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#we love some exact parallels
very-feral-lesbian · 2 years
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buckley-diaz family parallels throughout the years
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fromtheseventhhell · 1 month
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Another reason that Stansas hate the idea of Arya and Dany being friends (outside of them wanting to demonize Dany) is that they've convinced themselves that Dany and Sansa are the only main female characters, so if a Stark sister is going to have a significant relationship with Dany it has to be Sansa. Arya being constantly downplayed and treated like an accessory to Sansa has generally led to the consensus that her relationship with Dany will be defined by whatever Sansa's relationship (positive or negative) with her is. That's why Arya is always being left out of the "we were robbed of [x] female character friendship" conversations and why theories about Dany/Arya getting along are treated as Sansa hate; Arya, as a character, is seen as secondary to Sansa by a lot of people
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suits-of-woe · 1 year
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is anyone going to talk about the blatant antonio/bassanio/portia parallels in the andrei/goncharov/katya dynamic and how scorsese literally said in interviews that he wanted certain scenes to have a shakespearean feel to them or do i have to write the meta myself
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putuponpercy · 1 year
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What was James and Thomas relationship like in the reincarnation au?
A pair of clowns bumbling together to figure out how being human works. This AU in particular has no ships, so they're still frienemies friends like in the show. But they do share this weird connection from being the only two ex-engines for the longest time, with only a month's difference between them, a lot of shit they go through for the first time they go through together.
It's also worth noting that Thomas is there with James when they lay eyes on the latter's old engine body for the first time as it's recovered from the ocean and vice-versa with James being there when Thomas finally sees what's left of his old body, with both of them delivering the line: "Whatever happens next, we're all here for you, yeah?" to each other beforehand.
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inkskinned · 1 year
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for a while i lived in an old house; the kind u.s americans don't often get to live in - living in a really old house here is super expensive. i found out right before i moved out that the house was actually so old that it features in a poem by emily dickinson.
i liked that there were footprints in front of the sink, worn into the hardwood. there were handprints on some of the handrails. we'd find secret marks from other tenants, little hints someone else had lived and died there. and yeah, there was a lot wrong with the house. there are a lot of DIY skills you learn when you are a grad student that cannot afford to pay someone else to do-it-for-ya. i shared the house with 8 others. the house always had this noise to it. sometimes that noise was really fucking awful.
in the mornings though, the sun would slant in thick amber skiens through the windows, and i'd be the first one up. i'd shuffle around, get showered in this tub that was trying to exit through the floor, get my clothes on. i would usually creep around in the kitchen until it was time to start waking everyone else up - some of them required multiple rounds of polite hey man we gotta go knocks. and it felt... outside of time. a loud kind of quiet.
the ghosts of the house always felt like they were humming in a melody just out of reach. i know people say that the witching hour happens in the dark, but i always felt like it occurred somewhere around 6:45 in the morning. like - for literal centuries, somebody stood here and did the dishes. for literal centuries, somebody else has been looking out the window to this tree in our garden. for literal centuries, people have been stubbing their toes and cracking their backs and complaining about the weather. something about that was so... strangely lovely.
i have to be honest. i'm not a history aficionado. i know, i know; it's tragic of me. i usually respond to "this thing is super old" by being like, wow! cool! and moving on. but this house was the first time i felt like the past was standing there. like it was breathing. like someone else was drying their hands with me. playing chess on the sofa. adding honey to their tea.
i grew up in an old town. like, literally, a few miles off of walden pond (as in of the walden). (also, relatedly, don't swim in walden, it's so unbelievably dirty). but my family didn't have "old house" kind of money. we had a barely-standing house from the 70's. history existed kind of... parallel to me. you had to go somewhere to be in history. your school would pack you up on a bus and take you to some "ye olden times" place and you'd see how they used to make glass or whatever, and then you'd go home to your LEDs. most museums were small and closed before 5. you knew history was, like, somewhere, but the only thing that was open was the mcdonalds and the mall.
i remember one of my seventh grade history teachers telling us - some day you'll see how long we've been human for and that thing has been puzzling me. i know the scientific number, technically.
the house had these little scars of use. my floors didn't actually touch the walls; i had to fill them with a stopgap to stop the wind. other people had shoved rags and pieces of newspaper. i know i've lost rings and earring backs down some of the floorboards. i think the raccoons that lived in our basement probably have collected a small fortune over the years. i complain out loud to myself about how awful the stairs are (uneven, steep, evil, turning, hard to get down while holding anything) and know - someone else has said this exact same thing.
when i was packing up to leave and doing a final deep cleaning, i found a note carved in the furthest corner in the narrow cave of my closet. a child's scrawled name, a faded paint handprint, the scrangly numbers: 1857.
we've been human for a long time. way back before we can remember.
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shrimpmajordomo · 4 months
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I have so many Thoughts about the ACOC backup charaters, especially in relation to the player's primary one.
Zac: Lapin and Cumulous are both socially reticent guys just on the periphery of the family. They both serve a higher power that is not the Bulb. Lapin was tricked into it, while Cumulous was created for it. Lapin hides it, Cumulous basks in it. Different perspectives on Fuck The Bulbian Church.
Emily: Neither Jet nor Saccharina wanted to rule. Jet would have envied Saccharina's freedom even more than she did Annabelle's, and Jet had everything Saccharina wanted most. Essays could be written about these two, so I'm gonna leave it there and move on.
