#but alas. the narrative. it knows where he lives.

[lesbiansforboromir]

In a BoromirLives fanfic, Faramir must be forced to confront this line of his in particular; Whether he erred or no, of this I am sure: he died well, achieving some good thing. His face was more beautiful even than in life. It's vital to me that this is addressed. Because in Tolkien beauty is holy, they are intertwined inextricably, the holy will be beautiful.

Boromir did not live a beautiful holy life according to most, his life is not spoken of with uncomplicated worth by any but Denethor, Eomer, Theoden and Pippin (all either 'simple' or outwardly rebellious against god). But he did die a beautiful holy death, it is what most people praise him for and in Faramir's mystical dream where he sees Boromir's dead body floating down the river, this is his reaction. Boromir's corpse was more beautiful than his living body, because in death he was 'redeemed' and served his purpose in the great holy plan. He 'died well'.

This is horrifying right? It horrifies me when I read it. And I think it so concisely reveals how Faramir and many others viewed Boromir. I am essentially here to argue that this is all about piety, once again, yes I'm a one track record.

Gandalf, when hearing of Boromir's death from Aragorn, declares; It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake.

Now, what is Gandalf saying here? Boromir did not escape, he died. Does he mean he escaped corruption? Well, no, since apparently this 'escape' had something to do with Merry and Pippin and Boromir shook off the pull of the Ring long before he was sent to find them. What role did Merry and Pippin play in this 'escape'? Well, Boromir died for them, he had too, there was no other way out of that ambush. So by process of elimination the only thing the 'young hobbits' did that was 'for Boromir's sake' was... to be there so he could die for them, right?

And remember, his death did not actually save them or really help in any way, the hobbits are still taken and the Uruk-hai's downfall has nothing to do with Boromir. In fact Aragorn squandered any time Boromir might have given him to catch up to the Uruk-hai by spending hours on his funeral. So, the death alone is what is being called 'good' here, what is beautiful. Boromir dies and that is beautiful and something to be glad for, according to Gandalf and Faramir.

But why do they think this? Faramir has his 'alas for Boromir, whom I too loved' and Gandalf laments 'poor Boromir', so they have at least some pity for him. What was 'good' to them about Boromir dying? Well we all know this one don't we, it's the accepted narrative of it all, Boromir 'redeemed' himself with this deed. He tried to take the Ring, and for this crime he needed redemption that he gained through vainly giving up his life to try and save Merry and Pippin.

But, in fact, Boromir himself has a slightly different way of phrasing it. Boromir says, of his own death; ‘I tried to take the Ring from Frodo,’ [-] ‘I am sorry. I have paid.’

He paid for it. To Boromir, in this cosmic exchange, he chose wrongly and paid for the offence with his death. This wasn't redemption, it was spiritual commerce, crime and punishment. Which is a perspective that once again demonstrates Boromir's enduring lack of 'faith' or spirituality. The powers of the west and Eru may exist, but they exist to him as forces of nature, some fact of the world we all must just live with, not something that fills him with hope or brings him nobility or meaning or a 'higher purpose'. Boromir does not want to be closer to divinity, he does not want to be beautiful or noble, he wants his people to be safe.

But of course, this is entirely opposite to Faramir's perspective, and if not downright heretical then at least unfaithful. So, when alive, Boromir cannot achieve 'beauty' in Faramir's mind, because he is unfaithful. It is only when he is dead, when 'fate' draws him into this spiritually good 'end' that sees him give up his life for a holy quest, when Boromir's life is no longer defined by him but by his death, that he can be beautiful.

And bringing this all the way back around, there are two ways you could do this in a boromirlives fic. Either, Boromir comes back but he does not look like he did in Faramir's dream. He did not pay, he is still alive to define who he is and Faramir finds himself slowly drawn into this terrible psychological horror as he realises he misses his brother's death more than he missed his actual brother.

Or Faramir needs to be confronted with a brother who looks dead to him. Boromir has come back and to Faramir's eyes he looks exactly as he did in the dream, but now this corpse moves and speaks and can no longer be confined to one perfect conceptual moment. And this also horrifies him. It is for authors to decide if this is just an aspect of Faramir's perspective, or if Boromir actually 'came back wrong' as it were, he did pay but somehow he came back anyway.

#text post #boromir #faramir #erran vs tolkien

[ryin-silverfish]

I really like Azure Lion as a character. Yeah, you can stop following me now. /j

But no, seriously, I like how LMK has adapted this particular character, given him way more potential complexity than his novel counterpart——not that it's a high bar, the LCR trio of JTTW are just demon warlords living in a literal human slaughterhouse.

Which is why I deeply dislike the take that "Oh, Azure manipulated SWK into fighting the JE! He's just using him like a pawn!" Like, wow, way to completely butcher two characters' personality and agency in one go.

Such takes reduce SWK to some innocent kid, when he is at most an impulsive, daring teenager who haven't met a single real obstacle so far——he robbed the dragon kings blind, and they couldn't do a thing! He struck his name and all his monkeys' names off the Book of Life and Death! What couldn't he do?

And Azure's failing isn't him telling a toddler: "You know what? Driving your tricycle into oncoming traffic will be real fun, trust me kiddo." It's letting his friend go way over the speed limit and not telling him that he should maybe, y'know, slow down, bc he'd seen his epic driving skills, SWK's the bestest driver he ever met, surely nothing would happen!

(And also, no one in that car is sober, except Macaque.)

What I'm getting at here is, even without Azure, SWK is not gonna be content with sitting on his mountain, eating peaches forever. Hell, he sure doesn't in the novel, where his demon king brothers are little more than namedropped NPCs.

He is always gonna want more, chase after greater destinies, drown out that existential ennui and fear of death at the back of his mind with bigger and bigger power-ups and the laughters of his companions.

He told himself he would be content after getting this one thing he wanted. That he could stop at any time. But alas, like any ADHDer, he will not stop at this one exciting thing, and sooner or later, the boredom sets in, and he gets ideas and impulsively leaps into making them reality.

That is the Mind Monkey at his worst: being a whirlwind of chaos, while unknowingly enslaved to his own chaotic mind.

(In the book, this is Wu Cheng'en's reminder to the reader that, even though you shouldn't keep your heart constantly under lock and keys, Neo-Confucian style, the other extreme——letting it go completely wild, disregarding all external rules and consequences, can be equally disastrous.)

And when that car was driven through the Celestial Palace's front door, off a bridge, and straight into a ditch, it was him in the driver's seat, steering the wheels the whole time.

Everyone else in that car failed terribly as friends when they didn't voice any objections, or try to get him off the driver's seat, or realize that cheering and egging him on is an awful idea, however genuine their blind trust was.

Like, they are certainly not helping, and made the situation much, much worse. If you let your buddy drive while under influence and hand him more beers in the car, even if you are also drunk out of your mind and aren't actively trying to get him into a traffic accident, you are a shitty, irresponsible friend.

But the thing is? SWK is still responsible for the consequences of his decisions. He could have stopped, by his own volition, and no one was holding a gun to his head and forcing him to drive. He, too, wanted this.

That, to me, makes a much more interesting narrative than "Poor innocent baby SWK was puppeted into becoming the Great Sage in Heaven by shady blue cat, how awful!"

Oh, and since I'm feeling particularly salty today, I'll also ask some last questions: is SWK so weak-willed and devoid of self-agency to you that he couldn't even OWE his most famous title, the Great Sage in Heaven, 100%, without being manipulated into it?

Is SWK so immature and unintelligent to you that he is incapable of being a genuine idealist or rebel, that he cannot agree, out of the depth of his heart, that the Celestial Realm sucks balls and needs better management?

TL;DR: Havoc! Era Azure Lion isn't some cult leader brainwashing this kid into becoming his figurehead. He's the dumbass who's too busy staring at his teenage crush to care about the blaring police sirens.

Also, I had a bit of an epiphany after writing this: why am I so annoyed by people reading Azure's idealization of SWK as him intentionally manipulating and love-bombing him? Because it is a very western and modern reading.

For someone with traditional Confucian beliefs, it is perfectly normal——it is what you are supposed to feel, as a liege who has found your just and virtuous lord.

If Romance of the Three Kingdoms existed back then, he would probably describe himself as the Guan Yu to SWK's Liu Bei, however wonky the analogy was.

(Gosh, now I want a "Four Classics read each other" crossover.)

I'm not saying it is healthy or wise. But under this context, putting your lord on a pedestral was normalized, and even encouraged, as the virtue of a righteous gentleman. It was the sort of ideals romanticized culture-wide. NOT having such beliefs would probably make you look weird.

And since the Celestial Realm in the novel is a parody of Confucian hierarchy in a Daoist trenchcoat, it was really no surprise that an idealistic ex-celestial soldier would hold the same beliefs.

To torture the analogy further, the problem is that he was trying to be the Guan Yu to SWK's Liu Bei, when the Brotherhood had more in common with the Bandits of the Marsh, down to their giant downer ending.

#lego monkie kid #azure lion #lmk azure lion #lmk sun wukong #sun wukong #rant #chinese literature #journey to the west

[carlyraejepsans]

Man I skimmed through that "Gaster is the one who wrote the True Lab Entries" video that circulating and just...

It is such a peculiar video. Incredibly researched points yet small incorrect statements (e.g calling the Golden Flowers "Buttercups" or assuming Asgore didn't live in his New Home house????). Interesting points yet rather harsh to Alphys (it calls her a fraud like three times despite her overall accomplishing so much). Good analysis yet overlooking crucial details for the theory to work (such as "What is the narrative point of having Alphys's whole Arc closer not be her own accomplishments and failures?").

It's such a shame because the author evidently put a lot of time and thought into it, but it also feels like they are trying to push the theory together with pieces of a much more obvious puzzle. Missing the forest for the trees or something like that.

And alas, it now makes me want to see well written (or atleast decently understand) media that does involve Gaster and Alphys, because they do have a lot of potential when you aren't gutting one to fill another.

gonna be frank w you I don't know what you see in that video at all. "interesting points" it's just half an hour of making up inconsistencies that aren't there and then gutting all of Alphys' dedicated subplot to explain said inconsistencies (that aren't there) and give them to Gaster.

not only that, the entire assumption that gaster's work would be out there in the open and accessible through regular gameplay is such a complete misunderstanding of his character inspiration and theme. he's not meant to be found. in the original version of the game, his fun events were accessible through file editing ONLY. he very obviously plays off of easter eggs and creepypasta-like game secrets, so why would his entries just... be there. in the unskippable, story required segment of the pacifist run. it just speaks to a really clueless form of analysis where it's so obvious that the theorist hasn't considered authorial intent.

i am genuinely this close to deciding that the "symbols... or maybe it's the handwriting" you read on the workshop blueprints are actually just Alphys, no gaster involved. as petty revenge. see people argue against THAT for once.

