#totally expected from this man

[rovieghoul]

"Cardinal Copia is part vaudevillain, part sex addict"

[serpentface]

Ibrija scoring at the post-bullfight New Maize festivities

You can be a gay Wardi guy openly bagging dudes in public and be having an okay time with things with near-complete social acceptance AS LONG AS you're a top + otherwise gender conforming, like the twink build, aren't too interested in commitment, and have a likable enough personality that no one is motivated to dig for excuses to question your masculinity and/or virtue about it.

[carma-tjol]

Show me your worst. I love it all the same.

As long as it's me. As long as it's you.

[psychopomp-namine]

some thoughts on the photo diving ability users

this is more of a speculation post. I want to talk about the main theme of link click, revisit cheng xiaoshi's character arc as we can now compare him to other users with the photo diving ability, as well as some thoughts on the narrative roles of shao yuanyuan and lu guang. they all kinda relate to each other, so I'm putting them here in one post.

i. past or future, let it be.

others have pointed out reasons why the possibility of cheng xiaoshi also time looping would be a disappointing turn from his character arc, which I agree with. I will not go into that here. instead, I wish to revisit a theme that I really wish link click would go back to as its main motto: "past or future, let it be."

I still believe this is and has always been the core theme of the show as a whole. and it's one of the reasons I personally fell in love with S1 and even in S2. you can't change the past. and even if you could go back to the past, you're only doing so to change your future, but you can't undo what has already happened. you can't jeopardize the present. past or future, let it be.

although yingdu deals with butterfly effects instead of closed loops, I don't think it's exempt from this lesson either. the fact that lu guang is now learning to make this final timeline count and that he is, for the first time, looking towards the future and not the past (because this is the "last time") is him finally reaching the same place as cheng xiaoshi in terms of the character growth cheng xiaoshi exhibited by early season 2. they are, for the first time, running towards the same direction together. a shared future. this present future. there are no do-overs after this.

even if cheng xiaoshi ends up diving into the past and timeloops for whatever reason, I don't want it to be the solution to everything. changing the past has never been the solution in link click (yingdu arc notwithstanding). it goes against the main lesson of the show. so if he ever does that, I want it to be because he wants to stabilize the past and prevent any more changes to it.

more than two people timelooping for each other, I think there's more catharsis in two time travelers committing to make this final timeline really count. this is the last time. this is their only time. so, past or future, let it be.

and if the lyrics to songs like train trail and break are anything to go by (they literally include the phrase "past or future, let it be"), I think we'll definitely still loop back to this theme again in S3.

ii. revisiting cheng xiaoshi's character arc

on that note, I want to make a quick comparison of our photo diving ability havers, because I think lu guang and shao yuanyuan serve as a useful comparative lens for us to see cheng xiaoshi with. I did this in the tags of a previous post but I think it deserves its own post now.

cheng xiaoshi gets called immature a lot sometimes by other people, which I don't really believe to be true or an accurate description of him. and shao yuanyuan provides me with another reason that bolsters my belief in this.

the ability to change the past is a dangerous power, but it's cheng xiaoshi who learns the lesson of link click the fastest. past or future, let it be. lu guang is willing to erase the present timeline by diving into the past, and shao yuanyuan is doing... whatever it is she's doing to save cheng weimin.

in comparison, cheng xiaoshi matures relatively quickly about not abusing his powers, and he is overall more resistant to the temptation of using time travel to undo death by S2. after emma, cheng xiaoshi learns not to change a death node. not even that of his best friend's, whom he loves very dearly. this is a marked contrast not only to lu guang, but also to his mother.

it's a very underrated aspect of him because cheng xiaoshi is often described as impulsive and reckless, but he does take these lessons to heart and as long as he's given space to think things through, he comes out with rather emotionally mature decisions. I love this aspect of him sooo much. his big heart carries so much responsibility, and he takes it very seriously.

which is why I am very confident that in S3, we can trust cheng xiaoshi with the timeline. so much so that I do believe he can make things right without having to change the past drastically (but I'm very sure the show will tempt him to anyway).

if there's anyone in this show who can be trusted to take care of the timeline, it's cheng xiaoshi.

iii. shao yuanyuan and lu guang's narrative roles

on the flip side, let's talk about our other two divers. there's a really great "what if" post written by @sonchop that I've been thinking about recently that I'll touch upon later. I highly recommend reading through it.

when talking about lu guang, we have to remember what constraints the writers are writing under with regards to his character. see, lu guang is a tricky character to write under censorship rules. my personal understanding (which may run contrary to some fans', but I believe there's a lot more lu guang apologists here on tumblr lol) is that lu guang is meant to be a hypocrite willing to do morally questionable things for cheng xiaoshi. but he is also most likely slated for a happy ending. it will be difficult to make both things happen under censorship. these are the limitations the writers are working with.