Lou: We know very little about his backup character, but we do know that his name is Murdo Brer, and he's a necromancer (wizard) who lives way out in the far reaches of Candia. His extreme interest in the dark side of magic turned him into an oozing, slimy, legless molasses man. The exact opposite of Amethar, the illiterate pillar of a rock candy barbarian/fighter whose life is the center of everything.
Ally: Liam is an outsider, he doesn't really belong there. But Caramelinda went out of her way to check in with him about his well-being and suggest a way out of the castle, if he wanted one. He's the only person she was nothing but warm and kind to. (of course. her husband and daughters certainly didn't help that) And then Ally's backup character is Sir Amanda Maillard. The s'mores paladin having an affair with the queen. She belongs in the castle even less, and, of course, her relationship with Caramelinda is very, very close. These two spots of warmth and kindness in Caramelinda's otherwise extremely stressful and challenging life.
Murph: Saying that Theo loved Lazuli and that he is who he is because of her is an understatement. All we know about his backup character is that it was a Bubblegum Monster construct created by Lazuli. That obvious parallel aside, there's something there in the chewiness of gummy bears and bubblegum. It's candy that takes a wile and some effort to finish. They've got staying power. We see that in Swirlwarden's ability and really everything about Theo, and I think it's safe to assume that a construct that looks like that is also not easy to take down.
And then there's Siobhan. Where this started, for me.
Her backup character was Bitternight Darknibs, a warlock made of sugarless chocolate. She said that, if she were to have played her, she would have been Rococoa, having come back from the dead as a revenant to get revenge on Calroy.
Rococoa's need to avenge her murdered family being so strong it brought her back from the dead vs Ruby feeling like part of her died when Jet did and revenge being the only thing keeping her going. Jet being the one connected to Rococoa. If Ruby had died, Amethar would have lost his daughter and gotten back his sister, kind of.
We don't know how aware of her past Bitternight is, maybe it's just, like, a thing we know and will devastate Amethar to learn later, or if there is a more immediate recognition/reunion sort of thing. But no matter what, it would have been absolutely devastating.
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sassasafreeaction · 6 months
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It’s time to talk about the Laudanum Lesbians, Elspeth and Wee Morag. Right away, it’s pretty obvious that you’re supposed to draw parallels between them and Aziraphale and Crowley. When the viewer first meets Elspeth, we get this gruff girl who threatens the two of them and is established to be doing something “morally wrong”. Life hasn’t been kind to her, and she clearly doesn’t trust people. To really drive it home, she and Crowley are on the exact same page while they’re talking to Aziraphale and wheeling the body to the alley. 
Then we meet Wee Morag, and it becomes apparent that every decision that Elspeth makes is to better their life together. She offers Wee Morag food (which is something our favorite demon is wont to do for his partner) and specifically oversells it as something fancier than it actually is. Wee Morag calls her an angel. It’s meant to be a little tongue and cheek since it’s in the presence of a literal angel, but it also serves as a way to show that while Elspeth may not be a Good person, that she at least cares about the person close to her.
Now for Wee Morag at this moment, we don’t get much from her aside from her obviously being the moral compass out of the two of them. She tells Elspeth that she's going to Hell literally two seconds after referring to her as an angel. The more important part of this interaction I would argue is Aziraphale’s response to Wee Morag. Some part of him recognizes a kindred spirit in her. He takes off his hat in a show of sincerity and says that it was lovely to meet her. This is important for later in the episode.
After they fail to sell the body, all three of them end up back in the alley with Wee Morag. Elspeth is again choosing to not trust Aziraphale despite his change of heart to do what he now knows is actually a good thing. Wee Morag starts off on the fence, worried about those souls that won’t get into Heaven. Elspeth tells her that she promised to help, and through everyone’s various methods of convincing (tempting may even be the better word as there is a demon sitting next to her when she agrees), Wee Morag says that she’ll do it because that’s what friends do. Regardless, she’s now had her change of heart. Although I would say hers is more driven by the same thing that drives Aziraphale to help with the Antichrist. It is fundamentally for her and Elspeth’s benefit, not the Greater Good per say, but she needs that reframing of doing the moral thing of upholding her promises and potentially helping people.
In the graveyard, Elspeth does all of the hardwork and Wee Morag holds the light both to assist how Elspeth sees, but also likely to help her keep watch. She’s filling a guardian role for Elspeth. Later when Elspeth sells her body, she even says “She only wanted to look after me.” Upon seeing the actual body (a priest’s body no less), Wee Morag realizes with horror what they’re doing - the potential moral ramifications stare her in the face. She ends up caught in the crossfire of a gun, and she dies for it.
Originally, I thought that Wee Morag’s death sets Crowley up to worry about what might potentially happen to Aziraphale in the future. In a way, I still think it does. She was the Good character helping the Bad character, and she pays dearly for it. His line “It’s a bit different when it’s someone you know, isn’t it?” while pointed at Aziraphale can be felt by everyone in the room. Elspeth has been dealing with death this whole episode, but her whole life is turned on its head when her ‘pal’ dies. Crowley recognizes that it’s the knowing part that actually causes something to hurt. (It’s one of the reasons why he doesn’t have many human friends. He does have a friend though, and it would absolutely gut him to lose him.)
The episode isn’t over though. We still have to watch someone else pay for stepping over the imaginary boundary of Good and Evil, except rather than it being Aziraphale, it’s Crowley. Like Wee Morag, he steps out of his usual role and helps Elspeth, and for that, he pays dearly. He gets dragged off to Hell to have whatever Demons do instead of a rude note done to him. After everything that’s happened, it’s no wonder why you get that panicked shout of “Crowley” from Aziraphale. They just watched the worst case scenario happen for people like them. 