#biscia hater moment #if i ever make a secret deep lore genius character in my original work I'm making her a woman effective immediately #so much of this bad analysis is just barely disguised misogyny #answered asks

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 叛逆者/The Rebel.

The Rebel is a 2021 period drama set during the 1930s and '40s as seen (mostly) from Shanghai by a patriotic young man who just keeps getting injured, ow, that poor baby.

It's a fairly realistic spy drama, by which I mean, there's not a bunch of cute costume changes or fun fake identities. Instead, this is a story about people who live entire other lives for years, keeping their true allegiances under wraps, doing what they can to help their side while sweating out what they can’t. It's way more John le Carré than Ian Fleming -- no James Bond flashiness or gizmos, all George Smiley subterfuge and paperwork. Actual spycraft is tough, kids!

Full disclaimer up front: This show is not a happy fun good time. It's a fascinating, gripping, tense piece of work about a thirteen-year period of history where a whole lot of miserable things were happening. The body count is frighteningly high. Be very careful about which characters you get attached to. Exactly one man has plot armor, so God help the rest of them.

However, if you're up for a quality drama with a serious tone that's so full of HISTORY! it's bursting at the seams, I have five reasons you should give this one a shot:

1. Starring the veins in Zhu Yilong's forehead

Do you feel like watching a beautiful man have a terrible day for 43 episodes straight?

This show is absolutely a Zhu Yilong vehicle. The rest of the cast is great (and more on them later), but he's the star -- and the show just loves to beat him up, both emotionally and physically. His character, Lin Nansheng, exists in a Murphy's-Law situation where if anything bad can happen to him, it will. If you like seeing this gorgeous gentleman in distress, this show has you covered.

Someone please care him.

2. Daddy Issues

Chen Moqun is a bad, bad man. He's a bastard in his first scene, and he's a bastard in his last. He is loyal to exactly one thing, and that is his own survival. He will ally with anyone and fuck anyone over if it means he gets to live another day.

He is also scaldingly hot in his bastardry.

Chen Moqun is the spymaster who pulls Lin Nansheng out of the regular military ranks and into the world of the intelligence services, despite Lin Nansheng's lack of experience in the field. This means that Lin Nansheng is Chen Moqun's little golden boy -- and that means Chen Moqun feels justified in making Lin Nansheng do whatever the hell he wants, and in getting all up in Lin Nansheng's business when he doesn't do it perfectly.

I know there are several of you out there whose tails just started wagging. Good, you've got it.

Alas that he is not in nearly as much of the series as his top billing suggests he would be. He's a major figure in the early arcs, but pretty soon after, Circumstances relocate him to somewhere Lin Nansheng isn't -- and because Lin Nansheng is our POV character, Chen Moqun all but vanishes from the show. He reappears later, but as a much less prominent figure. Still a self-serving bastard, though! Don't worry about that.

I like Chen Moqun as a character for a lot of reasons. He's slimy, but he's effective. He's smart, but he's not a supervillain. He's the kind of competent bastard that it's very fun to watch the good guys outwit. He kind of has to leave the narrative, because he's so sharp that much of the plot would be impossible under his supervision; he gets replaced by [spoiler], whose general incompetence makes him dangerous in a very different way, but who is so self-absorbed that he can't see when he's being played. Pulling the wool over Chen Moqun's eyes is a much nastier business.

At the same time, though, he's a coward. He'll sell out anything and anyone to save his own skin. His lack of inner conviction eventually reduces him to something pathetic, leaving him at the mercy of people he once abused, Lin Nansheng included. ...Ah, your tails are wagging harder now, I see.

Now, for those of you who are not into a Bad Daddy dynamic, may I sell you on how Lin Nansheng also has two Good Daddies?

Honestly, if this show had not been laboring under the weight of [gestures to the state of Chinese media and culture], I'm pretty sure they would have made at least one of these two Older Lifelong Bachelors textually gay. I'm just saying, throw-yourself-into-the-cause-style patriotism is a great cover for never marrying and being cagey about your entire personal life.

Also, I know their super-secret espionage meetups on park benches aren't intended to look like dudes cruising, but come on.

3. A startlingly good love story???

And I say "startlingly" because the love story comes in multiple stages, and I haaaaaate the first one. Fortunately, so does the show!

When Lin Nansheng and Zhu Yizhen start off their romance, she's a wealthy college schoolgirl (which comes off as more than a little creepy, since Tong Yao is clearly in her late thirties) and he's a TA at her school -- except she's actually a student activist working for the Communists, and he's a member of the KMT sent to seduce her and infiltrate her cell. It goes exactly as badly as you'd expect! And when it was clear it was over for good, I breathed a sigh of relief. I liked them both as individual characters, but as a romantic pairing, the amount of malicious deception involved really wasn't doing it for me, to say nothing of how I dislike teacher/student as a trope. (Also, they really have no chemistry together, but whatever, I'm used to c-drama hets by now.) Well, I thought, thank goodness all that's over and we'll never have to come back to it!

But here's the thing: They come together again later under different circumstances, and oh, that's some good stuff. She gets a haircut, he gets to be himself, and the two of them have to learn how to work together even when they can't entirely trust one another.

That amount of deception is great, because that's not lies -- it's opsec. They are both withholding colossal amounts of information from one another, and each one of them knows the other's doing it, even if they don't know what information is being withheld. They both want to know what the other person knows, but they also know that person would die before giving up their secrets.

This does lead to a number of points where you're hollering JUST TELL HIM/HER at the screen, which can get a little frustrating. But, like, you get it. They've got reasons for not sharing information, and grim little reason number one is, the bad guys can't torture out of you what you don't know.

This is not a romance drama; this is a drama that happens to have a complicated romance stitched all the way through it. Sometimes it's the main focus, but much of the time it's a side note. The two of them go years at a time without interacting. They each spend a fair amount of time believing the other is dead. When they do get to work together, they're great partners. When they're separated or at odds, they don't collapse.

I said earlier that Lin Nansheng is the POV character, which is mostly true. However, we do get a not-small amount of the story told from Zhu Yizhen's POV when he's not around, which goes a long way toward making her an actual person and not just an accessory to his story -- and that goes a long way toward making this romance something between equals, and not just a case where a nice guy feels real bad about how much he fucked over the girl he liked.

I'd say that if you're looking for a drama where the love story is a central point of interest, or for a drama without any love story at all, you'll be happier elsewhere. However, if you're a Goldilocks who enjoys a fraught love story when it's there but doesn't miss it when it's gone, this may strike a good balance for you!

This pair is also about as much as the show gets in terms of textual, onscreen romance. Howerver, there are also a number of couples in this show who have to pretend to be married, if that's a trope that does it for you. And speaking of those...

4. My Fair Lady

Lan Xinjie turned out to be maybe my favorite character in the show, which surprised the hell out of me, considering how she was introduced as a pretty throwaway character: Oh, look, a pretty and sophisticated woman at the dance hall, she can use her refined and wordly ways to make The Virgin Lin Nansheng sweat, it's great.

But then she comes back. In fact, she keeps exiting the narrative and then showing up again a couple episodes later! Her continued involvement with these spy boys keeps both ruining her life and saving it. Every time you think she's gotten out, circumstances pull her back into Lin Nansheng's catastrophe orbit, making her maybe the most tragic character in a series full of them.

Here's a thing that impressed me about the drama: Lan Xinjie is a sex worker, but the show never shits on her for that. The show presents what she's doing as negative, but mostly because she doesn't particularly enjoy doing it. She keeps doing it, though, because sometimes it's the best way for her to make money, and sometimes it's the only way for her to make money.

The thing is, Lan Xinjie herself never talks about what she's doing like it's some tragic fate. It's a job. She has to play nice with jackass men from all over the world, and she can do it because men fall all over a pretty girl like her. Whenever Lin Nansheng makes a sad face about it, she basically rolls her eyes at him. She has a very solid grasp of the way the world works, and she's going to do what she needs to do to keep herself and her loved ones alive.

Now: Lan Xinjie definitely functions in the narrative as a contrast to how Good and Pure Communist Girl-Next-Door Zhu Yizhen is. Lan Xinjie is a little too much of a Fallen Woman, so she's never going to threaten Zhu Yizhen's position as the main love interest. However, it would have been so easy to go all in on slut-shaming Lan Xinjie to make that contrast even starker, and the show does not do that. It does not judge her for her choices, in part because it understands that women like her very often doesn't have any.

On top of all of this, Zhu Zhu can act her damn face off. There are story beats that could have been melodramatic and unintentionally comic, but she sells them and makes them devastating. Arguably the best scenes in the entire show are when she and Zhu Yilong are working together, because the two of them consistently turn in stellar performances. This show is not exactly a font of subtlety (see my next point), but both of them manage to play their roles with restraint and dignity that make their moments together shine.

I won't spoil where exactly this goes, but to me, the complicated relationship between Lin Nansheng and Lan Xinjie is one of the highlights of the show. It's a lot of guilt and obligation intertwined with genuine affection, and because it can't be The Love Story, it winds up being a very fraught, intimate friendship that lasts through the best and worst parts of both of their lives.

Also, everything she wears is stunning. Marry me, Miss Lan.

5. Makes you feel real smart!

Hey, nerds! Do you like history? Because boy oh boy, is this a show about history!

It's so much a show about history, in fact, that it occasionally has to break into little documentary-style interludes, where you get to watch pictures of actual historical footage while one of the cast members narrates a small summary of what's going on with the geopolitical situation at that moment. Everyone in the main cast is fictional, but there are plenty of real names dropped all over the place. You aren't expected to know everything already, but you're definitely expected to keep up.

I will admit that I don't know the ins and outs of that historical period well enough to fact-check a lot of the particulars, so I can't swear to the accuracy of its various smaller moves. I do know enough about it to know, though, that this story is a little biased.

And by that I mean: This show is propaganda through and through. It’s all about how well the Righteous Communists did in their battle first against the Terrible Japanese, then against the Wicked KMT (the non-Communist Nationalists). Characters give stirring declarations of their principles at a rate of about one every other episode. There’s a whole scene where two dudes sit on a park bench and talk animatedly about what a great and prescient writer Mao was. Be prepared to be serenaded by a number of (what I assume are) stirring Communist anthems.

This all has zero emotional resonance to me. There were several points I could tell it was making references to events and people and speeches that are surely real historical things, but I lack most of the cultural competency that I’d need to recognize them without explanation. The climactic moment of Lin Nansheng’s joining the Communists (this is not a spoiler, you know it’s coming from the get-go) mostly seemed goofy to me, especially with the closed-fist salute that looks like you’re about to punch yourself in the head.

See what I mean?

All of which is to say: The propaganda did not bother me, because I mostly found it abstract and funny. And for heaven's sake, I'm from the US; I learned how to laugh my way through unsubtle pro-government propaganda watching Saturday morning cartoons.

