#I HAVE TOO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS SHOW

[slayerkitty]

Voyeurism in Only Friends

In previous discussions of themes in Only Friends, we've discussed Voyeurism as something present in the show on both a textual and metatextual level a few times. @rabbiitte posted an amazing run down about Perception in OF, specifically with Mew and Top that got me thinking about other voyeuristic moments in this episode.

Here are the voyeuristic moments in episode 5:

Nick walks in on Sand and Ray in the kitchen

Mew and Top and walked in on Boston and Nick at the hostel pool

Nick and Boston walked in on Sand and Ray on the balcony

Boston revealed to Nick that a previous hookup tried to blackmail him with a sex tape (most of us are assuming it was Drake's character due to the camera pointed at the bed as pointed out by @plantsarepeopletoo)

Nick was clearly thinking about how he has the sex audio of Boston and Top even if it wasn't actually discussed aloud.

Boston admitted to photographing Ray and Mew making out

@rabbiitte's post about perception really made me want to examine the other voyeurism moments in the episode, because it all has to do with one of the couples being walked in on while attempting to have sex. The first thing I found interesting was that even though couples being walked in on seemed to be a theme of the episode, Mew and Top are the only couple who do not get walked in on and therefore, are the only couple who has sex in the episode (that we see onscreen. I kind of feel like Nick implies he and Boston might have finished what they started after Mew and Top left because he says that Boston usually bolts the minute they're done. There's that controlled voyeurism again).

It was also interesting to me where the characters were when they got walked in on. For a show that has put emphasis on the public nature of queer culture in the past, all of the couples were somewhere relatively private when they got walked in on. Sand and Ray were in the kitchen and then later the balcony. Boston and Nick were in a slightly more public place as they were outside, but they were in a location where no one else was supposed to be there but them. In fact, the one public sexy moment that Ray and Sand do have in the dressing room is their only sexy moment in the episode that is not interrupted in some way. Sand indulges Ray in some "assistance" changing his clothes but is mindful of where they are and stops. Ray is completely down to get dirty regardless, which is just another way in which they're different.

With regard to Boston's sex tape and sex audio, it seems very clear where we're going with this (especially with the return of Boston's Hookup aka Drake next episode). Nick is going to end up releasing the sex audio which will have far reaching implications, given that Boston's father is running for public office.

I found it really interesting that Boston admitted to photographing Ray and Mew kissing. I think this might be an indication that whatever else Boston "has" on his friends, he might start revealing it soon too (or it gets revealed in the fallout of Nick's reveal).

@lurkingshan suggested after episode three that surveillance would be what caused this friend group to implode, but I'll counter and say it's more than that. It's voyeurism. Voyeurism is going to make this group implode and we're all going to watch.

[eccentric-objects]

okay but mari as the pit girl is looking more and more likely to me bc mari would symbolize the last divider of the group and everything we see related to the pit girl shows everybody else acting as a cohesive group

like okay, she was the one that divided jackie and shauna when jackie used her to make shauna jealous and she was also the only person to encourage jackie to leave (everyone else either told jackie to stay or were trying to stay/keep others out of it), she's the main person ostracizing misty from the group, she's turning against coach ben now, and she was the first one to pit nat and lottie against each other (there's probably other examples but I'm not rewatching everything to find them)

and there's something so poetic about the person dividing the group being killed while wearing the symbol of "her" first victim

this is also why I think jeff has to die: he was the initial division between shauna and jackie, he was dividing the yellowjackets (when he was blackmailing them he didn't want them to work together and he also separated shauna from the rest of them at the reunion with the dance), and he was trying to keep shauna and callie divided (callie isn't trying to hurt them, she just wants to be involved) (this is actually so interesting when you think about how callie and jackie are paralleled throughout the series)

[lilybug-02]

Wow. That could not have turned out worse.

Part 23 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

This comic will be on Holiday Hiatus this December and January! While on a cliffhanger? What a scam! >:/

[sevenines]

i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.

two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!

[crowsgrudge]

fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.

dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.

but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).

like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?

[synonymroll648]

headcanon that the reason sophie still has eyelashes to pull on the regular is that grady and edaline worked something out with the dizznees to get a tasteless formula to help eyelash growth specifically to put drops of in her bottles of youth. because there’s no way her ptsd-induced trichotillomania (oversimplified definition for those who aren’t familiar: hair pulling disorder) is gonna die down during the war, so they’re trying to make sure she doesn’t move from eyelashes to eyebrows or her Hair hair by giving her More Eyelashes

[msnihilist]

Headcanon that, as Timmy gets older, he kind of starts to hate his last name. He already has some bad connotations with his full name after the Wishology situation (Timmy having a fear-response to his own name lives in my head rent free), but the older he gets, the more he dislikes it.

It's the last name of his parents, who neglect him and don't try to learn the first thing about him. It's the name that teachers snap at him when he's failed yet again. It's another reminder that the family he has with his fairies isn't really his and he can't keep them. He doesn't have a single good connection to his last name.

