#to dissect their blorbo's mind in this way

[musette22]

What is the craziest job you've ever had to make money? [x]

[hyenabeanz]

At the risk of having the fire of a thousand angry hockey nerds upon me, I'm going to share the deep dive I did today. I'm going to preface this with this is driven by me being curious about rule and game mechanics, and wondering why reffing sometimes does what it do, especially when incomprehensible on first glance to me. (Translation: this is a hyperfocus neurospicy dive, not a "my blorbo did nothing wrong." My blorbo did do wrong.)

I was pissed at The Hit. It looked really bad. And then I also was wondering WTF the refs were on.

So I found a gif and broke it down into individual frames.

And: I think they were right. Müller's stick is what hit her head, and Flaherty herself didn't, and it was weird flukey shit that made it happen as bad as it did.

PAUSE. I ask you please not come at me without at least reading the whole post. And it's long.

First: I really hope Muller is not too badly hurt, and I am worried, and it was/is upsetting she got clocked so hard. I shit talk Boston because historical MN Boston woho rivalry, but omg I don't want to see anyone hurt. Ever. Especially head injuries. I've had multiple concussions, it makes me ill to watch.

Second: The hit Flaherty delivered was illegal. Period. Yes. Their bodies were not going the same direction. That is against the clarified body rules, and is normally a two minute minor. A penalty was absolutely warranted.

But. Frames and further dissection below the cut. Be mindful they're just as ugly and scary to look at in still frame as in action if not more so. That was your content warning, and please regulate yourself accordingly; I'm not accepting abuse here.

so, chronological key frames from the impact. Hopefully Tumblr don't fuck these up

Looking at the frames, Flaherty never touches Müller's head. She kicks her elbow up to deflect Müller's stick, which is headed straight for her throat because Müller is holding it high, but drops her elbow right before contact. The result is still ugly as it hits in the collarbone region which is so not a nice place to get hit, but it is not a major penalty the way a check to the head is.

The high stick catches on Flaherty, and Flaherty's directional momentum whips it up into Müller's head. Müller's head doesn't move until Flaherty is past her.

The collision is still on Flaherty because she initiated the illegal contact which started the whole thing. But the call was an illegal check to the head, which is a specific thing. And that rule reads:

Rule 48 – Illegal Check to the Head will automatically initiate a further review with the PWHL Central Situation Room, by which referees may confirm their original call, reduce the penalty to a minor if the hit was accidental, or rescind it entirely if the review determines the head was not the main point of contact.

In this case it was pretty clearly accidental since I don't think Flaherty was out there doing the physics of how to get the stick to whip. Her head wasn't the main point of contact *at all.* So them going in between the two extremes of the rule feels appropriate imo since the fallout was so bad even though the head wasn't a point of contact between players.

(As an aside, I was curious if they could change the penalty to "illegal body checking" and assess it as a major, because I could be sold on that being potentially could be appropriate, that it was a bad body check that resulted in injury, but if I'm understanding rule 20.6 correctly, the answer seems to be no:

"The Referee shall have the following options following such review: (i) confirming their original Match Penalty call; or (ii) reducing her original Match Penalty call to a lesser penalty for the same infraction."

If I'm wrong pls lmk!)

So with all that context... It makes much more sense how that shook out imo. Or at the very least I see how someone(s) could legitimately arrive at the conclusion they did.

I don't say this all to say what happened was ok, or that it wasn't bad, because obviously minor shit can escalate bad. I'm not even super interested in convincing people a suspension or major isn't/wasn't warranted though I'm uncertain how they would've managed it with not making a body check call in the first place.

I say all this because a)I do think sometimes refs see stuff we don't. (Was a ref looking right at them at an angle we don't have and can't recreate that was compelling? Did the ref hear the damn stick thwack into the helmet?) b) the conviction that the refs are rigging shit is utterly ridiculous and c) the vitriol I am seeing is unnerving and gross. Wishing injury on anyone sucks. Casting people/entire damn teams as evil and willfully trying to cause severe injury sucks, and the evidence isn't there imo when you put the bits together.

If the stick hadn't been there, it would've probably been a garden variety thuggy hit that absolutely warranted a penalty but would not have been so catastrophic. The kind of play we expect from a physical game.

But nasty unexpected hits are gonna happen. It's fast, it's rough. I'm glad the league is putting stuff in place to try and keep those moments down. But they're still going to happen, even with no evil intent or even overly egregious carelessness.

And again, I really, really hope Müller is ok and recovers well. I do expect her to be out a while (THAT will tell me more about the PWHL's commitment to player safety than anything,) but I hope it's as short as possible. It absolutely was scary and I get why people are upset; it is upsetting that it happened, regardless of how the rules shake out.