However, I can imagine people closer to these cultures and events having MUCH stronger reactions. If this is you, yeah, be careful.

What's kind of sad (and by sad I mean funny) is how much the blatant Communism! Fuck Yeah! just turns the show into the "How do you do, fellow kids?" of propaganda. If it had just told the story, it honestly would have done a better job of making the Communists seem like the cool underdogs against the overpowering forces of authoritarian jackassery. But when you have someone all but turn to the camera damn near every episode to make sure you, the viewer, know how good and noble and smart its brave communist characters are, it sure spoils the effect.

I honestly don't know enough about the production team to know how accidental or intentional this was. Is it possible the drama is actually subtly lampooning these hyper-patriotic tropes? Sure, maybe! Is it possible that it actually believes this cringe with all its heart? Could be! Is it maybe neutral on matters of personal belief but playing up this version of history to get the show approved by party censors during the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP? Ah, yeah, that's the most likely one. Believe what you want about its motivations. Those who are inclined to be moved by its ideologies probably will be. The rest of us, probably the opposite.

All that said: I actually think it's useful and good to hear obviously biased takes on historical events, especially from unfamiliar and non-western perspectives. This is because all takes on historical events are biased, and it's dangerous and stupid to pretend they're not! Looking at how someone tells a story is as instructive as looking at the story they tell. If you go into the Rebel with that in mind, it adds a meta-layer of interest that I (a historian) find fascinating.

Ready to watch, comrade?

This one's an iQiyi exclusive -- and it's not a VIP exclusive, so if you're willing to put up with some ads, you can watch it all for free.

This is a show I'm probably never going to watch all the way through again, on account of how heavy it is. However, it is also a show I'm very glad I watched, because I find myself thinking about it a lot. Even when it's being hokey and jingoistic, it never stops being interesting. It's just a well-made drama that contains multitudes.

And, of course, one of those is this beautiful man's beautiful face.

#the rebel #叛逆者 #lin nansheng #i made this #rec post

[ambrosiagourmet]

thistle for ask meme!

Thistle :0

First impression

No joke I was convinced early on that Laios & the party were making like a huuuuge leap in assuming that Thistle was the Lunatic Magician TM like guys you can't just go accusing every random person you find in a living painting of being the manager. Alas... he was, in fact, the manager.

Impression now

He's so jester coded👍

I think Thistle is very interesting and a great foil to Marcille, which I looove. They are both magic elf(-ish) advisors, they both get caught up in wanting to help the people around them live longer, they both become dungeon lords in pursuit of that... I think Thistle's story as it is works well for the narrative and I don't necessarily think he was underutilized exactly, but it is a little hard not to want A Bit More sometimes. Even if I do think it would be hard to add that more in without sacrificing some of the pacing overall :')

Favorite moment

I was initially going to say the ending for them, because I do love it, but you know what? I've got a more interesting answer. My favorite Thistle scene is.... this:

This fundamentally changes the trajectory of the story. In trying to find someone to stop the Winged Lion, Thistle launches Marcille into becoming the next lord of the dungeon. The next victim of the Lion. If Thistle hadn't resurrected Marcille, then the plot would have played out totally differently. She wouldn't have been able to finish unsealing the book. Laios would have been on his own when the canaries came. Would they have just cleaned everything up more easily? Would it instead have become something worse? Would Laios somehow have unsealed the book and become the lore of the dungeon right away?

I dunno. But this action reshaped Marcille's life, and Laios', and so many other people's. And it was done out of a desire to keep fighting. To not give in.

Augh idk. It's good. Their connection is good.

Idea for a story

Thistle & Chimera Laios.

But not just a "Laios gets eaten by the dragon instead," I think it would be cool to explore an AU where for some handwavy magic reason, Laios gets his soul bound up w/ the dragon during Falin's resurrection, and he gets poofed into a dragon form.

There's a note somewhere that says that chimeras start popping up the more the lord of the dungeon starts to lose their hold on things, but having met Laios before might help Thistle eventually realize that something is Off about the dragon. From there... well maybe he starts to ask questions and gives Laios more freedom to actually answer, and things could continue from there as Laios gets enough humanity back to start to understand what's happening, and also Thistle takes more time to question the Lion's plans rather than just continue to act. They'd be stuck together, probably with Laios still under Thistle's control, but maybe as they figure out more of the truth, they'd actually work together? Need to rely on each other? I'd like to see how each of them would deal with that situation...

PLUS then on the flip side I think switching Falin into the group part way through the story (rather than at the start) could be really interesting. So the adventures on that side would be fun too.

Unpopular opinion

umm idk. Is Thistle widely regarded as a Marcille foil? Because if not then why. They are so inchresting. funky little mages.

Favorite relationship

Hmmm okay so like obviously Thistle & Marcille, but also as seen in my story idea I want to explore more of Thistle & Laios bc their interactions were fun, soo... I'll just say the Dungeon Lord quartet as a whole. I like when people draw art of them all together. Let them bond through shared trauma. And also all of them have tried to kill at least one other person there at some point. It's great. They should go on brunch dates.

Favorite headcanon

This post about Thistle's goal to eat a meal with Delgal fundamentally rewired my brain

#ask #ask meme

[ikuzeminna]

In my previous post I talked about the women of Gundam Wing not being treated as awards or reasons for man pain for the guys and I’m actually a little surprised that no one so far called me out on Meilan because at first glance, she falls right into that category. Because her death is specifically there to motivate Wufei and do nothing else. No one else knows about her, her death doesn’t affect anyone or anything else.

Except for her grandma who is apparently still so grief-stricken she blows up her entire colony. Thanks for more trauma, Master Long.

But I guess I’m gonna call myself out here then and derail this into a meta about Meilan’s portrayal actually being male-coded. Apparently I’m also gonna make up words while doing so lol

What do I mean? Let’s first clear up what I meant when I said the Wing women aren’t used for man pain. Man pain is quite an umbrella term that’s supposed to describe any instance of the narrative portraying a male’s emotional pain be of a higher magnitude than anyone else’s within his story. Especially women’s.

In my post I was referring to the very specific case where a woman’s suffering is stripped from her narratively and made exclusively a guy’s problem, to the point it only exists if it’s in relation to him. Think Gwen Stacy’s death affecting Spiderman or 2009‘s Spock’s mom dying or Aang burning Katara and then moping about never firebending again, necessitating her comforting him about his (accidental) assault on her. messed up doesn’t even begin to cover that last one The girl with the puppy is actually an example of this in Wing because her death only exists to make Heero feel bad. She isn't even given a name. The most classic example really is a guy’s mom dying though and him being forever sad about it. It’s the easy way for the writer to give his manly man something to cry over without making him a wimp. Otherwise Kira from Gundam Seed would be more popular.

But when we get asked to name a famous fictional death, I think most people will pick Mufasa, the prime example ever of a death affecting the audience. And it makes sense. Because not only was Mufasa a good parent, who sacrificed his life to save his son, Simba’s entire hero’s journey is basically living up to his father’s example. It's what drives the story.

And that’s the difference between men and women dying in fiction, especially parents. If a mother dies, it’s something to be sad over (i.e. Spock). If a father dies, it’s a legacy to uphold (i.e. Kirk). Simba is never worried about living up to Sarabi’s expectations. Hiccup spends three movies trying not to shame his father. Katniss won’t shut up about what a great person her dad was even though her mom is right there, being the medic for her entire district, but never being worth emulating in any way.

The same goes if it’s just a friend. A female friend’s death is a devastating event, a male friend’s death is a call to not let his sacrifice be in vain.

Which brings us back to Meilan. Meilan may have been written as just a device to give Wufei a tragic backstory, which lands her squarely in man pain territory, but narratively she is the same category as Mufasa, influencing Wufei to the degree he changes his entire way of life to live up to her memory and hold himself accountable during the series when he fails to do so, which yanks her right out of it again.

Besides, Wufei never goes around openly mourning her death. It’s hidden in aggressiveness and weird sexism towards Noin and his odd reverence of his Gundam. I love that it was supposed to be a secret that would have been revealed at the middle of the series, just like everyone else’s backstories, had the schedule not been crazy, giving us the recap episodes instead. Alas...

But this is one of the reasons I love Gundam Wing so much. The colony leader Heero Yuy and the late King Peacecraft may be revered figures within its universe, but by the end of the series, and definitely by EW, the person the entire galaxy admires is Relena. A girl. Which is completely deserved for all the things she manages to pull off, mind you.

I love most that Heero admiring Relena also has a very personal aspect to it. He knows her. He knows how bullheaded she can be. She’s not an abstract to him, he’s intimately familiar with that Gundanium backbone of hers. That scene on Libra where they keep throwing compliments at each other is great. Relena tries to transfer her accomplishments to Heero, playing into narrative tradition of gender roles here where the guy always gets all the glory, no matter how competent the girl may have been (glaring at you here, Hiccup and Astrid >_>) and Heero, the show’s male protagonist, bounces it right back, telling her he is nothing compared to her, landing a sweet blow to narrative sexism.

Gundam Wing is a weird little show where I don’t know if one could call it feminist considering how every woman is assigned to a man, with Treize and Zechs and Duo and Wufei standing above their female counterparts due to their strength or lineage or because they’re the series’ Char clone, but within the roles it assigned to everyone, it does a wonderful job of not being sexist about them. Une is portrayed as more competent than Treize, who is more of an opportunist. Zechs outright says Noin is better than him. Wufei won’t shut up about Nataku and what a failure he is. It's like the show apologizes for being Gundam and made in the 90s, explaining why the pilots and big bads all have to be male, but they'll make the female characters as cool as they can to make up for it. Here, have some Sally and Noin being a badass duo or Relena and Dorothy carrying the philosophical debate during the Cinq arc.

....Except Hilde. I got nothing here because her and Duo are classic gender roles to a T, haha. But at least Duo is not being a jerk about it, which is more than can be said about most fictional guys trying to dictate a female’s actions. Duo lets Hilde make her own decisions.

#Duo is a gentleman #and epic #it still stinks that there couldn't be more to Meilan #but I'll give it a pass since 98% of Wufei's actions are based on her #gundam wing #gender roles #long meilan #chang wufei #duo maxwell #relena peacecraft #heero yuy #I don't wanna tag everyone I mentioned #that'd be 6 different fandoms #nah

[navree]

I'm constantly baffled how many writers seem to overlook and mischaracterize Jason when he has arguably the most potential of all the Batkids, or at least the Robins! Like, so much can be built upon wrt his life as an impoverished youth and how that informs his perception of vigilantism, law enforcement, drug abuse, etc. Hell, his resurrection itself is something he had over the rest of the Batfamily for the longest time, before everyone else got a take a turn and it became so overused that Jason's own trauma became a footnote. Alas, most people at DC just treat him as the "Angsty Bad Boy™️" who doesn't play nice with the other kids. He's so wasted, Jason Todd deserves better.

