirai-desu]

On the MSATD News

I didn't have time to post a knee-jerk reaction (which those of you from the Downton days know I was apt to do - thank you to all my long term mutuals of my side blog for sticking with me through those days), as I saw the news as I was getting ready to head out for work and it's been… a bit of a day.

Suffice it to say… I am devastated. And my initial reaction was (well after cursing), that it should have ended with S4, but with a different (happier) conclusion. It's called Miss Scarlet AND THE DUKE for a reason. And after all that happened in S4… it really feels like… what was it all for?? Especially if they knew WHEN FILMING THIS?? "Goodbye for now" is NOT "goodbye forever." They really, really really fumbled this.

There's a lot of theories going around, and I will admit it's too hard for me to listen to Stuart's new interview, but going off what other's have said and the parts of the transcript I did manage to read… I just cannot feel like this was actually his decision unless there's something else going on with him (either in his personal life or maybe he has some secret role he's got, because supposedly he hasn't worked since he did ADR on S4). He's been the captain of the ship, and he has always been enthusiastic with discussing the show and had just great insight into playing William. It doesn't feel like he himself was ready to move onto other things (and that's not even how it's worded - some BS about how the show needed it him to be gone for ~longevity~ of the show), like I've seen with other actors are on shows (e.g. Dan Stevens). He still promoted S3 (which came out in the UK after they filmed S4), he still even promoted S4! He was an executive producer for S4!!! Nothing makes sense!

So if it's due to RN… why keep having the other characters say William was only going to be gone a year? Why bother to have the flashback? why bother to have him stay at at Eliza's to recover?? hell I'm surprised they just didn't keep in the coma then--

But really, why even bother to have Eliza write to him? Or have Ivy say what she said to her?? The time apart was supposed to be them looking at their options. They literally foreshadowed him joining Eliza at her agency upon his return. So… what happened?

If it was actually for personal reasons that Stuart left, he has a right to his privacy. But then they should have rewritten S4 to be the end then, since they knew all this time. I can't believe we are getting the full story on this, one way or the other. The more and more I think about it... I do think it was RN's doing though.

Just two nights ago I drafted up a whole meta extolling how one of the best things this show has done has been how they developed William and how he grew as a character. The progression he made as he not only accepted Eliza having a career but encouraging her. His mentorship of Fitzroy. How he came from nothing, from a teenager living on the streets, to become an inspector at Scotland Yard. But they have chosen to toss that all out the window.

Who knows, maybe S5 ends with Eliza deciding to go to New York. But it doesn't seem like they are handling this like Babington's absence in Sanditon. They will make Eliza quickly fall for someone else, and slap fans in the face who have been following their friends to lovers slow burn for five years (because we had to wait for S2 in the first place thanks to the pandemic). And what sucks is that we still got promo saying they are in love with each other. From Stuart, from Kate, from Rachael New herself. We have still gotten promo promoting the romance. Why not have them have a big fight then or something, idk. They gave us hope. And you know what Fellowes says about false hope.

So I'm just supposed to believe that William gives up on Eliza and doesn't return…? No, I cannot. As much as we hated the deaths on DA when they wrote out actors, at least those characters still died in love with their spouses. And while I'd still be foaming at the mouth in anger if they killed him off… yeah.

William's last lines of the show is a flashback including him saying "is it all worth it?" And the answer is… no it's not.

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok soooo im like 5 episodes into dear brother and i need you guys to know how much i love rei so far if only for her staggering around like a rain-soaked stray dog just haggard and unseeing all the time. like we know very little about her thus far except that every scene she's in she steals the show by flopping and wilting all over the frame

[disappearinginq]

I hate that people on a whole don't understand a narrative. Like...your English/literature teacher should've flunked people over this.

Probably the people who understand it best are the ones marginalized in life, because hey, we see ourselves in those characters. Other people have the luxury of just going "eh" and moving on.

But when hugely popular shows and movies and even books keep killing off their marginalized and suffering characters as the "only way this could've ended" I want to reach through a screen and choke them out because stop telling me the world is better without me in it., Or I will take you with me, and we'll see who's mourned.

It's not even just Bury Your Gays. In Outer Banks, they kill of the kid who is told from season 1 that you'll never make anything of yourself. You will always be poor, homeless, unloved, and alone. And then spend three and a half seasons showing you that this character absolutely will beat his own narrative - he finds friends that are his family, he finds a life he loves with the people he loves and they love him back, and then - they kill him. BUT THE RICH BITCH FUCKING PSYCHOPATH GETS A REDEMPTION ARC? I don't care how good the actors are, the narrative has now wildly swung from 'you can make it if you don't give up' to 'don't even bother - life will find a way to beat you down to where you belong' and airing two days after the catastrophic American elections - where the billionaires and greed and hate win?

The Umbrella Academy had three seasons of fun, quirky, broken people who tried so hard to fix their mistakes, to fix what they broke, and canonically, are representing marginalized groups that never get the happy endings. But dammit, this family tried. They didn't always get along, they were dysfunctional, but they still came together in the end, and loved one another despite the bad they have done. And then - the narrative again spins a wild one eighty and the story ends with "the world is better without you in it - die". Which is a very real narrative a lot of us live with.

The MCU - kills off Iron Man/Tony Stark, one of the very first popular characters who suffers from extreme CPTSD along with an alphabet of mental disorders; Loki, who is the adopted child and queer across the board, loses absolutely everyone and everything; Steve, who while he isn't dead, his character most certainly is because he goes from the one who does sacrifice everything to making a selfish, personal decision that winds up fucking over everyone; Bucky, who again isn't dead but he is openly blamed for the things he did while he was a prisoner and a mind-controlled assassin for the bad guys against his will by his mental health professional. And the narrative is "no, you should sacrifice yourself so the rest of us who treated you like shit can live a better life."

The stupidity of wanting to punish your audience who is punished enough in the real world often enough we don't need it or want it in fiction is just...mind boggling. And when those are the real words used by writers to justify their shit decisions?

I hope your death serves a narrative purpose, since you seem to think that is the noblist way to go.

[scopophobia-polaris]

Honestly could we throw out the idea that totk's story issue is that it isn't consistent with the lore of the older games but instead drops intresting world building from botw because it might have gotten actually dark

[toytulini]

victorian style haunted house that has dysphoria about not being an open concept minimalist hellhole, before we even have those, so it doesnt know why it just feels sooo miserable and has to lash out at everyone inside it, so its wretched and haunted the whole time, until its finally bought by a house flipper in the 2020s who knows JUST how to fix it

[puhpandas]

its been so long since human content/new content with no book relevancy even the youtubers and theorists like dawko and john are getting restless😭