Also as another quick fun aside, both sets of characters are bound by something that allows them to not be able to carry out their actual dreams and goals. Elspeth and Wee Morag were bound by poverty while Aziraphale and Crowley are bound by their respective Head Offices.
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rizsu · 1 year
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please, be mines !! atsumu miya.
sum. love-struck atsu tries to court his new crush.
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atsumu's confused. he finds himself sitting in his car practically devouring you with his gaze—no, none of you know each other but atsumu feels like he's in one of those romantic stories where the lovers reincarnate into the modern era.
am i a pervert, he fights with himself for an answer. by no means does he want to ever come off as a stalker but if you saw a silver coloured car with G5 tint parked parallel from your position... yeah he'd look like a creep. for another ten minutes atsumu sits there. he feels like those women in hallmark movies sitting at the table sighing lovingly as the blow their cup of coffee. “you know what,” atsumu talks to himself, unbuckling his seatbelt before finally making a move.
on your side, you're inside the café wiping the tables. you work here as a little side job—it's your friend's café to be exact, she begged you to work and you needed a part-time job to keep yourself occupied before summer. just seconds before you turn the ‘opened’ sign to closed, a rushed pair of arms slam against the glass door welcoming a lanky male.
you cannot be serious, your eyes twitch at the sight of two handprints on the very clean and very sparkly door. switching your mood into customer service mood, you welcome him, “hi! what would you like?”
an awkward silence introduces itself—atsumu's still trying to catch his breath from battling his luck versus the sign. sucking in a deep breath, atsumu gives a little grin before answering.
“'m new here. can you recommend something?”
“sure! how about an eclair with some frappucino to start?” gesturing him to one of the tables, you make a u-turn towards the counter.
atsumu follows and sits comfortably watching you do your job. he gets a little fidgety.. atsumu really isn't one for awkward silence. awkward in the sense that he's the only one here and you're the only worker here, probably on closing shift duties.
it takes him a few minutes and some playing with his fingers before he pulls out his phone to text someone (osamu).
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“and here's your order...”
“it's atsumu.”
“atsumu! enjoy it.”
placing his order on the table, you give him your mastered customer service smile, walking away with thoughts about how pleasing he is to look at. meanwhile atsumu's malfunctioning—when your crush smiles at you (no matter the reason) it immediately stuns you. if there's anything that can describe what atsumu feels and thinks it'll be ‘!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!?’
forcing a cough to recollect himself, he finally digs into the meal, relishing in it's glorious flavour (he's exaggerating). wait fuck, atsumu thinks. he's a bite away from finishing his order and after that he'll have no reason to stay here any longer. trembling hands brings the last bit of the eclair to his mouth as imaginary tears race down his face. a heartbreaking story, really.
looking up from your phone, you notice his table's lacking the food you gave him, “are you finished? i'll come get it.”
“huh? oh, yeah, i'm done unfortunately,” whispering the last word, atsumu looks at you with an awkward smile; he doesn't know what to do, so he decides to start a conversation.
“so... uh, you work here?”
“well...”
“forget i asked that—what's your name?”
stifling a laugh, you take off your apron, folding it in half before resting it on the counter.
“i'm y/n.”
standing from his table, atsumu stretches a little, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walks up to you.
“so, y/n, do you need a ride home?”
“it's a bit too early for that but i'll give you my number.”
atsumu's lips shape itself into an ‘O’. a pink dust works its up his neck as he rubs his nape, looking away with another awkward smile. right, we barely know each other.
writing your number onto a random piece of paper, your fold it before handing it to him, “text me!”
muttering a little ‘thanks’, he gladly accepts your number. i'm too good, he compliments himself—celebrating because he got your number.
grabbing your stuff, you look at atsumu, tilting your head at the door to suggest you're going to close up for the night.
“oh right,” he grabs his keys, shoving his phone into his pocket before he walks up to you, “but what about the pay?”
“it's only two items. don't worry about it.” walking out the door you lock up the café, matching steps with atsumu out to your car. “you drive!?” atsumu's shocked. why didn't i think about that, he questions himself. god, he feels like a dumbass.
smiling at him, you nod your head. he's kinda cute, you think. unlocking your car, you dump your stuff in the backseat, slamming the door before you open the driver's door. “g'night, atsumu. see you later!”
“g'night. i'll text ya.” waving you off, atsumu walks back to his car with the biggest smile. he's going to make it everyone's business that he got a potential girlfriend and maybe even a wife.
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meanbossart · 4 months
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do you have any thoughts on cazador as a character? personally i really loved the parallels between him and astarion & the way that the master/spawn relationship is used as an allegory for cyclical abuse. the scene with cazador’s master’s skull where you find out that he was once victimized in the exact same way that he later victimized astarion was really a lightbulb moment for me re: what vampirism represents in this game.
BOY DO I, i don't think much of it hasn't already been said, though. He's a tragic character in his own right of course, not that that takes away from the awful man he is.
Me and my boyfriend make fun of him a lot, we call him "the best BG3 character" as a little inside joke between us and come up with ridiculous scenarios of things that might have occurred throughout those 200 miserable years the spawn had under his command lol. Maybe he had a month where he was really specific about the shoes everyone wore, maybe once every other decade he had a weird week where he tried to be "nice" only to become frustrated when his efforts weren't immediately met in kind by the rightfully-terrified spawn, maybe between all the torture and horrific-ness he just did some plain weird shit like making someone crouch by in his fainting couch and wait by open-handed for grapes that he dramatically chewed on and then spat right out since he can't actually eat them lmao
And that's hysterical but I think we also started doing that because when you meet Cazador, when you first hear his voice and see his demeanor in person your immediate reaction is probably somewhere along the lines of "THIS is the clown you were so scared of, Astarion?"
