#will shine while talking about it

[speakofshinee]

Having fun on tour~ ♥︎ [250321 TAEMINLOG]

[emmodii-mode]

Ah... The elegance and grace of the Crown of Arsur.

[thevalleyisjolly]

Thinking about how many of the main characters in Andor Season 1 are, from their perspective, living in different stories and genres. Syril is the classic disgraced detective obsessing over the failure of his last case. Dedra is the brilliant lone career woman in a high-pressure male-dominated workplace. Skeen, Nemik, Taramyn, Gorn are the unlikely band of misfits attempting to pull off the heist of the century; Vel and Cinta are embroiled in espionage intrigue with Luthen. Mon Mothma's deep in the midst of a political thriller, complete with the trope of a troubled home life. Kino and all the prisoners of Narkina 5 are caught up in a grim prison drama.

Part of the brilliance of the show is that it embraces each of these characters as the protagonist of their own narratives. Dedra is very clearly an antagonist to most of the other characters, but in her interactions with her colleagues and Syril, you can sympathize with how she is dismissed and put down and harassed. Syril's scenes wouldn't be out of place in a detective show - the lone officer, demoted from his position, waking up every morning to a depressing house and a mindnumbing job yet continuing to pursue his self-identified duty with a relentless sense of righteousness and persecution. Mon Mothma's story tangentially intersects with Cassian's, but both enriches and is enriched by the contrast in perspective - the broader context of galaxy-wide politics with the immediate realities that people live with, including for Mon herself through the impact on her family life.

And then we come back to Ferrix. Maarva, Bix, Brasso, Bee, Wilmon, the Daughters, the Time Grappler, the whole community. Where the season starts and where the season ends, with a call to fight the Empire and a community that answers. A community full of different people with different motivations and methods and views and yet maybe that's the point of the whole story. Even though on an individual level, characters might seem like they're in different stories or genres, facing their own challenges and seeking their own goals, everything occurs under the context of Imperial fascism. No one can escape it, no matter what story they think they're in or how big or small their role in it.

Syril and Dedra aren't just lone agents dismissed by their superiors, they're people embracing a fascist system and doing everything they can to uphold it despite how they themselves have been treated by that system. The Aldhani team, Mon Mothma, Luthen, their enemies aren't really the garrison at the dam or the ISB's surveillance or the endless rebel infighting; they're only the immediate faces of the Empire's oppression and division. The Narkina 5 prisoners aren't just trying to live. If all they wanted was to stay alive, they could have continued working until they died. It's the Empire who is responsible for how they're being treated, and they'd rather die trying to take them down.

The uprising on Rix Road brings it all home. After all the places that the season has taken us, all the challenges and arcs that these characters have faced, it comes back full circle to where we started - with ordinary people living under fascist rule. Some work with it, some against it, most try to keep their heads down and survive it. All alone in their personal stories and obstacles...except they aren't, not really. The Empire's rot is in all their lives. There is no escaping the reach of fascism, no matter what kind of life they try to lead or what decisions they make. Individualism won't save anyone - in fact, it's what the Empire wants. For everyone to feel alone, either singular and insignificant against an insurmountable force or otherwise striving endlessly to be the exception above the masses, the heroic underdog who overcomes massive obstacles (and everyone else) to save the day and get what they want.

Ferrix wakes up and in doing so they wake everyone up. None of them exist alone. Everyone is part of this, whether they are for or against the Empire. And when all these people and their stories come together, meeting, clashing, struggling, harmonizing... that's when a revolution starts coming into its own.

[kismetconstellations]

"Please! We come from a peaceful planet! We mean you no harm. We're unarmed!"

[ct-multifandom]

I haven’t replayed or talked about YTTD in forever but I can’t stop thinking about how Mai, despite being a baker with a dessert pastry character design vibe, canonically fucking loves vegetables. Her favorite foods are vegetable dishes. That’s so real and iconic. I genuinely feel represented by her. I’m so tired of all the anti-veggie propaganda in fiction where characters are written to love junk food, dessert, and meat in an attempt to be relatable. Mai is a sweets-coded yet veggie-loving queen, and it’s played straight. None of that “she’s forcing herself to eat them to be healthy” bs, just a professional food-maker who knows what’s good.