for example, let's look at how lu guang was written in yingdu arc. lu guang wants to murder vein, hence why he talked about creating an "unchangeable node" -- aka, a death node. his intentions are very clear, and the show even frames this by animating him as wang qing's puppeteer and even "crushing" his hand as vein gets a heart attack. but he can't be shown directly actually murdering vein if we want to give him a happy ending later, because that's a no-no under censorship.

think of it as similar to how in S2 they had to pivot the red eyes concept because they can't let red eyes remain at large after stabbing lu guang.

so lu guang has to be written in such a way where his intent is not necessarily "morally acceptable" but his actions are in such a way that a really good lawyer can defend him in court. he didn't technically kill vein. he's not the murderer technically speaking. you can't charge him guilty just for talking to vein for 30 seconds.

the way I personally see it: lu guang is in a precarious narrative position and needs to be written delicately to “deserve” his happy ending under censorship rules.

so. circling back to the post I mentioned at the beginning of this section. my theory is that introducing shao yuanyuan as the main wildcard of the timeline changes will be what narratively "absolves" lu guang from his own timeline trampling "sins" thereby making it "acceptable" for him to get a happy ending. a sort of situation where, as the post says, what if shao yuanyuan's own timelooping caused the butterfly effect that led to lu guang timelooping. he wouldn't have needed to timeloop if they fix shao yuanyuan's timelooping. (<- speculation only)

anyway, so I think in S3 it'll be interesting to see how far they can take lu guang. but I probably won't expect him to like, actually kill people himself or whatever. the best he can do is probably something like his chessmaster style "gambling" in yingdu. which I guess works out for the liu xiao paralleling.

at the same time. for the bittersweet ending likers, there's still hope!! even if it's possible they'll give lu guang a happy ending, I think cheng xiaoshi will lose something in any ending. with the way they're setting up shao yuanyuan's role, I don't think cheng xiaoshi can have both his parents and lu guang together in his life atm. maybe they'll show us something in the future to make that possible, but for now, I don't see it. (something something, "just because you can't see hope doesn't mean it's not there)

anyway. if cheng xiaoshi is supposed to be the character — the hero — who learns to embody the lesson of link click ("past or future, let it be"), shao yuanyuan is the character who, as far as we know, refuses to. I mean, she left cheng xiaoshi in 2008. he's an adult now. she hasn't learned to let go in all these years. it'll be a wonder if we can find a way for her to let go after all this time. and lu guang so far is the character in-between the two spectrums. he could have ended up like shao yuanyuan, but the ending of yingdu makes me think he's committing to this "last" timeline. his line about looking into the future is an important moment for him.

it'll be interesting to see the three of them deal with the timelines in S3.

again this is all just thoughts and speculation. in any case, whatever happens in S3, I am very excited for what's in store for us, as I'm really liking what they're setting up with our three photo divers.

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

just listened to 15+ minutes of reece narrating a man being forced by an elderly woman to crawl around on his knees touching, sniffing and kissing various dresses and lingerie how is ur day going lol?

[maraschinotopped]

ive been staring at the naqtube channel page just doing analysis thoughts in my head for like 15 minutes and ive just been hit with the realization that Damn this is not normal. normal people dont do this. either the mental illness or the mild sickness is doing something to me right now.

[novadragoness]

A builder who totally understands where X is coming from, collecting all those shinies for Coco, because she also likes shiny things, and has been secretly leaving pretty rocks on Unsuur's porch for weeks now.

[rebornofstars]

thinking about twilight calling time forefather. quiet moments around the campfire. conversations on the long road.

if you met a man that was a living assurance of your love and survival - if you met a man that was a living piece of your own history and home, a man who will make you what you are - wouldn't it be a little strange, a little soft? nobody has understood you more. nobody has understood you less

[mercymaker]

also you guys saying you can't wait to see my dragon age OCs as if i haven't been considering just making mal: the dragon age edition like

[serpentface]

i'd love to hear more about the akoshos! i'm sure they'v been brought up more than twice, but tumblr's search function is the enemy of knowledge :')

Yeah so the akoshos gender role is a long standing practice in the Wardi cultural sphere that has ancient roots, existing in both Wardi and Wogan spheres (I'll mostly be talking about the modern Wardi context here). Its ancient precedents were varied and often broader in description, often encompassing people designated male who present and live as women and/or engage in sexual/romantic relationships with men (and usually involving additional cultural roles beyond just being an Identity).

In the modern context, it is a gendered space where someone designated male at birth performs expected presentation and social roles of women. In terms of Wardi convention, this usually involves braiding the hair, wearing veils while outdoors, longer robes or skirts, wearing non-unisex jewelry, and behaving under the myriad of feminine social conventions. Most akoshos experience strong social pressure to shave any facial hair (and will often be seen as 'overmasculinized' if not).