And the answer is, of course, yes. This embarrassing little man stuck in a cage of his making instills fear beyond comprehension in Astarion and all his siblings. This man who undoubtedly showed all these spawn, inadvertently, the strangest, most arguably "human" aspects of himself at some point or another during these two centuries they had together is also an absolute monster. And i really like that! I think its far more effective and fitting for his story than if he was, lets say, a Ketheric type.
(this got very long so, more under the cut)
Look at Ascended Astarion in the epilogue now, for example. Everyone agrees that he's an absolute fucking dork - and I think we all also agree that he will go on to destroy the lives of many people beyond repair, especially his own, until the day he is killed.
In the topic of vampirism as an allegory for abuse, I both agree and also don't, at least not exactly - i just think it's deeper than that. I've spoken about this in another post but i find it incredibly refreshing how, to me, it seems like Baldur's Gate 3 has no interest in painting vampirism as sexy or fun past a surface level. It's a curse that nobody asks for unless put in a situation where they feel as if they have no other way out, and it shapes and haunts you for the rest of your undead existence.
Even if you enjoy its benefits at first, that has a time limit. You will see your family and loved ones die, you will see culture evolve while you stay perpetually the same. You will experience so much hurt and pain because the only thing that makes life truly sweet is knowing that it is finite, and eventually it will wear down all of your humanity. And since you can't die unless you are scorched by the sun, staked, or dismembered, you must live with the knowledge that you will never have a peaceful death - and since you won't have a peaceful death, you better not die - and if you don't want to die, you better not be weak - and if you don't want to be weak, you must seek out power at all cost and slash things like love and friendship out of your life.
And what is funny, is that in his attempt to be more like a mortal - to eat, drink, walk the sun, such incredibly simple desires - Cazador (and Astarion, if he ascends) is accidentally only drawing further away from the person he supposedly once was, because that fear of weakness has already utterly corrupted his soul.
That's quite a grim way to look at it, of course. But I genuinely think that it is the natural conclusion of something like immortality.
That's why I quite like that, even after Astarion has found happiness, even after he finds his peace, he still doesn't exactly embrace being a vampire - because It's not something he should be expected to embrace. I think it's a very unique take on the trope.
I also want to leave here this message written by his character writer, which really got me thinking about him on a deeper level since i saw it months ago. It is specifically about the sexual aspect, but I think it branches beyond it too, when you think about it.
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sortaawkward · 2 months
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I have read the PJO series many, many, many times over my life, and so objectively I knew the ways in which Percy and Luke were two sides of the same coin- even Percy himself recognized how easy it could have been for him to have ended up in Luke's place. But, I just watched an animatic on TikTok that kind of blew the lid off of it for me. The funny thing though? After watching the video, my first thought wasn't about Percy and Luke; my first thought after it looped was wow, I never realized how paralleled the lives of May Castellan and Sally Jackson are.
It doesn't require much delving into fandom content to come across any one of the myriad posts touching on Percy's "mama's boy" title because he is one- plain and simple. However, this particular TikTok had granted the title to Luke freaking Castellan- something I had never seen, or perhaps never cognized, before. Naturally it got me thinking: how would Percy react if May's fate had happened to Sally, instead?
Sally Jackson has true-sight; it's what led to her meeting Poseidon in the first place. And much like Hermes wanting to stay around/with May- Poseidon, too, wanted to keep Sally around. He went as far as offering to build her a castle on the sea floor for her to live in so he could come visit her.
I've struggled with Luke's anger towards Hermes about May's fate for a long time. I struggled because, while I knew that some of it was simply the irrationality of human emotions and the fact that Luke was a child, I couldn't get over the fact that Luke so blatantly chose to overlook the fact that Hermes was against May's attempt to take on the Oracle's spirit. Now, however, if we look at it from the perspective of "if it were Percy and Sally" I can understand that Percy would blame his father because by simply existing and being in her life he condemned her to this fate.
Perhaps Luke did know/understand that Hermes had tried to talk May out of her plan to become the oracle. Perhaps Luke just didn't care; what if his issue was with the existence of Hermes and the rest of the gods and the simple existence of their world? If the world of the gods and demigods and CHB had never come into contact with his mother's world- if the world of Olympus had never existed at all, then May Castellan would have been totally fine.
This might be nothing, or maybe everybody has already come to this realization and I'm just arriving late to the party. May Castellan was also born with the gift of prophecy whereas Sally was not- so it's not even like an exact parallel. I had just never looked at Luke under the scope of a boy who loved his mother the same way that Percy loves Sally, and it kind of blew my mind. Anywho, if anyone reads this sorry for subjecting you to my stream-of-consciousness; I just needed a sounding board (to write it out) in order to organize my thoughts.
