#It might as well be a genre

[ryllen]

no, but pinecones is really beautiful isn't it ?

[micamicster]

Spotify edit for THE GET DOWN BROTHERS from The Get Down (2016-2017)

Companion edit for Mylene Cruz & The Soul Madonnas

Credit where it’s due to @9clouds for the template psd I used for these edits. Thank you for making it available!

[wheucto]

OBJECTOBER 14 - Genre Swap

list by doodlebeeberry

[accio-victuuri]

sharing this article from today about HB. 🤍

Nominated for "Best Feature Film" at the Golden Rooster Award: "Hidden Blade": a hidden arrow that breaks the unspoken rules of box office for literary and artistic films

A classic is a kind of work,

It continues to give rise to clouds of criticism of it,

And keep getting rid of it,

It never completes what it has to say.

Hidden Blade, whose global box office is still rising, is the box office ceiling for domestic literary and artistic films. The background of this performance is that serious films have encountered an era of shallow reading, the industry and the public have been torn apart, and box office has become an undercurrent sweeping everything. However, because literary films do not conform to the shallow entertainment psychology, their niche nature is predicted by bloodthirsty and crude evaluations, and they are ahead of schedule. They are killed by film placement rate.

The true mission of film︱Making culture visible

The turbulent clouds and red color in the broad field of vision are somewhat incompatible with the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year. Released on the first day of the Lunar New Year, it is a kind of performance art in itself... It is very cliché, and it is exactly the same as the self-deprecation of super commercial films. As a spy war literary film, "Hidden Blade" has achieved a breakthrough in innovative expression of Chinese films, and its heterogeneity is unique among domestic films.

The dramatic tension of too many movies relies entirely on scenes and special effects, which disappear once they leave the theater. "Hidden Blade" creates a huge psychological magnetic field, which is still exciting even if it is separated from the audio-visual environment. The tone threshold of "Hidden Blade" is not some kind of contempt for the audience, but the ultimate respect for the audience, history, and movies.

Literary films are a type of film relative to the concept of commercial films. They focus on artistic expression and cultural connotation, and try to pursue higher aesthetic values ​​and cultural significance. Their production is also different from commercial films: commercial films pursue commercial interests or mass entertainment, and take the movie box office as the main goal, while literary films focus on the artistry and cultural connotation of the film.

Transgressing norms and offending common sense, art films are pioneers of film. They often fail but expand the boundaries of film. There are two literary classics in the history of world cinema, "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Westward Journey". They failed miserably at the box office when they were first released. However, they accumulated a large number of die-hard fans through the later dissemination of images. After years of accumulation, they became indelible classics.

The core of the value counterattack between the two works is still that gold will always shine.The former's exploration of human nature and social systems has created a milestone in modern cinema, while the latter's postmodern deconstructive stream of consciousness has won resonance in an era of subversion of tradition.

As a cultural carrier, movies are the most intuitive and transparent value expression of the thoughts of the times. Although most of the classics handed down from ancient times are not the true understanding of the thinkers' era, they have been accepted by the public after years of precipitation. As a result, classics continue to increase in value over the course of history. This is the power of classics and the reason why we respect classics.

As early as in "The Death of Romance", Cheng Er used lines to express his feelings, "Movies are made for the audience of the next century." Look, for artists who break through the context of their times, the feedback they receive from the times is often lagging or misaligned, although this misalignment itself is precisely the connotation of the avant-garde. Yes, art films have always been a disadvantaged group in the industry that suffers at the box office.

In contrast to the tragic box office situation, the ambition and strength of literary films in film art awards. This is also the reason why "Hidden Blade" recently swept the 36th Golden Rooster Awards, with 8 major nominations and caused controversy among public opinion.

The existence of "Hidden Blade" is indeed an isolated example of a domestic literary film. With a box office of 931 million, it is not only the highest-grossing film in director Cheng Er's career, it is even several times the total box office of all his previous works! It's so stunning that "Hidden Blade" has always been criticized by the public, expelled from the art film camp by default in the name of "removing the highest score"!

"No one knows your name, but your achievements are immortal." The grand proposition of the unknown hero in "Hidden Blade" is more sentimental about family and country than any of Cheng Er's previous works. And does this main theme of "greatness, light, and justice" fit in with the art film's original understanding of "the world, society, and life" for individuals and the authorial expression of film language?

"Hidden Blade" is not the first of its kind to draw on commercial marketing for a literary film. At that time, "Fireworks in the Day" was announced as a romantic suspense film, and it received similar reviews and received double box office revenue. It can be seen that only true literature and art dare to joke about "super commercial films".

Cheng Er responded to this joke in an interview with "China News Weekly", "I was editing the film that day, and then they came in with their mobile phones to show me, and said that everyone still thought it was too literary, and I said let's just type a line. Come out - a super commercial film. This is a joke, and indeed no one put such a slogan in the trailer."

He said that he just found it interesting and that there was nothing to rebel about and it was not worth rebelling against. Confidence and relaxation are often qualities of an artist. These qualities make people stand out like fireflies in the dark, allowing the public to quickly pick them up from the crowd. And Cheng Er slowly titled a serious film "super commercial film" because of his humor.