Akoshos will be referred to with the ‘she’ pronoun and other feminine gendered language articles and titles (with the exception of being called an 'akoshos-husband' if married to a woman).

Being akoshos is regarded as being dual-gendered- having a 'male’ body capable of penetrative roles while otherwise socially performing ‘female’ roles. This is ultimately conceptualized as being physically male and spiritually female (quite literally in the sense of having a female soul incarnate into a 'male' body). They are considered a polar opposite to eunuchs, who are regarded as de-gendered and neither male nor female. Their role is not regarded as a personal choice but to be an aspect of their nature.

This role has some religious connotations, being seen as an imperfect human approximation of God's dual-sexed nature, and a few specific rites and minor priesthoods are exclusive to akoshos. (In deep theology they are imagined as metaphors of the living body of God before the initiation of the death-rebirth cycle, lifting the foundation of the world and inseminating the seas to create humans, while eunuchs can represent the dead body of God in sacrifice and the initiation of the death-rebirth cycle, being severed and divided to grant the world life and form) (This is not going to be a common line of thought for the everyday person though).

The actual word ‘akoshos’ stems from a role in traditional all-male Wardi theater, for actors who specialize in female roles (with no connotations on their gender/presentation in daily life). The occupying forces of the 2nd Burri empire took this performance-specific word and used it as a catchall for dual-gendered members of Wardi and Wogan peoples, with this (in addition to separate Wardi tribes gradually assimilating/being assimilated into an indistinguished nationality) eventually resulting in the linguistic loss or obsolescence of most pre-existing titles in favor of 'akoshos'.

While they are accepted as a specific gendered space (seen as a normal part of the cultural framework, rather than ‘failed’ men or otherwise deviant), they are subject to stigma and disempowerment as a non-male gender in a patriarchal sphere. They are grouped with women in terms of class status and are similarly denied certain legal rights (sole property ownership, self-representation in court, subordinate statuses to husbands in inheritance, legal independence from a familial patriarch, etc).

It is, like most other gender roles here, a fairly rigid gendered space that one can ‘fail’ at or shamefully deviate from. The fact that akoshos are so accepted as part of society is part of what makes this role equally rigid to manhood or womanhood. An akoshos is expected to perform female roles and presentation consistently and as culturally required, and strong deviation from female gender roles (with exceptions for some sexual roles) is treated with much the same disdain as for men and women 'failing' at their own gender.

People generally do not Want their perceived sons to turn out as akoshos, and will often find it an unfortunate lot that a female soul has incarnated into their child's male body. The framework of society heavily revolves around the fundamental importance of the family, preserving and propagating one's family and honoring their name. Children are, in many ways, functionally assets, with their marriage securing a family's future and further descendants, and the success and stability of one's adult child (typically only attainable in marriage) allows for parents to be cared for in old age and to receive necessary and proper rites. Akoshos, in many ways, cannot fully support this framework. They cannot perform expected patriarchal roles of sons as primary heirs, inheritors, and and carriers of the family name and legacy, nor can they function as daughters to be given in marriage, being incapable of pregnancy.

As such, many akoshos lose direct support from their families and on average tend to occupy disenfranchised societal roles. (This is NOT universal though, you’ll find plenty of families that continue to fully support their akoshos children throughout life). Akoshos living in cities often develop microcommunities with themselves and other notably disenfranchised women (often sex workers) as means of self-support.

Akoshos can take on certain jobs ostensibly exclusive (or predominant to) women, including some esteemed fields. Many find work as midwives, and are allowed into certain all-female priesthoods (particularly as physician-priestesses), though they are not accepted as Odonii. A couple of Usoma-Hittibe (the unmarried eldest sister to a king or emperor, outranking a queen or empress) known in history have been akoshos.

While akoshos are not '''useful''' assets in marriage (which is usually arranged, and in many ways a political or financial agreement), they are unique in that they Can legally and officially be wed to both men and women (and will be referred to as an akoshos-wife or akoshos-husband, depending on the gender assignment of their partner). Marriage is otherwise exclusively between men and women, the concept of it existing in other capacities is regarded as an absurdity, given its predominantly reproductive role.

An akoshos taking on a 'husband' role to a woman is not ideal in a practical arranged marriage (especially as, in having a woman's denial of many legal rights, they may find it difficult to perform a husband's role of supporting a family), but these arrangements are biologically capable of producing children, which is of some benefit. Akoshos-wives are less common, as these unions cannot produce a pregnancy and thus cannot fulfill the reproductive role that marriage largely exists to facilitate. But unlike an akoshos-husband, an akoshos-wife is fully capable of performing all Other roles expected of a wife. Men will sometimes remarry akoshos after they have already acquired children through a previous marriage, at which point the akoshos-wife can fully inhabit the expected non-reproductive roles of a wife and mother.

