#<- which. btw. fucking INSANE thing to say

[actuallyjustabiscuit]

Something I always found telling about the way a fanfic author writes Ragatha is whenever they gave her dialogue that has her using terms of endearment like “Hun”, “Dear”, “Sweetie” etc. even in a platonic sense despite not once ever actually talking like that in canon

Basically pushing her into this motherly role that she never belonged in

I can’t be the only one that sees the bit of sexism in this right? The fact that this character was automatically flanderized in fan works as motherly for the crime of being 30 and female and sweet has always been a little fucking weird to me

Especially when a lot of Ragatha’s personality didn’t exactly read “motherly” to me even when we just had the pilot to go on for characterization. Her primary character trait at the time was just “she’s nice and desperate to keep it together”

And it’s especially hilarious how people thought Ragatha would be the one to get helpless anxious little Pomni through it all when canonically almost nothing she’s done has actually been all that helpful because she refuses to be honest about anything negative and that’s ultimately been the point of her actual character

She is so ineffective as a caretaker

Not to mention how this kind of characterization has often gone hand in hand with infantilizing Pomni in fan works despite showing how she’s more than capable of figuring things out on her own

And now we got confirmation that Ragatha didn’t have anything positive to say about her own mother which most likely skewed her understanding of what is considered to be “motherly”

Gonna break out the whiteboard and tin foil hat for a sec here, bear with me

Let’s really stop and think about the implications here about Ragatha being exactly 30 years old and trapped the second longest after Kinger

I think it’s pretty much confirmed that this show takes place in the present, so let’s put Pomni’s insertion into the game at 2024

For the sake of my insanity, let’s say Ragatha actually had access to a television and has some knowledge of pop culture

Breaking Bad aired in 2008, but the consensus is that it didn’t become embedded within our cultural zeitgeist until 2013. So if Ragatha couldn’t pick up on the reference that Jax made in ep 5, then she likely didn’t know of it’s existence because it either had yet to air or it hasn’t reached a level of popularity for her to be familiar with it

So that means Ragatha has been trapped between 11-16 years

If we are to assume the characters still age normally in the Circus, then the likelihood of Ragatha getting trapped at the age of 18 or 19 is uncomfortably high (the youngest you can be to work as a real estate agent btw)

The oldest she could’ve possibly been would be 21 if she’s used to drinking alcohol but I wouldn’t put it past her trying to play the part and requesting what a sophisticated adult is supposed to drink at social functions

To imagine this repressed and maladjusted woman to display any kind of actual mother like behavior would be highly ironic at this point

She was never meant to be the mother figure that comforts Pomni, she’s the broken discarded doll that’s in some desperate need of mental mending

Note: This isn’t aimed to make anyone feel bad about their writing or how they prefer to write these characters. This is more of a general observation and critique about the way this fandom has treated Ragatha and I wanted to finally take the chance to verbalize my frustration on this topic specifically

[o--cei]

from @damselay

#insane. INSANE. THEY MAKE ME INSANE.#remarkable#arthuriana#he does the 'i wish I was lancelot's lady' thing TWICE btw. the famous one is where he's high on drugs and blood loss but the second time is#while lancelot is fighting in disguise while wearing elaine's favour and arthur asks gawain what he thinks about that mysterious knight and#gawain is like 'idk him but if I were a lady i'd want to be his because I've never seen a favour better protected' and it's like ???? I got#it the first time gawain you didn't have to repeat yourself but thanks for clarifying that it wasn't just several major concussions that#made you want to fuck that frenchman I guess 👍 speaking of the blood loss though there's also a LUDICROUS moment before that first#declaration where lancelot is on the battlefield and gawain is up in a tower (bc he's ill) and they have this moment of gazing at each other#JUST LIKE knights and ladies do and that's never gone over. another thing that's never gone over is why lancelot blushes??? when he finally#tells gawain his name??? insane. whatever. also marvels of rigomer my beloved I need to talk about that because omg?? twirling my hair <3

