#Fascinating Presence

[candylandphotos]

Beautiful girl with flowers in hand

"Captivating the moment: A beautiful girl holding flowers in her hand."

[chronurgy]

I really love that gale can actually Do It. He can actually become a god. Mortals seeking to become gods usually fail which makes it easy to write them off as over ambitious and consumed by hubris, to say that of course they were never going to succeed, they never had a chance. Icarus flying too close to the sun and all that. But Gale does it. He succeeds. And how do we interpret that? How do we read icarus's story without the fall? Can we really call it hubris, call it excessive pride and self confidence, when it works in the end? After all, it's not bragging if you can back it up

[ladylightning]

the way the absence of john winchester haunt sam and dean in ways that are more real than any ghost they have ever faced. the way john echoes so loudly in the narrative even in episodes he’s not mentioned, in seasons where he never appears. the way john possesses dean when he’s angry and sam when he’s grieving. the way john is the one true god of the narrative, the absent father who does not answer prayers or phone calls. the righteous man who does not break in hell but breaks down and hands his child a gun. john and the memory of his holy mary. john the prophet and his sacred text. john and his prodigal son that he knows has to die. 

[iysure]

just girl-best-roommate things

[softpine]

i like how we all collectively agreed that covid does not exist in any of our sims stories

[nishihii]

rennala marika toxic yuri i cant get you out of my head

[age-of-moonknight]

“Crusader,” Phases of the Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2024), #1.

Writer: Benjamin Percy; Artist: Rod Reis; Letterer: Cory Petit

[gojooooo]

sukuna begging yuuji to take him back because he wants to feel his emotions again instead of his own emptiness and nothing but the closeness they once had is enough for him. and when yuuji does, because he feels incomplete as well without sukuna, he spawns into the domain again and walks around the familiar place, hesitantly calling out sukuna’s name to confirm he’s really there. “sukuna…?”

“…kozō” he hears in return, fondness in the tone, and when he looks up at where he remembers the throne to be he sees a face so similar to his staring down at him with a smile, a hand immediately reaching out to slick the pink hair back. after everything they went through there’s no reason to keep dancing around it – they belong to each other.

[supermantv]

sorry but like is cam actually even in the house.. like are we sure that man is a real houseguest and not just a collective fever dream

[vulturevanity]

normal thing to say about your dear friend who you think is really cute and charming and hard-working and basically the perfect wife material

[moe-broey]

Puts them all in a little photo album

[jeanrollins]

Brigitte Lahaie in A Delectable Presence (2023), archival interview in which she recalls working with Rollin.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

Essay: Post-Holidays, I see my Uncle's "Strange New Girls" Hate Watch in a Whole New Light.

No that is not a typo, that is actually what he calls SNW. And my macho-loving Kirk-fanboi of an uncle has been hate watching it religiously. The last time he hated a Star Trek show (DIS) he just didn't watch it. So this opposite response to SNW fascinates me. He talks big talk about there being too many women on the Bridge and hates on La'an with a particular vehemence, both because she's permitted in Starfleet despite a direct relation to the augments' leader and because she's a tiny lady running security. (I can't separate the more reasonable perspective from the sexist one, the man is both.) At first I took his persistent critiques of the SNW crew as a very straightforward anti-women enmity, until Christmas when he came out with the following bomb-shell.

"We just watched Voyager, you know Janeway: Janeway is alright. She's a good captain."

(Color me shocked we had rage-inducing debates about this in my teens and early twenties)

On the one hand, perhaps my uncle has gotten slightly less sexist towards a female captain over the last 30 years? Doubtful considering the way he layers personal criticisms on the female SNW characters. But on the other, him now enjoying Janeway's show does make me understand his hate and fascination with SNW. It's not about the women on the Bridge at all.

It's about Pike.

I'm sure there are other factors. Janeway's main Bridge crew was almost entirely male. And Voyager was written to try not to offend the sensibilities of men like my uncle (an effort that hasn't worked on him until now). But I also think it's got a lot to do with the two captains' presence on the Bridge, and how each captain is portrayed in their own show. Janeway makes many more aggressive command choices than Pike, by virtue of personality and situation. Sometimes she makes those choices even against the reservations of male subordinates. She stares down the barrel of death on numerous occasions, unblinking. She's often the protagonist in her own show. She changes the timeline to influence her past self and encourages her to make a daring and selfish choice that is applauded and shown to pay off in a big way.

And notably, while she's the first woman to have center stage in the captain's seat, her femininity and portrayal of gender is what I think is best described as micro-managed (One need only look at the dizzying array of styles the show experiments with for her hairdo). She dresses in a very feminine way off duty, but often displays more "masculine" behaviors, especially on duty. She very rarely cries. Outside of expressing anger, flirtation, and curiosity, she is not often overtly emotional. A special note for flirtation: she gets wide license to be flirtatious with everyone from enemy combatants to her senior staff to even her ship when she's trying to sweet talk it. She avoids talking about her feelings at all costs. She can't cook and that's a running joke. In all the ways that matter, she acts like one would expect a traditionally male captain to act, with just enough feminine concessions sprinkled in to keep her from coming off as "too masculine."

Pike is very diplomatic and much more rule-conscious. He's Starfleet's boy scout. He takes a back seat in many episodes as other characters get to shine. When he is center stage the conflicts he combats are very personal. He stares down the barrel of "death" (as he's referred to his future disability) and flinches. His trip to change time is done to tell his past self to step aside, act selflessly and take a back seat to a fate that terrifies him. He often listens to and makes decisions that align with his (largely female) Bridge crew's recommendations. And while he dresses in a traditionally masculine way on and off duty, emotionally, he's shown to be much more traditionally feminine. He cries over a dead horse (My uncle was particularly aghast at that). He cooks and is shown to take pleasure in it, even using it as a tool of diplomacy. He is a sympathetic counseling ear for many of his crew.