[monstersinthecosmos]

I really hate posting or acknowledging fandom drama unless it serves to support or encourage people who are feeling down about it but this is a tricky one for me to translate because I'm mad af!

Let's take a deep breath.

The thing is, about fandom! When you first get here, or get to a new one, or whatever! It's weird, there's etiquette built in, there's invisible rules. But the main thing is like, we're all here because we can't be normal about our blorbo, right?

And it's okay if you project on your blorbo! It's okay if your version of them isn't completely canon-accurate! It's okay if you are isolating a single aspect of their personality/backstory to play with because it speaks to you! YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO THESE THINGS.

It's also okay if the canon has conflicting information! It's okay if a theme went over your head and you don't consider it! It's okay if you're the only person in the fandom who notices a certain quality and you're the only one talking about it!!

There is enough room here for all of us!

The ENTIRE POINT of fandom and fanworks is to ask questions about the characters, to dissect them, to put them back together. The point of transformative fanworks is to TRANSFORM! If we weren't so deeply invested in these universes and didn't have questions and didn't want more content about all the blank spots, we would just CONSUME THE CANON LIKE A NORMAL PERSON AND MOVE ON WITH OUR GODDAMN LIVES. We wouldn't be bothering to write fic and make art and RP and decode meta! We wouldn't be making this into a hobby and talking about it all day!

It's from LOVE.

So.

I get it, it can be intimidating showing up in a new space or into a new hobby. And sometimes we can step on toes if we don't know all the invisible rules and etiquette. But what I can promise you is that you don't need to make room for people who are rude to you, who try to tell you that their way is the only way, who consistently want to insult you for asking questions, noticing themes, playing with other versions of the characters.

We are ALL HERE to be silly and dick around and have fun, and when someone is being an asshole about it, I think it looks worse for them than it does for you. One of you is minding your business and having fun and the other one is trying to tell everyone what to think lol.

Please protect yourself from bullies; don't let someone police the way you read canon, or the way you speak about your fav, or the fanworks you create. These people are not your friends, and they are not your audience. You do not need their acceptance to have fun and make things.

Fandom shouldn't be this fucking exhausting, yall. It costs zero dollars to be nice to people and let them enjoy their fucking blorbo in peace and you look like a fucking asshole when you don't shut the fuck up about it and sow discord in a shared space.

People's horrendously OOC takes do not affect you at all even a little bit not even when they're so so so so so OOC that you think you need to be Fandom Professor rising from your well to shame us! It cannot and will never hurt you, so leave them the fuck alone and let them have fun!!

[lost-technology]

The annoying thing with having a sideblog is being able to see someone's blog via the regular / base blog and then finding out they've blocked your sideblog for some reason and you don't know WHY. Or, in some cases, some of those mysterious likes / reblogs / supposed activity going on on your sideblog you can't see because someone blocked your regular for some reason? Anyway, managing sideblogs can be a mess. Also, I am wondering what I've done in Trigun fandom specifically to annoy a person or two. Considering that I found someone tonight via a mutual's reblogging that I was going to reblog because "Oh, how cute!" got me an error-message and I found out that I couldn't put in a reply on my sideblog name because it was faded out and "I don't know them from Adam" as the old saying goes, I'm just left puzzled as to why I got a block. I haven't been fighting with anyone in this fandom. It's not like the last fandom I was involved in very heavily where there was a LOT of fighting. Oh, well, I figure I could have been blocked over the pettiest of things. Maybe I don't ship somebody's ship. Maybe I do ship a ship they don't like or have reblogged art thereof. Maybe they just think my art is fugly. Maybe a friend of theirs doesn't like me for some reason (maybe going back to the fighty other fandom). Maybe it is something as simple as my age pinned up on my blog's welcome message. I make no secret that I'm an old swamp hag and I know that some younger people don't want to interact with anyone over 30 regardless of morality/pleasantness/fandom opinions or whatever and blocking is the easiest way to do it. I don't know, it's just a little aggravating not to *know* because I have this nitpick of wanting to know if I am doing something wrong so I can attempt to adjust my social interaction accordingly. (I think I just might have typed the most neurodiverse sentence ever...) Well, it is at least much better than how things went in the last major fandom I was in - which happened right around pandemic lockdown when everyone was losing their damn minds. The projected insanity lead to people in some branches of the fandom on a pathological need to put up callout posts dissecting people's bad takes on their problematic faves and people screaming at each other that they were "abuse apologists" and people projecting their real life traumas into everything and taking "people enjoy X-villain I don't like" personally. I'm serious about these giant rambling callout posts... It was insane. And it only all died down when people in the fandom learned to liberally use the Block button so they simply did not have to see people who had takes they didn't like on their blorbos and associated ships anymore. All in all, Trigun fans seem to behave better with simply Ghost Blocking For Mysterious Reasons.

