#truly nonsense

[emjoyy]

The thing about listening to Cass Elliot is you will be having an experience™️

[trashcanalienist]

Oh how lovely Norman is, and the owl which was previously a symbol of Mother's presence in the conversation between him and Marion now appears behind Mary in her conversation with Lila. Poor Norman, but the ending is just a little stupid, it would've been perfect if that woman had just been some random lady from the town come to see how he's doing, after all she probably watched him grow up. She looks like Mother and is dressed like Mother so of course he would still poison her tea and carry her up - he's seen Mrs. Bates' corpse, yet Mother "speaks" to him on the phone, therefore that can't be Mother, therefore he must have a new Mother. Ah, poor Norman, the sheriff says Mary claimed to the end that he was the one who was crazy. And he is, poor man, having slipped into that which he was so timidly determined to stay strong against. And that is precisely why he is so harmless. It is Mother who kills, after all. Norman is only the dutiful son. Poor Norman. His poor hands. Mary tried to do what Ginny did, but Norman is...not Jason Voorhees. He's not blindly obedient (my dear Jason). Norman knows Mother is old and cruel and vicious and murderous, and he will do what's best for her and endure the abuse even as it destroys him. Even as it defines him. And so no matter how badly he is cut up, he will continue trying to help Mother, even as she (Mary in disguise) continues to attack him, oh poor Norman. Poor Norman. This movie is so beautiful, so loving to the original and to Norman Bates and the spirit of the original. Its thesis, coming out in 1983, is something of an indictment of slasher excess in violence and sex, while simultaneously acknowledging that that is Mother's position as well. It hopes to find a proper, human medium. And gives us another Mother in Lila Loomis, formerly Lila Crane, manipulating her daughter in her obsession with destroying Norman Bates even though he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and has been helped quite successfully (the Mother personality completely regressed until Lila's cruel antics brought it out again), and he wants so desperately to be normal and to live a good, happy life. Poor Norman, oh, poor Norman. Dear Norman. He still is so plagued by his own issues - whatever therapy they used to treat him contained no continuing regiment of medication, and as he (crying) says, has destroyed his memories of his mother, as she was, both good and bad. Except for the sandwiches. He is still trapped forever at 14 or so, boyish smile, boyish mannerisms, boyish view of the world, with a child's ideas of justice and truth and right and wrong and hope and fun and fear. And this cannot be fixed, because even if he were to seek therapy (more common now in the 80s than in the 60s but still not exactly accepted) he could not work through these ingrained issues without talking about overbearing Mother. And to speak her name might prove just as destructive to poor Norman's delicate but strong mental state.

[the-northern-continent]

Fen’Harel may seem stressed, but this is important enrichment for him. For optimal health, trickster deities must be pursued by 2-5 larger, angrier deities at all times. This allows them to express their natural instincts to Run, Deny Involvement, and Proclaim Themselves “Just A Little Guy”.

[faeriekit]

Someone made a light Batman reference in front of me yesterday and I made the mistake of recognizing it. "Oh, are you a fan?" Sir, attempting to articulate the toxic relationship between myself and the detective comics universe would put us both in the hospital. You seem like such a nice normal dad with a healthy attitude towards media consumption. I have been exposed to pornography you can't even fathom. I am being held hostage. I know the names of possibly every Robin and the constant reinterpretations of inconstant timelines. I have formed opinions people kill each other over online. They may still find me if I am ever too vocal. We are not the same. I wish I was you.

[sepiamestus]

actually i dont have the capacity to be normal about this. Akutagawa wasnt born violent. It didnt come naturally to him. He protected people once. He had to be violent to survive. He learned it. It was never his natural state. He is still at his core someone who protects people, which is exactly what he died trying to do

[xoxoemynn]

I know it shouldn't surprise me, but it's frustrating af to step outside the fandom and read about OFMD's cancellation on more general entertainment sites and see the majority of reactions be along the lines of "oh well it was probably Taika being over it, he always gave me the ick anyway so, whatever," and then often devolving into comments about his personal life, or conspiracy theories that can be disproven if you use your brains for 30 seconds or maybe step outside and touch grass idk idk.

And this isn't me saying "omg how could you dislike Taika" bc truly unless you're being racist or antisemitic (which, let's be real, many are), I don't give a fuck what you think about him.