Movies are not just an art of light and shadow | they are also an art that can cultivate people

Low box office is not the standard for art films. “When art is dressed in shabby clothes, it is easiest for people to recognize it as art.” However, this is not an essential representation of art, but the quality of the audience that needs to be improved. The complaints faced by "Hidden Blade" are the same as those faced by literary films as a whole, which is the contradiction between the film's authorial expression and public acceptance.

But does literature and art have to be a niche? Does it deserve to be obscure and slow-paced? Come to think of it, no one is more qualified to answer than "Hidden Blade", who has boiled the black water into a world of wealth and led the public's aesthetic appreciation with niche art!

The most representative narrative style of Cheng Er's films is "flashback narrative", which established his unique creative and imaging style. It invites the audience to participate, rely on brain supplements to build together, and gain the pleasure of decoding. It is a true "understanding", and it is easy to be confused if you don't understand. Such films pursue aesthetics and reflection, and are usually aimed at more mature and artistic audiences.

Movies are products of the cultural industry and are essentially consumed cultural products. In the context of the influx of capital and hot money into the film market and the industrialized mass production of film culture, commercial films are certainly high-return cultural snacks tailored for audiences. Even the creators of literary and artistic films are hard-pressed to avoid being judged by box office success . "The concept of influence or even kidnapping.

It is common for literary films to sell less than 5 million yuan. From Chen Zheyi softly asking the sky, "Why are elegant and gentle people scolded?" to Huang Xufeng angrily choking netizens, "I have no merit but hard work." There is no antidote in the world. The reason why literary and artistic films are criticized is often because in the fast-food era of shallow reading, literary and artistic films have to embrace the sinking market and attract non-target audiences in order to pursue box office.

But movies are just products? No, it is still a cultural expression and a carrier of social values. Comparing movies to products, then literary and artistic films are obviously not fast-moving consumer goods. When facing capital and the market, how can they be in line with the public while not losing their authorial nature? Cheng Er said, "Good-looking art films are also good commodities, and excellent commercial films are also a kind of art."

When it comes to art, most people may think that art is highbrow, aloof, and far away from daily life. And this is not the case. Yu Hua said in the roadshow of "The Mistake by the River", what does it mean to understand? In fact, it is whether it can overlap with our own life experience. If there is overlap, you can understand it. If there is no overlap, you can't understand it. That's normal.

In this explanation, understanding or not understanding is not profound. And Cheng Er has always said that the audience should not be underestimated. People who watch movies are influenced by their own likes and dislikes. Whatever they feel is what they have. Whether they understand or not is not that important.

The audience should not be too demanding to understand, and the artist should also be down-to-earth. Art for the sake of art is not true art. "Hidden Blade" is not only a literary film, but also a literary footnote to Chinese films, because it truly expresses the cruelty of history but is still full of artistic beauty. Cheng Er is very familiar with the history of the Republic of China and knows the intricate relationships between characters.

"Hidden Blade" is composed of real historical details as fine as twists and turns. When I say I can’t understand it, I’m not expressing disdain, but living in China, it’s difficult to understand the history of 5,000 years of civilization, but there is absolutely no threshold for mastering the history of the Anti-Japanese War! It is understandable that one cannot appreciate the narrative technique due to aesthetic differences, but the Internet atrocities of selling one’s soul for five cents and tainting the theme of the film are unforgivable.

There is no universal set of aesthetic rules in the world, but artists try to legislate aesthetics. Every era has its own branded dogma, until the next generation of artists establishes their own profession. Therefore, Gombrich exorcized art and said, "There is no art, only artists." He hoped that the world would stop enshrining art in shrines and use mystery and sacredness to Feeling separates oneself from the work.

There is also a similar "death of the author theory" in the literary field, which means that the author is as if dead when the work is born, and the interpretation and evaluation of the work are left to the readers. That is, there are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers, and there is no standard answer.

Just like we cannot require every movie to go straight to the international film festival awards, but also to hit the hearts of the audience and be a classic that will be passed down forever. We cannot require every movie viewer to have high film literacy from the beginning, and to be able to get the spiritual resonance of the creative intention. The growth of movies, filmmakers, and movie audiences requires more tolerant soil and space.

Of course, there is really little space left for literary and artistic films in theaters now! No matter at home or abroad, when the public unanimously agrees that "artistic films deserve low box office", please understand that the industry should leave some room for exploration for artistic films. Allow them to be ignorant of the customs, and only on the soil of tolerance can viable artistic flowers bloom.

Social aesthetic value orientation︱The purpose and driving force of movies

"A lame dog walks through the bombed street scene." One day, Cheng Er took a pen filled with ink and wrote this sentence on the paper. At that time, no one, including himself, knew it, but it was becoming the starting point for a movie called "Hidden Blade," and this moment of brutal aesthetics became the famous scene of the movie.

Personal aesthetics are free, but social aesthetics has a paradigm. Education and social culture will influence and standardize aesthetics and shape aesthetic orientation. Different eras and different environments have different aesthetic orientations, and different aesthetic orientations make people make different value choices. That is to say, no matter how free the aesthetics and how diverse the values ​​are, as long as the rice is sown, it will never grow into tares.