[inaconstantstateofchange]

Alrighty, your tags in the 'anti-blorbo friends' post intrigued me, so... hook line and sinker. Personally, I am kind of an 'anything goes' fan, I don't mind people disliking stuff about BG3 - or liking it a bit too much, either. I like all the companions, but I do see their flaws and critique can be fun. That's what a piece of media is for, no? For us to dissect and tear apart. So! Tear it freely, mate. Give me your Gale hot takes.

Excellent, all according to keikaku (translator's note: keikaku means plan). Sorry I love that joke.

Thank you so much for the ask! O(∩_∩)O

Okay, Gale hot takes, with the caveat that, in general, I just personally find his whole everything very off-putting, so I am very neutral-edging-to-negative toward him, but can still appreciate the complexity of his character in an objective sense.

This hot take/critique kind of overlaps with issues I have with a lot of the fandom interpretations of the characters: it feels like a lot of the fandom needs to woobify the characters and/or reduce them down to the most simplified version of themself to appreciate them.

Gale is a character who will approve of good actions in general terms, but the moment there is a chance to do something new, something heretofore untried, some advancement in knowledge or power, no matter what the terms of it, you have his attention. And that's really interesting! It's fucked up as all hell, but it's interesting. And this is something I see pushed under the rug and outright denied or left unexplored in most cases, because it requires confronting that all your faves are complex and "problematic", yes even that one.

This one is tangential to Gale, but also relates to the broader lore and world. I think there's a lot fucked up about Forgotten Realms lore (obviously), but it is also so vast and intricate and Larian put so much work in aligning with it as much as possible with the narrative of BG3, allowing you to extrapolate pretty consistently based on that. I've noticed a tendency by a lot of fans to engage with the world and its lore as though they've been isekai'd into it or something, not considering what would actually affect philosophy and perspective and "human" (as it were) experience in a world that worked like Faerûn does. For example, I recently saw someone arguing that the way Halsin handles Kagha after he is rescued is "unrealistic" and the player should be able to tell him that he needs to pick a stronger option. In my opinion this completely ignores the way that druids and druid groves function very differently from a lot of other communities in Faerûn. The majority of druids tend toward True Neutral in terms of alignment, live and let live unless nature is affected in some way. Halsin is honestly a bit of a rarity for verging so far toward Neutral Good. Additionally, because of their focus on nature and natural patterns, of course they would have different perspectives on punishment and rehabilitation.

Another way this presents itself very commonly is in how people conceptualize the system of gods/theology in Faerûn. Most people do not have any real experience conceptualizing a polytheistic worldview in practice, let alone one where the existence of those gods is an undeniable material fact, rather than a belief, and it shows. They hold the gods simultaneously to the standards of humans (which they are not), and the monotheistic conglomerate Christian God (which they are also not). Once again, the system of deity and interaction with it in FR lore is so fucked up, but for complex and interesting reasons I rarely see anyone exploring.

(The above is also the reason I think a lot of people underestimate the power of the archdevils and the Hells compared to the gods, but that is another discussion.)

This comes back to Gale in my hottest of hot takes: I really wish people would stop throwing around the "Gale was groomed, Mystra is a groomer" thing. I think it hyper-simplifies the actual tragedy of his story and the one Larian was trying to tell to an absurd degree, and I don't believe it even does any favors in terms of raising awareness of important issues. Based on FR lore and timeline, Mystra has only been back in existence as a goddess for at absolute maximum thirteen years prior to the start of BG3, and at minimum five, so unless you headcanon Gale to be 30 or younger (which seems decidedly unlikely based on everything else presented in the narrative), their time together was when he was an actual adult.

Am I saying there was no power dynamic problem there? No, ofc I am not. God/Human relationships are famously tragedies and cautionary tales. There is always an inherent disconnect between the two beings. You'll notice a trend, but yes, I do think that the most interestingly fucked up parts of that story are ignored in favor of the most basic and banal.

Mystra is a greater god, having dominion over magic as an entire concept. That means the scale of her power and existence are unfathomably vast, and so alien from human existence that to bridge it would be the work of thousands of lifetimes. At the same time, there are parts of her that used to be human, grafted onto her godhood. That's incredibly fucked up in such an eldritch way, you know?