But the point remains that if you have a show that is all about celebrating queer joy and finding yourself later in life, that has a diverse cast of characters in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and body type, that was WRITTEN by a diverse group of writers, that is receiving praise from critics and fans alike, that from all reports was one of Max's most successful shows despite them doing next to no promotion the first season, that had two successful seasons and the creator is on the record saying he had a plan to tell the entire story in three, and it gets CANCELED.

I don't give a fuck how you feel about Taika, or how you feel about OFMD. You SHOULD be concerned about that. Because your show is next.

And before you come at me with "it's just a show, have you seen what's happening in the world?" Yeah. I fucking have. And the arts matter. They have always mattered. It's how we've shared stories and fostered communities and passed down what's important to us as a society. And they've brought us joy. And I don't know about you, but I think we could all do with a fuckton more joy in our lives.

This is absolutely a huge loss, and unfortunately it's not going to be the last as streaming services continue to go deeper in crisis. If that doesn't concern you, idk, go enjoy yourself watching season 47 of The Bachelor.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

CACKLING that the Arch Heart was bluffing about the "or I'll kill you" apparently just wanted to see if they could easily nab Braius with a simple little trick

[beescake]

Sorry for the spam (^o^;) I just really like your blog

no need to apologize ayy!

in this corner we welcome all forms of enjoyment, regardless of whether you're a

happy to have yall here w me,

headin into homestuck 2024 :^)

[mangywayway]

Really stupid doodle a did at work while talking with a coworker. In short, our logic was this "What if Homelander eyes slightly lights up when he gets really excited or similar?" and then this came out lol

We were also talking about cats and how they just stare at you sometimes and there it was also the urge to just pat pat Homelander in the head, so I just mixed everything together lol (don't ask what's the logic, we don't know either 👌🏻)

[shebsart]

howl's moving castle book but it gets faster every time sophie gets jealous over the black knob and the black suit

bonus brutal sophie:

oh my god and sophie doesn't even know she's affiliated with the Witch . miss angorian's just a random woman to her 😭

[bougiebutchbitch]

is this anything

[anghraine]

I've been moving and navigating further departmental nonsense etc (my pseudo-dissertation got approved for defending, though! l o l). But it was interesting to see the Worst P&P Takes poll I reblogged accumulating more results and the general tenor of responses in the notes.

I mean, the results are definitely to be expected if you're familiar with the side of Austen fandom doing a lot of the reblogging etc. But still, interesting!

Many Tumblr polls specify that they're asking about personal preferences that may be irrational—favorite/least favorite, coolest/most annoying, or something like that. This one, though, asked for the worst interpretation of P&P, not the most annoying one—and the current leader is "Darcy is never really proud, he's just shy and probably has anxiety" against some very steep competition on the Bad Takes front.

I was thinking about why that seemed a kind of tediously predictable choice even though I agree that the take is wrong, and realized that while I do disagree with the shy Darcy interpretation and I particularly disagree with the specific formulation where he is never proud at all, it ultimately feels to me like a failure of nuance rather than just completely wrongheaded like some of the others. And this is probably my fundamental difference with a lot of Darcy takes I see!

In my opinion, a character who is introverted and who feels awkward in various social situations and who doesn't like common social activities and who has to work himself up to talking to his crush and who is repeatedly suggested to behave very differently in contexts where he's more comfortable being interpreted as shy and anxious is not that big of a leap.

Yes, it's important that he is actually fundamentally confident and haughty, that he makes his personal feelings of discomfort other people's problem, and that he thinks he's such a unique and special butterfly that he doesn't need to even put in an effort outside his personal social circle. But it's a misreading that is easy to follow (and long predates the 2005 P&P, as I've mentioned before!).

The additional misreading that a shy and anxious Darcy is also never proud at all is a much more drastic leap, and in my experience, condemnations of shy Darcy interpretations rarely differentiate between "Darcy is shy as well as arrogant" and "Darcy is shy rather than arrogant" as interpretations (although their basic arguments are quite different). But even that as the worst possible misreading of P&P when Darcy is not even the main character is ?????????

I mean, for one alternative (not even the one I voted for!), the idea that Elizabeth is an author avatar Mary Sue seems a far worse misreading of P&P than basically anything to do with Darcy at all. The center piece of the entire novel is Elizabeth's epiphany of self-knowledge about her own shortcomings that do not particularly resemble Austen's at all, but were ethically a concern for her, and she's a complex, interesting character in general whom Austen correctly regarded as a major achievement. Inverting that into Elizabeth as an improbably perfect, reality-warping self-insert is deeply wrong and frankly pretty misogynistic as well.