Art and commerce are the two legs of movies. Art movies are full of vitality, and commercial movies are lively. When the leg of literature and art is lame, it is not unfair that Chinese films have been reduced from regulars on the awards podium at international film festivals to regulars on the red carpet.

Yes, there is indeed a "silver-like pewter tip" in the name of art. When artistic conscience is marginalized by desire, the so-called art becomes only a barren and pale flower shelf that cannot withstand scrutiny and argumentation. But "Hidden Blade" allows us to see how an exquisite literary film is polished and shaped, and even simple film layouts contain shooting skills.

Generally, it is the director's habit to record the scene first, then the actors perform, and the cameraman follows the camera movement, but this is not the case on Cheng Er's set. Wang Yibo once mentioned that the crew respects the actors very much. The filming scene is very quiet. Once the mood enters the state, the photographer shoots directly. After the scene is finished, the filming will be finished. The filming will never interrupt the actors' brewing emotions.

In the later stage, Cheng Er slept directly in the studio and only did one thing every day, cut, cut, cut! Thanks to his almost fanatical work status, Cheng Er didn't even get exposed to the sun last year! It took seven years to sharpen a sword, just for a different Chinese movie. Incorporate the main melody into genre movies, and use the language and audio-visual rhythm of genre movies to achieve innovative expression of the main melody theme.

"A truly good movie must be more commercial than commercial and more artistic than art. For me, what I have always wanted to do is to be more commercial than commercial and more artistic than artistic." Cheng Er said this and did the same.

Cheng Er's images are full of subtle metaphors. Puppet Manchukuo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, the spiritual narrative about the city in "Hidden Blade" permeates the architectural language of Rongzhai, No. 76, No. 567 Xiafei Road, Central Market, and Man Mo Temple; it is hidden in Japanese, Shanghai dialect, The mixture of pidgin and Cantonese arouses emotional resonance and deep thinking in the audience.

The Puppet Manchukuo, which only exists in the dialogue between Watanabe and Mr. Ye, is like a ghost with the chill of a daydream; the isolated island in Shanghai, which occupies the main part of the film, exudes luxury and inconsistency in its exquisiteness; and Hong Kong, as the hub of the international anti-Japanese united front, is full of human fireworks, revealing a simple and soothing world.

Dark clouds are pressing down, devastation is everywhere, and at the end of the tunnel, the historical information in the image of the current situation is compressed into a minimalist narrative, waiting to be decompressed. Until the dark wormhole of the theater, the historical words in the spy war narrative rushed towards us...

The anti-Japanese drama consumes misery, the anti-war themes are reproduced in large numbers, and the massacres cause psychological discomfort... In the past, expressions of the history of national suffering often followed the rules of exposing cruelty, exposing blood, and even exchanging violence for violence. What is shocking about "Hidden Blade" is that it uses beauty to overcome ugliness. It is amazing: It turns out that suffering can be interpreted calmly, with warmth and depth! "You can't get involved in the frame," is the domineering determination of the man behind the scenes.

Light and heavy, cold and warm, it completes the unfinished soul judgment on a country's sin of aggression in reality. In the sense of cultural export, "Hidden Blade" integrates the isolated history of China's anti-Japanese resistance into the world narrative of the great history of World War II.

It is a message from the times to the times. In the theater, "Hidden Blade" makes us feel the power of literature and art. After walking out of the theater, you will naturally understand what the merits of the unknown are!

[decidentia]

Hey gang, happy weekend. ♡

I’ve really been enjoying having Royce on his own blog, and I’m now planning to curate similar single-muse spaces for my other primarys – Anri, Farkas, Odessa.

If you’re interested in interacting with any of them, please drop me a DM or comment on this post with the blog(s) you’d like me to follow you from.

This blog will remain as a multimuse, so have no fear!

[batsplat]

sometimes casey throws a like on posts about valentino's wins on four wheels, got me wondering how he really feels about vale's retirement life. back in the twilight of vale's career, casey was kinda sad seeing vale content with just hitting top five. but end of last year, he said he's happy for vale's new life vibe. (https://www.tumblr.com/kwisatzworld/735598710184165376/casey-stoner-talks-about-valentino-rossi-in-an)

but man, they're like poles... casey's rebuilding his storm-hit home on the gold coast, swinging golf clubs. meanwhile, valentino's still going full throttle—aside from a vacay in ibiza, dude's been all over the map this year with car races, bike races, tests, and coaching at his academy.