Akoshos also have a significantly larger degree of sexual freedom in comparison to those designated women and ESPECIALLY to men. They are still subjects to strict standards of 'appropriate' libido, but are socially permitted to take on any sexual role with partners of any gender. (An akoshos receiving penetrative sex is not 'shamed' like a man is, as they are in part women and that is their lot (including the spiritual pollution seen as inevitable for women via penetration). An akoshos performing penetrative sex is also acceptable (though any receiving male partner is 'shamed'), as they are ''''physically men'''' and this is also their lot). A woman who is 'disproportionately' interested in sex with women may be regarded as overmasculinized or having an excessive libido, but an akoshos exclusively interested in women will not usually draw scrutiny (again owing to their conception as being both male and female).

Not ALL akoshos would be trans women or otherwise transfeminine in the contemporary LGBT+ context (though a probable majority are). This role is also the only one that allows for people designated male to have open and mutualistic romantic/sexual relationships with men (eunuchs can as well, but this is not the most attractive route for obvious reasons), and the only role where one can marry a man, so it may appeal to some who would be considered cis gay/bi men. The role could attract a variety of people for a variety of reasons (a minority could even be cis and het), and conversely not all trans women or nonbinary transfeminine people would be comfortable or self-actualized in the akoshos role. It's culturally specific, just one representation of the myriad ways people conceptualize, reject, or transcend sexuality and gender.

[insurged]

gege is so done with jjk and that's totally fine ( ´ ω ` )

[habitant]

Dimitri Filipovic and Harman Dayal on The Hockey PDOcast discuss the Dobson trade to Montreal, the caliber of player that he is and the fit with the Habs. Episode released on June 28th 2025 [59:20 to 1:14:53]

FILIPOVIC: But let's focus on Dobson here, and the fit with the Habs, and kind of what they're getting in him, because I think... This is true for a lot of, you know, offensive-oriented defensemen, in terms of depending who you talk to and their preferences, I think opinions are gonna vary. He seems like a very polarizing player, having played for the Islanders the past couple years, and obviously peaked two years ago with that 70+ point explosion, and then, regressed somewhat from a point perspective at least last year. And it feels like people have kind of soured on him, as a player a little bit. I think some of it is justified, I think there's a lot of things that we're gonna talk about today that suggest that that's probably unfair, and that he's still the caliber of player that he was regarded as previously. But what are your thoughts on Dobson, and the Habs prioritizing landing him and ultimately doing so?

DAYAL: I love this fit for the Habs. I've been a long time Noah Dobson believer. Even going back to his draft year, I watched a ton of his tape in the Q[MJHL]. I've been a long-time believer in [???]. I never thought he was quite as good as his 2023-24 season when he put up the 70 points, when he finished top 10 in Norris trophy voting. I didn't view him as this upper echelon number one defenseman, necessarily. But I also think that the criticism of his game coming off a down year this season has been a little bit over the top. So I'm a little—I'm in between, in terms of rating the player, um, between what he did in 2023-24 and this past season. To me he's sort of like low-end number one, slash ultra-premium number two. In my mind, he's one of the top ten or fifteen right-shot defensemen in the NHL. It gives them another dynamic puck mover, another even-strength needle mover for the Habs, which outside of the [unintelligible, but I suspect he means "the first line"] and the Lane Hutson pairing, the Habs needed more five-on-five playdrivers. And look, top-pair, right side defensemen in their prime are one of the hardest things in the league to acquire, and for the Canadiens, outside of that second line center position, that was probably their biggest roster need moving forward. Plus, you're able to sign him in, sign him long term and under 10 million dollars, as the cap hit, I think that contract will look good, as the cap continues to skyrocket. He's obviously not a, not a perfect player, but I'm a fan of the player. I love the fit, whether he's with Guhle, or you wanna load up your two best offensive guys and have him play with Hutson, and sort of do the Toews-Makar thing, the Hughes-Hronek thing, where you're stacking two of your best puck movers and offensive guys together, that's an option, but I also think he'd be a terrific fit with Kaiden Guhle.