I've always felt that if you're going to try and write a finite narrative out of Jason's story (as opposed to comics) then at some point he should quit vigilantism. His entire adult life has been solely about that and, as someone who for a long time was most famous for dying, he should get the opportunity to live, especially for himself. BUT, so long as he remains a vigilante, he offers a really interesting perspective on vigilantism that you don't really see anywhere else.

Jason, like some of the people I feel have the most reason to be in this life in Batman media (such as Bruce and Dick), has experience being a victim of criminal behavior, yes, but he also has the experience of being on the other side of the window. He knows the criminal element intimately, and from a young age. His father was a low-level criminal, it got him sent to jail and eventually murdered while in jail; Jason grew up in a low-income neighborhood that has been by and large overlooked by Gotham and that allows criminal behavior to breed there to the point where the name Crime Alley no longer refers to a singular event (the murders of the Waynes) but all the other issues there; Jason himself has committed criminal acts when weighing the option between obeying the law and ensuring his own survival. He has a different perspective on criminality and law enforcement and outside enforcement of legal codes than anyone in his life, because he's lived on both sides of the lines and they've both had profound effects on him and should shape how he views the world differently than other people he knows.

Jason's vigilantism, and honestly even how he deals with stuff during his crime lord era, should be motivated by at once knowing that issues don't pop up out of nowhere and that even criminals have interiority, but also a deeper understanding than most as to how the actions of criminals affects not just innocent bystanders but innocents in their own lives. It's a unique perspective that not only enriches Jason as a character but can also provide some pretty thought-provoking conversation about vigilantism and Batman's role in the world and even the concept of extra-legal justice we find in most superhero comics in general that DC could honestly use.

Like yeah, ok, I did find Stephen's monologue about his role as a doctor being that of a healer at the end of the General Strange arc in this year's Doctor Strange hokey, but the way a superhero's personal life informs their actions as a hero is an interesting concept that only gets shallow explorations most of the time, and Batman media could really use it in more depth given how shallow people's understanding of Batman is (Batman's a capitalist Batman's a fascist Batman beats up the mentally ill Batman victimizes the poor, dear God shut up).

And when it comes to Jason's death, it is pretty obvious that, when it comes to the Batfam, DC is trying to recapture that feeling that came with A Death in the Family every time they kill a character off, to try and tap into what made Jason's death such a big thing. But the problem is that they fundamentally do not understand why Jason's death was so big.

For one, and the most shallow reason for it, Jason's death wasn't just death. At the tail end of a series of difficult issues for him, like finding out his dad was murdered in prison and Bruce lied about it, to the debacle with Felipe Garzonas, to Bruce benching him as Robin (which, given that Dick being benched ended with him no longer being Robin and leaving Wayne Manor, it's reasonable to infer that a formerly homeless kid who experienced a significant amount of trauma due to that homelessness would start to worry that no Robin=no longer being able to live with Bruce and having to live on the streets again), Jason ends up trying to find his mother. And when he finds her, this adult woman, who he should be able to trust, if only because she's a grown woman and he's fifteen, deliberately leads him into a trap with someone he is deeply aware is dangerous, points a gun at his head, and tells him that what's about to happen is his fault while he tries and fails to fight his way out of what he knows is going to be a really bad set of minutes. Honestly, more people need to read ADitF, because the sequence of events is a lot more horrifying than pop culture remembers it. Jason is already beaten into the ground by Joker's henchmen before the Joker gets started on him (while Sheila stands back and watches, God) and by the time it's done, half of Joker's suit is colored red instead of purple to represent blood and everyone in that warehouse thinks that Jason is already dead. And then he gets blown up. Jason's death resonated so much not just because of the fact that it happened, and that Bruce felt upset about it, but also because what happened to him was horrifyingly brutal and to date remains one of the truly most sadistic things the Joker has ever done.

For two, Jason's death had an impact because it was meant to stick. Unlike Bruce getting lost in time or Damian getting stabbed, where it was pretty clear that the characters were not going to stay dead, and then by the time you get to Dick and whoever else has died recently, where the audience (and the characters) have no reason to believe that this will be permanent, Jason's death was meant to be the end of the story. Due to Starlin's hatred of Jason as a character (which is weird) and DC in general wanting to move away from kid sidekicks at the time, Jason was supposed to die and then stay dead forever; there's a reason why the saying was "nobody stays dead in comics except for Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben", because he was meant to, you know, stay dead. It hits because the audience itself, along with Bruce and Dick and Alfred and Barbara and everyone else in Jason and Robin's life, thought that this was the last we would see of Jason Todd alive and that he would never come back ever again. It's also why his resurrection packs so much more of a punch than anyone else's either, both in universe and out of universe.

For three, Jason's death was greatly helped by the meta-narrative in a way that nobody else's has been. Because, the eighties was a period of a lot of change for DC, and especially for Batman due to the popularity of The Killing Joke (which wasn't even supposed to be canon, yet by the time Jason died Barbara was already confirmed in canon to be paralyzed and therefore have the events of that book take place) and especially The Dark Knight Returns. Which means that the eighties was when people started writing darker Batman stories, and they kept going from there, and the characterization got darker along with it (seriously, read something from the early eighties and then something from, like, the 2010s, the difference is insane) as Batman slowly just because a darker and more sullen character. And because that change coincided with Jason dying, and there was an initial attempt to push a sort of "Jason's murder is turning Bruce into a crazy person" message to really show audiences how badly Bruce was dealing with the situation, it creates this sort of in-universe progression where Jason's murder fundamentally altered Bruce in a way that has, so far, proven utterly irreversible.

It's not just that Bruce's son was murdered and that he's had to deal with the grief and trauma of that loss, it's that the grief and trauma of that lost basically completely shattered Bruce and he is never going to be able to put himself back together again. He is never going to return to who he was before Jason died even though the initial hurt has literally been reversed because Jason was resurrected and subsequently re-entered his life. Jason's death was so calamitous, so monumentally awful, that it changed who Bruce was as a person in a way that can never be undone or reversed, and most of the people in his life these days don't even know what Bruce was like before, while the people who do know just have to live with the fact that Bruce as he was then is as dead as Jason was (this fic by @damianbugs really gets to the unique tragedy of the whole thing so go read that). None of the other Batfam deaths have that, not even Stephanie's, which was also meant to be permanent before it got retconned, and so they don't hit as hard because they not only don't have much impact on the audience, they don't even have much impact on Bruce as a character, certainly not anywhere near that Jason's did in both intensity and longlasting effect.

The problem is that DC didn't really didn't expect Under the Red Hood to be as popular as it was, so they kept Jason around without really knowing what to do with him or having any plan for him, which is a choice we're still feeling the consequences of today in that they both still don't really know what to do with him and really resent him for it, along with his longterm popularity in all of his iterations. And fandom itself likes to just hew to tropes with no basis in canon whatsoever based on the shallowest understanding of all characters, including Jason, so that's not even helping matters much, and why I stick to my own bubble.

#personal #answered #anonymous #jason todd #wow this got long #unfortunately you got me talking about the impact of jason's death #which if you look at my ao3 you'll know is something that really gets me raring to go

[gogandmagog]

On readying Rilla, is there any new info or scene with Shirley in it? I always found really weird that he's not even mentioned much even if its just him being there LOL. He's even the closest to Rilla in age and you would expect them to be closer...

A girl after my own heart, with this question! Man, I scouted the pages looking for more Shirley hard. I was so hoping! Alas. It kind of comes up a draw. He was actually erased more than you’d expect! In the RoI book, if you’ll recall, Shirley’s first narrative action (of his own, where he’s not simply being included in a group with his siblings), is trying to lure Dog Monday into coming home after he spent a few days living at the train station, post-Jem’s departure. WELL DO YOU KNOW IT WAS WALTER that Maud originally had doing so? She went back and crossed out Walter, and then put in Shirley. I was okay with this change! But…

A little later in the canon book, Gilbert goes on to hire Joe Mead to construct a little kennel for Dog Monday to sleep in, at the station. The original manuscript showed that Shirley was the one to do this (and not paid, at that).

How cute would that’ve been? 🫠

#the little brown boy #a fave #why we needed more joe mead and less shirley j blythe is anyone’s guess #make it make sense #him going to make a kennel for dog monday would have been so on brand too #one of the few adjectives we canonly get about shirley is ‘wholesome’ #wholesome from head to toe #is there anything more wholesome than building a kennel for your big brothers dog while said dog is standing sentry for its owner #rilla of ingleside #lucy maud montgomery #shirley blythe

[myemuisemo]

As "John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet" in Letters from Watson, I'm sucked down the rabbit hole of Mormon Escapee Narratives.

There were several that were wildly popular in the years between the LDS settlement of Utah and the time when Doyle was writing. The one I can find an online copy of is Fanny Stenhouse's memoir, which appears to have had a couple versions under variant titles. The one I've paged through is Tell It All: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (1879, with foreword by Harriet Beecher Stowe). There's also an 1872 version titled Exposé of Polygamy in Utah: A Lady’s Life among the Mormons.

Fanny Stenhouse's existence is documented, and she went on the lecture circuit in the 1870s as an opponent to polygamy.

Her story matches Doyle's description of conspiracy theories, secret organizations, and atrocities in Salt Lake City so closely that it's likely he got his ideas from Stenhouse or similar materials. Newspaper coverage of happenings in remote Utah would, whether in London or Edinburgh, have been scanty and sensationalist -- although there is one historic event that might have excited interest, and its absence from the story muddles the timeline.

In spring 1857, President Buchanan sent the U.S. Army to the Utah Territory. The LDS residents feared renewed persecution, turned plowshares into swords, and fought a guerilla war of annoyance against the army. In September 1857, a group of Mormon militia slaughtered an entire wagon train of settlers bound for California (the Mountain Meadows Massacre). The wikipedia entry linked is worth a read, as it captures the "what really happened? who lied about what? was this an LDS policy or a group that acted recklessly on its own?" questions that swirl around efforts to make sense of the history of this era.

The "Utah War" wasn't the first incident of violence between LDS and "gentiles." Back in 1838 in Missouri, harassment and violence toward LDS settlers was met with the formation of the Danites (aha! Doyle mentions them!), a vigilante secret society that retaliated violently. The 1838 Mormon War is an appalling read on so many levels.

Whether the Danites were still operating in the 1850s in Utah is a question that historians today dispute. Their reputation in the 1830s was that they were determined to remove dissent within their own people, so the idea that forces within the LDS community would silence a man for disagreeing has some historical basis.