#lancelot is under a spell which has turned him into this cattle-like beast and made him forget his name and gawain finds him and INSTANTLY#is like 'lancelot' and cries and the moment lancelot hears gawain say his name he REMEMBERS??? KIND OF? WHO HE IS? AND WHO GAWAIN IS?#BECAUSE LOVE I GUESS??? he's like 'i think I know you gawain from a dream I had of my childhood' and it's like ????? and then they talk and#lancelot mentions 'his lady' (ie sorceress who enchanted him) and shows gawain the ring she gave him (which is keeping him enchanted) and#gawain just gets hysterical? he gets so upset he breaks the ring AND THEN he's like omg that ring was enchanted. like that's the order the#text puts it in. he had no clue that ring was magic he was just that distraught over lancelot having a woman he chose over him. AND THEN#lancelot is like 'gawain you're the only one who could have freed me from this curse' and HE'S RIGHR BC NO ONE ELSE HAS THAT CONSISTENT A#TRACK RECORD OF 'RECOGNISING LANCELOT' UNIVERSITIES WEREN'T EVEN INVENTED YET BUT GAWAIN HAS A MASTER'S DEGREE IN THAT SHIT HE WROTE THEBOOK#and at that point he should have just made out sloppy style with lancelot because I KNOW he would have been down but. alas. he blew it. </3

#600+ pages of pining hopelessly in the vulgate has made gawain a bit stupid when it comes to lancelot he didn't see the fucking finish line#speaking of the vulgate another scene which is so underrated but I love so much and is so funny is that time when gawain (with several other#knights including BORS AND MORDRED) hear that lancelot is coming to the town they're in for a tournament and gawain gets SO EXCITED about#seeing him. bors perhaps trying to help is like 'oh lancelot won't show if he knows we're here' and gawain is like 'bors my friend you are#so fucking smart and right we have disguise ourselves' and everyone else is like what. and then gawain won't let them stay in the town#castle because the lord might recognise them and when they find lodgings somewhere else he forces everyone to pretend they're from wales or#something like that and won't let any of the other knights TALK because he's afraid they'll blow their cover and it's so. it's so fucking#funny. if my brother started behaving like that for some guy I'd try bringing down an entire kingdom too I can't fault mordred for that.#MORTIFYING. also mortifying how I typed all that from memory. hiiii I'm so normal about them <3

please expand on the lancelot x gawain i keep seeing on your blog 🙏

okay sorry i took so long i decided to shower after you sent me this because i knew that if i started then i would never end up showering today. and then it was an unfinished routine so i had to lotion and brush my teeth and floss and do hair stuff too.

so, obviously, it's lancelot du lac and gawaine of orkney. both knights of the round table, etc etc. you know who they are. i hope. they're not exactly similar to their bbc merlin counterparts---lancelot is of noble birth in classic arthuriana, gawaine is arthur's nephew (though bbc merlin doesn't exactly...keep the familial relations that canon does), things like that---but i'd honestly say that their character personalities are similar enough that it's verging on acceptable! just as a reference point for you, i suppose.

gawaine has lost a fair fight only to six knights in his time, launcelot being one of them (Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Mallory. book IV, chapter XVIII) (the other five being sir tristram, sir bors, sir percevel, sir pelleas, and sir marhaus). he is mentioned to throw fights against lancelot because he loves losing to him (cannot remember the source for the life of me) and, of course, lancelot always notices when he does.

then there's this famous quote:

(vulgate II, p140) where launcelot tells galehaut (another man that he arguably has...something...going on with) that he would share with gawaine everything he loves, save guinevere, in order to have gawaine forever. gawaine then goes on to say that, essentially, he would wish to be the most beautiful woman so that lancelot would love him as a wife.

also, in Morte, which i don't have photos of because my copy is a physical book rather than a pdf like how i'm reading vulgate and i don't want to take photos with my laptop camera. there is this quote "and Launcelot with this sword shall slay the man that in the world he loves best, that shall be Sir Gawaine." which is engraved in the hilt of the red hilted sword, balin's sword that merlin encases in stone and which galahad, lancelot's son, eventually wields.

^this, also. from vulgate IV, p140. after launcelot accidentally kills gawaine's brother gareth (named here as gaheriet; all the orkneys have...many ways of spelling their names. look up a list of all of gawaine's names over history, i dare you) who was guarding guinevere's cell...he begs gawaine to forgive him and even promises to swear himself and all his men into subservience to gawaine if gawaine would only forgive him. "I want to be your companion just as I used to be." mhm...

and "I'll swear to you on 'relics that I didn't kill your brother Gaheriet intentionally" is a huge promise. swearing on a holy relic in such a deeply, fundamentally christian society was the vow that you could make. the reason why honour was so important in that time was because the grand majority of people were illiterate, so one's word was the most one could give, in the majority of situations! and here is lancelot, saying that he'll swear on a holy relic that he did not mean to kill gareth if it means gawaine will forgive him and love him again.

there is also, right before gawaine eventually dies (from a sword wound to the head from lancelot) he writes a letter to launcelot begging forgiveness for having been so horrible to lancelot before his death, and wishing he could see him before he dies, for he knows he won't live long.