FILIPOVIC: Yeah, you mentioned not only a right-shot defenseman, but one who's 6"4 and, you know, in the prime of his career, turning 26 in January, similar in just—in part one, I had Steve Peters on and we were talking about Michael Kesselring within the context of the JJ Peterka trade, and a lot of that same stuff applies, obviously, Dobson at a much higher echelon in terms of production where it wasn't just that 23-24 season. The past four seasons, he's averaged 56 points per 82 games played. The only defensemen with more total points in that time are a pretty good list of Makar, Quinn Hughes, Fox, Josi, Headman, Dahlin, Karlsson, Morissey, and Bouchard. Now, I think there's some important context to apply to what happened last year. Obviously, the Islanders bottomed out due to injuries and regression, and wound up getting the first overall pick and getting Matthew Schaefer in the process, but the underlying numbers still suggest that he was a legitimate driver, right? 54 percent, or even North of it in terms of five-on-five high danger chance share, expected goal share... I think it's, because of the injuries, and as a result of it, like he winds up playing 50+ five-on-five minutes with Romanov, Isaiah George, Pelech, Pulock, Mayfield, and then getting into like Mike Reilly, and Dennis Cholowski, and the Islanders had this rotating door of defensemen all year, where they wound up using twelve of them for ten games or more. And then, there's also the fact that Barzal only played 30 games, right? And we don't often think about the impact of defense and forward combinations, because we think of defensemen within the context of their own pairing and their own partner. But it's clear when you just, apply any thought, but especially look into the tape, and what those two guys were doing together when Barzal really had the best season of his career in 23-24. The chemistry between the two, and the dynamic of creating space for each other, and sort of playing off each other in this symbiotic way, and that was on full display that season. And then you remove Barzal from that equation as well, and I think that added a clear detrimental impact on him.

Clearly, have some questions about his game, right? I think some of the footspeed stuff defensively, in terms of defending the blue line, has always been up for debate. Although, you look at Cory Schneider's data, and he was much more aggressive last year in gapping up, and closing off space, and jump in passing lanes. He was still giving up a very high percent of scoring chances off of entries, but the actual volume of what he was allowing guys to carry the puck in went way down compared to even his best season in 23-24. He forced many more denials, and so that's all stuff you like to see, and then there's the component of, sometimes, what's drawn the ire of Islanders fans is, have been the blunders with the puck, right? Giveaways, turnovers, things like that, and some of that is a by-product, I think, of him not having a lot of urgency to his game, right? He plays at a very, slower rhythm, much more methodical, I think, with the puck, and is a bit more deliberate, and I think he needs to ramp that up a little bit, and maybe going to a more fast-paced, younger, explosive team in Montreal is gonna help with that. But it's also, I think, a by-product of any defenseman that handles the puck as much as he does, right. Playing 23-24 minutes a night, being relied on to do all the heavy lifting as a creator and facilitator, you're gonna wind up having your share of giveaways just because you always have the puck on your stick. And if you're as talented as he is, you're routinely trying to do stuff with it to create. And so, those blunders are gonna happen, but I think the net positive in terms of his impact, and how good the team is with him on the ice, and how much he creates, of course, is just undeniable. And so, I think betting on the player to bounce back, and even really, kind of framing it as he wasn't necessarily as bad as some of the overall numbers might indicate last year, I think is very fair and so I think he's gonna be awesome in Montreal.

DAYAL: Yeah, as you alluded to, he's not a perfect player. Especially defensively, and the puck management side of things. He did have some very loud defensive blunders, but when you step back and look at the overall picture, he's consistently won his minutes playing first-pair the last four seasons. He has been in this top pair role and the Isles have scored more goals than they've allowed in every single one of those seasons during Dobson's five-on-five shifts. And even when we characterize his defensive flaws, the actual number of goals against that he's on the ice for aren't actually that high, right. So you look at the last three seasons, Dobson's been on the ice for 2.24 goals against per 60 at five-on-five, that ranks top 50 among NHL defensemen. So, yes, he's prone to blunders. Yes, without the puck, there are moments when you'd like him to be a little more assertive closing plays, and killing them proactively, and he's been criticized for not always leveraging his 6"4 frame assertively enough, and I understand all of those question marks, but... Ultimately, you step back, and when you can find a 25 year old defenseman who isn't just, isn't just competent in top pair minutes, but is consistently winning them, that's a really hard player to acquire.