Anyway, all of this to say that I'm thinking about the way Jimmy says Timmy's last name in Part 3 of the crossover. Not with disappointment or disdain, but fondness. Like it's just Timmy's name. He uses his last name, "Turner," and it doesn't mean "terrible student" or "useless kid," it means "friend." Like Jimmy looks at him and just sees a person instead of everything that everyone's ever told Timmy is wrong with him.

[skitskatdacat63]

Every time I read Fernando cursing in fic, I can only think about this clip and then my brain short-circuits

[theheirofthesharingan]

“Tell me, father, which to ask forgiveness for: what I am, or what I’m not?

Tell me, mother, which should I regret: what I became, or what I didn’t?”

- source

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[sluckythewizard]

YOU JUST HƎARD IT FROM [HIS MOUTH] FOR SURƎ!!!

[contactlessdrivethru]

in seasons one and two, the colors of ted lasso are bright. vibrant. it’s one of the things that helped the show stand out when it first released - so many shows nowadays are dark, and i don’t mean in terms of their content. i mean in terms of their color grading. everything is muted, washed out, shrouded in shadow. ted lasso was the opposite of that. it was rich, colorful, to reflect the show’s optimism and inherent joy.

i first noticed it when the theme song rolled in s3e1, but the color grading has been different this season. user @strawberryswords mentioned it too, that the beginning of the season didn’t feel the same as the rest of the show, didn’t feel like a comedy, because ted wasn’t living in a comedy anymore! his depression was sinking into the foundation of the show, right down to the color grading. the team hasn’t felt like themselves all season, distracted by zava or by their losing streak, but this episode, they FINALLY figured themselves out.

and i GASPED. when the color grading was fixed. if you look for it, you can tell - after richard scores the goal against arsenal, the colors are vibrant again! the green of the pitch is warm and bright, the boys’ yellow kits are almost GLOWING. they figured it out. they’re a team again. multiple people have mentioned how episodes 6 and 7 have felt so much better than the beginning of the season, and that’s intentional!! after each of them individually being in some kind of funk, they have found their optimism again. ted lasso is once again about joy. and i’m so, so, so glad to see it.

[yarrow-leaf]

A kindling of a swordless bloodshed,

The creaking of a voiceless door —

Another piece inspired by something @mincemeat-the-warforged said that absolutely altered my brain chemistry (the same 1 am conversation that sparked this in fact!)

[dxxtruction]

"Louis acting like a pimp to Armand" And what is a pimp exactly? Quickly. And, oh so sexual trauma survivors can't engage in kink now without it being all about that? Pet names? They can't be submissive anymore? Consensually? Sexually healthy? Be serious. I'd hardly say there's much power difference between them during all this anyway, except that Louis is freer than Armand and it's been putting a strain on their relationship. Louis wants more from Armand, and less of this 'being his past' for them both, and so helping Armand with this could fix that. It's healthy to want to help your partners get out of a rough patch?

I mean, the whole exchange was very clearly set up as a "I want to help you" after such a great moment of vulnerability Louis feels just how much Armand is desperate for it. Louis called Armand so they could work out a plan together.

And the bit with the umbrella was Louis' way of asking 'are you willing to listen to me?' and Armand said yes by unfolding it. Louis goes on and explains, Armand is allowed to argue against it, but Louis makes his point. And then he gives Armand a way to make his own choice in it too. Armand's already decided 'I want you, more than anything else in the world', but Louis still asks after if he's sure of his choice, and with a name, Arun, that is the one of his fullest agency, running the point home. Honoring the situation Armand calls Louis Maitre - as a way of being like 'I'll do as you've said then'. To make this work he's going to have to give Louis some of the control, yes. But it's the first time such a role is ever established, and it was his choice to do it. So so what if they do it in a very suggestive way? They can't like doing that? I think it's them having fun.

I struggle to find how Louis is being overly domineering here when really he's giving and offering Armand the most agency he's ever had. Same with finding it manipulative. The manipulation was more earlier in the episode I think, when he was stringing him along, giving mixed signals. He's no longer toying with him like that. Louis might be pushing Armand, leading him on to make a decision, but he doesn't mean bad by it.

But back to this pimp thing. I find it frankly offensive that this is where people are going with this. I get it, but to run with it being the case is, on many levels, wrong.

Louis told us episode 1 this was the only sustainable line of work to support his family and keep their standing, at the time. It was never his choice to be doing this either but his blackness allowed no other options. He did what he did so his family could stay in that house and maintain all their same comforts. It gave him privileges most black men didn't have at the time that he wanted to maintain and even have more of. Anyway, it doesn't and had never defined him the way 'being good at running things' had. And in that case he just likes having that kind of control where he can get it, which makes sense.

The world is what placed that kind of role onto him of what he was allowed to be able to run, not himself. And on that he actually treated the sex workers he employed well and respected them enough to give them more opportunity.** He recognizes they don't have much in the way of options either.

Louis employed sex workers, yes, but he didn't subject them to abuse, (like how Armand was)*. He didn't oversee things in a way that would go against their consent (see; episode 1 again)**. Sometimes a job is just a job. And Sex work is work.

