I just think it's so funny that I've seen multiple posts on my dash in the past few days implying that "babygirl" is a secret conspiracy to hide the fact that Nobody Cares About Women besties i pinky promise that you can talk about female characters being ignored in fandom without convincing yourself that talking about male characters in feminine terms is Secret Misogyny.

Dog Instincts are Ruff man -

Don't talk incriminating shop infront of your boss at the office Christmas party.

axolotl

Unprofessional yuri save me.. save me unprofessional yuri.. (image description in alt text)

uncle shane can hold me upside down for a really long time with one arm look aunt marnie watch watch watch aunt marnie please look at us look at me do you see aunt marnie do you see how he hol-

Something about the fact that these shots are all grouped together, one after another, visually giving them equal weight just gets me. The narrative knows what's going to happen between JGY and Huaisang at this point, knows how it's going to treat JGY at the end of everything. And it still takes time to show Meng Yao instinctively and immediately going in front of Huaisang and Huaisang instinctively and immediately hiding behind him. It takes the time--literally, showed it in the background and focused on it with the same general amount of time as the other shots--to show that this act of protection and trust are just as real and true as Jiang Cheng defending his sister, as Wen Qing defending her younger brother.

Like, I dunno! There are other Nie juniors there! They have swords and shit! Huaisang could have gone and hid behind the wall, but he hid behind Meng Yao! And Meng Yao could have moved back with Huaisang, but he steps directly in front of him!

There's a lot CQL did to JGY's character and narrative that I don't like and that flatten or just straight up erase his full complexity. But I really appreciate the lengths that it went to in Episode 4 to explicitly tell us that he does not hesitate to protect Huaisang, even though at this point he does not have a sword and definitely does not have anywhere near the same cultivation power (if any) as any of the rest of the people in the room.

Right now, after being publicly humiliated, unarmed and definitely outclassed, he is brave. Along with the rest of the characters, he's allowed to be uncomplicatedly young and loyal and just as innocent as any of the other students there.

Oh god I'd pay money for Logan to tell James something super backhanded that gets broadcasted live and be like the next "James, it's Valtteri" because that would be amazing. Like, imagine Logan crosses the line in P9 and he's like, "James, I'm still replaceable, right?" Would pay good money for that.

I love three houses discourse because I'm pretty sure everyone just picks their route based on which house leader they're the most gay for and then tries to defend their pick by pointing out the other sides's war crimes via twitter memes. Reader, all four of them do substantial quantities of war crimes. So many. We're just here because the woman with Issues and a big fuck-off axe said so, and then we gotta justify everything she did in the name of dismantling the class system. I mean, I'm here for that, but you could also try justifying Charm Man uses poison and perfidy to try to stop racism, A Sad Little Meow Meow gives no quarter instead of doing therapy, or the Thicc Pope tries to bring back her mom via human experimentation, depending on your tastes

see the thing about Astarion to me is I don't actually think he has a clue who he actually is beneath all of the everything he's got going on. he's got impulses, he's got drive, a will to live, he's got desires and amusements and cravings, but an actual selfhood?? no. there's a blue error screen where the person of him should be, the person -- whoever that was, I'm personally of the mind he likely wasn't good then either, but we'll see where the story takes us -- before Cazador. the man in front of us today is this mishmash of interior delight at freedom and sunlight but also capable of true unapologetic cruelty and willingness to be ugly in a multitude of ways. so he follows the impulse. he follows what intrigues and amuses, and nothing will take that freedom from him again. and he reflects back onto others the violence that was done unto him. a lack of power kept him down? now he wants to accumulate power, so it can never be turned on him again. but he also misses the sun while he's underground. he's mean and desperate and ruthless and it's interesting because he's unapologetic about it, he's unflinching about it. he's vindictive and mean and desperately floundering around throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks in terms of personhood because who is he now. 200 years of horrific servitude and now he's just out and about and he's in the mud.

and he can be horrible. and yet when you take the routes of prying open the faaairly shallow veneer he has of smug and snark and snappiness, he'll give you pieces of the raw and the desperate -- "I want to know what the world sees when it looks at me. what you see." is a line you only get if you're earnest with him. any other path in the dialogue will have him continue the shallow persona you've come to know. and in all of that I think nothing is "this is real, this is an act," set in stone because I just don't think he even knows, I don't think he has a CLUE what's his and what's the protective measures and what's the real delight and what's the cruel mockery of his surroundings and what he's willing to give vs what he needs to hide vs what he lets slip out on accident. the inconsistencies in his own ideas and what he says and what he does. I think most everything about him is in a weird place of deeply uncertain. is it a lie? is it a glimmer of truth? for me, I like to interpret him in this weird menagerie of half-truths and shallow lies and omissions, because we've only known him a short while and maybe also he doesn't even know the answer yet. who is he? fuck if HE knows. anyways. smash.

ah yes the brook/franky/robin/jimbei polycule also known as the babysitters also known as monkey d luffys biggest enablers

saw a post about "what if sonic and tails acted like realistic siblings" and sonic chasing tails around the house while tails was screaming bc tails ate sonic's food. but to me. it would be the other way around. it's TAILS' house. its' TAILS' food that he bought with his OWN money. sonic is the one mooching off him and tails is a lot more petty than sonic

You know, I feel like other trans people might get this, but it's honestly kind of refreshing when a cis person has, like, undeniable tboy/tgirl/whatever swag. It's like when you come across somebody who speaks the same language as you and you only find out when they start speaking it, too.

this is basically how that minor prophecy goes, right

i would give anything to have a crossover where tk and carlos meet buck and tommy

i'll write a proper long post about this thats more detailed eventually, but another deliberate way hannibal manipulated will in s1 is by blurring the lines between their therapy sessions conversations about will's emotions and killers' emotions/motivations.

for example:

will is frantic and traumatized by his hallucination of killing the girl that georgia madchen killed in 1x10. hannibal responds to that, then relates will's experience to the killers experience. uses the word delusion as a bridge. this prompts will to dig further into the killer's head. while he's responding, will is closing his eyes and staring off into the distance, as if he is seeing what the killer is seeing. then, using the word lonely as a bridge, he brings the subject back to will.

hannibal does this constantly.

even in episode two, the second time they had ever been alone in hannibal's office together, hannibal does this.

will is frantic and traumatized from his hallucination of hobbs in the grave of one of the mushroom garden people. hannibal just barely talks him down from it, then instantly changes the subject to the killer. forcing will back into the killer's head. then changes the topic to will again. blurring the lines between them, again, and again, and again.