FILIPOVIC: It is, and as I said, some of the regression as well, right, where in 23-24, he has the 70 points, the plus 12, last year he winds up with just 39 points and a minus 16, you look a little further and, as you alluded to, they still won his five-on-five minutes. He had a plus 3 goal differential, part of that minus is just because he was on the ice for a shocking amount of empty net goals against, because the Islanders weren't very good, and the power play itself was 31rst in the league. And so, he was on that unit, but with Barzal out, and then trading Nelson, I'm not necessarily holding that against him. And, you know, as you look ahead to him in Montreal, with Lane Hutson there, the points might not necessarily bump up back to that 70 point total, and he might not even get a heavy volume of power play usage, but what he's gonna be able to do at five-on-five is I think gonna make a massive difference. And I wanna talk more a little bit about that fit, in terms of the best way to deploy him, and what you see. Because I imagine, Marty St-Louis certainly, you know situationally, if they're trailing or pushing for offense, gonna be inclined to load up both him and Hutson, you know on their natural sides, with one being a lefty and one being a righty, and I think that that dynamic can certainly coexist, because they both like to have the puck on their stick, but they also do it in different ways. Not only with Dobson's shot, compared to Hutson's more sort of holding on to it and trying to make plays for other dynamic, but also what I said earlier about whenever he'd be out there with Barzal, you'd sort of see this where Barzal would kinda be holding on to the puck, and circling the zone, and Dobson was so good at stepping into the open lane, or kind of moving off of the spot. And getting lost in the coverage and then popping open and either getting a good look off of it, or then setting up a teammate with a backdoor pass. I think they're gonna be able to replicate a lot of that with Hutson, some of the interchanges at the blue line, and setting him up for a one time look in a good shooting position, so I love that, but I think even long term, the idea that you add a guy who can, has already proven that he can float his own pair is a massive development for the Habs. Because when they had Hutson and Guhle out there, as the year progressed, things were shaping up really well for the Habs, but beyond that—and some of that was deployment, right, like they leaned on that Mike Matheson-Alex Carrier pair with such heavy defensive zone deployment where I think they were under 30% offensive zone starts for a long time [habitant note: correct, that pairing ended the season with 21.05% offensive zone starts, which was the least out of any Habs d-pairing that played at least 100 minutes together over the course of the season]. That's gonna result in bad numbers, especially with Matheson not really having the skillset to accommodate that, but they just didn't really have playmakers or facilitators when Hutson wasn't out there, especially if Guhle was playing with him, and now, you have a second guy who can get the puck to the forwards efficiently and quickly, and I think we agree that Marty St-Louis wants this team ideally to play quickly, North-South, and attack much more off the rush, and I think a guy like Dobson and his skillset is really gonna help enable that to a great extent.

DAYAL: Yeah, this is um, this gives Marty St-Louis a lot of different options, and I'm curious to see how they experiment in training camp, and pre-season, and even during the start of the regular season to land on what's the optimal way to deploy these guys. Because you're right, Dobson can drive his own pairing, which is such an asset, where some defensemen only thrive in a top four setting when they have an equal or better sort of partner to play with, whereas Dobson, you can trust that his skillset can work in a complementary role, if you wanna load him up with Hutson, and especially with their offensive skillsets sort of being complementary, they would have a ton of success together. But also, now Guhle all of a sudden, he's a big winner in all this where now all of a sudden you're imagining that he's gonna be with one of Hutson or Dobson at all times. And when I look at Guhle's skillset, as a, as a sort of shut down, more authoritative physical presence, a guy who can gap up in the neutral zone, and also fits that modern blend, where he's mobile enough, and has enough sort of puck skills to complement an offensive guy. It takes pressure off him to single-handedly drive a pair, and I think the idea of him and Dobson together, where you mentionned that Dobson isn't always necessarily the best at defending off the rush, well that's an area where Guhle really excels in. So that fits there, and if Guhle isn't with Dobson, then he gets to play with Hutson full time. So this gives the Canadiens a ton of options and even when I think about this Habs blue line long term now, to have Hutson, Dobson, Guhle, and then also Reinbacher coming. This Habs blue line is gonna be an absolute force for years to come.

FILIPOVIC: Yeah, I loved it. The 23-24 tape, I got into it in preparation for this, was just absolutely sublime for Dobson. Like the amount of, the things he was doing in the offensive zone, in terms of some of the backdoor passing and setting guys up for tap-ins, or the shot passes and the Islanders had a bunch of guys netfront with Lee and others who were able to capitalize on that, or just kind of playing around with it at the blue line and creating space for others was next level. And so I think that's something to really look forward to here. On the note of pairs, and having a second pair that can hold their own, I know it was only five games in round one against the Caps, but I think it's pretty instructive in terms of what we're talking about, where, when Montreal had Hutson and Guhle out there in that series: 55% shot share five-on-five, 61% expected goals share. Unfortunately, when they had the other pairs, which were Matheson and Carrier, or David Savard, who's since retired, with either Xhekaj or Struble, they were in the mid 30s essentially, right. And there was a massive sample of Matheson and Carrier kind of playing in a role that wasn't suitable to their skillset, and being overextended, and they were just getting crushed in that time, and really you could even date this back to since the 4 Nations break, when Montreal really started their spirited playoff push, and that's a 26 game sample. When they had Suzuki and Hutson out there, up 17 to 4, 61% of the shots, 61% of the chances and expected goals, and then without them, down 27 to 14, and everything in the 30s. And so, just having a second driver who, if you don't have those guys out there, is still able to keep you afloat and actually create stuff, is just gonna be so massive. On the powerplay note, I think we both expect that he's not necessarily gonna feature very heavily on the top unit, right? Because I think the splits for them last year, they wind up 21rst on the man advantage, I don't think that's reflective of how good their top guys were. Because a lot of that includes the early season when they were kind of working Hutson in and trying to manage his minutes, and Matheson was on that top unit. And as soon as they put Hutson up there, and he was playing with Suzuki and Caufield on the top unit, they exploded up to 9.5 goals per hour, and that was the, I think, 6th best in the league, and then now you also bake in Demidov's playmaking and potentially adding to that as another creator. That's gonna be a pretty lethal combination of guys, and I think that's gonna allow Dobson certainly to quarterback the second unit, but just generate a lot of his value to this team I think in just making them a much more well-rounded five-on-five group. And that's something you look for when you try to take that next step as an organization from, last year was a fun story, they made the playoffs for the first time in a while, and now actually consolidating on that, and building it out and scaling it, and becoming a team that does this year over year, and actually advances past just five game cameo in the first round.