I'm gonna be honest, I have zero awareness of what any of these men do on social media... don't really keep up with them post-retirement in general unless they're literally at the races, giving interviews about their careers and whatnot. so whenever someone on here mentions something like this it's very... I didn't know that but it sure is interesting!! very sweet of casey lol (also link to the gifs)

though, quick note, I wouldn't say valentino was content back in the day with just being in the top five (or lower) - it's just the idea of stopping for a long time felt worse than carrying on. from that same giornale interview, -

And what is it like to live with the idea of ​​leaving? "It's difficult to accept. I didn't give up until the end. But you understand that at forty you no longer have those homicidal instincts that you had when you were twenty-five. But it was hard. At a certain point in my career, about ten years ago, I asked myself: do I stop when I'm on the crest of a wave and retire as a world champion, or do I race until I can't stand it anymore?" Answer? "I race until I can't stand it anymore. And so I did."

it's something he had to decide for himself... of course, both marc and casey have said something along the lines of how they could never have done that themselves, how for them it's only worth it if they're winning. and, y'know, there is something about that for valentino... for all that obviously he is obsessed with winning and desperately wants to do so... he really doesn't just thrive in a fight - he needs it. and it's so interesting, in a way, when you think about just how early in his career he was flirting with the idea of walking away... and then think about how long he ended up sticking around. sure, he was always pretty clear that he would have just done something else racing-related like f1 rather than retire, but still! and in a way, it's probably the fact that he started losing that made him so determined to stick around... the malaise was at its strongest whenever he was winning, or rather, winning too easily... a motogp without valentino might have made it likelier that casey would stick around for longer, whereas a motogp with casey made it less likely that valentino would leave

but yes, casey did say motogp would be better with valentino close to the top:

casey's opinions on what counts as 'good racing' are a whole other thing I'm not going to get into right now, but, I don't know! it's fun! it's fun that casey looked at the 2013-18 period and then what came after that and went 'yeah it'd be better if valentino were involved in this'! "battling it out with these guys" - not even casey stoner is immune to the good old fashioned joys of watching valentino getting himself involved in a dogfight! very compelling of him. I don't think it's just lip service either, not least since it's not like casey is massively inclined to shoot random compliments in valentino's direction (yes, even during valentino's swansong casey did have some rather less friendly hot takes he needed to get off his chest). and... y'know, before the feud really got going casey did talk about how much he'd enjoyed watching valentino, went out with his mates to observe valentino in all his sessions and all that... given you're generally not watching valentino oohing and aahing about him hooking together a quali lap, he must have also enjoyed watching valentino race! happens to the best of us I fear

a persistent problem for a lot of valentino's rivals is how closely associated valentino has become with the very idea of motogp, which, y'know, is the thing they've dedicated their entire lives to. now, for casey this is particularly gnarly and complicated and painful because he has a severely strained relationship with the whole sport, in some ways that come back to valentino and in some ways that go beyond him. and post-retirement, it's not like casey has completely eschewed that active connection to the sport - he was a test rider, he wanted to race again in 2015 as a replacement for dani, he's worked as a rider coach. so again *wiggles hand* complicated. fundamentally though, yes, two very different outlooks. valentino was desperate to race in motogp until he couldn't any more. whereas casey? he's not even missed the racing itself:

can you imagine something more foreign to valentino than this... who loves nothing more than the thrill of the hunt, of the chase, of the kill... that is not a man who was showing up every weekend for the qualifying sessions. it's a way in which they could not be more different - and of course that's further reflected in what they've chosen to do with their time since retirement. valentino is so eternally restless, casey needed to ground himself again. valentino will not stop racing for as long as is physically possible, whereas casey is spending his days fishing... or swinging golf clubs apparently. wait a minute, you say his house was destroyed? by a tornado? ah

anyhow, that's the bit I love about them (not the tornado bit)... how they're both extremely similar and extremely different at the same time - that's the kind of tension through which the narrative juices flow... they're similar in ways you kind of have to be if you want to be very good at a sport, and very good in that sport specifically. in their commitment, their will, their passion for what they do. their competitive instincts, their need to win. how interested they are in preserving the 'soul' of their sport, how they were both firmly on the anti-electronics train for years and years... valentino being told about casey's comments in 2013 pressers and being like 'yeah I'm with him on this'... casey saying in 2018 that valentino is, and I quote, "like me: if it weren't for all these electronics that manage the bike, if the power was controlled only by the rider's right wrist, rossi would still be number one on the track". by the way, and this has absolutely zero relevance to this post, I do need to bring up this comment from the same interview because it makes me laugh:

so real, casey. I wanted drama too. anyway, that comment casey made about the 'stunning blood red' ducati being contaminated by luminous yellow or whatever - obviously in context it was anti-valentino, but it was also revealing that this is even something he cares about because he loves this sport... he wants it to remain true to itself... he regrets not having had the chance to ride the 500cc bikes that valentino was the last guy to be able to win a title on, which obviously valentino is also insanely proud of. there's little things that stand out when you cross-read their autobiographies - like for instance the deep preoccupation with the 'bike or rider' question, partly because they'd both been accused of owing their achievements to something else other than their actual ability (and of course, because they're funny like that, they do both absolutely do this to each other) (also to some extent literally every champion gets put through this, they sure do have a lot of opinions about it though). their thoughts on the importance of being honest to yourself and being honest about what you owe your success to... about not deluding yourself, of not blaming the bike when you are the one to make an error... there's plenty of interesting overlap in what they write y'know