He does not get to flirt with his Bridge crew. When he is shown expressing sexual interest in someone it leads to emotional hurt and command weakness (in Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach, he becomes aware of his love-interest's abhorrent ethics only after watching her participate in something horrific, which he is helpless to stop. And when Batel gets into trouble with the Gorn in Hegemony, his fixation on her well-being comes off as somewhat short-sighted, and contributes to command paralysis in the final scene). His very close friendship with Una may border on romantic attachment, but there's nothing sexual about their on screen interactions. And his quest to have her accepted by the Federation is one of the only major emotional decisions he undertakes that is shown to have a majorly positive outcome.

In sum I think Pike is shown to be vulnerable, gentle, and craving of connections in a way that is very human, but one that men are not traditionally supposed to be. The themes of his arc center on standing aside for the benefit of others, accepting future loss of ability and death, making peace with a future that doesn't center around you - all messages about moving from selfishness to selflessness. His lack of sexual incentives and behaviors stands out distinctly from how male protagonists typically get portrayed. He's basically anathema to the masculine ideal my uncle's spent his life trying to embody.

I still don't know what reason drives my uncle to keep watching "Strange New Girls" as religiously as he has. But I do now see his fixation on finding fault with all the women on the Bridge differently. By critiquing them, he is deflecting attention from his discomfort with the man in the center seat.

[lover-of-mine]

Reader all the time but first time writing. Listen I honestly know your spies are legit because when they started posting you could click over to the other side and see "oh shit that's happening." And I think it gives you an interesting perspective in analyzing the data. Your post just now about Tim getting the narrative back was spot on because I agree.

I don't think Tim is going to war for Buddie. I think he wants it, but I don't think he cares about fandom drama. You're absolutely right, though he is a creator. He wants creative control of his work and peaceful environment for his actors. When you go so hard you even have production staff blocking you, you fucked up. My point though that was really well worded and you should either pin that or keep it just to paste when similar asks come. Can't find a single argument against it.

That interview was definitely cold water on them even if they are trying to pretend they don't care.

More interesting, yes Ryan and Oliver FF can be annoying. Some of our fellow shippers can get crazy. But the closest in history I can remember someone reacting was Oliver when it was directed at a few stalker fans against, was her name Erika? His PA on set. Then acted like fools and Oliver shut them down. The fact this got so bad that Dad entered the conversation means the havoc they have created is super not OK.

Yeah, I agree, like, I don't think Tim is gonna go to war for buddie specifically, he has no reason to, he's the creator, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, but the thing is this whole thing is creating a hostile environment for the crew. It's one thing when we are killing each other, it's not his job to monitor fandom spaces, but this is creating problems for production. The reaction to the cameos took the creative power away from Tim. Because the cameos sold a story that doesn't align with the actual show. But they have videos of an actor saying shit they don't plan on following through with because Lou was just saying shit without reading scripts, and are usually to say his story is actually something else. No way that man is going to sit back and watch someone else take over his stuff. They want control of the narrative back. And to fuck up enough that the creator of something goes on record to say how ugly everything got? With the way they keep evoking Tim's name like they are Draco Malfoy going "my father will hear about this" at any minor inconvenience, it is such a reality check. Tim is a creator and a producer and he obviously cares about the environment surrounding the show and wants to make sure things are going as planned. Whatever is happening is not part of the plan. No one wants to deal with this level of crazy. No creator in their right mind wants to enable a situation that's gonna make things hostile for his cast and crew. But for Tim to actually go on record himself? Things went too far. And sure, everyone can be toxic if given the platform, but this is on another level.

[dont-leafmealone]

On the topic of the last post I reblogged, I feel like a lot of people get Ozai's personality and feelings toward Zuko confused with Zhao. Ozai really doesn't care about Zuko, just wants him out of his way so he can abuse his power in peace without being embarrassed by his dumb kids.

Zhao is the one brimming with a concerning amount of excitement at any excuse to kill Zuko; while I'm sure Ozai doesn't *care* all that much if Zuko ends up dead, he's probably not gleefully helping Zhao plot his Next Grand Scheme To Kill The Prince. If anything he probably thinks it's weird how preoccupied he is with it, like dude, you have a job already, go do that instead of getting your ass kicked by my dumb kid.

[invinciblerodent]

himh I'll make a Dark Urge that's so fucking scared

big scary bloodsoaked killer, tearing through armies with her literal bare hands? nah. a quiet, scared girl who doesn't understand why she does what she does, why she can do what she can, but is, at the same time, deeply disgusted by herself because she has just enough self-awareness to know to be repulsed.

maybe it's because I'm a tiny bit obsessed with clinging to the thought that people, at the end of the day, are fundamentally good, no matter what. that there is a fundamental human goodness in all people that makes them worthy of redemption, or at least of the opportunity for atonement.

maybe the way I want to play a story like that is with someone who, stripped from indoctrination and free for the first time to think for herself and embrace and be who she is, finds that in the deepest, most hidden pits of her soul, she is not the strong, kind, resilient person she might want to be. try as the might, she is not someone who can bear the weight of her own past, she's just a... a terrified, broken little girl, cowering in the shadows and unable to look herself in the eye. (which also gives me ideas for her relationship with Orin but that's a little bit beside the point)

cathartic self-insert who. therapy? what is that. is it on Steam or Epic.