#Material Analysis

[marxist-lelouchist]

King John Plantagenet of England is a much-maligned figure, due to folklore and propaganda.

Obviously, as a feudal monarch, he is condemnable, but it is a very shallow study of history to condemn all past figures of power in the broadest of strokes.

It is far more engaging and informative to actually try to answer the questions:

Who was on the side of the progress of history, intentionally or not? Who was battling against the progress of history?

It is worthwhile re-examining all of history and knowledge, not simply things since 1945, 1917 or 1789.

The pivotal event of interest in John's reign was the revolt of the barons, the event which led to the Magna Carta.

The only reason the Magna Carta appears is because John taxed the nobility. The nobility, in attempting to avoid the taxes John imposed upon them to rebuild the kingdom's treasury after his wars, but primarily the much-lauded Richard the Lionheart's wars and adventures, placed the weight of these taxes, as always, upon the serfs and drove them into rebellion against the king.

Who was on the side of history in this struggle?

As odd as it may seem, it is definitely John.

Why? The interests of the progressive class, the artisans in the cities, lay with the king, against the regional nobility.

The king's interests coincidentally sit with those of the artisans for the simple fact that he is the lord of the cities.

The development of the king's cities is the development of city capital, the development of city capital is the weakening of rural stagnation, the weakening of rural stagnation is the march of history.

Until the bourgeoisie has the power to form a republic, the king is unwittingly leading the charge of history against his vassals.

John had no intention of being a historically progressive force, but he was by the very nature of his actions.

And finally, on the topic of the Magna Carta:

The Magna Carta was simultaneously a step forward and a step back.

It was a step forward in that it was the birth of the concept of a constitution, a step backwards in that it was a massive victory for the rural nobility and a weakening of the central government, therefore a weakening of the cities and enrichment of the rural nobility, therefore a weakening of actual capital development and strengthening of feudal stagnation and parasitism.

[chessb0r3d]

Analysis so bad you don't even know what it's talking about anymore.

[midseo]

Plastic Testing Equipments, Manufacturers, Exporters, India

Discover our range of plastic testing equipments for accurate material analysis and quality control. Ideal for laboratories and industrial applications.

Plastic Testing Equipment, Polymer Testing Tools, Quality Control Solutions, Material Analysis, Lab Testing Instruments, Durability Testing, Industrial Testing, Mumbai, India.

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[fatmagunaydinandspacesofdisplay]

Research on circularity with a visualizer

A research collage on the materials that can be used for the displays and a visualisation.

[mylifeatuca]

[buggachat]

honestly just in general it's very exhausting to try to analyze media that is literally meant to be analyzed, only for the replies to be filled with people arguing not against your analysis, but against the premise that the media can be analyzed at all.

i don't even know what to say about it without starting to really betray my frustration, so i'll just settle with— just don't engage with analysis posts? I'm serious. if you're typing a response to a media analysis post, reread what you've written and ask yourself "is this comment/response against the very concept of analyzing the media at all?" and if the answer is yes then delete it all and go sit in the shame corner. throw your curtains away if you want to so bad and stop telling me that I'm not allowed to hum and haw at the fact mine are blue

[bayetea]

truly one of the biggest letdowns in piper's writing in hoo specifically is how it doesn't dig deeper into charmspeak and what a disturbing thing it is to have the power to control someone's mind. like I swear this is interesting stuff and more people would get into piper as a character if this were explored a bit more in the text. you definitely see piper disturbed by her own power and hesitant to use it (and note that like many other characters, i.e. leo and hazel, her powers have always been a source of trouble in her life - like how she got in trouble for stealing a car even though all she did was ask for it), but in my opinion the books spend way too much time in piper's perspectives on other stuff when charmspeak is such an unusual and fascinating and terrifying power that offers so many interesting avenues of character exploration

and I really wish the books would have talked more about the canonical fact that charmspeak is more effective against people who are (or could be) physically/sexually attracted to the user. this is a power that children of aphrodite have - a power that is implicitly tied to sexuality as a defense or offense. like this inherently necessitates that piper weaponizes her sexuality against monsters and deities and giants and any other antagonist that want to harm her. which is crazy. especially because she's a teenager and especially because piper is initially characterized as an underconfident girl who goes out of her way to downplay her appearance (do you guys remember how much harassment piper goes through in the books and what little gravity is afforded to those moments... like she has dangerous characters aggressively flirting with or expressing attraction to her A Lot, and she has to play into that attraction to save herself or her friends no matter how uncomfortable it makes her)