they are both incredibly capable of holding grudges, they are both petty to a fault and will remember any offence you committed even if it was about seven years ago (genuinely casey might be even worse on this metric). and they use this to motivate themselves... they are both so so determined to prove people wrong. if they think you've wronged them, they openly admit that they use that as fuel to spur themselves on. it's the power of spite - yamaha rejected casey so he wanted to show them, nobody thought valentino could make the yamaha switch work so he wanted to rub it in honda's faces. they love to get even. they can be quite suspicious of others to the point of paranoia; there's a world in which they combine their powers to be extremely accomplished conspiracy theorists. they both have a temper - it's easier to get casey angry, but valentino is downright vicious when effectively provoked. plus, and this bit cannot be stressed enough, they are both insane. different flavours of insane, but, still, insane. if you spend enough time thinking about laguna 2008, this kind of becomes one of the key takeaways - because, okay, valentino's riding was. eh. but casey's riding? also very! eh! valentino started it but casey joined in! casey always talked about how much that race changed for him, how it taught him to be more selfish, to just race for himself... and even if it made him feel bad, the thing about casey is that he was willing to do that

but at the same time, of course they're both very different, in all the deeply obvious ways. their respective relationships to publicity, to media, to fame - valentino does struggle with it, does hate it a lot of the time, but at the end of the day he still shines in the spotlight and is an incredibly effective communicator. he's willing to play the game a lot more than casey is... although casey can play it too, if in a different way, when valentino forces him into it. casey's still willing to play it now, which is why you hear him constantly offering his commentary on that rivalry - he's selling a story, a narrative that he may genuinely believe in but that also is of course supposed to flatter him. at the end of the day, however, casey doesn't quite get why all of this has to be such a big part of the sport, why it's necessary to even have anything apart from the racing... whereas valentino has always understood why all the other stuff exists and why it's worth engaging with the public-facing side of the sport, even when he hasn't liked it

valentino loves the sport in its entirety, immediately embraced the entire circus of the paddock and found it endlessly exciting and exhilarating from the very first moment, whereas casey has often wished he could escape all parts of the sport that aren't the racing itself. valentino is someone who has spoken at length about the bonds of friendship with his team and how important they are to him, whereas casey is a man who has said his only friend in the paddock is his wife. the very strong but different connections they both have to their place of origin, and how meaningful those are to both of them, how important it is to their sense of identity... somewhere they'll always come back to. and of course there's a ruthlessness to valentino that is mostly alien to casey, if not entirely. valentino relishes the battle, whereas casey would prefer to avoid it. there are things valentino is ready to do, lines he's ready to cross, where casey doesn't even understand why you would do any of that. valentino loves having... if not an enemy, then certainly a target - and while casey is hardly a stranger to the motivating power of spite, he is more or less happy to complete his track times on an empty bit of asphalt. relatedly, he also wishes to believe that he is completely immune to any kind of psychological tactics... and sometimes he's more right than he's given credit for and sometimes he's wrong. casey is a lot more preoccupied with this rivalry than valentino is - and of course it has a far more defining role within his career than vice versa. casey walked away so much sooner than valentino did because he had grown estranged from the sport he had so loved. whereas valentino never stopped loving it, even when it hurt him, even when it could have killed him... and he never will stop loving it

this post is going to take a bit of a left field turn, sorry. but there's just something about. idk. athletes trapped in a rivalry that's so intense and so meaningful for at least one half, but that's also so about the kind of... gulf between them, the mutual lack of comprehension, where it feels like the divide is so big it might be unbridgeable... anyway, it always makes me think of a specific bit of andre agassi's autobiography where he talks about his rivalry with pete sampras. so here:

Walking up to the gate, who should I see but Pete. As always, Pete. He looks as if he's done nothing for the last month but practise, and when he wasn't practising, he was lying on a cot in a bare cell, thinking about beating me. He's rested, focused, wholly undistracted. I've always thought the differences between Pete and me were overblown by sportswriters. It seemed too convenient, too important for fans, and Nike, and the game, that Pete and I be polar opposites, the Yankees and Red Sox of tennis. The game's best server versus its best returner. The diffident Californian versus the brash Las Vegan. It all seemed like horseshit. Or, to use Pete's favorite word, nonsense. But at this moment, making small talk at the gate, the gap between us appears genuinely, frighteningly wide, like the gap between good and bad. I've often told Brad that tennis plays too big a part in Pete's life, and not a big enough part in mine, but Pete seems to have the proportions about right. Tennis is his job, and he does it with brio and dedication, while all my talk of maintaining a life outside tennis seems like just that - talk. Just a pretty way of rationalizing all my distractions. For the first time since I've known him - including the times he's beaten my brains out - I envy Pete's dullness. I wish I could emulate his spectacular lack of inspiration, and his peculiar lack of need for inspiration.