Armand's particular past with sexual abuses may strike a particular cord with Louis, given all that, but the very last thing either is thinking is that Louis' pimping Armand out here. This is merely their decision as companions, and had nothing to do with adding another line in a laundry list of selling Armands body out to people at the command of someone else. Armand rescinds some of his control to Louis' wishes, because he wants him, and he trusts him, that's all.

If you aren't allowing Armand that choice, and are doubtful it's fully his, you're putting him right back in the box of being defined by his abuses. Putting him back into that space where he isn't given any agency over what he does. (Which is exactly opposite of what the intent of this scene is for)*.

*: (edit) added for clarity.

**: (strike through) numerous people are saying I'm misremembering these points so disregard it. (Thought he was siding with Bricks, it was the other way around). (Technically one aspect of those opportunities were for getting around the law). I don't have a perfect memory, it happens. Let's not get mad about it. Doesn't change much of the point which is that Louis, now, Louis then, was always considering more about the running things and for stated purposes. So I guess I'd say he may only have respected the SWers enough sometimes for what allowed him to do that, and there are moments he certainly expressed remorse over the fact, but he has a great deal higher respect for Armand that is genuine. It's incomparable. Please read my added notes in the tags, it should address most other concerns.

[caeslxys]

Something I think is extremely interesting thematically when it comes to connecting what Downfall and the ideas it tackled to the overarching narrative of campaign three is that the things Downfall made a point to showcase of Aeor—Cassida, Hallis, the visual of an aeormaton proposing to her partner, the specific and intentional decision to shed light on a far from insignificant amount of the population being civilians or refugees—is that it plays in perfect parallel across from what is happening (and, really, has been happening) to the ruidusborn on Exandria in present.

Bear with me for a moment. Aeor is ultimately a city that was collectively punished for the decisions of its leadership. We could (and, judging by the amount of discourse around this particular topic already, probably will) argue about what the Gods’ motivation for all of this was—whether it be that they could not, in the end, bear to kill their siblings or that they were terrified at the prospect of mortality—for me it is a very healthy dose of both—but for this I am much more interested in the latter. They were scared. That, really, is the driving force behind both this arc and their role in c3 as a whole.

Why I point this out is: It is far more interesting to me, especially as we go back to Bells Hells this week, to dissect the Gods and their decisions not purely on sympathetic motivation alone but as beings in the highest seat of power in the highest social class in Exandria.

So, having established that the Gods (in relation to mortals) are more a higher social class than anything we could compare to our real life understanding of divinity and that Aeor was eviscerated largely because of their fear—what is the difference between those innocents in Aeor caught in the trappings of their autocratic government leadership and a divine war on the ground, and those of the ruidusborn being manipulated both by Ludinus and by the very thing that inspired such visceral fear in the Gods to start with. I would argue very little.

I think of Cassida, doing what she genuinely thought was right and good and would save people, her son, and the object of her worship—and how that did not matter enough to any of them to spare her because of the fear they held at the very concept of mortality. I think of Liliana and Imogen, one of which we know begged for the gods to help her or send her a sign for years on years, and how every single one of their largest struggles could have been avoided had the gods loved them, their supposed children, as much as they feared what they could be. I think of how the thing that did save Imogen, in the end, was a woman who herself existed in direct defiance of the gods will. I think of that young boy, sixteen years old, that Laudna exalted on Ruidus.

I think it’s completely fair to judge Aeor’s overall society as deeply corrupt—it was!—but its leadership and police force are not a reflection of every one of its citizens. Similarly, it is fair to judge the Ruby Vanguard as corrupt—it is!—but its multiple heads of leadership and even the god-eater further are not a reflection of every one of its members.

Notably, and what I think the Hells will latch onto, this did not matter to the Gods. It did not matter that Cassida was trying to help. She was still too much of a risk. Will it matter, what Imogen does? Will it matter, if that young boy is in the blast radius when they decide to take no further chances?

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Hells will side with the gods and I don’t think I agree. Especially as Imogen has been scolded and villainized over and over for daring to try and save her mother—who herself has been seen by some as an irredeemable evil in spite of her drive being the exact same—her family—but when it’s the Gods it’s justified? When it’s the Gods, it’s sympathetic? Too sympathetic to criticize further than “they’re family”?

I obviously do not think the Gods should die or be eaten or what have you, and I certainly don’t agree with Ludinus (though I find him much more compelling than just a variation of hubris wizard), but when talking about the Gods in Aeor and in present it isn’t really at all about their motivation or their family. It can’t be. Too many people, including our active protagonists, lives have been effected for it to be as cut and dry as “they’re family”. These are your children. They are your family, too.

[dontwannalove]

the brothers sun is like here's our action dramedy about triads and power struggle then it hits you hard with the complex nature of familial relationships; like the eldest is bearing the weight of the family's legacy and is his father's greatest weapon, the youngest has been sheltered from the truth of their family's history and is his mother's greatest joy (and her greatest weakness), neither has ever been given a choice regarding their life path, they briefly resent what the other brother represents, they love each other to the point of willing to do anything to protect the other, they want the other to have a good life where they can finally choose for once and each are willing to make sacrifices to make that happen