I think there's such a dark undertone to all of this that's worth investigating. we know that piper doesn't like herself, doesn't like her powers, and doesn't like demigod life. hoo has her on a journey to become more confident in herself as a person and as a daughter of aphrodite but it's always going to be fucked up that part of her role in the prophecy seven is becoming confident enough in herself that she gets better at weaponizing her ability to violate the free will of others - and her ability to use her sexuality as an armament of war

[whoisspence]

boyband reid appreciation post because it's never too much

[bethanydelleman]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you bring credentials instead of evidence to an argument, you must be in want of a loss.

However well known the source of your education, your experience ought to make you better at citing evidence, not at demanding absolute acceptance of anything you happen to say, related or unrelated to your field of interest.

To be considered accomplished, a debtor must have a thorough knowledge of the source material.

[rainbow-sunshine-unicorn]

I saw this person point out that it looks like Anthony was sniffing his hand after caressing Kate’s face

And I’d never heard that before so I went to rewatch the scene and HE REALLY DID SMELL THE PALM OF HIS HAND THE MOMENT HE TURNED AWAY FROM KATE

Because of the lack of music in the scene, you can actually HEAR him inhale

Oh Anthony Bridgerton, feral isn’t a word strong enough to describe you

[tec-a0l]

personality analysis, pt.2

a continuation of this post analyzing dylan’s personality.

stating this again beforehand that these analyses are based on accounts from their friends/families and primary source documents (journals, official reports, etc), and are purely speculative as i never met them personally. with that out of the way, i now present my analyses of dylan & eric!

⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡

part 2, eric:

eric’s personality is a little more tricky to place—he didn’t seem to have many close friends besides dylan, and his family never spoke out about him, so the information we have on him is much more sparse.

he moved around a lot, due to his father being in the military, and i think that was probably one of the biggest influences on his personality—he even stated in his diversion files after the van break-in that moving away from plattsburgh (where he lived prior to moving to littleton in 1993/7th grade) was one of the most traumatizing experiences in his life. for him, constantly being the new kid and having to leave friends behind made him feel outcasted and “othered” in a way.

he spoke about that feeling quite a bit in his journals, but the last proper entry he wrote is especially notable in my opinion:

“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things, And no don’t fucking say “well that’s your fault” because it isn’t, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no don’t let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo.” — eric’s journal, 4/3/99

part of what caught my attention about this entry is that it feels so honest. a lot of his journal (to me) reads like he’s writing for an audience, playing up this grandiose “godlike” persona that he wanted to be viewed as—but this specific portion just feels truthful and defeated, almost.

eric had a lot of insecurities, both physically (his pectus excavatum, having a “big head on a skinny body,” his height, etc), and socially (re: being the new kid, not having a ton of friends), which i believe also contributed to both his feelings of being “othered” and his resulting anger.

i do think his anger was two-sided, however: one side being genuine frustration with the feeling and unfairness of rejection, and the other being fronting—like if he makes himself seem tough and mean, then he can’t get hurt.

in a psych assessment found in his diversion files, he marked his frequency of feeling “mixed up or confused” as “all the time,” and while he didn’t elaborate on this feeling in the report, that answer is as clear of an indication one could get that he was experiencing a lot of turmoil within himself.

while reading interviews and testimonies of those who interacted with him, i noticed there were two main, yet conflicting, things said about him by his friends—or more precisely, dylan’s friends who he was also friends with, largely by association—and by his classmates:

1) eric was short-tempered and angry.

2) eric was polite and mostly kept to himself.

of course, these observations don’t necessarily negate each other, but they do show a clear dichotomy of the same sort of “inner/outer-self” like dylan had, though slightly more situation-dependent.

in my opinion, eric was influenced greatly by his environment—whether that be in the form of having to move around a lot, having a military-strict family, or getting outcasted and bullied at school—and everything combined into this perfect storm of turmoil he found himself in.

it’s unfortunate that there weren’t more people willing to speak on the positive aspects of who eric was. though, in a way, if there had been more people like that in his life, we very well may not have even known about him in the first place.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡

this is much longer than i was expecting it to be, and there’s still so much more i could say, but i’ll end it here for now lol

dylan’s analysis/part 1 is here.