And then when paper and ink was brought, then Gawaine was set up weakly by King Arthur, for he was shriven a little to-fore; and then he wrote thus, as the French book maketh mention: Unto Sir Launcelot, flower of all noble knights that ever I heard of or saw by my days, I, Sir Gawaine, King Lot's son of Orkney, sister's son unto the noble King Arthur, send thee greeting, and let thee have knowledge that the tenth day of May I was smitten upon the old wound that thou gavest me afore the city of Benwick, and through the same wound that thou gavest me I am come to my death-day. And I will that all the world wit, that I, Sir Gawaine, knight of the Table Round, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, but it was mine own seeking; wherefore I beseech thee, Sir Launcelot, to return again unto this realm, and see my tomb, and pray some prayer more or less for my soul. And this same day that I wrote this cedle, I was hurt to the death in the same wound, the which I had of thy hand, Sir Launcelot; for of a more nobler man might I not be slain. Also Sir Launcelot, for all the love that ever was betwixt us, make no tarrying, but come over the sea in all haste, that thou mayst with thy noble knights rescue that noble king that made thee knight, that is my lord Arthur; for he is full straitly bestead with a false traitor, that is my half-brother, Sir Mordred; and he hath let crown him king, and would have wedded my lady Queen Guenever, and so had he done had she not put herself in the Tower of London. And so the tenth day of May last past, my lord Arthur and we all landed upon them at Dover; and there we put that false traitor, Sir Mordred, to flight, and there it misfortuned me to be stricken upon thy stroke. And at the date of this letter was written, but two hours and a half afore my death, written with mine own hand, and so subscribed with part of my heart's blood. And I require thee, most famous knight of the world, that thou wilt see my tomb. And then Sir Gawaine wept, and King Arthur wept; and then they swooned both. And when they awaked both, the king made Sir Gawaine to receive his Saviour. And then Sir Gawaine prayed the king for to send for Sir Launcelot, and to cherish him above all other knights. (Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Mallory. book XXI, chapter II)

(vulgate IV, p139). honestly? no comment here. it speaks for itself. this bit is where the ship name remarkable comes from.

of course, this is by no means a comprehensive post, just moments i can remember off the top of my head. and a lot of this can be attributed to today's view of male homosociality and how it's changed since the middle ages, skewing our view of what could have been, by all means, a platonic relationship. however it is my personal belief and interpretation that they were in love <3 muah the end i hope you enjoyed. i tried my best to explain both story and cultural context the best i could without going into irrelevant detail...i hope this is enough!

[castielsprostate]

breaking the sign in two by how hard im tapping it

[kaiserouo]

i love 1999 gears

also the version w/o gears because apparently i've never made a portrait for normal version excalibur

btw this is for the 1st option of this

[hyohaehyuk]

iwtv_updates: Jacob felt pressure adding lines to the Reunion scene, as Sam told him these would become canon for his Lestat. Rolin approached Jacob with the idea first, knowing Sam would dislike it. Jacob agreed, enjoying the opportunity to wind Sam up.

Video: INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE star Jacob Anderson unpacks the gothic horror of Season 2 | TV Insider

[horsegirlhob]

Season 6 Buffy really just needed someone to give her good information about kink and BDSM and shit I'm not saying it would solve all her problems but I do think it would help with several of them.

[quixtrix]

rayman, eden's feel good american dream story; an analysis

guess who's back with taking ubisoft's silly guys and cutting them open. yknow, if you strip rayman of his personality, of all the behind the scenes we get of him, we get a run of the mill news reporter that is an immigrant, who by face alone serves as a shining ray of hope. he's easily something that by all means, can be classified as a diversity hire. immigrant, nonhuman (which in the world of clh can be considered to be equated with poc irl), and notably the only one in his work environment. don't believe me?