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genericpuff · 2 months
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ok listen right
please don't take the implication of what i'm about to say the completely wrong way, there's a point i have to make here
there's this gross thing that happens in LO that's been definitely talked about numerous times (by many people) where fashion is used to label a character's like, "alignment" between "good" "bad" "pure" "tainted" etc. this is something that comes up a lot when discussing Minthe and Persephone because there are a LOAD of double standards in how Minthe was treated and viewed for dressing like a "slut" but then Persephone wears the exact same fit and suddenly she's a queen-
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(image courtesy of @anoldplace on Instagram, I'll be showing a couple of their posts in this because they show off a lot of the great - and frankly disturbing - parallels in LO, whether intended by Rachel or not)
-but can we talk about how the "bad ending" version of Persephone where she ends up with Apollo slaps WAY FUCKING HARDER than anything we've seen her dressed in since she got with Hades ??
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fucking hello?? where's THAT fit ??
you're telling me this girl is queen of the underworld and the best she can do in the fashion department is looking like a color-swapped version of Hera ???
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and I WANNA MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR, this isn't me trying to say "Persephone would have been way cooler if she got with Apollo", that is FAR from the point, more so just pointing out the pattern of Rachel aligning "bad" with "dresses with more flavor than an extremely out-of-touch conservative boomer". Even when she tries to draw Persephone in more "out there" clothing it just comes across as ... tacky? And only at her own detriment?
Like, how the fuck is this supposed to be Persephone being drawn through a literal male gaze (Apollo):
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And THIS is supposed to be Persephone being drawn from a female gaze (her own because she dressed herself):
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Like literally how? How does this happen? Especially when the latter is STILL being framed from a male perspective (the green guy behind her, "Jeffrey") but we're supposed to believe it's some "boss babe" moment for Persephone to just be walking down the street while getting oggled inappropriately by a male onlooker? How could these scenes be any more different and yet more alike? She's still being objectified for the characters around her and the audience, but we're supposed to believe the second is better than the first one because... she chose to wear that?
Sure, one could argue that at least she dressed herself and that definitely gives her agency, but it's really Rachel telling on herself where her priorities are in trying to write a "feminist comic" that she had Persephone dress herself and then STILL have its only purpose be for men on the sidelines to stare at and objectify her. When you just know this same outfit would have undoubtedly been used to slut shame characters like Minthe or Thetis or Leuce.
I don't even know, man. The intentions in LO's writing are so confused, contradictory, and ultimately pointless. It's trying so hard to be "feminist" and a "deconstruction of purity culture" but then it turns around and reinforces all that same shit it's claiming to be fighting against anyways. Persephone would be an evil slut if she was with Apollo, look at her outfit! But not here, not the banana purse dress being oggled by strangers on the sidewalk, not now that she settled down with her old rich husband who she only knew for a couple weeks before being separated for 10 years but their love was just so strong and the thirst for dick so real that she and him loyally waited for one another until she was old enough to make it "not be creepy" anymore for them to hook up, but only after marriage. She's definitely not a gold digger like Minthe or a vapid slut like Thetis or a homewrecker like Leuce, nah.
I just wish she'd dress herself, for the love of god. Let her dress herself with her own input and not the influence of the people around her or the tone of the comic's own internalized misogyny that demands "woman must always be objectified for better or for worse, that is The Rule!"
Of course she can't "dress herself" though. She's an extension of Rachel and Rachel herself writes like an out-of-touch boomer who will and has gladly gone about how men are just clamoring at the bit to stare at her and get to her... but then claims she "didn't realize sexism was all that bad" until she started working on LO.
Sorry, this post got very long and very mean, I initially just wanted to make the comparison in a very silly haha "wild how bad ending Persephone has way more visual personality than good ending Persephone" way, but then I thought about it too long and pissed myself off LMAO
And no, I don't want to go back to beating the dead horse of "banana dress bad" because honestly, I think in any other context or comic, sure, it would be very cute to see her walking around in an outfit she chose herself even if it's "objectively" not a great outfit, it shows agency and not caring what other people think which is VERY freeing. But we're not reading that comic, we're reading LO, where a woman's worth and value is only determined by how the men around her react to her and only Persephone is allowed to be empowered by wearing outfits that would otherwise be treated as "slutty" if worn by anyone else.
I don't want the message to be "Persephone looks like a dumbass bimbo" or, on the flipside, "Persephone looks boring and out-of-touch", I want the message to be "Persephone is valid for dressing how she wants, just like how the women around her are valid for dressing how they want regardless of whether or not they're protagonists or antagonists."
Quit using women's fashion as an alignment chart, quit using these "not so sly for a misogynist guy" dogwhistles as a way to "other" the women around the power fantasy main character. Women deserve to dress how they want without shame or objectification - all women, not just the women you like.
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probablyhuntersmom · 10 months
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The contrast is so poignant when it comes to Belos isolating Hunter for years and instilling the fear of wild magic, versus Hunter's future in carving palismen to connect with nature and with others.
We have his signature gloves as part of all his outfits before he went to the human realm, representative of that isolation and fear: Belos wanting to keep 'Caleb' to himself, wanting to prevent Hunter from forging connections and thus finding freedom. The gloves come off once Hunter has room to create and experiment and explore.
During the many many months in between him beginning to learn the palismen-carving craft and us seeing him mastering it in the epilogue, there would've been many setbacks. Many cuts and splinters via mistakes (thus, more wounds and scars...small, but numerous) and bandages on his hands, like what happened with the sewing needle. Thus, many times when he was reminded of what happened with his best friend. I can imagine that on the more difficult days of learning under Dell, remorse and horrible memories eating into him, he'd be more at risk of leaving more cuts because it would be harder to focus. There would've been days where he got close to giving up.
In his arc, this changed everything:
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He was found by a free-spirited, strong-willed palisman.
This was when things began to be truly dangerous:
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but by then he gathered enough courage to finally question Belos directly.