Final hot take: Gale is a wizard's wizard™, a crime punishable by death. In this essay I will-

[thecoolerliauditore]

otome dissection is so dl!scott coded and MKDR is liml!scott coded. fucked up evil gorey lyrics under the cut

Come gather ‘round, we’re slicing her open A burning sort of passion suddenly woken “How stupid” I sigh, Your stubbornness claims my mind The answers I’ve yet to find Come gather ‘round, we’re slicing her open Saliva coats the lies we tell as I’m broken No answer to find, how boring a way to end the night A suffocating sigh Come gather ‘round, we’re slicing her open Softly say my name, I’m just feeling so broken “Someone, let me die!” How I wish those words were mine I’m praying for peace of mind Come gather ‘round, we’re slicing her open We all just want some spice from life and you know it Just give me a sign, I’m itchin’ from all the shame inside The pain it feels so (damn) right

Otome Dissection (David Toth Lyrics)

About Pearl obvs but also Jimmy just a little bit too.

I'll be honest I thought for the longest time for some reason the chorus changed in the last verse to "Come gather 'round, I'm slicing me open" which fits a lot more so I choose to hear it that way to feed my delusions.

I’ve tried but You will never change your ego in the slightest Since you’ve unlocked the secret of treating yourself the kindest Am I upset? I’m not upset… We lose the beat we’ve always had with our breath

Though I know our “healthy love” was all a lie The memories will stay by my side

We’re the Delusioned Victim Cash-in Union Praise to the “love” that will bring salvation!  Two fools singing to a shallow melody Restart, reflation, teleportation Time and again we’re stuck in rotation Circles inside a love without any ending It’s the Age of needing to be needed Sampling a “love” so we can’t live without it And once it’s over, it distorts immediately I guess I’ll wear my social lotion Greasing the wounds to retain my emotions Such is the twisted school of love philosophy

Aiya aiya, I’m so sick of- Love love, love I have had enough!

MKDR (SirHamnet lyrics)

Idk I like to think post-getting rejected by jimmy limlife scott got a bit of self-awareness and was just.. tired more than anything of having to constantly "play" the people around him in return for anything resembling love. idk these lyrics just feel really sarcastic and self-deprecating and i think that's cool.

anyway uh stream muu milgram. She's the most blorbo ever (evil).

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi! How are you? 🤗

This might probably be the craziest thing someone has ever asked you hahahaha but...

From all of your favorite shows, if you had to pick some characters to be the friends you choose to hang out with, who would it be, and what would be your favorite way of spending quality time together?

hi, anon!

i'm doing well, thanks for asking! how about you?

i don't know that i have a great answer to your question, a) because i don't usually tend to imagine myself interacting with the stories i like in any way—i'm a spectator, not a participant, through and through—and, b) because i'm the kind of person whose idea of a fun social interaction is just sitting around and talking and telling stories; i'm not super "activities oriented."

so, with those disclaimers in mind, here's what i came up with:

i think i could have a good time going out to dinner with the teachers from abbott elementary every month or so.

like them, i'm an educator who works in a big, east coast metropolitan area, and one of the schools i teach at is a community college with a student body made up of graduates of title i public school districts, like the one abbott is in.

though we work in different areas of the education system (elementary vs. higher ed), i still think barbara, melissa, gregory, janine, jacob and i have enough in common with our work that we could easily pass a few hours eating and swapping our best teaching stories, talking through both some of the challenges we face working at under-resourced institutions—my community college literally just cut our free laptop loaner program that was meant to assist students who can't afford their own computers because the school itself can't afford computers—and some of the joys, like that the students themselves are really great and the community outreach is awesome.

i feel like i could especially learn a lot from barbara and melissa, who have been teaching for 30+ years and have all sorts of experiential wisdom they could share.

plus, they're all just kind and hilarious people, so i'm sure i'd laugh a lot and feel very welcome in their company.

aside from them, i also think i could get along pretty well with grissom and sara from csi, just because of our academic backgrounds.

though they're scientists while i'm a humanities person, we all enjoy learning new things and sharing fun facts.

maybe we could tour museums on the weekends.

just set us loose in the smithsonian system!

i'd love to hear them discuss/explain the exhibits in a science museum, and then maybe i could pitch in if we went to a history or art museum afterward.

alternatively, we could have a nontraditional book club, where instead of there being one assigned book we all read at the same time and then discuss, we instead all just convene to meet and talk about whatever books we are individually reading at the time.

i think we could all have a blast playing the "did you know—?" game and feeding one another trivia, explaining the plots to various narratives and dissecting the cultural and historical implications.

i know these activities probably sound pretty boring, but, honestly, these are things i often do with my real life friends. i dunno. it's just how i'm wired.

outside of those characters, though, i don't really know that i have any blorbos i'd get along well with or want to spend time with as friends. i'm not a very social person just in general, and i lead a very quiet life in comparison to most of the characters whose shows i watch.

ultimately, i like hanging out on my side of the fourth wall rather than being on the characters' side of it.

just like with the plexiglass at the zoo.

anyway, thank you for the fun (and unique) question, anon! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[kuphulwho]

What’s Under Leshy’s Bandages?