What's seriously missing in Doyle's account is that in 1858, Brigham Young's plan for thwarting U.S. troops was to evacuate Salt Lake City -- so thousands of LDS faithful boarded up their homes, gathered their goods, and marched off into the mountains. (There was talk of burning the city, but that apparently didn't happen.) Obviously, people came back, but that's a big thing for John Ferrier to have lived through without remarking upon. A year of widespread want from culling herds and missing portions of the planting season, combined with military occupation, seems like a big deal.

If we assume none of that had happened yet, then it's early 1857 and only 10 years since Ferrier and Lucy were rescued -- making his twelfth year of wealth in the future, the discovery of silver in Nevada also in the future, and Lucy just fifteen. The latter is still plausible for her being pressured to marry, alas. I think the timeline's just a bit muddled, though -- even with today's online resources, researching 30-year-old events in a far-away place can get messy.

Ferrier's unwelcome visitor is none other than Brigham Young, charismatic leader of the LDS community, and governor of the Utah Territory from 1850 to 1858. He was also a Freemason (remember the Masonic ring, weeks ago?).

Polygamy doesn't come up! What?!? We're in a generic sort of romance plot, where the innocent flower is to be given to a less noble and honest man than her preferred suitor. We know that the Drebber son is going to turn out to be a terrible man, but there's nothing especially indicative of it in Brigham Young's proposal. Since there's no mention of young Drebber or young Stangerson having pre-existing wives, it's likely Lucy is being offered the position of the legally married first wife.

Ferrier's plan is to flee. Since Doyle's readers are in the future, they may have a tingle of fear related to the doctrine of "blood atonement" (which was discussed in Stenhouse's book as well as in newspaper accounts) and the 1866 murder of Dr. Robinson.

#sherlock holmes #letters from watson

[mediumtires]

It's two days into the summer break and I'm already going through vroom vroom withdrawals, so I re-read Seven Years then decided to nitpick season 5 of DTS. Seven Years is so stuck in my head (especially with last weekend's ass grab) that I started to wonder how Christian and Toto's relationship would affect DTS. Would there be a full episode about their relationship? Would they be more included in each other's episodes? Would Netflix try to get footage of the two acting like a couple? The only guarantee is that Tumblr would be analysis every interaction between the two because we already do that.

Also, I use Microsoft Edge over google so I thought you might find this funny.

The first thing they list is that he is a racing driver, not a successful team principal, a racing driver. :p

ohhh this is such an interesting take!

personally i didn’t make dts a thing in seven years because i just didn’t want to deal with the mess of it. it adds a whole other layer of emotional clusterfucks of being exposed to the wider public (outside of the f1 bubble even), even more cameras following them around the paddock, mic-ed up 24/7. there is a snippet i started writing after the whole “change your fucking car” business that i couldn’t even finish because the whole thing was so messy and i could not come up with a proper way to solve this because i was so embarrassed for them lmao.

but let’s walk for a second. let’s say their involuntary outing happens and dts are around for it all, i do think netflix would be a perfect vessel to promote lgbtq+ visibility and rights in motorsports and both pr teams would jump at the chance. obviously an outing like this is a huge fuck up marketing wise, nothing was planned, no one was prepared for it so they’d need to act quick and with netflix around, they’d have the perfect opportunity to angle the narrative any way they want. plus for netflix it would obviously mean Millions. everyone and their mother would watch the new season.

not sure they’d have a full episode. don’t think christian or toto would agree to this during some of the worst moments of their lives lol and in seven years i tried my best to not glorify or romanticise a shitty situation like being outed by someone else against your will. but i do think they’d both still want to be on dts, they enjoy the spotlight and the attention too much. in my mind they’d both show up to their netflix interviews smirking, a little ala “look at you and your lil cameras, i had a secret you couldn’t even imagine being true, you only know the things i choose to tell you, i’m in charge here”. to me that’s kind of a power move. i also think certain questions would simply be blacklisted so all we’d get would be ambiguous layered eye-twinkling comments about the rival team principal while touching their wedding rings. “oh toto slammed that desk *eye roll* yeah he’s so emotional *smirk*” or “christian has a big mouth, don’t believe everything he says, i don’t” or “singapore last year? yeah i think…. i think we won. did we? can’t remember, i was a little busy” but they don’t ever talk about singapore directly.

post outing i don’t think we’d get much husband material on dts. i tried very hard to write them as being private about their relationship and i still think that rings true, even post outing. there were instances where i thought it’d be significant and meaningful to them as a couple to show their support for each other a little more publicly (or maybe just a little less secretively) but those moments were about them more so than an act for the public or the cameras. in my mind they wouldn’t walk hand in hand through the paddock just because they can, not mid season on a thursday morning anyway. they’re professionals and they’re at work. but it’s a different thing when a netflix camera zooms in on them through a window and they’re having a quiet lunch tucked away in some corner of rb hospitality, or a brush of hands or a discreet smile when they pass each other somewhere and a camera is around to pick up on it.

so that’s my take! the most interesting angle to me though is how the public perception suddenly changes from seeing them as individuals to seeing them as a unit. it rewires your brain from “oh these two are fun, they hate each other” to “oh these two….. don’t hate each other. in actuality they…. they seem to love each other enough to be…. husbands. huh”

#christian/toto #christian horner #toto wolff #seven years #ell shut up

[ambrozians]

Please do elaborate because I 100% agree with you (and happy Easter btw 💛)

happy easter to you too, anon! 🩷

(elaborating on this post)

so there’s a few reasons why jade would not surrender full custody of her son to roy that extend past the mere fact that tommy is not his child. let’s get into them!

i’ve spoken about this here in comparing her and roy, but jade prefers to keep her professional and personal lives as separate as possible. jade is also very particular about who can/should have a hand in raising her children, and she’s already expressed disdain for dinah because of that. (sidebar: the only character she has trusted lian’s care with outside of roy is dick). as we all know, she does not like the titans or the arrowfam. she would not be very inclined to have her son in situations where he might have to interact with or be babysat by any of them unless it was unavoidable (ex. lian's birthday party). she might not be able to limit lian's exposure to superheroes, villains, etc., but she can do it with tommy, and really work to make sure his life is as normal as possible.

the most important thing, however, is acknowledging what motherhood empowers jade to do, which is to retire. her desire for retirement is something that persists throughout her appearances in pre-52 continuity. she has expressed a desire to leave "cheshire" behind on multiple occasions and spend the rest of her life with the people most important to her. do take note that when lian and tommy were born, most of the missions (exclusively, with tommy) were accepted because they furthered a personal goal of hers, finding roy and catman respectively. in fact, she retreated to the himalayas and later southern california when raising tommy. all this to say that being a mother is far more important to jade than "cheshire" is, and it is only when she feels like she cannot/is barred from that does she resort to working.

lastly, there’s no reason why tommy should not be in jade's custody. she has never expressed any intention in raising her children to be an assassin and that’s an assumption that has run rampant. does it make sense for the characters within the universe to assume that? yes, but not for fans. let’s put that narrative to rest. she has only ever wanted the best for her children and works to ensure that.

so as not to derail the post, i’ll save what i think tommy’s life would’ve been like had he been able to become his own character instead of a plot device used either to demonize jade or induce her suffering, and what roy’s role in his life might’ve looked like. but alas, he unfortunately exists in the series that has caused the most harm to jade’s character so that’s why he doesn’t get talked about a lot.

#🎤 #💭 #jade nguyen #woo that was a doozy #anyways let jade be a mom again 2k24 #pre52 has its faults for sure but one thing that remained consistent above all #is that she loves her kids more than anything in this world and just wants to be with them #so i’m not really sure why she would turn tommy over if she has the opportunity to raise him on her own #besides dc and fans need to stop with this practice where #the child of a woc and white man is taken from the mother and placed with the father #and the mother’s characterization suffers so as to justify the child’s removal #let’s leave that behind i beg

[trelkez]

Ah, Ted Lasso. This episode was 90% mess, but that 10% sure does know how to hook me.

I wish I could go back in time to the self who went into Ted Lasso thinking it was tightly plotted, top tier stuff and say, "this is a ridiculous show, but you should watch it anyway. You'll love the characters. You will get so much found family. Just don't get too attached to any plotlines or expect anything to make sense ever, and you'll be fine." That would be a reasonable expectation for this show! Unfortunately for me, we're down to the final three episodes, so it's a bit late for me to recalibrate at this point. I am, alas, still invested in the plotlines. 

So let's get into 3.10, because … wow, is there a lot to get into.

I'm rewatching the episode as I write this (just in case I forget any of the batshit turns it took and/or parts of it turn out to have been a fever dream), so I'm going to tackle it roughly in order. 

1. Richmond's ten game winning streak

Where are we at in the season? Does anyone know?

Remember when this show had season arcs organized around some kind of football-related goal? Avoid relegation, make it back into the Premier League. It seemed logical that the goal of this season would be to win the league, but I guess we're going to get there by putting the team on cheat mode in the background and then shoehorning in some "will they or won't they" football drama at the end, which is actually very in keeping with the overall theme of this episode.

2. Nate quit West Ham off-screen

I'm so glad the guy in the apartment on the other side of my living room wall was out for the night, because I literally shrieked "WHAT?????? WHAT???????" when that "Nate Shelley Out at West Ham" graphic went up.

I didn't get to Nate in my 3.09 writeup, and it's just as well, because anything I wrote before that graphic would have been immediately rendered pointless. Nate quit West Ham off-screen. He quit off-screen.

I am going to reach way, way back to the Nate Shelley I liked in season one and say: that Nate did not deserve this shit.

It has been obvious throughout this entire season that the writers weren't interested in telling the story that season two set up. They didn't especially want to dwell on or in the toxicity that bottomed Nate out last season; they didn't want to do the harder narrative work of actually building back an unlikeable character through a slow but steady redemption arc, even though they've spent entire seasons doing exactly that with Jamie. Instead, they said, "yeah, but Nate isn't really That Guy."

Does the show regret what it did? It sure feels that way. It feels like, in the pursuit of telling a story about a good guy on an ego-fueled descent, the show went way further than it meant to and has now decided to backtrack on that by treating the whole thing like a guy waking up from a bender and going, "I did what last night? Why did I do that?" That wasn't really Nate who did those things, that was Drunk Nate! He did five shots of narcissism and got blackout drunk on jealousy, and he woke up in the morning with a new job. What wild shenanigans will ensue? 

So, sure. The only way any of it makes sense is if none of it meant anything. Fine. Even then, what was the point of sending Nate to West Ham and throwing all of Rupert's smothering, menacing glitz at him only for NATE QUITTING HIS JOB AND WALKING AWAY FROM RUPERT AND WEST HAM to happen OFF-SCREEN so they can CATCH US UP ON IT via FAKE SPORTS NEWS INFOGRAPHIC??