we rarely ever see anyone other than rayman on the show in the form of a coworker. the only time we do see other eden affiliated people, they are both white. "but you can't see red's face!!" there is a reason his dialogue makes you think of more right leaning people with their claims of 'wokeness is destroying everything' under something like april from tmnt being black and not ginger. he's a caricature meant to represent a specific group of people under fascism; those who have successfully consumed the fearmongering and have let it turn from fear of those that they are told are beneath them into hatred for them. there is also the fact that on live tv he throws up a middle finger, refers to an implied group of immigrant people as 'filthy interdimensional alien scum,' and seemingly gains no backlash for it. yes, the other reporter does try to give red a chance to go back on his words, but he sticks to it. and despite all of this, we get no indication that neither red nor the niji 6 had to apologise or received punishment for this. in fact, red is possibly given more chances by eden due to him being weirdly in charge of bullfrog's containment in a way? (i'm not entirely sure WHY he was there, but as he is one of eden's tv personalities, he's at a possibly televised trial of a terrorist.) now if you compare this to rayman, who also acted inappropriately on tv by literally saying fuck, you'd come to realise that rayman was treated so much more harshly. he was IMMEDIATELY replaced by a clone of himself, with no warning nor any indication that eden would do such a thing. it's very likely this was one of, if not the first time that rayman has slipped up like this on live tv. maybe it's a repeat offence considering his personality, but then you could argue that red is a repeat offender of the same shit and then you have to wonder why a soldier like red was not easily replaced but someone who is the literal face and voice of eden was with ease. it's because rayman made himself more than jus a story, he humanised himself by showing a peek of his raw feelings. remember that cute little exposition of the rayman kids show about hybrids? where we see all of these hybrids working as society's grunts and the kids are told to be thankful for hybrids? it's very sweet and gives a good message! now the rayman kids show is a product of eden propaganda, but rayman very much has a hand in it, most likely as a writer. he uses his platform to speak on issues that has happened and affected him. this can be seen in his biopic.

jus sit with this image for a moment. you ever think about why rayman is specifically made as an alien? why he's specifically an immigrant? in real life news reports and speeches, there is a difference in implications when people use immigrants and not aliens. you wanna know why?

as someone apart of an immigrant family myself, i live in a community of other immigrants. majority of them are hispanic, and while i myself am not hispanic, i am very aware of how hispanic immigrants were referred to and treated by politicians under trump's presidency. how couldn't i? even as children in middle school and elementary, we had discussions about what trump was saying because it directly targets my friends and their families. they are people targeted by a man who specifically uses derogatory terms to dehumanise them, to make it easier to justify in the average american mind that the government is doing the right thing by keeping out and protecting america from these so-called 'invading animals.' makes what red was saying earlier feel very on the nose, right? adi shankar, the showrunner for captain laserhawk, is also an immigrant man. immigrated from india, which by the way, did you know has a lot of people immigrating for the purpose of having a better life? that's a common sentiment that can be found in every single immigrant family's story. i've asked my filipino mother why she took an opportunity to live and work in america, and she told me it's because she wanted to give her children a better life than what we would have had in the philippines. hell, i bet if you share a similar background to me, you can ask your own parents the same thing and get the exact same answer, regardless if you came from latin america or africa, or asia. it's because of the concept of the american dream. everyone who has ever engaged with any degree of immigrant discussion has heard of the american dream. it's a concept that seems to be consistently proven via word of mouth, with the biggest examples being celebrities. they will always, without fail, eventually speak about the american dream within their backstories. and typically, they will use their platforms to further empower others within their community. it's why people from specific ethnicities tend to group together, why people make art meant as something akin to a homage to their people. it provides hope to the masses, makes you relate to the person on the screen, and believe that this society is truly a gracious one by providing opportunity. because yeah, it may be bad, but it could be worse. i mean we appreciate you! just look!

dont mind the fact that the majority of opportunities allotted to you is grunt work, the work where you at the base of the pyramid, with the harder jobs and the jobs no one wants to do. dont mind the fact you will be actively dehumanised, forced to work for hours in conditions we wouldn't put anyone else in, but hey. we appreciate you. we thank you. and yknow, you can become more than what you are. yknow, we let someone just like you be more than what you are! nevermind the fact that if they slip up, they'll be met with MUCH harsher criticism in comparison to someone who isn't you! aren't we so gracious? i probably sound a bit like matpat's insane out of context real world examples, but this show is filled with political imagery, so let me be. anyways, let's get back to eden and rayman. rayman, despite being specifically from dimension x as an alien, keeps hybrids in mind when he's doing his work.