AKA the obligatory “I absolutely must dissect every detail about this blorbo” post. Anyways, the biggest subject of debate that I see about Leshy is what’s under his bandages. How many eyes does he have? Does he even have a mouth? Anyways, this is my personal assessment and why:

The reason I say that he probably has to have a mouth? If you pay attention when he talks, you’ll notice that his bandages move, and most of the movement is right where I’ve placed his mouth here. This may also explain why he screams almost every time he talks. Sure, part of the reason might be that he’s just Like That, but it could just as easily be the fact that his bandages are literally covering his mouth as well. We probably wouldn’t be able to hear him very well if he didn’t yell. As for his eyes, in relation to his mouth, the gunk on his bandages lines up with where his eyes are on his eldritch form.

Speaking of which, when he transforms...

Where’s all this black gunk coming from? Well, if you look at his eldritch form again with where his mouth probably is in mind, he’s more than likely drooling everywhere here. But it’s also leaking out from under his eyes. They could just be bleeding if they were simply injured and his sight never recovered. Or, alternatively, they might have been totally gouged out, and he’s literally re-growing his eyes here. Either way, if all of this wasn’t covered by his bandages, he might’ve had the most terrifying transformation sequence. Also, unrelated, but I still felt the need to bring up the fact that Leshy...

Is absolutely HUGE. Obviously they weren’t able to make him this big in the game due to limitations, but we see eldritch Leshy’s actual size in the official animated videos. Odds are, his eldritch form is the largest out of all of his siblings. Ahh, the classic “youngest sibling is actually the biggest” trope.

[a-hobit]

Y’all I used to watch Danny Phantom over and over for years I loved that shit so much and so I thought “oh a trip through my nostalgia! Blorbo!”

Not as deep as I remember it being and I think my opinion on Bitch Hartman actually kind of sours a lot of my enjoyment sometimes (sexist and homophobic jokes my detested) but otherwise if anyone was thinking about rewatching it I recommend it! It’s pretty fun for most of the time and while I didn’t love a few episodes (*COUGH COUGH* IDENTITY CRISIS *COUGH COUGH*) flanderization is really apparent in DP (Skulker, Vlad, Jazz, Sam, Danny andTucker all kind of suck in their own special ways toward the end of the series) and the way that you can pick on the writing errors pretty easy is annoying it doesn’t detract from how good it is!

Other news when Danny is not out of character and horrendously down bad he is so cute I might die. Also Sam? Not as bad as I remembered her for being towards other women! She’s typically supportive but slightly judgmental rather than outright being a killjoy. It mostly frustrates me that the writing for the other women who aren’t main characters is so shallow that it makes Sam seem like the only sane one in a room often. Buuuut to be perfectly honest idk a woman born around 1995-2005 that didn’t have a not like the other girls phase sooo

But god damn does this show make me laugh! It’s so well done — so here’s a list of some of the jokes that made me actually laugh out loud!

(In no particular order)

“Dude. You are one jacked up crazy frootloop. That will never happen.”

“But back in our college days she was just Harry — Harry CHIN!? GET IT??!”

“Agh who cares about who you were in your college days? It’s who you grow into that counts. If you can be that crazy back then and turn into a super cool ghost hunter…maybe there’s hope for me yet.

Aww thanks son…but your curfew is still ten.

Awww man!” 

“Does anyone want a cookie?

*shakes head no*

THEN PERISH!!!!!”

“The reason why Danny feels like you don’t relate to him is because you never talk to him about when you were younger!

Jazz—

When you went to college— had your first date —

Jazz—!”

“I know your little secret Danny.

YoU dO?!

The lying — the sweatiness — you have a girlfrie—!

ITS A LIE IM NOT A GHOST!!!”

“*in Walkers jail looking at past enemies*

Wow a table full of people who hate me…Just like high-school.”

“I’m perfectly happy Maddie—JACK FENTON DONT YOU DARE WIZZ ON MY RUBARB! Perfectly happy…”

“A party?? For me? ‘A decade of devoice’! You all remembered!!