[ctrl-lupin]

Pizzaz!

[willowreadsgayfanfiction]

[imerian]

My (very old) loscar brooch (?) that i just now made doodles for

More pictures under cut

[effei-s]

so.... watch me, huh?

it's amazing (no) that it's been ten years and mafi still doesn't know how to make warner look good outside of BUT DID YOU KNOW ADAM SUCKS?????????? ADAM BAAAAAAAD! WARNER COOL!!! AND IF YOU DIDN'T HEAR ME THE FIRST HUNDRED TIMES WHILE JULIETTE COMPARED THEM, AND THEN KENJI COMPARED THEM, I'LL REPEAT IT A HUNDRED TIMES MORE WITH JAMES COMPARING THEM! SO! ADAM SUCKS! WARNER COOL!

GETTTTTT IT???????????? DO YOU GET IT?????????????

DO YOU??????????

i'm sorry warner is supposed to be mafi's best character, nevermind that that's THIRTY YEARS OLD MAN, and she still can't fucking let him stand on his own. someone always has to be on the side with a bright neon sign WARNER IS COOL! ISN'T HE THE BEST????? CLAP MOTHERFUCKERS! (and remember adam sucks!).

and... shit that pissed me off so bad i nearly threw my laptop against the wall:

oh, oh, i'm so fucking sorry james that adam wasn't a rich nepo baby of a fascist dictator who gave him the high-paying job and cool wardrobe and personal headquarters with hot water, so he would have the time to spend with you instead of dropping out of school and looking for any job he could so he could give you food and shelter.

the fucking AUDACITY to compare them. the NERVE. you fucking ungrateful asshole.

@cyanidesouffle is kind and cool. she won't call james an asshole. but i will. because that's exactly what he is.

@queenclacker i'm literally fucking speechless. i knew the book will suck ass, i wasn't even planning to read it. what i didn't expect is that i will hate james more than ella and aaron combined (!!!!), and one fucking chapter would be what did it. insane.

[real-life-cloud]

Okay I Finished Deltarune 3+4 . I Feel So Emotionally Overwhelmed That I Am Nauseous .

[sleepyhouse2art]

thinking of you today, terry. you were a beautiful human being and now you are an angel. god appreciates the temple you built for him here. i know hes holding you close to him

[neliq]

Suho, 240526 SU:HOME (video from x here, song here)

[navree]

so john and arthur, combined, are the dies irae motif from music? like, the catholic funeral mass theme?

[sonknuxadow]

im sorry but this shot is really funny to me for some reason

[gingermintpepper]

Finished Wuwa's main campaign last night and after sitting on it for, well, the night, I felt compelled to talk about how fantastically they handled the atmosphere of the conflict. All of the playable characters in Jinzhou helping out? Seeing Yuanwu fight alongside Midnight Rangers, or Verina healing the injured soldiers huddled behind weapons and getting healing items from them -- Aalto and Encore seeing the escalating disaster and being like "Okay damn, we'd really love to stick around and help but we need to alert the rest of the world that we might have a global disaster on our hands", the way they used communicators to keep Jinshi, Mortefi and Baizhi in the loop without ever needing extraneous cutaways and decentering the conflict. There was a TON of environmental storytelling that I really appreciated -- Jiyan still seeing vivid phantoms in the Retroact Rain because he didn't take an antidote and is instead saving them for his troop + any unlucky person caught in it, the Midnight Rangers staying at their posts to combat the TDs even when they get super close, the amount of corpses everywhere like!! !!!! Yes!! This is it!!! This what I wanted!!! I love that it FELT like this is a city that's seen a shitton of wars and conflicts, everyone was on the ball and knew exactly where they needed to be and do!! This is how you do crisis situations in games!!! Oh my god yes!!!!

[winepresswrath]

seeing nicki get dragged through the mud on account of fandom drama that isn't even about him honestly feels right. very armand core.