people of colour tend to share solidarity with one another due to the fact that surface wise, we share similar struggles. to grossly oversimplify things, we all face discrimination through our appearances and are oppressed by the rules of a society created by our white oppressors. again, hybrids and dimension x immigrants can be equated to irl poc, and despite being different from each other, there is still community. rayman keeps them in mind, hoping to make things better for the overall nonhuman and nonnative (native as in naturally born) population of eden. but, rayman is not what he believes he is. because despite everything he has worked for, despite what he has tried to do, he is still a facilitator of the fascist regime that has an active hand in the perpetual oppression of his own people. one of the core concepts within fascism is us versus them. it's an easy way to instill fear (which is very much needed in fascism to make it easier to lie to the masses) and it's used in multiple layers, beginning with a large group (ex. us versus ussr, capitalism vs communism), then progressively sizing down (ex. saying all eastern europeans are communist, then going smaller and say all those affiliated with eastern europeans are communist) with the goal being to put people against each other and break up community since if you put your minds together, you'll start to realise that the fascist system is bullshit. what i've personally come to find is that in order to hide the fact that there is fascism lurking is that someone that can be considered a 'them,' an other, will be given a seat at the table. it's so they can be used as an excuse, a human shield, when they inevitably slip up and can be paraded to the masses as proof that the other is not as smart or powerful as 'us.' the 'other' within the 'us' is used as something to look down at, while also justifying to oneself that they have a place, that they are not being oppressed. they have an opportunity as much as anyone else! so long as they don't mess up. rayman messes up, and is shunned from 'us.' hes a mistake, impure, clearly not like 'us,' 'us' who had been so gracious to give this 'other' a place. he's cut out and discarded because he has well worn his purpose, and clearly, they can just get another little puppet. they'll dress him up and make him worthy of being one of 'us,' and make sure that this one won't fall to the fault of his little ideas. which is exactly what leads to rayman's transformation of ramon. being forcibly forced out and discarded by eden because he showed his true ideas makes him realise that there was no real place for him within the system. because what good is his work if it leads to what he tried not to create? it's worthless, just as the system it attempts to thrive in is.

tl;dr, rayman is a representation of the american dream, specifically celebrities. he tries to do what he can with his platform, but the fact is that within a fascist system, his impact is not entirely felt in the way he wants it to. that is why he becomes ramon.

anyways if you reached the end of THIS LONG ASS PIECE GOOD LORD thank you!! always open to discuss this and take criticism, my ask box is open in the lil 'who's asking' :^]

[dyketennant]

oh i can already tell i’m about to have some really unpopular opinions about the edge of sleep tv show

[m0thlegs]

As much as purity culture IS penetrating fandom spaces and sanitising them beyond their core intent, I feel like some of you are overusing the phrase "don't like, don't read" (and others like it). Rather in response to people being nitpicky about certain themes merely existing in content (fan-made or otherwise), you guys keep using it as a way to shut down critical discussions of your favourite medias in a way that feels oddly anti-intellectual and ironically puritanical in and of itself.

[idreamofneonsheep]

Being a writer is so fun because every day I wake up and think that I could absolutely write a fourth wing or a lightlark in like 3 months, market it on tiktok, and then not have to worry abt my student loans

And then I remember I don't want to contribute to the shitty state of fantasy and such so I'd actually just spend a billion years making a good book and my debt would continue festering

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

one thing i really love about my current Project of watching everything reece has been in is that i get to see single episodes of shows from the 90s and 00s uploaded to various places online in the Worst quality you will ever witness... like i'm sitting here squinting at my screen being like 'well i THINK those 3 pixels are reece but i'm honestly not sure'

[vaguely-concerned]

me @ me: hey don't cry. the fact that blue will just. look at zero (he likes looking at zero :) ) and completely lose his train of thought about anything else is literally canon. okay?

[purrvaire]

you're laughing. stede bonnet begged edward teach to come back to him from the brink of death and HE DID and you're laughing. they held hands and you're laughing. what the fuck guys i might never recover

[theradicalace]

i got a galaxy projector lamp for my birthday and finally set it up and the uh. the remote for it turned on my tv?

[itwoodbeprefect]

flashbacks to dialogue that happened less than a minute ago are annoying and a little insulting for obvious reasons, unless it's in bad buddy episode 5 [2/4] and pat is having entirely serious sepia toned flashbacks to fifty seconds ago while almost shoving a set of drumsticks he hasn't even paid for yet up his nose. then it's brilliant and world changing

[itzphynix]

Thank you Astral Spiff for combating the narrative that Post Shift 2 is a hard game o7