Of course! And we even convinced your ex husband to come!”

“*Danny staring at Sam all lovesick*

Uhhh can you watch something other than me??

*pauses*

*pulls out a picture of Sam*

*continues staring lovesick*”

“*in a gaming lab with Tucker and Danny — Sam walks in*

What are you doing here? (To Danny) She can’t be here to play…

Oh because I’m a girl? And us girls are lacking in what? Opposable thumbs? One track minds? Stupid berets?

Hey!”

“*Danny Sam and Tucker walking though school (Danny with his shirt covering his mouth)*

Is anybody looking at me funny?!

Yeah…but that’s because you look like you’re trying to eat your way through your shirt.”

“Spooky hospital…ghosts guarding the joint…still no sign that Danny is in any real danger yet!

(Danny from inside the hospital about to be dissected)

Let me go!

Still…technically not a cry for help!

HELP!!

Well—not a cry for me!

TUCKER???!!?”

“*Danny Sam and Tucker are talking in the highschool about Danny pranking Dash*

He’s going to find out it’s you.

(Danny and Tucker) Have you seen his grades? Never gonna happen!

(Dash) Hey! This iS FENTON WIPE!

(Sam) ‘Never’ is karma’s doorbell! Ding dong it’s for you!”

“I’m Sam Manson and my happy princess talent is…(glances over at Dora who looks threatening)…

Goth haiku.

DESPAIR WITHOUT END Dora’s a ghost!

UTTER BLACKNESS — NOTHINGNESS! Dora’s a ghost!!

DORA. IS. A. GHOST!!!

(Pushed off stage)”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take it upon myself to keep Danny safe and calm until you complete the task.

Me stay with you?! Forget it!

*manifests a little thunderstorm that electrocutes Vlad*

WILL YOU QUIT DOING THAT?!?

Look on the bright side Danny! Until we get back he’s going to have to cater to your every whim and desire…

Yeah! He wouldn’t want to make you angry…

(Vlad stares at them blankly)

(Danny smiles) This pleases me!”

“*Danny is manifesting himself in Tucker’s dream and is watching Tucker live out a fantasy where he’s a billionaire spending time with two girls who look like star*

(Tucker to janitor) That will be all Fenton.

(Dream Danny) Yes sir.

(Real Danny) Wait…I’m the janitor?!?

*later*

By the way Tucker? I don’t do windows”

“*Danny is being impersonated by Morpho and is chasing ‘Danny Fenton’ though the house as the alarms blare”

The ghost defenses! That means—!

*Fentons bust in guns blazing*

Bingo Maddie!! Putrid protoplasm straight ahead!!

And he’s after our boy!

(Morpho as DF) Ah—? Oh that’s right I’m your boy—Billy!!

Danny?!”

“*after being on a cooking show with Pamela Manson*

(Maddie to Sam) I can’t believe your mother said I had bad meal presentation— so I didn’t use a parsley sprig is that a crime?!!?”

Hope you all enjoy! I’m rewatching Gravity Falls next!

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

finished season 4 finale. two words for you: fucking hell (affectionate)

firstly, i would like to kiss every one of their writers on the mouth (/p) because this is a Good ending (and a necessary one if you're doing a show with a gay main character, in 2014 may i add) and they did an incredible job throughout the show....

putting the audience through an emotional fucking rollercoaster first and foremost was incredible. not to talk about james right now but i believed thomas was dead for three fucking seasons. and only after they pulled the same shit with the supposed death of madi & john i begun to come to my senses & to think about the foreshadowing they've been doing since the talk of this "prison" began and i want to bite into my fucking shoe right now because there probably were many more about many other things that i didn't notice. i think that i wouldn't be wrong in saying that this show needs to be properly analyzed. all the foreshadowing, the symbolism, the intimacy between characters (be it platonic, romantic or any other and/or combined way) --they are so well-written. i love this show and i'm never going to recover from it. hnnnngh!

the flow of the tensions & the releases were amazing and i think that especially the anticlimactic releases were made that way, intentionally; and i once again would like to walk into the fucking ocean. and i personally felt those moments throughout the show many times and it was fucking uncomfortable and i loved it because of that. they managed to construct their characters so well that the characters themselves are the ones to write the story, they are the ones to control where it leads. and they were like i could make them worse and they Did. and i am screaming crying throwing up over this.

not to rant this much but just from the cinematography & visual arts standpoint, this show is a beauty to look at. i want to draw oil paintings of it, i want to fancy-print screencaps and hang them on my wall just to Look at them.

watching this show hurts like hell but also. it's so good i can't ever let go of it now.