[fumifooms]

Marcille’s dungeon lord outfit is about being stuck in an inbetween

Kui combined a dress from her mother with a hat for children. It’s adulthood vs childhood. The dress is tallman fashion while the earmuffs are elven. It’s about emotions and maturity. Stability and instability. Growing & potential vs having grown & knowing yourself. It’s about her cultures and expectations and how can she possibly keep up with all of them, like the genius child she was portrayed as? It’s duality it’s conflict it’s being pulled in opposite directions. It’s about identity.

Marcille wants to have all the answers and wants them all already, she already acts like she has everything figured out more often than not, when it comes to ways to harvest mandrakes or her image of Falin and Chilchuck and orcs or her rigid sense of ethics, but the story does show that she had growing to do, plus her main goal beyond keeping her friends safe and near her is that pursuit of knowledge for what she doesn’t yet have answers for— rewriting the laws of life and death. But, as we’ve all been told before, death is simply a part of life and we have to make our peace with that one way or another. Like Marcille says in the last chapter, this was in large part the lesson and arc she’s had to go through. A lesson that Marcille’s mother has learned herself, one that she has accepted and tried to pass on to her daughter, which didn’t work and kickstarted Marcille’s pursuit of extending lifespans. Marcille has to settle with uncertainty, with knowing life can end at any moment and knowing this is who she is even if the world has no answers for her as to what that means, she has to come to terms with ambiguity and inbetweens.

Marcille’s relationship with her mother is very interesting because it’s shown all in small moments and implications, but we do see that Marcille’s mom is arguably her biggest role model.

She’s the one who shows up in Marcille’s nightmare about monster food early on, she is who told Marcille she’ll have to bear loss througout her life due to her lifespan, Marcille wears a choker like she does, it’s debatable that Marcille mimics her demeanor to seem more elven and dignified, in Marcille’s true nightmare she hides behind a portrait of her, she was the only living elven role model Marcille had around. Mother, who didn’t let grief over her husband rule the rest of her life, having even remarried, mother, who’s a court mage, mother, who pursued a life she wanted even if it cost her. And we do know being an elf is important to Marcille! She seeks to conform to elven beauty standards rigidly, both in gender presentation and things like facial hair, and she’s masked as one since she was enrolled in the magic academy, as far as we know her first time away from home and her first big period of social contact since she isolated herself with chickens and books when she was younger, because she had no peers. Books like the daltian clan, with an aestheticized all elven cast with the one exception of the half-elf character she deeply related to.

Marcille’s bangs are also half down and half cut. Before she had to cut some hair to make familiars, long bangs were what Marcille wore for years, meanwhile in all of Marcille’s childhood flashbacks including at the magic academy her bangs were always cut short. As we know, hair is important to elves. Her hair is elfness. Her hair is elegance. Her hair is her age. Her bangs are uneven now. It’s part of accepting her precarious weird spot in an inbetween, half up half down haircut. Acceptance on her own aging, that there’s no empiric answer for what Marcille’s equivalent age is in elf or tallman or other, maybe just a ballpark if even that. Answers which are what she’s most desperate to know. What do you mean that student over there has got an astronomic result on her dungeoneum and what do you mean she doesn’t really care for how you did it? Falin who’s thus showing her another way to be, with less self-made pressure, that you can just go with the flow- that you can just… Be.

Her hair being all down and messy as a dungeon lord is part of making the characters and audience understand that Marcille is out of it, but… Like her barefootness there’s some flexibility it implies, for Marcille who’s so rigid on appearance. Accepting her hair to be messy, a sort of shedding of who she is even as she’s overdressed and trying so hard to look like something she doesn’t feel as.