What a high price to pay. Recovery from trauma is certainly that way in real life too. But it led him on that path towards transformation, towards what he truly wanted.
In his old life, he'd point a staff at others to intimidate, to instill fear, and be Belos's instrument in furthering a cause that Hunter didn't truly support.
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In the future, he generously gives palismen to others from the heart, via new creations made with his own hands, to bring more love, connection and wonder into the world. Letting others live out their truth via the bonds forged with their new palismen, the same kind of truth he himself had to fight so hard for.
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If we rewind back to what the Bat Queen said in Hunting Palismen:
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contrast that with this point in Hunter's arc:
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Still blocked and numbed out from fully experiencing the worst thing he had ever been through: being possessed and in that process, slaying Flapjack.
Willow and Gus had just began to reach that vulnerability within him, moving him with their love and support (which is why the anger he had for around 2/3 of For the Future began to subside).
But it wasn't enough.
In the finale, he gets some temporary respite and relief:
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But I believe the real gruelling work was to begin beyond this exact point:
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More vulnerability ahead, to pave the way for healing.
Putting the scene of him looking at the old Flyer Derby photo (in For the Future) next to the scene where the Bat Queen sums up what palismen are all about...it indicates to me how steep the climb would be to connect with the full range of his emotions and memories, which parallels his development under Dell's mentorship. To bring some beauty out of that horror he has endured. To bring about the conviction that yes, he deserved Flapjack's gift, from Flapjack's sacrifice.
It would've been years before he would confidently and effortlessly rest in the truth of who he really is, and who he would like to be (remember his "Even if I'm not who I'm supposed to be, I like who I am right now" in front of the mirror, right before getting possessed?).
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Liberating himself from enmeshment with his violent abuser and that old life, a process he'd have to repeat again and again even beyond Belos's death. Changing that narrative of "supposed to":
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into freely choosing the person he would like to become after Flapjack granted him love and literal life. We receive the one clue that he wanted to freely choose, as early as this scene:
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When it comes to palismen, we have "emotion" and "conviction" and also the deepest wishes that witches have in their hearts.
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For emotion to flow freely, there must be vulnerability, generosity and love: Hunter integrating even the most difficult emotions into his story.
For him to grow into acceptance of his future major role, it would have involved wrestling with many questions to reach that place of conviction.
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cerastes · 5 months
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Bro any time I think about Valkyria Chronicles I laugh my nipples off, the game is fundamentally flawed gameplaywise but, simultaneously, it's stupidly fun, which is the recipe for any club banger, it has a story that weaves flawlessly between "that's pretty poignant" and "this is some goofy goober shit", it's got the horrors of war but also this fucking pig piece of shit mascot, Hans,
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It's an amalgam of white and black without any gray: It exists on extremes, and it never intersects, it's playing two parallel lines and coming to terms with the fact that you'll never see cohesion but that somehow enhances the end product in ways evidently no one intended. You have narrative comparisons with the persecution of jews and, at the same time, the game ends with the bad guy getting German Suplexed.
But I think the funniest aspect of Valkyria Chronicles The First is that the main character is the farthest thing from a war hero they could possibly muster with the expertise of a stoic Japanese swordsmith from the mountains crafting a god-cleaving blade: Welkin.
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This Scout From TF2 Put Through An Anime Filter looking mother fucker was chilling in his hometown talking about how much he wanted to be a teacher and showing people his really good sketches of animals because he's also a gifted artist, when suddenly, the Dudes attack, and his reaction to the Dudes attacking is "hang on, I recall my dad hiding his actual service tank in the shed in the back" so he goes and, yeah, his dad's tank from a previous war is just there, chilling, so he takes it for a joy ride while the town baker, Alicia, armed with a rifle and infinite action economy due to the afore mentioned flawed gameplay, sweeps the entire god damn platoon of heavily armed machine gun troops.
The entire game is Welkin using his love for nature and his baker love interest to inflict insane personnel and materiel damage to an entire empire: Welkin and Alicia will come across a heavily fortified bridge, and the dialogue will go something like
"Welkin! They will pulverize us with the heaviest machine guns known to man if we step one foot in that bridge! They practically developed wooden low-orbit bombardment stations! What's the plan!"
"Well... Look at that duck over there. It's flying from the east to the west, right? Well, YOU SEE, that duck is known as a Balkunese Socioduck, and those, during this season, migrate from west to east, and they only exhibit this irregular flight path if a Matrisgel Weasel family is molting by the juniper berry bushes, their favorite food. Matrisgel Weasels only ever molt if they are put under the exact amount of stress caused to them by the sound of distant tank threads on the road, and they are known to hide in sturdy, stable soil."
"Welkin, SIR, what the fuck does this all mean?"
"If we follow the smoldering shrieking of the molting weasels, we'll find a SECRET PATH that will, as always, let us ambush, flank, and surprise our foes! Alicia, you know what to do."
"Ogggeyyyyy"
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and then, invariably, no matter the level, thanks to Welkin's impressive knowledge of fauna and flora, and Alicia's literally infinite action economy in a game that wasn't properly beta tested in-house during development, they combine their powers like a piss poor Captain Planet and kill the absolute shit out of an entire Empire's worth of dudes, and it's legitimately one of the most fun and charming games you'll ever touch if you remember to not take it too seriously. I fucking hate Hans but I love this game.
