#tortured metaphors

[bitchesgetriches]

The Shawshank Redemption as an extended metaphor for the deficit prison you're trapped in? It's more likely than you think. Learn more.

[mushroomwriter]

THE UNTAMED episode 20

+ bonus:

[marimbles]

if ive been at a restaurant cheerfully and enthusiastically waiting for the chicken parm to be served for like 5 hours, am I not allowed to be disappointed that it turned out to be salmon instead. sure salmon is really tasty to some people but what if I just don’t like salmon. why are they serving salmon in the chicken parm restaurant? “it’s such an interesting surprise that the chef brought out salmon! I can’t wait to see what’s for dess—” no. bring me my chicken parm .

anyway that’s how I feel in the miraculous ladybug fandom rn lol

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

something about how both wei wuxian and jin guangyao repeatedly say they ‘didn’t have a choice’ in their actions. in both cases, it’s not literal impossibility, instead determined by their mindsets and personal conduct…. but while for wei wuxian that means he can’t do something immoral, even if it means losing all his social power, for jin guangyao it means he can’t do anything to lose his social power, even if it means doing something immoral. the other option is still there, but it’s never one they’d pick.

something about how they’re trying to walk the same path but in opposite directions: wei wuxian willingly left the nice, broad road in favour of upholding morals and debts, while jin guangyao is trying to claw onto it and stay there by any means necessary. in both cases, being parted from it so easily is only possible because this nice, broad road — full of people whose social power is unconditional, given at birth, independent of their actions — was never truly theirs to begin with. but despite how it is possible to be forced off due to nothing, as we see with wang lingjiao, the positions of both these characters were ultimately due to actions they took.

(about how no matter the similarity of the paths, no matter the narrowness of the choices, the direction you take is still up to you.)

[bleue-flora]

Ok, I recently wrote an essay [here] talking about the definition and duties of civil engineering as well as the ethics because of the brain rot @swordfright gave me with calling Dream Sam’s ultimate engineering project. So, because I actually am a civil engineer I took it upon myself to design the title and summary of quantities sheets just like I do at work for roads but with Dream as the project instead. And in honor of angst day sponsored by @sixteenth-day-event, I figured I’d share it because I feel like it kinda works for the prison of the mind prompt.

“Sam’s “ultimate engineering project” he deemed too damaged like a bumpy road or crumbling building that wasn’t worthy of patching and filling in the cracks or reinforcing, that’s too eroded to be fixed and preserved. So, Sam strived to tear him down to the bedrock so he could remake, remold, and reengineer Dream according to his design for the common safety, public health and well-fair.”

{These are very similar to the actual sheets I make day to day, which I shall not share for the sake of doxing my location, but yea pretty much everything has a significance. Some of it doesn’t necessarily make sense but that was because I was more so taking inventory of what we see in lore (so you know I counted ;) lol)}

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I don't think this means anything, but along with the album cover colours getting darker with each successive variant that others have pointed out, one thing that jumped out at me is how the cover photos are more revealing of her with each one as well.

The first one her face is hidden 1989-style, the second one her face is partially obstructed by her arm and hair, the third one she's facing the camera in side profile (also notably no longer in bed).

It's probably just because all the photos are going to be brilliant because Beth Garrabant is incredible and they're just pretty to look at and they wanted to give contrast to each one, but it does kinda feel like she's stepping out of the metaphorical dark with each version.

Like, she's gone from being curled in bed to contemplating getting up to stepping outside but still covered in (his*?) shirt to...

idk I love cover art can you tell (and I love how Taylor tells stories with hers)

[lambmotifz]

something something dean + penetration metaphor/motif. the amount of times he killed/tried to kill someone by brutally penetrating them….

[soulsunpoets]

(I've never known a love so tempest like)

[shorthaltsjester]

"And you loved her once, too. You were inseparable. I remember the day the Featheringtons moved in across the square. From that day on, it was, “Penelope this,” and “Penelope that,” and “Penelope and I are going to read Don Quixote, and we are going to be knights.”"

Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington in Bridgerton // We're In Love by boygenius

[zours025]

Dude... What the flip...

Gets more torturey under here vvv

amehell at the mercy of these two. ame abused girlfriend. cute :3

[cosmiclove-heavenstruck]

i never moved on from that line in hits different "you were the one that i loved, don't need another metaphor it's simple enough". it's hidden in this bombastic, very heavy on metaphors bridge, tugged in between such strong lyrics, but it's such a gut punch when you think about it. at the end of the fifth album with the same muse, after song upon song confessing feelings and love as well as doubt and fears wrapped in so many different images and stories of getaway cars and dive bars, of picket fences and apartments overlooking new york city, of enchanted cabins in the woods and golden strings, of willows and lonely benches in coney island, of clocks striking midnight, there is only one thing left to say. after five albums, all that the narrator ever wanted to convey is this: i love you. however many metaphors used in all the songs, it always comes down to love.

yet there is an implied heaviness in that lyric, because it's written in the past. it's not "you are the one that i love". it's "you were...".

it's over. five albums and a hundred songs.

in all songs from reputation to midnights, "(i) love(d) you" is just used in four songs . none of them are on evermore or midnights. only to start out ttpd with "i love you, it's ruining my life".

[bitchesgetriches]

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying: Finance Philosophy Explained by The Shawshank Redemption 

The Shawshank Redemption as an extended metaphor for the deficit prison you're trapped in? It's more likely than you think.

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[figureofdismay]

Anyway, I'll say this on main, with the abduction as abuse and consent violations metaphor that threads through the entire X-Files plot, and I feel like we could do more to occasionally acknowledge the fact that Cancerman can very easily be seen as a subtextual groomer figure in Mulder's life. In both senses of the word. Who has been in the perifery of his life since his childhood or adolescence.

Maybe he was a twisted paternal voyeur who always watched from a distance. Maybe the implied tests and memory suppression continued the metaphor commensurate with the female victims in the show. As it did with Mulder's adult abductions.

I'm in no way denying the medical rape subtext or plot around Scully, and obviously her story is much more explicit. I just find it interesting that the consent violations Mulder goes through, and the long term directly predatory presence of Cancerman hovering over him tends to get a different, less confronting framing in the show and in fic and analysis.

I put some of this subtext into a thing I was writing, and then I took it out because I was worried it would be too dark and off-putting, and then I stopped working on the fic altogether. But whether or not I go back to it eventually, I feel like I want to do more and see more about how mulder is a survivor of having his consent and free will regularly violated, long term in whatever literal or metaphorical ways, and how it contributes to his sense of powerlessness and also his belief that everything wrong is all his fault somehow because he hasn't figured out how to stop it, and also his totally unbalanced scale of risk versus reward.

[obligateweirdo]

Tortured metaphor time!

I feel like I was at a very nice place (possibly the Ritz) waiting for an exquisite meal. I knew it would be a lengthy wait, but my anticipation was high and I was with great friends so it was cool.

Suddenly the restaurant is engulfed in flames. The chef turns out to be an arsonist who has set the place afire.

Chaos ensues.

Then I have escaped, rattled and horrified for those who were injured. I’m so relieved the chef has been apprehended.

I’m also ravenously hungry and really disappointed that my delightful evening took such a hideous turn, but obviously that’s my problem and I feel pretty bad, under the circumstances, that I’m even thinking about it.

Then one of the restaurant’s owners shows up with a bag of fast-food burgers for all of us and hands me one.

I’m grateful. It isn’t what I was hoping for, but it’s better than nothing.

Unless it gives me food poisoning.

[ash-and-starlight]

things i’m going crazay about today: the illustrations in the he who drowned the world illumicrate cover

(artist is glassbearer on ig)

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

was meaning to write a serious and thoughtful meta on this shot as the show's first use of metatextual framing (a story within a story) linking its premise to the war movie as a genre (the show as a fascist gothic work) but yknow what. scratch all of that lmao. the only thought that matters is: the moment you really start thinking about the show as a reactionary post 9/11 power fantasy, you can't stop.