obviously the specific details of the rivalry are very different, and the two rivalries don't map neatly onto each other at all. but I don't know, it's always felt a good way of summing up that! disconnect!! the whole world might want you to be distinct from your rival for narrative purposes and you're aware of how artificial the whole thing is... but sometimes it can still be true... casey's always talking about how he never got obsessed with his rivals, how he always treated them all the same, how it was all just externally imposed onto him... which, okay, we could perhaps question the supposed lack of obsession, but it still comes back to how you don't want it to just be about you and that other guy. always you and them, them and you - and maybe you can't actually escape it because it's the truth... it's your legacy, it's fundamentally interwoven into the fabric of your career, it's why you will never truly free yourself from that narrative. "the gap between us appears genuinely, frighteningly wide, like the gap between good and bad"... you're bound together in your shared passion for this sport, but your biggest rival is also somebody who you feel like you'll never truly understand

casey may feel alienated from valentino and in doing so feel alienated from the very sport itself. whereas for valentino, casey was just what he needed. having casey was something motivating, something exciting for valentino - however annoying he found that man, he always needs something to inspire him and for a while there that something was casey. it's a rivalry that wore away at casey while at the same time it lit a fire within valentino... the 'cordial' mutual hatred they exhibited towards each other, wrapped up in this sense of mutual estrangement, it weighed more heavily on one of them than it did on the other... all these similarities between the two characters that exist alongside the violence of the contrast between them. that underlying and inescapable sense of alienation. on some level, they were always perfectly clear on who the other man was when they were fighting each other - and tailored their approach to the rivalry accordingly. but knowing doesn't quite equal empathy, it's not the same as understanding, and the distance between the pair of them inevitably remained. hey, maybe a dinner will fix it, maybe casey can explain where he was coming from to valentino and get the chance to interrogate valentino on the same. because that's what casey's expressing there, right, when he's talking about telling valentino his 'challenges' from his 'point of view'... it's not even as much about understanding as much as it is about being understood. it's about getting valentino to comprehend casey's side of things. maybe even getting valentino to care. of course, more likely than not, the dinner hasn't happened and will never happen. more likely than not, that gap will remain unbridgeable. perhaps it's too much to ask for, to ever truly know your foil. perhaps it's even more impossible to expect to be known

[writingmoth]

liking romantasy as an ace person who is more sex-indifferent than sex-favorable is so exhausting. there are all these books that look cool but the authors mostly market them based on spicy levels and spicy scenes and it does nothing for me so i just sit here like :| thats nice i guess haha

[eshithepetty]

SORRY FOR HOW I DISAPPEARED AGAIN. BUT I RETURN AND I BRING.. THOUGHTS....

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I was going to just reply to it, but, actually - no. this deserves to be its own post. Because YES!!! Yes, exactly!!!! This isn't something that I often see discussed in this fandom, if ever, but I think about it so much. I think @peepee-envy is exactly right. So much of this show is much more metaphorical than you think. All the fantastical stuff really just exists to... amplify the mundane. It doesn't really stand on its own two feet on its own. That's why we never really see the power system explored that in depth, that's why the terrorism organisation stuff is very secular in the story and doesn't affect the world more beyond its focused arcs, that's why buckwild stuff like the divine tree exists and is kind of just treated as normal, that's why the aliens just... show up, one day, and do nothing else. Those are all just footnotes. Just glass mozaics the story puts over the actual messages and character arcs to make them more colorful and fun. We already know that part of the story's presentation is changed by Mob's point of view - Tsubomi, the body improvement club and 100% carried away being the most obvious examples - so why couldn't that extend to more of this universe?

Of course, I'm not out here claiming that every fantastical and improbable thing in this story is just a projection of Mob's imagination or whatever, that would be kinda dumb and not that fun. But what is fun to me is thinking about what it could all mean!! What lies beneath the surface, what we can interpret and extract from these events! Like, as the reply above notes - the big clean up arc isn't so much about Ritsu literally going and beating the shit out of people... because, yeah, that does happen... but if we were to take it through a realistic lens, Ritsu would probably be in juvie rn lmao. No, what really matters here is the drama. Put as short as I can, it all goes like this:

There are 2 siblings. One of whom is noticeably different in how he percieves and interacts with the world, something that starts to alienate him (how do you take this to its fantastical extreme? Make him literally see the world differently (seeing spirits) and having different abilities (ESP) of course!)

Because of this alienation, there begins a rift in how this boy views himself and the traits that make him different (thus: a literal separation between mob and ???%...)

Only, these identity issues are obviously not healthy - the way he's started to reject himself is not healthy - and it, inevitably... ends with him lashing out, in a way that noone expected. And his younger brother, who had seen his brother as his role model up to that point... understandably got hurt and influenced the most. (And this being the story that it is.... that means the hurt and confusion gets made physical. Blood on the asphalt. A shadowy demon, 'something else', beneath your brother's skin)

Thus begin 3 long, suffocating years of neither of them being able to deal with it. One has decided to abandon his every desire and personality trait in the hopes that being invisible will make sure he drives noone else away ever again. And the other takes a similar page out of his older sibling's book, and hopes that by doing just what society tells him to do, being good, being quiet and nice and always accomodating to his brother, will mean he can avoid that trauma repeating. (Only, in this case - the feelings are so much more amplified, by the fact that this is not just hurt - this is death. Shigeo very much almost Murdered his little brother that day. And the both he and Ritsu are achingly aware of this.)

(But noone can bear these burdens forever.)

So eventually... the younger snaps. He's tired of upholding this image of perfection, of intelligence, of helpfulness - he feels like none of what he's done, what he's been, in the past 3 years is true, because it's all been born from fear. So when a crack appears in front of him - a chance to not do that anymore, to be someone else... he takes it. He finally lets himself be flawed. And he finally breaks down. (And in this world where he fears death and aspires literal powers with which to defend himself - this rebellion is exhagarated. He lies and cheats and hurts in the most blatant way possible. He's violent. Because in this world where he fears dying - what's a little more blood on the asphalt? He just needs to know it won't be him next. He accepts all this guilt and sinks into it because he's finally allowed to. Because for once, these feelings and destruction is something he controls. Noone else.)