If they didn't show it because they felt the real rejection was in Nate going home to his girlfriend, that is very poor storytelling in a season that started out with the most literal Rupert is Palpatine visual parallels imaginable. If they're trying to say that the real climax of Nate's story isn't in rejecting Rupert, but in the amends he makes with the people he hurt, then why did they drag the West Ham stuff out until the tenth episode??? Why is all of this being left for the end, when none of the West Ham stuff has ultimately mattered at all, and pulling the plug on it earlier on could've left a lot of room for handling Nate's healing process at a slower, more organic pace?

Ultimately, this is a story about a good guy who lost his way a little and wound up hanging out with a bad crowd, and now he has to apologize his way back into the hearts of his real friends. The storytelling along the way has been wildly incoherent and had brutally terrible pacing, but if you completely disregard how we got here and pretend season one Nate just woke up from a West Ham bender, there's still time to enjoy the endgame.

3. Isaac is team captain again!

So – Isaac went into the crowd and wasn't banned for the remainder of the season? Let's close our eyes for a moment and imagine that the football gods looked upon Isaac's actions and said, "yeah, that seems legit, let's give him the smallest possible set of consequences." He was sent off with a red card. For assault. But the football gods are treating punching a fan like having a go at an opposing player! Cool. That's still, what, three games?

So even if we assume he only got a three-game ban, and keeping in mind that Richmond isn't in the Champions or Europa leagues and the FA Cup is just – not happening, I guess? So they probably don't have a ton of midweek games, which means that it's been … weeks.

But wasn't the win streak at eight games last week? So – did Isaac just – not get a ban? At all? 

Nope. No. Self, you are a Ted Lasso Doylist now, remember? Nothing that happened last week was actually about Isaac in any way, so why would there be ongoing consequences for him from that storyline? Deep breaths.

Isaac is one of my favorite characters in this show, and I'm not particularly interested in there being ongoing consequences for him from whatever that was last week, so – this is fine. Don't question it. We float on an ocean of vibes. Everything is great.

4. Why?

Why did we just take a beat for microaggression with Ted being shocked Bumbercatch is Swiss? Is this really where we're at these days, comedy-wise?

I'm genuinely not sure that anyone involved here knows how to write Ted without making him completely exhausting to be around, anymore. Is that on purpose? Let's pretend it's on purpose.

5. Do we think Nate is capable of being involved in something like that?

"Nah." – the writers, who are pretending they haven't seen season two

6. Jade

I like her so much, but I am 99.95% sure that's because she is being written to be likable, with no other discernible qualities. Who is she? What motivates her? In a season full of long episodes, was there really no time to show her existing when Nate isn't in the room? Did no one in the writer's room stop to wonder, "hey, is it at all dicey if that woman in the restaurant who dislikes Nate suddenly falls in love with him so he can be healed by the power of love?" Did no one say that out loud and hear how it sounds?

Anyway. Jade. Big fan. Looking forward to hearing all about her hobbies and backstory in the ample time remaining.

7. Dani vs. Van Damme

I have a feeling this completely random side adventure into our purest angel having an asshole hypercompetitive side isn't going to land for everyone, but you know what? Sure. Why not. There are epic tales out there of teammates facing each other in the Olympics, the World Cup, etc. and trying to destroy each other and then going home like none of it ever happened. I'm totally onboard for this kind of plot in theory! They took it a little too far with Dani breaking Van Damme's nose, but as we've established, "they took it a little too far" is the story of this entire show. 

You know what would have improved this a lot? If it had happened near the beginning of the season and kicked off a recurring storyline in which someone else now has to face Dani on a spring international break. Shoved in at the end of the season (and probably the end of the series), it loses a lot of its potential, so the placement is … strange. Instead of being an ongoing character trait they could slowly build up and make funnier in the re-telling, it comes out of nowhere and immediately goes to 11. But otherwise, why not.

8. Beard gets it

Beard is the only one who watched season two. He gets it.

It would explain a lot about Beard and this entire season if Beard used to be a time traveler, so he's the only one in Richmond immune to changes in the timeline. Maybe somewhere just out of sight there's a genre show about time travel happening, and this football team just happens to exist in that universe – so the world of Ted Lasso is constantly being rewritten, but no one notices. Ted Lasso as a Doctor Who spin-off in which no one has ever met or heard of The Doctor. 

No one but Beard, anyway. Is Beard also the only one who remembers that Isaac went into the crowd last week?

9. Uncle's Day

10/10, no notes. Every time I think I'm out, this show uses Jamie Tartt to drag me right back in.

(Actually, no, one note: Jamie was joking about Isaac being his best friend, right? That was just to screw with Roy? I'm going to assume Isaac was the choice for that line because it's so obviously unlikely given how rarely they interact, and not because the writers think Jamie and Isaac are still BFFs. It would be very in keeping with this season for them to think Jamie and Isaac's friendship is just running on cheat mode in the background, but like – I'm going to assume. For my sanity. That it's just a joke.)

The funniest part of this scene winds up being that they accidentally made it look like Phoebe was having an "oh. oh" moment about Roy and Jamie. I had to rewind that twice to figure out that she was spelling it out in her head, and not like, catching on.

I would've understood if she had caught on. Roy stares at Jamie for 10.6 seconds before he says "I love it."

10. Super League? In this economy?

+10 points to Leslie for "I hate to break it to you, Rebecca, but those children are dead."

Unfortunately, -10 points to Leslie for "who cares why Rupert invited you?" Historically speaking, Rebecca should care. Rebecca is totally justified in wondering why Rupert invited her!

Why would Richmond be invited into talks about a Super League at all? Richmond? Recently promoted Richmond? Complete lack of international play Richmond? It's sus as hell. If I were Rebecca, I would absolutely assume this was some strange plot by my evil ex-husband.

(I'm not convinced it wasn't, in fact, a strange plot by her evil ex-husband. Something is going on there.)

Super League is about the richest teams banding together to shake off the chaff. As a Spurs fan, I fully, completely understand the concept of a team that isn't actually rich and successful trying to buy into an exclusive club – yes, Spurs were involved in Super League drama; no, you shouldn't ask me about their season or we'll still be here next week while I cry on you – and we are definitely already outside the tethers of reality when West Ham is at the table, but it, truly it makes no sense.

(And even if Rupert weren't the one extending the offer, "go check it out, what's the worst that could happen?" is naive at best. What's the worst that could happen? The media finds out that Rebecca was at a Super League meeting and now Richmond is being dragged into a shitstorm, whether Rebecca decided to buy in or not. Girl, do not go in there! If you don't want to join, don't join! Why is any of this happening! Get Keeley back in the building before someone runs into a PR problem they truly cannot back out of!)

11. Is the psychic's prophecy still a thing?

So … is the show going Tedbecca? After that weird flirty moment she had with Sam earlier, the matchbook almost calls back to Sam more than Ted, but the show did make a point of having Ted pull out that matchbook a few episodes ago, and here it's directly paired with his toy soldier. 

(Honestly, slow clap for everyone who did those green matchbook / green soldier gif sets earlier this season, I thought you guys were reaching straight into outer space with that one and apparently I was dead wrong!)

Ted and Rebecca have barely even talked to each other in the back half of the season. Every week I log on here and see shippers shriveling into dust, their crops unwatered. Is the matchbook/soldier thing a misdirect, or are they going to cram a significant relationship change into the final two episodes of the season after largely ignoring them in the lead-up?

I have no idea which way this is going to swing, and that's kind of terrible, because there are only two episodes left. There isn't time left to do any kind of meaningful build. There's only time for a sudden last-minute rush of drama.

When I put it like that, I think they probably are going to shove it into the endgame. Either that, or the houseboat guy suddenly shows back up out of nowhere. Whatever happens, it is going to have a "bet you didn't see that coming" flavor, because there isn't time for anything else.

12. Roy has an epiphany

What the fuck even is this?

Listen. It never made sense for Roy to have broken up with Keeley. It was clearly something they did as a way to inject some new drama. THAT SAID, they did it, and they committed to it for almost an entire fucking season, and TEN EPISODES ON a teacher with a crush on Roy makes a way-too-personal comment about how she hopes his mess hasn't caused any damage, and THAT'S what makes him suddenly realize he needs to apologize to Keeley? THAT? Just like. Boom. Realization sets in. Lightbulb visibly goes off overhead as he mutters "fuuuuuuck" to himself. A fully illustrated epiphany!

What the fuck does this show think it's doing having Roy suddenly realize that he probably hurt Keeley and needs to apologize? 

In episode ten?????

I don't know how much time has passed, because in Ted Lasso season three time is an illusion, but at minimum – months. Months later, he suddenly realizes he might have hurt his girlfriend when he broke up with her??? That isn't character growth. That is completely fucking absurd. They needed Roy and Keeley to get back together and pushed it too close to the last minute, so they did some schoolteacher deus ex machina. Of all the abrupt plot turns in this episode, this might be the second worst.

(There's a clear winner and this isn't it, but second place? It's a contender.)

13. What happened to the corporate pixie dream girl?

So the overall implication here, between this and Trent's rumor of West Ham workplace misbehavior, is that Rupert is probably headed for some workplace harassment trouble, right? If withholding the mystery of it all turns out to be why they didn't show Nate quitting in this episode, I'm going to scream. I will literally shriek with the frustration of a thousand bad plot decisions.

14. Nate's nostalgia journey

This is, sincerely, great stuff with the photo albums and the music and the journey into the attic. There is still time to enjoy the endgame!! Disregard how we got here!!

15. Rebecca vs. Super League

Just watching this scene made me feel like I've now put in enough time on Ted Lasso to be allowed by contract to take some PTO. Ted Lasso needs to pay me for my time while I recover on a tiny island in the Outer Banks. I've earned it.

So – they thought – having Rebecca scoldingly yell "what do you think you're doing? Just stop it!" while picturing aging rich men as little boys was, like … feminist? Someone involved in this process thought, wouldn't it be great if we empowered Rebecca by making her everyone's scolding mother, and no one along the way went, wait, what? 

But then it keeps going so that we can humanize Rupert, which – what? Why is this happening? Why do I know Rupert's humanizing backstory when to my knowledge, Jade was born inside Taste of Athens?

This is the most I have ever seen Rebecca care about football. It's a lovely speech, but where is it coming from? Since when is she this invested? The only thing that rings true about this is that Super League is an ugly money grab and many, many owners do not give a single shit about their team's fans. Someone wanted to write a speech about that, so we're getting it through Rebecca, just like we got that speech about deleting your camera roll through Isaac. 

Also – the food: I know that the food is a continuation of Edwin Akufo's whole thing with Sam, but it is a weird fucking choice to put so much emphasis on Ghanian food and then reduce it to slop thrown at Rebecca.

Beginning to end, we could've done without this entire Super League story and been just fine. It isn't like this 63-minute episode required extra filler.

16. 24

10/10, no notes. They really do pull me back in with Jamie every time. He revealed that 24 and I, like Roy Kent talking to a schoolteacher, suddenly realized that I ship it. Jamie wore Sam's number?? I'm going to vid this so hard.