(ngl though, it's a little funny to see such a blatantly terrible reading of Elizabeth rank so far behind the shy Darcy votes. I've gotten "does anyone actually think/say that?" so many times on my posts about Austen fandom's prioritization of Darcy's character development over Elizabeth's and yet...)

And even just going with the Darcy-centric misreadings, the idea of Darcy as a "bad boy" seems easily the most absolutely wrong take on him. His pride is at least complicated and the finer points can be fairly debated and it's a quality that actually changes somewhat throughout the novel, and you can have discussion over what happened when, whose testimonies should be weighted more, etc. But there is no point at which "bad boy" isn't utterly wrong for him. However, there's definitely a tendency in some wings of the fandom to find the idea of Darcy being misread too favorably more objectionable than him being read too unfavorably, regardless of the particulars, so it's not a surprise.

I suppose you could argue about what "worst" means in the context of variously bad interpretations. Like, is an interpretation that is about a fairly trivial aspect of the book but extremely wrong about it "worse" than an interpretation that is pretty bad but at least comprehensibly so about something very important?

[fromtheseventhhell]

Unlocked a new piece of "Arya can't control herself' lore and, apparently, people think her ability to control herself comes from her pretending to be someone else. So it isn't Arya who has self-control, it's Arry/Weasel/Nan/etc. and that's why she wouldn't be able to control herself in KL, cause she couldn't handle being "Arya". I am fascinated by people twisting themselves into pretzels to deny Arya's capabilities, at this point it's an unhealthy compulsion 😭

[jabberwockprince]

"She's not red and certainly no queen, but that doesn't matter. It really doesn't."

something about baby blue (baby red....) losing all of her otherwordly charm when she's actually lucid, something about baby blue acting as wonderland's tyrant, replacing the figure of the red queen. something about the dichotomy between alice and the queen of hearts being part of baby blue

[lovereadandwrite]

Nikolai during every DoA meeting🙂✨

[ingravinoveritas]

Just saw a post as well as a thread on Twitter about an incident that occurred at the stage door of Nye tonight and I am so sad and sickened to hear about this "fan's" behavior, both toward Michael and toward other fans. I've done many stage doors in the past (the most recent was going to see Ink on Broadway just before the pandemic) and seen a lot of entitled/unruly behavior from fans, but this woman and her mother barging into the bar, demanding a meet and greet, and then coming out and being horrific to other fans really takes the cake.

Michael works his ass off for endless hours to put on an amazing show every day/night. He gives 110% to every line, every step, every note in that musical number. Nye is a physically demanding play/role, and to get a show of that caliber from someone who is a master of his craft is more than anyone could ask for. Stage door--as lovely as it is, as fun as it can be--is not something he is required to do, especially when he's already feeling exhausted or under the weather. One thing the last several months have made clear is that Michael loves meeting fans--taking pictures, giving hugs, signing stuff, and just connecting with people. But the fact that this is not even the first time we've heard about fans going into the bar to bug him should be more than enough to give us all pause.

No one is entitled to Michael's time or attention. This particularly reminds me of an incident on Twitter a few years ago where one fan and their friends would not stop tagging Michael and demanding that he say something they wanted him to say. He'd been so incredibly giving and generous of his time with fans up until that point...and yet the second he drew a boundary, that fan and some others turned on him. Amazingly, that alone didn't put him off of engaging with the fandom entirely, but I have been in enough fandoms in my life to know that it is exactly behavior like this that will ruin things for everyone.

It also seems that Michael did come out following this incident tonight but had to leave, and he actually apologized to the nice fans who were still waiting (while apparently looking visibly upset himself). I know he apologized once before as well after a different fan went into the bar to get him, but we're beyond absurdity at this point. That Michael feels compelled to apologize for something that was not even his fault and especially after what that fan did absolutely breaks my heart, and is something that just should not be happening.

The run of Nye at the NT is nearly over, and I hope this won't put him off of doing stage door in the future (either for the remainder of this run or when it transfers to Cardiff), but I honestly would not blame him one bit if it did. What a loss it would be, though, both for the fans and for Michael...