#watching thus far

[sparring-spirals]

i want to ask your thoughts about ylfa from neverafter because eeeeee some many thoughts and i love your meta

thank you! :D i am Also full of Neverafter thoughts, and ESPECIALLY Ylfa thoughts, albeit with minimal time to ruminate on them, much less write meta. We're nearly at the next ep being released so I'm just going to toss some half marinated angstier thoughts at you for now rather than delay it another week! My apologies in advance for haphazardness!

tldr bc it got a little long: ylfa and rage and fear and preteen girls and that self sacrificial streak and monsters and princesses and. idk. its not super coherent ok.

In a rough order:

- God, I love Emily Axford's commitment to playing her characters as like...unflinchingly true to what she says they are. This IS an awkward preteen girl with all of that aching sincerity and hunger and rage and kindness and growing discomfort and also just. Tooth-aching awkwardness. Perfect.

- Emily Axford has Such A Big Brain for the way that this little Red is a barbarian, is a werewolf that she doesn't want to be. Little preteen girls with a rage that rips the world apart, the rage only matched by their bone deep fear of it.

- Red says over and over: I really appreciate a strong authority figure. I appreciate having some rules enforced. I like having guidance on what to do next. And I just. Augh. Of course! Of course. Shes a kid. She's a kid. She's not quite a kid anymore. She is outside of a house, hulking and dangerous and her skin and body different, and she is pleading in a voice distorted by something she is scared of, asking her mom to open the door, please. She's her kid. She's scared.

- Red is scared- Red was scared of the wolf, of what happened after straying, but in front of that house- by the time we meet her- Red is not quite scared of the wolf. She is scared of herself. She is scared of the damage she can do, the damage she brings. She is scared of monsters, but mostly the ones in the mirror.

- Red says: Women are either princesses, or monsters. And she's not a princess.

- (I love this refrain, this detail from her so much, there's SO MANY LAYERS to it. Like yes Rosamund and herself, yes Emily's comment during AP about werewolves as a puberty story and others perceiving. Its also about binaries and falling short of a bar and monstrous failure and "i think there's something wrong in me that others don't have, something fundamentally flawed-" and- god its fucking good. This could have its own meta.)

- Red is- wildly self sacrificial, and from tactics POV, like great! Barbarian tank! but also. Like. Fuck! This is a little girl. Far from home, with all of that unsureness and shyness and regret and something deeper that makes her keep. Putting herself out first. Everything she says to Mother Goose about: I think Rosamund is the key, so I'll protect her. I think you and your book might be the trick. I'll put myself in front of you. I create a bottleneck and stare down a sea of furniture to give my companions their shot. I breathe through the pain and let the girl fade and the beast take over.

- Red just wants an authority figure and some assurance. She just wants friends, she wants companionship and understanding, she wants to keep the people around her safe from the danger in her, she wants something to strive for.

- Red is at a fork between an easier story and a harder one and says. I want the easy story. I want soft endings and cookies and kindness. I don't want this hardship.

- Of course she doesn't. She's a kid.

- She's human.

- Red follows her grandmother down the harder path, eager for a guiding figure. She is tricked, maybe. But at the end of it- hearing about greater stories, about Mother Goose needing her help- she looks the hardship in the eye, and chooses to keep going.

- She comes back more wolf, less girl, this time. Stars in her eyes when she talks to Rosamund (a princess! In all the ways that matter.). Apologies for the claws and the flaws.

- Ylfa turns herself into forms that best serves the people around her, and apologizes profusely for it, and eagerly accepts guidance and correction. Ylfa says some girls are not meant to be princesses, best make the most of being a monster.

- "You royals keep beasts at your side! I will fight alongside you proudly."

- A bunch of cowards and the bravest little girl in the world. the bravest little girl, nothing to lose. the bravest little girl, scared to the bone and apologetic and furious and monstrous.

- "I'm thinking that- Survival doesn't feel inspiring, but I guess protecting does."

[arealtrashact]

How do you perceive Homelander's relationship with Ryan?

Oftentimes Homelander acts like a child towards his own pre-teen son, basically throwing tantrums, being jealous and pouty, etc... It's almost like he is Ryan's best buddy and not a "single father of one" lol

The whole ""merging as one"" thing completely fucked up my perception of their relationship, because in the end i was hoping it wouldn't all come down to Homelander seeing Ryan as an extension of himself and treating him like absolute shit, yet deep down all of us knew the truth 🥲

Though he's smartened up lately and realized that he's been a huge jerk...

(which he still is 😑😑)

By the way I'm a big fan of your art and love studying the composition, colors and everything!! Hope i get to hear your opinion on this someday ❤️

I perceive it as being 100% in line with the rest of his character. That is to say, I like it.

I like the fact that Homelander's stunted maturity bleeds into his parenting. It's like watching a child try to raise another child ; alarming and strange -- but there's an undeniable ( albeit very warped ) innocence to it.

It's no secret that Homelander tries to cram as much as he can into a single relationship at a time and I like that Ryan isn't exempt from this. Ryan is his son and his best buddy. It's fascinating to watch him walk this tightrope between wanting Ryan to see him as an indestructible pillar of strength while also demanding colossal amounts of emotional and mental support from him ( that of which another adult could only realistically provide to him )

I love the scene in season two where Homelander reveals the truth about his childhood to Ryan. The acting is superb - HL sneaking hesitant glances at Ryan like he's the child, fessing up to something shameful. Waiting for rejection.