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brigdh · 5 months
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Okay. My thoughts on the Our Flag Means Death finale. Obviously I'm not very happy with the ending, though I'm also not as upset as some people are. I would say I'm discontent. Unsatisfied. Too aware of how it could have been improved, and a bit bitter that we didn't get a better version, but I also don't hate what we did get.
I know a lot of meta has attributed the problems to a shorter season, and absolutely I would have loved to get 10 episodes instead. I would have loved 22 episodes! Why don't we do that anymore? But I don't think the 8 episode length was the ultimate problem. A) The showrunner and writers knew they had only 8 episodes, so they needed to choose a story that fit into that length, but even more importantly, B) my problem is not that they had too much story for too little time, but actually that they had plenty of time and chose to fill it with too little story.
As I've sat with it over the last few days and thought more about the season's arc, it feels to me like we got eight episodes of filler. Filler episodes can be great! Filler episodes can have some of the funniest lines, the greatest scenes, the most intriguing ideas. But filler episodes do not progress character arcs or major themes, and that's exactly the problem this season had.
The only characters who got arcs this season are Izzy, and to a lesser and more rushed extent, Lucius. Which sure is a choice.
Ed and Stede and their relationship did not meaningfully change from S1. (Okay, yes, they had sex, they said I Love You – but these are external changes, not internal. They don't represent character growth. Stede realized he loved Ed and was telling everyone back in 1x10. Ed clearly would have slept with him in S1 if they'd had a little more time.) Ed and Stede in 2x08 are not different from who they are in 2x01. If Ed had asked Stede to be innkeepers in 2x01, does anyone think Stede wouldn't have immediately agreed? One of the big moments in 2x08 is Ed reading a letter that Stede wrote in 2x01! Stede's exact words from the very beginning of the season! What better way to underline that none of the subsequent seven episodes had important growth or changes?
Another one of 2x08's big shippy moments is Ed and Stede running to each other across a beach – deliberately paralleling the dream Stede had in 2x01. What are we supposed to take from this parallel? My original thought was that we're supposed to see how different the real version is from the dream, but there's honestly not many differences. Neither one has a beard, now? The dream mocked how Stede knew they needed to have a conversation about their relationship that he wanted to avoid, but they don't have a conversation in the "real" version either. They exchange about two sentences (which includes Ed's I Love You, yes, which is a big deal but still isn't a conversation) and then they charge right back into the fight, without discussing anything like Ed abruptly dumping Stede to go be a fisherman, Stede killing Ned Low when Ed asked him not to, their differences of opinion on being pirates, if having sex was a mistake or if that's only a thing Ed said because he was panicking, etc etc. They have just as many issues to address as they did in the dream, but just like the dream they act like everything is magically okay without talking about it!
So I think we're meant to take the beach-run parallels as "here's what Stede's been wanting, and after waiting for so long he finally gets it". Which is fine, a very sweet take-away for a finale. But it underlines what I'm saying is the problem of the season: Stede has just been waiting for eight episodes for his dream to come true. Not changing. Not growing. Not doing anything to bring the dream about, other than trying to get himself and Ed into the same physical location. Just... waiting.
This is an extra surprising development, because the show was really good at giving Ed and Stede character arcs in S1! Ed and Stede in 1x10 are significantly different than they were in their first introductions. Also, just to preempt some criticism, by 'progressing' I do not mean 'wrap up literally every loose end and make a firm final ending' – S1's finale is an excellent example of both moving the characters forward and leaving a ton of room for future stories. I wasn't expecting for 2x08 to show us a Stede and Ed who were perfectly on the same page and would never again have a problem. I was expecting them to be somewhat different than they were in 2x01, and I just don't see that.
Instead of arcs, we got little pieces of single-episode growth here and there that never added up to an overall whole. The season brought up a ton of potential arcs for Ed – violence, piracy, guilt, suicide, daddy issues, self-loathing, apologies, redemption, his tendency to idealize escaping into a different life – but didn't do anything with any of these options. Stede had nothing resembling a season arc at all.
Stede works to improve as a captain! Stede kills someone and has regrets! Stede confronts Ed's dark side! <- All potential arcs, but none of which lasted for more than an episode or had consequences. We don't even know what the ending means for Stede: does he want to be an innkeeper because he failed as a pirate in 2x07? Because piracy was always just a displaced search for love, and now that he has love, he doesn't need piracy? What does the crew of the Revenge leaving mean to him? Stede's understanding of their new arrangement literally happens off-screen and we're left to fumble at guesses for its significance to him as an individual.
Ed and Stede's last big conversation in the season is their break-up fight in 2x07, which is a shocking way to send off your main couple in a rom-com. Yes, there's the I Love You on the beach (again: two sentences) and the brief 'let's try to be innkeepers' conversation at the very end, but that's it for them in 2x08, except for their inclusion in some brief large group conversations about their fighting skills and the plan for escaping the British. How can you end your rom-com with the main couple exchanging only a paragraph's worth of dialogue in the finale? None of the stuff was brought up in the fishing fight in 2x07 is ever addressed at all!
Again, I don't think this is solely a matter of time crunch. Instead of using the eight episodes to progress the two main characters, we got a bunch of filler episodes that used the time in amusing side tangents instead of forward progress. I don't think that's the inevitable result of having to work with eight episodes.
Look, I can come up with a better Ed/Stede relationship arc without needing more episodes, and despite only thinking about this for a couple days and not having an entire writing room to work with:
(Note: this only addresses the Ed/Stede relationship. It doesn't fix Stede completely lacking an independent character arc and Ed having about ten thousand of them, none of which went anywhere.)