and also, on a personal note, i like my fictional men a little bit Deranged, bit traumatized & pathetic around the edges. (maybe that's why i am simply Fascinated by james but that's an ask for another day) but speaking just for the characters of this show, i'm not sure "like" covers the range of feelings i have for each and every one of them. i'm no apologist but i will call them babygirl, i will give them a hug, and i will hold them by the hand and take them to therapy, knowing the shit they've done. yknow? they are my Blorbos. except rogers, peter ashe, alfred hamilton & eleanor. and edward teach. and billy (i'm a bit sad about that). fuck those slimy bastards.

you were right, the queer rep ball is not dropped, even in the show's finale; you were right, this show makes you want to stare into the ocean. i am never stopping rotating this show in my mind. i cried over this show, and it was worth every goddamn tear. what in the fuck. very happy to have watched it -not regretting a single thing. thank you for recommending it to me!! <33

-🏴‍☠️

Wooo!! Congrats on finishing the show Anon!! Welcome to insanity!!!

I appreciate the writers so much because I never thought about them for a second until I finished the show. Cause like you said, the characters construct their stories, and there's so much delicate work the writers put into that and the foreshadowing and the mirrors and parallels and the themes, gosh I love this show. There are so many good dynamics and moments and ahhhhh

Every single moment of this show needs to be examined and dissected and it makes me very happy to have so much to unpack. They lowkey told us Anne and Jacks fates in SEASON TWO when Vane says that the two of them will probably be in charge of all the pirates one day, and it made me a bit insane when I noticed it.

Some of my favorite cinematic shots of the show is when they pan up from the water, usually its towards the start of the seasons and it always looks so cool.

The range of emotions on the characters is totally understandable. None of them are good people, the closest the show gives us to a "good" person is Featherstone, who is the epitome of "just some guy" I like some characters, hate others, love some and still others I'm neutral on.

I totally get loving characters at the end that you hated in the beginning. I did not like Silver at first, but holy shit was he too intresting to hate for long, and he became my second favorite by mid season 2. Vane also grew on my a lot over time, especially in season 3, when I hated him for a long time before that. And I fully agree on (almost) all those characters that you find slimy. I mean, you are correct, every single one of them ARE slimy, I am just a poor fucker who fell in love with Billy season one and never stopped. I think calling myself an apologist is a bit too strong of a word as I fully acknowledge that what he did was wrong and he is NOT a good person at the end, but the tragedy that is his character and his story just made me so sad that I couldn't bring myself to hate him, though I came close. I could go on forever about Billy but this ask isn't the best place for that lol.

This shows narrative started because James McGraw loved Thomas Hamilton and it ended because James Flint loved Thomas Hamilton and I love that very much. This show literally unburied their gays

I am so glad you enjoyed Black Sails!! All of the asks you've sent have been lovely and I would love to continue talking to you about it if you'd like!

[angelsarecomputers]

in addition: what little we DO have of jean’s character is very relatable to a lot of people. he suffers from depression and mental health issues. he was in an abusive situation with an addict that he couldn’t really escape from without risking his career and, very possibly, said person’s life. he’s an incredibly cynical man living in a crumbling society. these are all things that the DE fandom as a whole can relate too quite a bit, and i am no exception to this. i think jean is a character that a lot of people project onto quite a bit, which is one of the reasons why he’s such a popular side character. not only is there a lot of commonly-accepted fanon surrounding him, but there’s also a lot of room to vent about your own headcanons and experiences onto a relatively blank slate while still having it fit well with his established characterisation

(if I were to be more cynical, id also say it’s because he’s a somewhat conventionally-attractive edgy white man with a french accent and thus, very good sexyman/blorbo material)

this is all well and good for the most part- it’s pretty standard fandom M.O and the headcanons and fanon surrounding him are something i personally enjoy quite a bit- but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to criticise the fact that a lot of people flat-out ignore the bad aspects of his character. there has been an exhausting amount of discussion about this and at this point I’m probably just adding to the pile but i think it speaks to a wider issue within the fandom about how the majority of individuals spend most of their time ignoring the games themes of systemic injustice and oppression perpetuated by the RCM. this could be a whole post in itself that i, as a white person in a position of privilege, probably am not qualified to make, but you’d have to be blind not to notice that the RCM are most definitely the baddies. even some people that engage with the more communist and radical aspects of the game tend to ignore this, though why i think this happens is a conversation i won’t get into here

as for how it relates to jean’s character, it means that not only is he a literal cop working as a bodyguard for “five fat men in the occident” (thanks Elizabeth) aka the moralintern aka a group of brutal oppressors hiding beneath a thin veneer of humanitarianism, he is also likely complicit in covering up police brutality. i very much doubt that he had nothing to do with ‘the unsolvable case’ incident and making sure that harry didn’t get into trouble for disabling a man for life for the crime of being drunk and disorderly (hypocrite) but by virtue of being a cop he is participating in a violent system of repression. this shouldn’t be something that has to be spelled out, in my opinion, but i think it’s worth emphasising that, by virtue of being a police officer, jean viquemare is an inherently bad person. that doesn’t mean he can’t be complex, that doesn’t mean he can’t do good things or have good aspects, but his continued participation in a toxic police culture makes him, overall, a bad person.

now, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good CHARACTER from a story standpoint. but that’s not what this is about really

and then there’s the issue of him being incredibly ableist towards harry, which has been dissected to hell and back by many more qualified people than i. I’ve seen discussions about how tue way he acts reflects commonly-held attitudes towards disabled people in 90s Eastern Europe, which is an interesting thing to keep in mind. regardless, I’m not here go discuss whether or not this behaviour is acceptable- it’s not- but the way the fandom reacts to it- mainly by either ignoring it or framing harry, whether intentionally or not, as ‘deserving it’

this attitude mainly stems from interpretations of what we know of Harry and jean’s relationship before martinaise. we know that harry was an abusive alcoholic and drug user, and that their relationship was probably very unhealthy and toxic. people have a wide variety of headcanons on what their relationship was like, ranging from those who believe that they were just good work friends for a while to those who headcanon them as having had romantic and/or sexual relations. regardless, most people agree that their relationship was abusive, but there’s a worrying subset of people who seem to think that harry could have been the only instigator of this abuse. I can see why people think this; Harry is both older than Jean and has significantly more power than him in terms of his position in precinct 41 and his reputation. he’s a drunk who showed a repeated pattern of physical and verbal aggression. in my opinion, he definitely abused jean, but the behaviour we see from JEAN towards harry is more abusive than ANYTHING harry can do to him in the game

harry is a severely mentally ill man, likely neurodivergent, and a very dependent addict. in real life, people like him are at an incredibly high likelihood of being taken advantage of an abandoned, and we see this happening in elysium too (e.g the pigs). does this excuse all the bad things he does? no. if he did abuse Jean, does it excuse that? no. but it does provide us with a rather disturbing insight into how jean might have treated harry before martinaise. I’ve seen some people say that the only reason why jean acts the way he does in-game towards harry is because he’s so fed-up with him by now that he doesn’t want to be nice, and while I somewhat agree with that interpretation, it still doesn’t excuse some of the things he says. after all, if he’s willing to act like this NOW, what is there to say he didn’t act like this prior? there must have been so many points in the past where jean was put in a very similar situation of being exhausted by harry- the game practically states this itself. what it tells me is that this is a repeated pattern of behaviour, which means that, even before martinaise, jean was taking part in the abuse of a mentally disabled person. that abuse was almost definitely mutual, of course- these things can and do happen, and harry was hardly helpless. what im saying is that Jean definitely participated in this abuse, just like he participates in the toxic cop culture of the RCM. even if he was a victim of it as well as a perpetuator, just like all the citizens of revachol are, in some way or another, victims of the coalition, it still doesn’t excuse it. i think Harry and jeans relationship could in some way have been intended to speak to that dichotomy- of the abuser and the abused, of the powerful and the privileged, and how class traitors like the RCM officers we get to know in disco elysium speak to the blurred lines between the two. kim is a biracial homosexual man who actively participates in a culture that likely oppresses both of those groups. harry is a disabled person and drug addict who ruined the life of another drug addict for no reason and can leave another disabled person to die or rot in a jail cell. jean is a mentally ill man who works in a system that oppresses mentally ill people and participates in the abuse of his disabled colleague/friend, despite/because he is abused himself by that same person

the powerless are often the most eager to become the powerful. that’s the core of the reason why many of the RCM officers we meet probably joined; to increase their power against the downtrodden instead of joining them to create a better world.

…anyway. sorry that this is bible-length. this was meant to be an analysis of how the DE fandom treats jean vicquemare and why, but i got a bit carried away at the end there. hope you enjoyed regardless

I think the main reason why the DE fandom as a whole likes jean so much is because he has hardly any backstory apart from being Harry’s long-suffering partner. we don’t really know him as a character, but we have enough crumbs (e.g him having very persistent clinical depression and being in a by all accounts mutually abusive codependent relationship with a superior) that it provides incredibly good fodder for headcanons, and we all know that people love fanon interpretations of characters (for better and for worse)