TLDR ; I think parent-child enmeshment is a given for someone like Homelander. I have no notes. No complaints. I just want to see more.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

2x7 | 4x2

[morningsaidthemoon]

This exchange made me laugh. Really hard

[rosifire]

Obligatory “I don’t have a problem with CaitVi” but I think, for me, their story (separate from their own personal character arcs) would/will be more compelling if it ends up being irreparable between them.

I think Arcane is good at subverting expectations and tropes; the most memorable example I can think of is in S1E3 where Powder follows after Vi and the boys to save Vander. We’ve all seen the “friends are in trouble, but the plucky young hero comes in at the nick of time to save them against all odds” plot twist—but Arcane subverts that. In fact, Powder’s involvement and her monkey bomb finally working is the thing that, tragically, leads to Claggor and Mylo’s death, Vi’s injury, Vander’s death(?), so on and so forth. It worked, but it didn’t work. And to me, that's the tragedy of it. That good intentions weren't enough.

So, personally, I see a setup between Caitlyn and Vi: the Romeo and Juliet archetype, two initially-begrudging people working together amongst classism and prejudice, and finding companionship against all odds. Class, wealth, opportunity separates them; Caitlyn is a scion of one of Piltover’s most influential and powerful families, and Vi is… a nobody from the Undercity, wrongfully imprisoned, when they first meet. It’s a way for them to both see that the “other side” isn’t as bad as they’ve always been told. That there are Good People on either side of the bridge. That, hell, love can be found, too.

But oftentimes, I believe this trope in particular ignores a lot of the real-world factors that could come into play with a friendship or relationship that “defies” station. The fact is, Caitlyn does come from a world of privilege, and Vi is treated differently by Caitlyn’s peers. The whole of Season two, Vi has been referred to as one of the “good ones”. Maddie explicitly says that it's good to know that there are still "good ones" around. The implication that you’re not like them. Time and time again, Vi is treated like an Other. A “good” other, but an other all the same. She's welcome in Piltover, but only just - and only when Caitlyn vouches for her. And at the climax of their story thus far, Caitlyn outright says to her, “I keep telling myself that you're different. but you're not. It's [Jinx's] blood in your veins”. I'm sure grief and anger are a part of why she says this, but that's becoming a catalyst for the discrimination she seems to be steadily believing in more and more. Whether or not she ends up meaning this, it's a ghastly thing to say.

And with the way things are developing with Caitlyn, who is actively weaponizing her privilege and power, and who is very quickly going down a very dangerous and fascist path, I don’t know if their relationship could — or should! — be rectified. She's a cop, and a very privileged one at that. I don’t know if this is a love that could “defy all odds”, and in my opinion, I think it would be more interesting, and more compelling, if it didn’t.

[sneaky-snake-907]

My copy isn't coming until the 25th apparently, so I know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow.

[runefactorynonsense]

Melotober - Day 25 - Sword

A work of art...

[bayheart]

HIIIIII so this was for a server gift exchange teehee, my giftee was @funnywizard3000 !!! AS U CAN TELL BY THE USERNAME.... funny wizard image was in order :)

team game night!!!!! bulkhead is winning. also prowl would have corrected bee on the dnd spell name first if he wasn’t busy using this opportunity to look at bulkhead’s cards. u know how it is 💖

[kmesons]

listening to the demos for cinderella's castle is an interesting experience, because for the first time in years, these starkid songs aren't attached to a pre-existing universe, so we get entirely unfamiliar melodies. that's not to say that hatchetfield gave us new songs in every installment of the series, but in cinderella's castle, we get completely new leitmotifs to analyse, which is really fun.

[phocidine]

Everyones saying “oh thank god the new people didn’t come today” like tomorrow isn’t going to be somehow 10x weirder

[bellatheinkdemon]

Well I know what I'm saving my money on

[callias-w]

Old man yaoi

[mc-critical]

Curious that in the wake of Süleiman's first campaign, both Hürrem and Hatice are scared of forever losing the people they've come to love and have latched onto in order to keep going and find new meaning for themselves after their seemingly dealbreaking past and recent losses, all the while Hafsa reveals her intention to marry both of them off all in the same episode, thus reinforcing the alienation they would feel in Süleiman and Ibrahim's absences and threatening to fully cement it, cutting them off from their actual loves and bringing misery to them both.

[elizabethrobertajones]

jump scared by the 4th Doctor saying "well" with an uncanny intonation to how 10 says it, except I thought that was just a David Tennant-ism considering he does it in everything eventually, like, that CAN'T have started with him copying this cadence and absorbing it into his being? Right?

[calamitys-child]

I love sci-fi especially older sci-fi for the reliance it has as a genre upon 1. Smoke machine under a solemnly beeping light bulb and 2. Incredibly Styrofoam Objects being placed atop actors Dutifully Struggling Beneath Their Imagined Weight

[5-pp-man]

Required reading for Penguindrum; Night on the Galactic Railroad, history of a post WW2 Japan, history of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyou (mainly their domestic terrorist attacks on Japan), The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, Adam and Eve (the Bible)