[daisyachain]

Restorative or Transformative?: Homoerotic Subtext, The Closet, and Ciphers in Pop Culture. The nature of commercial art is that it’s sometimes bad and inconsistent. Notably it’s also misogynistic. One way in which audiences try to reconcile massive plot holes or gaps in character motivation is by reading secrets or hidden information into a plot.

Commonly, male characters are interpreted as closeted gay or bisexual to reconcile the absence of women from commercial narratives with the generally stunted and poorly-written male characters that form the focus on said texts. This reading has become especially common among a non-heterosexual milieu. Rather than transforming the original text into some radically different new form, this closeted interpretation seeks to make the original text stand on its own as a story rather than a Swiss cheese of dumb writing decisions.

This interpretation only works for a specific type of pop, usually genre fiction. Any story in which tortured male leads eschew women in favour of male-male bonds (because female characters are constantly killed off, written sparsely, or written out, because the production team keeps casting their male buddies, because actors demand to keep having scenes with their bros, whatever) can become a sounder structure if you put one of them in a closet.

The gay interpretation is the natural consequence of shoddy misogynistic writing from ventures like Supernatural, Naruto, all the biggest hits. It’s also the natural consequence of more benignly misogynistic writing like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of the Rings, where women aren’t necessarily rejected but are simply absent from the worlds of the protagonists. When the emotional crux of the story falls on male-male interactions, this reads as romantic because society at large priorities (definitively heterosexual) romance as the pinnacle of human connection. Two forces are in conflict, the primacy of heterosexuality (read as: romance) and the primacy of men.

Anyway. All that is to say that the typical gay or bisexual reading of male characters in pop fiction comes from a very real place. But, in some places, that’s the default interpretation. Angst, insecurity, secrets, double lives, fatigue, disappointment, restrained passion, stunted personal growth, anyone living in the closet can tell you that it impacts and defines your whole life to know that you live in a way fundamentally incompatible with The Proper Way that life is structured around down to tax law and superstore prices (which assume a heterosexual nuclear family unit). Characters in fiction also tend to have personal problems because that makes them interesting and tasty.

If you’ve grown up on stories with the specific type of misogyny that can be papered over with a closeted interpretation of the male leads, carrying this interpretation over to any male character will make sense more often than not. Even a bit of angst or insecurity? Well of course that makes sense if a character is closeted.

Except that’s hurt a normal part of fiction, and sometimes the closeted interpretation takes away from the point of a character. If a male character is on another axis of marginalization, the closeted interpretation imposed by the slash reading community downplays or trivializes the effects of that marginalization in the plot by overwriting it with another type of marginalization. Alternately, sometimes a character’s heterosexuality is a part of the story. There are some sorts of critiques or investigations of misogyny or masculinity that don’t work if the character has an ‘opt out’ of the cisheteropatriarchal perspective. Not that gay/bisexual men aren’t except from misogyny, but misogyny masculinity and heterosexuality are so tightly linked that it sort of defeats the point if you interpret that character outside of heterosexuality.

All that is to say—the closet interpretation is a quick and easy spice to apply to the weaker parts of action-adventure genre fiction to make it taste better. It draws from a large enough sample of art that it’s pretty widely applicable. Because of that, it’s part of some people’s [my] default interpretation package just because the semi-dull macho show at least gets less dull if you imagine there’s a reason for there to be no girls besides simple hatred. That then forms its own problem where the interpretation that works with your average genre work gets then blanket-applied to all genre works and obscures the places where the closet interpretation doesn’t fix the work, and actually makes it less interesting.

[adrift-in-thyme]

I wanna read the Odyssey again

[notmoreflippingelves]

I need to ramble more about Esteban Flores, because everything about this character and his arc seem as though it was tailor-made for me and specifically designed to make me absolutely feral.

This going below the cut, both because I do not want to spoil the entire show for my friend who is think of watching Elena of Avalor and because I go full-on apologist here and I feel like that will annoy some people.

Imagine making the absolute worst mistake than anyone could possibly make, because you are 18 and scared and stupid and tired of being ignored. And it results in you losing your family and your freedom and what little self-respect you had left because you know all of this is very much your own fault.