That’s why her outfit makes her feel courageous. Because it makes her feel different from who she is otherwise, because it grants her a look she feels naked without, even with barefeet and messy hair. It’s externalizing how she’s been trying to hold it all together and all her confliction and her feelings, offering some catharsis, no more hiding herself, she’s a half-elf trying to do dark magic. Clean Marcille, clean clean Marcille— Overthinking the dressing, the superficial the aesthetic, without looking enough at the body it’s covering up, the laws of the world the ecosystem of the dungeon the opinions of her friends’— what’s standing right in front of her face, the underlying thing holding up the rest of what she’s trying to change, what’s truly important. She’s back to being like with meeting Falin, overfocusing on the details and the nitpicks and the theorics while oblivious to the slimes and the bats and the balance of mana in that small cave dungeon. She has the dress and the hat but as a whole she doesn’t look like a slay queen or a princess or a cool sorceress or even like her mother, she just looks like a mess. 

Ultimately after calming down, she takes the earmuffs off. She lays down her childhood trauma and leaves behind its grip on her and moves forward in the dress, with maturity and emotional intelligence and logic to deal with her current situation instead of coping mechanisms and desperate grasps for control. And then when the dungeon lord becomes Laios her dress poofs, she’s in her very plain pajamas, plain Marcille, and it’s that Marcille who goes forward to help Laios save the world and defeat the demon. Hence why post-canon she starts dressing in similar dresses to her mother as well, and starts wearing more black. Black here is a color associated with her mother. She keeps her own touch and color here and there, like her red choker instead of a black one, but it’s a stark and sudden difference. She’s matured.

Her dungeon lord outfit is a coming of age outfit in a very literal way. A bridge between childhood and adulthood. We see her struggle metaphorically between the past and the future, moving on or holding onto trauma. The dress, from her mother, with cleavage and low cut sleeves and a lace gap going down to her stomach and a very short risqué skirt cut, represents maturity but it was very purposefully contrasted with the earmuffs, a childish piece of accessory associated with youth. This shows her mental state, battling with her emotions, wildly fluctuating between her academic put-together powerful self and the childish emotional outbursts the pressure is causing. Time moves on too fast but she’s not growing up fast enough to keep up or make the academic breakthroughs she wants— time is always running out and she’s both too young or too old she’s pulled in both directions and she can never be up to standards. It represents her struggle with her lifespan, her struggle to fit in, to know who she should be and what she should be doing.

Her friends aren’t afraid to say it like it is and bring back her feet to the ground instead of up in the clouds of fantasy and power, from where she was, her feet back on the dirt of where they are right now instead of the theorics of "when" and "then" and "forever". She’s weird, she’s unique, in some ways she doesn’t fit in with any group anywhere, and that’s ok and she’s accepted that it doesn’t mean she can’t feel belonging and joy as herself with her flawed friends in a flawed world. After all they did stick with her even after seeing her whole tantrum and embarrassing breakdown makeover. Personally I do say, slay queen.

You’re still here? If you’d like a full look at Marcille’s dunlord outfit, I made an entirely too long analysis of it here, this is just an excerpt of the most canon section.

[the-owl-tree]

out of all the hollyleaf chapters, this one from outcast has always really stuck with me in the way it resonated in constantly being taught that finding a husband and settling down to have kids was an expectation or even a path to happiness. squirrelflight's response isn't to tell her that she doesn't have to have children, that she doesn't need to become a mother if she doesn't want to - instead it's to assure her that her "path is marked out" and "she can have kits and still return to the warrior's den". hollypaw's pov chapter comes after lionpaw's and jaypaw's, neither of which have to deal with these questions and struggles. i'd be curious to hear the author's intentions behind the scene- it's interesting characterization - one that resonated with me obviously - but it's so strange to see in a children's book, one by authors who at the very least hold milquetoast liberal politics, be unable to outright have their authority figure in the scene, the one whom the child readers are meant to look to as guidance, say "you don't need to have children if you don't want to, you're not any less for not wanting them" and instead don't acknowledge the idea of not having kits and instead try and say, albeit in a less blunt way, "you can still have babies and a career! you can find a way to have children and still pursue your goals!" which isn't the Good Message shit approach they think it is.

this isn't really meant to be an organized piece of analysis, i just wanted to revisit a scene that really stuck with me as a young kid struggling with my identity. surprisingly out of everything in po3, this is really what made me resonate with the idea of hollyleaf being a lesbian.