17. Nate's dad

I did say there was a clear winner for the episode's worst plot turn.

Nate is sad at home for one episode and suddenly his dad does a complete turnaround after almost three entire seasons? It isn't like we heard a story one time about Nate's dad and now we're getting a reveal on what actually happened there – we've seen him a lot! Nate's entire motivation set is built on his dad and their relationship!

"I pushed you to succeed so you would have more opportunities than I did" is a completely legitimate story to tell, but this has been almost three seasons of disapproval so thick that it threw toxic sludge across the entire show. Nothing Nate has done has ever been good enough. Now we're at the end, and they want to heal it so that Nate can grow, so all of that is being retconned into, "I never cared if you were successful, I just want you to be happy," and suddenly his dad is a completely different person. Boom, fixed! Definitely not the kind of thing you have to heal from over time!

I say again: Nate's story deserved better than this. By pushing this all the way to the end, they've run out of room to take their time with it, so it's just being dropped in. What a mess this season is.

18. Rebecca, do NOT do it

This season is, in fact, such a mess that for a minute there, I believed that Rebecca might actually go for it with Rupert. 

I think, more than anything, I'm puzzled by the perceived necessity of this closure on Rebecca and Rupert. I get that they wanted to give us a taste of what brought Rupert and Rebecca together in the first place – to have Rebecca to see him in that old light again before taking a step back, so she could acknowledge the past in a way that helped her finally make a clean break. I get it. But … why? Was this really something lingering out there for her to overcome?

Rebecca's entire season-long conflict with Rupert has felt like intentional backsliding for the purposes of The Drama. If you imagine that she came into this season still very fired up and insecure about her ex-husband, the arc from "I want Zava so Rupert can't have him" to "I don't care about beating Rupert anymore" is fine. But … did she? Is that really where we left her in season two?

And why did an episode in which Nate quits West Ham spend so much time breaking up Rupert and Rebecca, who were already broken up, while Nate quit off-screen? 

19. What's left?

Two episodes to go! That's so much time in which to accomplish so many things!

I said to someone last week: you know, I thought this was headed for a "Nate takes over as Richmond's head coach" place, but there isn't enough time left in the season for them to do that, so I guess he's just going to be staying at West Ham?

Turns out they can do anything, because they're just going to drop in whatever at the last minute. Nothing means anything! We exist in a world without the constraints of plot and continuity! Everything is on the table.

So, what's left to shoehorn in?

- Manchester City has been inevitable all season (ask Arsenal how that feels), and we're probably going to get some stuff with Jamie's dad there. Jamie has been one of the only characters they've consistently done right by, so my fingers are crossed they don't screw that up at the finish line.

- Will Trent ever come out to the Diamond Dogs? Maybe being out in the workplace isn't his thing, but it feels like a missed avenue of storytelling to have Trent be right there in the coaching offices, in on all the gossip and sharing and advice, and not have whatever he has going on be a part of it. That would have been such an easy way to integrate queer identity into everyday conversation over a decent chunk of the season, instead of playing it almost exclusively for drama the way they have been.

- Still on Nate's apology list: Colin and Ted? If apologizing to Ted doesn't involve the believe sign somehow, I really don't know anything about this show anymore.

- Is Ted staying in London or going back to Kansas? A lot of people seem resigned to the idea that he's going back, and a lot of Tumblr is hoping he stays for Rebecca, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's some secret third thing. Two whole episodes! There's still plenty of time for them to drop a surprise twist on us. (If he goes back to Michelle, it won't be a surprise twist, but I will turn this car around.)

- Are we ever going to learn what was up with Baz's friend who got kicked out of the pub? I really thought we were headed for some bigger integration of Colin's story, wherein it turned out that was Baz's secret boyfriend or something, but … … …?

- Is anything going to come of Trent's book? I have $5 on there being an epilogue time skip in which we fast forward to the book release and see what the characters are up to (aka the "no seriously, this is it, the show is over" ending) and another $5 on the show ending on Ted in the airport and the book not ultimately meaning anything.

Two weeks until we find out!

#ted lasso #ted lasso meta #episode reactions #we float on an ocean of vibes #everything is fine

[nonpanary]

As someone who has had Avatar hyper fixations for well over a decade- my review on the first live action episode (no spoilers)

Overall I would say 7/10! Visually VERY nice to look at (except for one scene that comes to mind)

Background scenes and extras and character designs are all a solid 10/10 for me

The only thing is that they have taken out a couple of my favourite scenes* (will add in the "read more" in case this counts as a spoiler) and taken a lot of character (aangs playfulness and kataras anger- both super important to their growths but VERY much toned down)

Anyway- basically visually and narratively it's good but unfortunately some of the Avatar Charm is gone and important character traits have been diluted. Overall I recommend!

*the scenes that they missed out that I REALLY liked that they missed, plus one scene they replaced with that I didn't like-

1. Katara didn't break the iceberg. This ties into my opinion that Katara's rage is a HUGE part of her character and these scene shows how much rage and potential she has as a waterbender and how emotions are tied into bending.

2. Also at the iceberg, Aang didn't do that thing where he sneezed and flew ten feet in the air. Personally I just love the scene and also shows his carefree nature and Sokka's reaction of "um?? What???" and aang brushes it off bc of course he would, he doesn't know airbending is unheard of.

3. No penguin sledding!!! Honestly one of the best intros of Aang is just how dismissive he is of Katara and Sokka trying to be serious and find out what's happening because he's just a kid and WOW he wants to do all this fun stuff (that Katara hasn't even heard of because who has time for penguin sledding in an active war)

4. The scene where Aang is on the fire nation ship and there are a line of guards and he manoeuvres around them by running on the walls/ceiling. One of my absolute favourite scenes and also shows his preposition to defensive airbending and fun nature. (also no zuko + mattress scene but alas)

5. Aang didn't enter the Avatar state when escaping the fire nation ship. Such a pity because it's great and shows his powefulness and adeptness to bend all elements when in the Avatar state.

6. ^in addition to this scene, katara bends a HUGE water spout, WAY more powerful than she should be able to at this point??? This kinda pissed me off because skill growth is another thing ATLA was great at portraying alongside character growth.

7. Last one and this one I'm less upset about but when Aang finds Monk Gyatso and goes into the Avatar state, Katara doesn't rush in and calm him down. This was great in the original for multiple reasons but otherwise this scene was OK

Thanks for reading this bonus bit! Feel free to talk to me about avatar now and always xoxo

#Ty for reading I love talking about avatar!!!! #avatar live action #avatar the legend of aang #Atla #avatar the last airbender

[tortoisesshells]

top five doomed mariners go

in order not of significance, but of encounter:

(1) William Bush - the original Doomed Mariner, my copy of Lord Hornblower is still held together with duct tape from chucking the book across the room when I realized Forester was not going to pull a "if there's no body he's not dead" - rather, "if there's no body, it's because he was too close to the ignition point." A character whose defining trait is his devotion is actually something that can be so personal.

(2) James Norrington - the man, the myth, the legend. clearly takes up too much brain space for a [checking notes for comedic effect] antagonist secondary character from a twenty-year-old theme park ride movie. Hard to say at which point it became clear he'd never survive, but there's definitely a point at which he clearly thinks he's survived too long for anyone's good, least of all his own.

(3) Mr. Starbuck

“On this level, Ahab’s hammock swings within; his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.—Oh Mary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck’s body this day week may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall I?—The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and set; she heads her course.” “Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!” Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man’s tormented sleep, as if Starbuck’s voice had caused the long dumb dream to speak. The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard’s arm against the panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place. (123: The Musket)

(4) Eyk Larsen - doomed by Netflix more than his own foibles, though that's not for lack of trying on his foibles' part. Even the men on his crew that like him are waiting for him to snap under the strain of his bereavement, alcoholism, and the demands of the new shipping company's changes (and the sudden appearance/disappearance of a ghost ship. and inexplicable deaths. and seeing things. and and and). Doesn't make it three whole scenes before staring moodily into the deeps of the Atlantic, musing on the impossibility of knowing what lives on the floor thousands of feet below. Kind of deserved that mutiny. Didn't exactly die in 1899, but. Well. Like his relationship with Maura, it was complicated.

(5) Bill Malloy - He never learned how to swim, he put together The Big Secret about the manslaughter trial quicker than any other uninvolved character, he's been in love with and trailing a respectful step behind Liz Collins Stoddard for 20+ years to no avail (but, hey, Carolyn says he's as good as her father, which?), and he's not the most helpful ghost but he is having a little too much fun getting revenge for his murder - did we ever hear him laugh when he was alive? I suppose we have to subtract some points for him never spending any time on a boat within the scope of the narrative, but then, he IS trying to go back to his job on the boats - and no one else on this list sings "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?". I'm pretty sure the narrative is through with him now, alas. He'll always be famous to me.

#i feel like a heel picking five. #honorary mention to daniel gregg. who's not so much doomed as. hmm. doomed implies a downward trajectory. he's already dead. #then again. things can get worse. even for ghosts. #also. Quint. god. he can't knock anyone off this list atm but this is a Sign to go watch the Indianapolis monologue RIGHT NOW. do it. #ask meme #polkaknox talks #thank you for the ask kind friend!

[aemiron-main]

PINNED POST & INFO

Hey there! I’m Em/Aemiron (he/him), and I’m an artist and writer who loves fantasy, history, and analyzing Stranger Things! This pinned post is a temporary one until I can get my proper one finished. If the links don’t work on mobile, it’s because tumblr has decided to act up. This can be circumvented by pressing and holding on a link and opening it in your phone browser. I know this isn’t ideal but alas that’s tumblr for you, and hopefully things will be easier to navigate once i get all this info into a google doc instead.