 And so you proceed to spend the next 41(!) years eking out a miserable existence in an oppressive state. Upon fear for your life, you are forced to be the reluctant right-hand of the evil witch-queen who conquered your country, killed your aunt and uncle and trapped your cousin in magical prison. In spite of this, you nevertheless do everything within your limited power trying to hold the kingdom together and make sure the people don't starve, because the queen certainly doesn't care about anything except greedily bleeding your country dry.

And no exaggeration, this is just what canon explicitly gives us outright in the pilot. Like that's not even getting into head canons/interpretations/common sense of what exactly this sort of life entailed for you. Because this is a children's show so there's only so much they will let us imply about living under that kind of system. Especially as a young, attractive, terrified person who is the last living member of the previous royal family who is likely being kept alive partly as a combination trophy/punching bag for the evil queen (even if the show never actually states this outright).

And then by some miracle, what's left of your family comes back after all this time. The evil queen is overthrown, partly because you yourself finally stood up to her at a critical moment. You and your country are finally free again, and what's more, you and your family are finally together again after over 4 decades. But you still feel like an outsider--partly because you always were an outsider in your family even in the better times and partly because  over the past 41(!) years, time stood still for all of them except you.

And as a result, no one ever cares to ask what those 41 years were like for you or even just if you’re doing okay. Not only because your family can’t even begin to comprehend what it must have been like, but also because they don’t care to even *try* to understand. Because the narrative has decided that everyone else’s respective traumas is worth way more than your own.  (Though tbf the narrative really doesn’t dwell much on anyone’s trauma in general but yours gets especially neglected , except to briefly play it for laughs or to remind you that your trauma is *your own fault and only your own*).

For a little while, life is pretty okay. It’s weird not having to watch your step every instant to make sure you’re not putting a toe out of line. And so you never really fully break out of your “survival mode” conditioning, making sure that you are still considered important and valuable enough to keep around.

But all the while, you know that your past—and especially your terrible little secret—is eventually going to come back to haunt you. And it does. First via blackmail and then via the return  of the evil witch-queen herself. Fortunately, she is defeated for good before she can take avenge your “betrayal of her” but you still have to deal with seeing the ghost from the past who terrorized you for 41(!) years.

And then, your secret finally comes out in the open and you are disowned by your family—the family you *just* got back a few years ago—for an admittedly super bad decision that you made over four decades ago and have regretted ever since.  Rather than face the rest of your life in isolation (as though you didn’t already have enough of that during the previous regime), you escape before you can be sent into exile. This puts you directly in the path of *another* terrifying, evil magical milf who you are forced to ally yourself with. Because you have 40+ years of conditioning that when a woman like that says “jump,” you say “how high?” if you are to have any hope of survival.  Especially given that the only people who could’ve protected you from her are the family and friends who have just definitively washed their hands of you.

Despite this, you are still trying to seek your cousin’s forgiveness and to protect her in the little ways that you can. But you are constantly getting rebuffed over and over again, and if anything, your attempts at reconciliation only seem to make your cousin angrier, and she now hates you just as much as—if not MORE than—the woman who actually murdered her parents.

Your cousin is so angry at you specifically that she actively ignores the greater threat of Witchy Milf 2.0, because she happens to see your face and is enraged. This ends up backfiring spectacularly for you both, though it does indirectly lead to the defeat of said Witchy Milf 2.0.

But guess what?  There’s no time to breathe or celebrate, because her defeat occurred during the successful summoning of a third power-mad, feminine-presenting magical humanoid and her allies. At least, this one treats you with some initial respect and actually gives you outright what you-think-you’ve-thought-you-always wanted. But she also turns your family and friends to stone in front of you as a warning of what’s to come if you dare to defy her.

But this time, you are finally done with this, have finally lost enough that you have paradoxically found your courage. You sacrifice yourself to save your cousin, and she is finally able to accept that you’ve sacrificed and changed enough that she can forgive you. And her forgiveness is so powerful and pure that it not only restores you to life but also undoes all the other evil magic. Together, you defeat this final enemy, paradoxically by banishing her to the same Underworld where your mistakes accidentally sent your aunt and uncle and her parents long ago.  Peace has been restored. You have returned for good and are finally secure in your family’s love.

And after all that, there are *still* people (both presumably in universe and in the fandom outside of it) who say it's too little, too late and that it would've been better for everyone if you'd simply stayed dead.

Like I'm just... are we really victim-blaming the character who has 45 years of unprocessed trauma and guilt (both survivor's guilt and guilt in general) because of a decision he made when his brain was still developing and he was being manipulated by an older, much more powerful person?

[okcoolthanks]

Wait the Patreon is only five dollars???? Why did I think it was like, 30???????????