In 2x05 to 2x07, I would make Ed's motivations in their relationship very clearly that he's pushing Stede away so he doesn't get hurt again. Basically play up Ed's comment about "I was all in" in 2x04, and make him determined not to get 'all in' this time around. This aligns the "let's take it slow" conversation in 2x05, the "sex was a mistake" in 2x06, and Ed running away to be a fisherman in 2x07 into a single arc. He wants Stede, but he's afraid of what that wanting will do to him. He's trying to find a way to have a relationship without making himself vulnerable. He keeps pushing off commitment and openness.
Then, in 2x08, I'd make it more explicit that Ed thinks/fears Stede is dead when he sees the pirate ships burning. I think it's subtext in the episode as-is, but give him a line or two to make it really clear. Ed and Stede still see each other on the beach, have their dramatic run to each other, and Ed says, "I love you". Now this moment is Ed acknowledging his love, exactly what he's been avoiding for the last three episodes.
Near the end of the episode, Ed and Stede have a conversation where Ed says something like, "I didn't want to get hurt again, I was afraid of the risk of falling in love and you leaving again, but thinking you were dead made me realize that never loving you would be worse" (but better written, ha, this is a tumblr post that's already too long). (Also possibly you could tie in Izzy's death here to underline both Ed and Stede not wanting to lose another person they care about, if we must have that plot point for some reason.) We actually get to see Ed asking Stede to come be innkeepers with him, paralleling asking him to run away to China (and paralleling NOT asking Stede to a fisherman), Stede voices some of his worries (paralleling him keeping them inside in 1x09, but also giving him a chance to explain what piracy and love mean to him and why he'd give up one for the other), but ultimately they agree that they at least want to try.
This both puts them into a much clearer place for a happy ending, has clear growth from S1 and the beginning of this season, but also leaves open a ton of room for S3, because welp, it turns out trying to have a relationship entails all sorts of problems! Especially with these two. It also would make me feel like they'd at least addressed some of the issues between them.
Right now I feel like S3 will have to spend at least the first few episodes running through exactly the same "don't talk – break up – get back together dramatically" arc that Stede and Ed have already done twice but have never discussed and never learned from. I liked it, but I don't need to see it yet again. That will – ironically – feel like yet more wasted time, more episodes that are just churning through beats without moving the characters forward. I wanted them to have new, different fights in S3, but now I don't even feel like they've made enough progress to have a fresh set of problems.
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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 11 months
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Titles of the Grishaverse essays that I’ll never write (or maybe that I will write one day if I get super bored)
Djel and Drüskelle: An assessment of the line between religion and cult as shown through the presentation of Fjerda and Matthias Helvar
She’s treating us like marks: an analysis of Leigh Bardugo’s use of red herrings through Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom
Cultural appropriation in Ketterdam as a representation of implicit and conscious prejudices/bias within society
A comparison between the experiences of Inej and Wylan based on parallels between Tante Heleen and Jan Van Eck. (Also, if we choose to include the show as well, then particularly in season two these parallels can be seen in the Darkling so Inej and Wylan’s experiences could be compared to Zoya, Genya, Alina, and others)
The main canonic relationships in Soc and Ck show a beautiful reminder of different kinds of love and the importance of different kinds of love, because no-one in the world experiences the exact same love story as anyone else
This list has been in my drafts for a long time, but it’s considerably shorter than it used to be because I actually did get bored enough to write and post some of them. But you guys seemed to like those ones, so hey, lemme know if you’d like any of these ones too and maybe I’ll post them. I get bored a lot, so…
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heartfullofleeches · 10 months
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Thembo Shark Reader...
Just this massive behemoth who clears out entire beaches in mere seconds - because they smelled raw meat cooking at one of the pits.
Shark Reader can't catch a break. They're hunted by schools of merfolk, fishermen, and royalty at sea - pursued by life guards and people they've dragged to shore on land. Shark Reader is a passive giant just looking for their next meal and resting place. It's easy to pick up on their docile nature within a few minutes of meeting them - unless they got something in those chompers and asking their new companions if they see the cause of their parallel. That exact scene is what lead to them gaining their little following of merfolk who tailed them from coast to coast. While the meats and other good had been a fine meal, plastic coolers weren't the best thing for a shark's diet and had gotten stuck in their gums. They reworked a net conveniently cast out to sea into floss, freeing the distressed goldfish in the process. They were prepared to swim off and go about the rest of their day - ambushed by the teary eyed school the mermaid belonged to. It's easy to keep their big lovable shark around by catching a couple fish or luring humans out to sea. As long as they fillet their catches properly - Reader can't tell the difference.
Some shitposts under the cut
Yan Sea Captain: Today will finally be the day I catch that beast. A new frame will hang on my wall when its finally mine.
Crew Mate: You mean like that oil painting of you and it in your bedroom.
Yan Sea Captain: Another word and you'll be the bait
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[Shark Reader carries a surfer back to shore and sticks their board in the sand]
Shark Reader: Not Safe that far out. Sharks
Surfer: o-ok... [frantically searches for that "lifeguard for hire" poster they saw at the entrance to the beach]
Yan Lifeguard, standing on a boat: Are you ready for your first swimming lesson?
"n-no?"
Yan Lifeguard: Fantastic! [yeets their victim into the water and swims back to shore waiting for someone to notice]
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Yan Researcher: All that time wasted. Had I know this would be the way to win your heart, I'd have done it the day we met, my love
Shark Reader, on their twelfth tuna sandwich and fifth raw steak: I thought it would be pretty obvious
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