(He's finally like his brother. He feels, he's finally able to understand him. He wanted psychic powers, because the time his brother fully showed his psychic powers is the time he was truly whole, and he aches to feel whole himself, too. To unmask and become something truer to himself, something that will bring him closer to his nii-san.)

And as for the other... well. There goes the whole rest of the story of Mob Psycho. Shigeo learning to open up. To find friends. To understand himself. To accept his differences. To reach out. To change people. And to finally, be able to mess up, and walk away after it - because it might feel like the worst possible thing in the world. It might feel like he's the worst person in the world, this horrible beast who's just so angry, and who can't stop hurting people, and who suddenly blames everyone around him and is destroying everything he touches as a result... but that's only because he's never allowed himself to take himself into account before. He's never seen himself before, never let himself protect himself before.... and to a person who's lived their whole life in darkness, only candlelight to guide them - the sun would feel like an apocalypse. It's only so overwhelming, because it is so to Shigeo. It's all just a representation of how he feels.

And I just think that's all so fun. It's fascinating... I love thinking about this stuff. And it's also why, I realize as I'm writing this, I've always felt that terms like 'parody' and 'deconstruction' do not 100% apply to all of mob psycho, to what it is as a series.... because, yes, there's definitely elements of both (particularly in the more actiony parts of the series). But at it's heart... it almost leans more into the logic of something like magical realism, where fantastical elements do exist - but they don't explain themselves, and they don't impact the universe they inhabit in a way that people would deem as realistic - they just are. They're there to be a set dressing, they're there to be an allegory, they're there to make it more interesting - but the story was never about them. It was about what lied beneath that fantasy. It's about the humanity of it all.

And it also just makes the story So funny. Like, yeah, guess there's a mind controlling broccoli now in the middle of the town,, why not!! One of my best friends is a green booger, and my father-uncle-brother figure is a scam psychic, and my little brother almost strangled someone to death for me, and one of my classmates want me to be a cult leader.. Also my confession to a girl Literally left 11 dead 69 injured but thats fine !! Etc. etc. I just really like that, jdhdjdhj

This is a story about how even the most special looking people are actually just as normal as anyone else; that the most ridiculous things are just a part of life, that we can find connection in the strangest of circumstances, that life and growing up is awkward and cringe and confusing and!!! It's all just normal. This is life. And I love this beatiful and weird series, with all my heart <3

[artemisiatridentata]

I just finished reading Fourth Wing after picking it up because of all the hype, and because I love dragons, and... I have to say it's the worst book I've read in quite a while lmao. the dragons were its only redeeming quality

[hussyknee]

If you aren't reading KJ Charles's books I sincerely do not know what you're doing with your life.

[tariah23]

Noooo…… first it’s Yuuta and Shoko, now they’re yo-yoing back around to Megumi.

[scattered-winter]

the only thing stopping me from being insane about the renegades trilogy by marissa meyer is the fact that I am soooooo so sleepy at all times. take this knowledge into your hearts and know that the sleepiness has saved you

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

why am i so tempted to actually try to write the flf vampire au now

[tathrin]

5. …where it doesn’t hurt.

Oh what a tender choice, thank you for asking! Prompt taken from this; anyone can feel free to send other numbers in at any time.

Legolas was pacing. That was the first thing Gimli became aware of when he woke for the third time, his head finally clearing of the fuzziness of healing potions and injuries enough for him to focus properly on the world once more.

Legolas was pacing, which meant that he was worried.

The elf was almost never still, Wood-elves being apparently as prone to rustling as the leaves of their beloved trees, but it was a gentle, casual sort of motion, instinctive and subconscious. If called out on it, Legolas often evinced confusion, as if he had not even noticed the slight but unceasing motion of his lissome body.

Pacing, on the other hand...

Gimli tried to speak, and a groan emerged instead. Instantly, the elf was at his side.

"Gimli?"

The sound of that bright, cheerful voice drawn in to such a tight, tremulous trill of a word made Gimli's heart ache almost as much as his bones did right now. The sight of the elf poised on his heels beside Gimli's bed, his long fingers frozen halfway across the distance between them as though he was afraid of reaching closer; afraid of actually touching the dwarf, was even worse and the shadow of terror that flickered across his pale eyes was utterly unbearable.

Gimli forced himself up from the dregs of his drugged sleep and into enough consciousness to rasp, "I am well, Legolas."

It came out rougher than he intended, more of a hoarse croak than as actual words. He opened his mouth to try again and found the rim of a cool metal cup pressed to his lips instead.

"Drink," Legolas commanded.

It hurt, lifting his head enough to do so, even with strong elvish fingers supporting him from below, but Gimli forced himself to swallow the cold, mint-laced water. He flopped back to his pillows after a few gulps and cleared his throat. The results were pleasantly akin to a rumble of stone rather than a creak of brittle wooden timbers, so Gimli decided to brave the effort of speech again.