This is my main/personal/Stranger Things blog- if you’re looking for just my art, that’s over at @aemiron-art​

Like i said, I’m working on a proper pinned post/directory/redoing my tags & working on some big google doc analysis writeups so I’ll make a different pinned post with those resources once that’s all finished, but for now, here’s just some of my random ST analyses/ST posts I’d like to highlight:

henry creel is innocent: edward creel vs henry creel, edward hyde vs henry jekyll, carl jung’s theory of the shadow and stranger things: the first shadow

og eightfifteengate post/where eightfifteengate started

og post about the creel murders occurring on the same day as will’s birthday and ties to birthdaygate

og edward creel post

og post about victor being found on the side of the road and how this ties into what i’ve been saying about hawkins lab being involved in the creel murders  og post of the grandfather clock behind will in the byers house in s1 og post about the fact that we’re getting a “henry in the sensory tank” scene in s5 (this is not the full sensory tank scene analysis)

og post about BTS proof regarding the henry in the sensory tank scene

yes, alice creel was 15 and the creels lived at the creel house for 2 years and here’s proof.

the og ‘if will is gay men who die by hate crimes, mike is gay men who die by suicide’ and hypervisible vs invisible gay men and ted wheeler’s ignorance post

virginia creel likely still had her eyes when she was laying on the table

even more highlighted posts beneath the cut

initial post about henry’s regenerative abilities and some henry-demogorgon parallels post analyzing henry’s regenerative abilities and the “tumors” that appear on the henrygorgon in the byers house in S1 and why henry has teeth on his forehead.  stair scene parallels between barb, billy, and mike  el kisses mike the same way that the fleshflayer flays people

the grids and specifically the plaid in ST as webs (later i will find my posts about spiders = predators and therefore web imagery is tied  to when people are being preyed upon but tumblr hates me and i cant find half my posts rn) og post about the creel tub being the same as heather’s void bathtub og post about “chester is not a dog” 

og post about s1 mike-henry parallels and the idea that the mike in the garage Wasn’t Mike one of the mike-henry parallel scenes during will’s vanishing

“mother is god in the eyes of a child,”/“i can see your sin as clearly as god can”/“if i only could, i’d make a deal with god,” and why alice creel was the angel in the creel house and why virginia killed her. og post about the st-tommy parallels henry is subtitled as “boy” during the electrocution scene

mike isn’t just realizing who he loves- he’s realizing what romantic love IS

mike thinks will had a crush on angela

some ST soundtrack realizations and how they tie to gay mike

more soundtrack and gay mike and rock me amadeus by falco vs play with me by extreme thoughts

some thoughts about why mike’s gayness isn’t presented the same way as will’s and will and mike representing hypervisible vs invisible gay men respectively

the 60 minutes namedrop in s4 and the aids-themed episode it’s referencing

el and gay mike and mileven breakup and the narrative

ramble about mike and internalized homophobia #1

if mike ever loved el romantically, why did he lie about love at first sight instead of using the actual moment he realized he had feelings for her?

mike calling el pretty does not indicate attraction

mike’s ‘not into girls’ facial expression

ramble about mike not being attracted to el #1

ramble about gay mike and wrapping up s5 and how gay mike recontextualizes mileven moments

why am i so sure about gay mike? do i think i have magic future-seeing powers for s5?

mike didn’t even try to hit the water at the quarry & mike-joyce parallels & the importance of seeing mike through a mike lens and how mike represents people who don’t look like they’re drowning & how mike is a character that’s meant to make people challenge their own biases about mental health and sexuality (part of this analysis is in the reblog that’s linked there but here’s also a link to the reposted section of it)

ramble about mike and the invisible struggle

og post about the pair of eyes on the skis behind mike during will’s vanishing

will and saruman parallels and will and henry’s connection working like a palantir

og post about “victor” holding henry the way brenner holds el during henry’s memories of the creel murders [panicked chittering]: an analysis of the “henry killing the rabbit” scene

the og post about henry wearing a straitjacket when he’s laying on the floor of the creel house post about henry being the mindflayer and parallels between henry and dnd mindflayers “everyone vandalizes the bathroom stall”: mike is taught that HE is the problem a rant about the wheelers

I’ve made an absolute TON more posts and analyses but like I said, I’m still in the process of organizing those & making a final pinned post with links to all of them. 

#stranger things #pinned post

[eattherichplease]

The Addams Nunnery Theory

So, I'm no expert on Shakespeare or even the English language, which is unfortunate, because I'm going to make a half-hearted –but very brave!– attempt of deciphering the parallels and references to Hamlet in Wednesday (2022) that, I believe, are intentional, and can give us hints of what's to come in season 2.

(A warning: I'm smarter in Spanish. This reads like broken English because it is)

Anyway here's the facts: there are scattered references to Hamlet, or at the very least Ophelia, on the show. I have other things to do with my life so let's focus on episode 1 for now. The references are not subtle.

First of all, principal Weems sends Wednesday to Ophelia Hall, where both she and Morticia used to live.

Ophelia from Hamlet? Kinda!

Does Ophelia kills herself? Maybe! Most likely! Let's say yes. Most experts say yes, it makes narrative sense, and Wednesday seems pretty sure about it.

But is Ophelia driven mad by her family? Well it's been a while since I read Hamlet... but I won't say that's the main reason. Ophelia goes mad because she's in love with Hamlet, who a) doesn't love her back (maybe?), b) treats her like shit (as a bit?), c) rejects her brutally, d) kills her father (a dick move tbh).

So Larissa Weems sends Wednesday to "Unrequited Love that Drives You Crazy" Hall, where she and Morticia used to live together... Subtle, Larissa. Real smooth, girl.

Anyway let's keep going.

Enid gives Wednesday the tour, which includes the fountain in the quad with the carved image of Ophelia drowning inside! like this:

Right there sitting with Ophelia we have our main girl Bianca Barclay, who is introduced to the viewer alongside the Ophelia statue/carving thing, and:

Is this then our Ophelia, hopelessly in love with the tortured prince of Denmark, destined to (ironically) drown? (ironic because she is a siren you know). Well, that would make Xavier our Hamlet. He's a rich heir and tortured by visions... So maybe? That's an option! But I think that's the superficial reading. Bianca doesn't go mad, after all, doesn't commit suicide. She moves on. Xavier doesn't go mad either, he doesn't kill anyone, not even himself. I believe they are just a red herring, a misdirection. Or maybe an early prototype, an aperitif, a model of what's to come. It's a one-act play that happens before the real play starts, to warm the audience. Fascinating, right?

After showing us the drama, the focus goes back –and remains– on Wednesday and Enid. And here's when Wednesday and Enid start showing their famous dynamic of vitriol & sugar, sarcasm & heart. Wednesday plays the insufferable Hamlet, endlessly monologuing inside her head, playing with the macabre for funsies and making comments about anything and everyone from her high horse without any regard for the feelings of the people around her:

While Enid usually takes a deep breath and counts to ten inside her head:

As she herself will say later, she's trying hard to be Wednesday's friend.... and Wednesday is not going to make it easy for her.

So the stage is set. Turn for the dramatis personae. Who is who in this drama? As you have possibly guessed, I posit that Wednesday is Hamlet. She is a rich heir, she is the most intellectual of all characters, she believes she's surrounded by idiots, she pretends to be "normal" or "mad" as she sees fit (and sometimes she seems to be truly unhinged), she has a dark sense of humor (alas, Yorrik), she thinks herself victim of a great conspiracy, she tries to unravel a murder mystery, she hates her mother, etc, etc, etc. She is also the "meta" character. She is writing a murder mystery inside a murder mystery.

And like Hamlet, Wednesday is visited by the ghost of her father (in this case her ancestor Goody), that tells her he's been murdered (colonized, genocided, burned alive). That's the start of the plot.

So Wednesday is Hamlet.

Who is Ophelia? Who is going to slowly go crazy of unrequited love for Wednesday? We have three candidates:

Tyler the psycho boy. He's not really in love with Wednesday (not really, his words) and he's not suicidal (quite the opposite)... True, his father do forbids him from courting Wednesday, which mirrors the scene where Polonius does the same with Ophelia (although for different reasons). But Tyler is not a victim, he's a real monster, a criminal. He doesn't even show remorse. And even if he's mad, he doesn't go mad because of Wednesday rejection... He was a bully and a crazy axe-murderer way before that. He's no Ophelia. Also, his father is not killed by Wednesday (he's police, which means he can't be killed by our beloved protagonist, because this is an American show! yikes!)

Xavier. A nice Ophelia indeed! He is obsessed with Wednesday to the point of being pathetic. He draws creepy, realistic paintings of her in his personal studio to admire. And he's brutally rejected by her. He's even thrown in jail by "Hamlet"! In the play, Hamlet threatens Ophelia with sending her to "the nunnery", or contemptuously sends her to "the nunnery" (as a joke??), to make clear he doesn't want anything with her. Wednesday seems to be doing the same here, sanding Xavier to horny jail (literally). So do we have a winner? Maybe! Xavier doesn't go mad with sadness after being rejected... well not yet at least. Also Wednesday hasn't killed his father... yet. She will probably in season 2... Vincent Thorpe is most probably the stalker.

But wait, we still have one contender in the match for the role of Ophelia! Our girl Enid!! My girl! I love her dearly. Is she in love with Wednesday? I'll say yes, but it's open to interpretation. It's Wednesday in love with her? Same answer. Things are complex in this world of compulsory heterosexuality where showing shappics loving each other in a screen can make Esther Sinclair (Netflix) send you to conversion camp (show cancelled). So everything depends of season 2! Is she in love with Hamlet!Wednesday? Will she be driven mad by Wednesday's attitude and constant rejection of her advances? I kinda doubt it. Wednesday seems to be warming up (the hug, you know). But maybe Enid wants more, Wednesday says no, etc? Enid could be Ophelia. Don't want her to be though. That would be a home of phobia.

Anyway the Nunnery Theory.

In the play, Hamlet says to Ophelia:

"I say, we will have no more marriages (...) To a nunnery, go."

Which basically means: "Girl, I don't want nothing with you, I don't even want marriages in the kingdom: that's how much I don't want to marry you. Go to a convent and get yourself interned. Also fuck you".

So Ophelia goes mad. Also Hamlet kills her father. And she commits suicide.

And so, three possibilities for season 2:

Wednesday rejects Tyler (done). He goes mad (he already was). Wednesday kills officer Galpin (why?). Tyler commits suicide (because he suddenly develops a conscience, because showrunners are lazy) or goes to jail forever ("nunnery").

Wednesday rejects Xavier (done). He goes mad (kinda?). Wednesday kills Vincent Thorpe (probably for unrelated reasons). Xavier commits suicide (because he is a drama king) or goes crazy and is interned in a mental asylum ("nunnery").

Wednesday rejects Enid (because he is a mess with emotions). Enid goes mad (lots of anger inside that girl, we love her for that). Wednesday kills Esther Sinclair (deserved, I'll give her a standing ovation to be honest). Enid commits suicide (I'll put a b**** in the Netflix headquarters) or is interned in werewolf jail (the home of phobia).

All of this IF and only IF Xavier is still a character in the show (maybe he'll be recasted), since Percy Hynes White seems to have been fired for being a creep and kind of a criminal (presumptive). So maybe he's not even there. Or maybe he commits suicide in episode 1 and that's the murder mystery of the season. (That's what I'll do but I don't work for Netflix).

Also Bianca could be Ophelia and she's still in love with Xavier and drowns which is the dumbest thing ever. Not even an option.

So who will be sent to the nunnery???? I sure don't know.

I'm tired bye!!! If you read all of this I love you!!!

#wednesday netflix #wednesday #the addams family #hamlet #media analysis #the addams nunnery theory #xavier thorpe #wednesday addams #enid sinclair #tyler galpin #larissa weems #theory #wednesday spoilers