"I am all right, Legolas," he said.

"You are not," the elf retorted. "You are banged all to bits, and the fact that none of your bones are broken is nothing short of a miracle."

"Dwarven bones are strong," said Gimli.

Legolas snorted. "Yes, and their heads are hard—a fact with which I am both beyond irritated, and exceedingly grateful. Gimli, what were you thinking?"

"I did not expect the stone to break," Gimli murmured. Dwarven stone would not have broken beneath his feet; or if it had had no choice but to do so, then it would at least have warned him first. But the shoddy white stone with which the masons of Minas Tirith had built some of their more recent, less elegant and less impressive structures, apparently had no such concern for the beings what walked upon its pale surfaces, even when said beings walked with dwarven feet.

"No!" Legolas exclaimed. "No, I am sure you did not! Nonetheless, it did, and you took quite a tumble as a result!"

Gimli grumbled, and made to swing himself out of the bed. The world reeled around him and a hand like a splay of twigs against his chest stopped him as firmly as a block of granite.

"You are not getting out of that bed until Aragorn himself says you are well," Legolas declared, his lilting voice gone suddenly fierce. Then it cracked open like a wound as he added plaintively, "Gimli, you nearly died!"

"Poppycock," Gimli retorted, trying to hide the fact that he was panting from even that slight abortive effort. He sank back into the pillow and forced himself to breathe slowly.

"You fell almost twenty feet and landed on solid stone."

Gimli grunted. "Well, then of course I am not dead," he said. "Good stone would never break a dwarf that landed on it."

Legolas made a noise of exasperation that sounded comically similar to an angry bird scolding an interloper away from its nest.

"Hush," Gimli said. "Your point is made; I will stay in the bed and await the word of the healers." He was not sure that his body would allow him to do anything else anyway, but there was no reason to admit to that. It would only worry Legolas more if he did, and he would be surely be more mollified by Gimli's apparent surrender if he did not know that he was only acquiescing because he had no choice.

"Good," Legolas snapped, and dropped onto the floor beside the bed.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds as the aches in Gimli's bones throbbed and pounded, as though he were an anvil in Erebor's busiest forges. Either the draughts he could dimly remember being coaxed to drink by Gondor's kind were wearing off, or the pain was simply becoming more noticeable as his thoughts cleared.

He could not stop himself from groaning, although he clamped his lips tight over the sound as soon as it escaped—but too late.

"Does it hurt terribly?" Legolas asked. His voice had gone gentle again, small.

Gimli nodded, and regretted the motion with a wince. He screwed his eyes shut. "Yes," he admitted.

"Where?"

Light elvish fingers ghosted over Gimli's arm and up across his shoulder, their touch no more than the slightest breath of wind amidst slim treetops. The pain still seemed to dull a little at the touch, as though Aragorn's hands were not the only ones that held healing in their palms.

"Everywhere," Gimli moaned.

Legolas's fingers retreated at once, and Gimli could not help but sigh in regret.

"Well," he said, after a moment, "perhaps not quite everywhere."

"No?"

There was a faint rustle of movement, barely audible. Gimli could not bear to open his eyes and let the light in again, but he pictured the elf leaning closer and smiled at the imagined sight.

"My nose," Gimli said at last. "I think my nose is all right."

Legolas let out a surprised laugh, a burst of silvery mirth like the sudden ringing of clear bells.

Gimli's smile settled more firmly behind his beard. "Yes," he said. "My nose is definitely unharmed."

"And well that it is," Legolas agreed, gliding the faintest touch of his fingers across Gimli's cheeks and forehead before finally coming to rest against the side of his nose. "I would be grieved to see such handsome features mashed by such a fall."

"That's why I made sure to land on my back," Gimli teased. "To save my pretty face for you."

Legolas laughed again. The sound was watery, but stronger; the tremble was gone. "You are very kind," he said.

There was another, longer rustle of movement, and Legolas's hand fell away to be replaced by the light touch of warm lips upon the very tip of Gimli's unbroken nose.

In the darkness of his pain, Gimli smiled.

[grumpyfaceurn]

I love RPGs but I also kinda can't stand the idea of them

Specifically the fact that i'm always missing something. I am presented with two options and the one I don't click is forever shrouded in mystery. What if I had said the other thing? What if the roll succeeded where I failed, or failed instead, opening up a whole nother avenue to get the same task done?

To know that you only get one first play through and that's *supposed* to be flawed because if you wanted to do it perfect you'd have to look it all up in a wiki and deprive yourself of making genuine decisions, not to mention the spoilers. Entire plots unplayed because the mission didn't look that interesting.

Oh, but play it again, you say? That's the whole point? Suddenly you become aware of how much repetition there is, how often two options still lead you to the same result, how one failed roll really just leads you on a small detour only to end up at the exact same endpoint as the succeeded one.

And, what's worse, all those times where you decide to finally see where the other path leads, what reaction the other choice ellicits only to realise, oh no, I forgot which one I picked and now I've actually gone for the same one again!

[aropride]

i want to feel like a human person amd not. nvm post derailed by me remembering my OCs the OCs they would be so perfect for this specific angst im experienceing