#Sorry no tldr for this one :(

[ba1laur]

"darkstalker" idk i didnt read

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[moonkhao]

hi.

[drowningparty]

I will stop creating elaborate aus when I'm dead

[chocolatepot]

The trouble with discussing the s2 reunion expectations vs reality that I rarely see anyone mention is that nobody(?) predicted it would happen with Ed completely powerless, knocked out of his position by a mutiny that essentially killed him, so there's still a huge variable to take into consideration when talking about people "getting it wrong".

Like, yes, we can discuss it from a Doylist perspective - Jenkins chose to have it happen that way, rather than having Ed and Stede meet again when Ed was capable of saying anything to him, and what does it mean that the fandom largely didn't consider that as a potential dramatic scenario.

But conversely, the fact that he did choose to do that means that we still have no idea how it would have gone in the circumstances involved in most reunion fics - if Stede made it back to Ed before he'd successfully committed suicide by crew. Given his choice to push Stede away through most of Fun and Games, I think people who wrote him as hostile weren't far off, actually! But there's no way of knowing how hostile he might have been, or if he'd have completely snapped out of it.

(TBH I also think it's a bad idea to assume that scenarios people write fic about = their expectations for canon, but that's a different matter.)

[deiaiko]

#18.1 Rak

Rak let out a huff and sat down next to Agni. Agni peeked over at Rak, who was looking far ahead, as if his past were replaying right before him.

TW: Self harm and suicide…in a way? (Sorry if it gets too dark. I put the TLDR on the tags)

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"I met him back when I was young, about a hundred years ago," Rak started.

Agni was taken aback at how long the gap between their time travel was. He wondered how much his Rak had changed.

"It was getting cold, which meant it was hunting season. I got bored and picked a fight with the toughest and biggest prey I could find."

Agni hummed when Rak paused for a moment too long, "Let me guess. You underestimated it and you lost?"

"The river was slippery!" Rak crossed his arms defensively. "And I didn't lose!"

"Sure," Agni rolled his eyes, one corner of his lips upturned. "How come?"

"I didn't lose, but I didn’t win either." Rak looked away, probably in embarrassment. "Another spear pierced its head before mine. That's when I met him."

From the way Rak's expression turned fiery, Agni had a suspicion that that exact moment had affected Rak more than what he spilled out. It didn't surprise him however, since he knew Rak’s ego.

"He was around for a while, acting like he cared about me." Rak huffed again, more fondly this time, eyes closed and arms still crossed. "He taught me a few fancy tricks with rocks and how to hunt better. He talked a lot about turtle this and turtle that. There were so many, I don't remember. But Black and Blue turtles were the ones he talked about the most, saying something like 'no one else will be more worthy prey than them.'"

Agni felt his chest tighten. To think that their Rak had acknowledged them and even bragged about it…it filled him with a sense of pride and longing.

"I didn't believe him then, since turtles are boring and no way they could do what he said they could." Rak paused and untangled his arms, eyes focusing and turning predatory, "But when he said that these turtles were unlike what we had there, I have been wanting to meet those turtles he told me about and hunt them."

Rak's story was intriguing. But even if it flattered him, Agni was more curious about his Rak's whereabouts. "What happened to him then? Wasn't he…badly injured?"

Rak frowned and went silent. But when he found his voice, it lacked its previous vigor. "He was. It looked fresh and so impossible to walk with, but he did. I asked if it was painful, but he said he didn’t feel a thing."

Third-degree burn. Agni thought to himself. But there was no way it spread evenly. Some areas must've been painful.

"He definitely lied," Rak voiced Agni's thought. "He was just acting to look tough."

The edge of Agni's lips twitched in an attempt to suppress his smile. That's him alright. And of course Rak could figure his own self easily. 

"One day he challenged me in an all out duel," Rak's gaze turned dark. "His wounds had weakened him over the months, and it was obvious who would be the winner."

Agni frowned at the implication.

Wordlessly, Rak called out his arms inventory which held a familiar looking spear that shouldn't have been in his possession at this point in time. Agni would recognize that design anywhere, "...Mad shocker."

"He said he wanted to test me, and he gave me this." Rak glared at the spear as if it was responsible for his misfortune. "And later told me that I should be proud, for only a true hunter was allowed to defeat him."

Agni felt his throat going dry, and gulped. "He died, didn't he?"

Rak's eyes sharpened. Whether it was in regret or anger, Agni couldn't tell. "I killed him." 

Agni didn't know what to feel about that. On one hand, he could empathize with how much pain Rak must've felt from the injury, especially with the lack of proper treatment that could cure or even just lessen the pain. But on the other hand, it meant that his Rak was truly gone, in such a way, and he still couldn't wrap his head around it.

Rak put his pipe back to invisible mode, like looking at it had brought him so much grief. "I've never used that spear since."

The silence stretched, with only the loud noises coming from the training ground to fill it. Agni wasn't sure how to reply to that without being overly friendly nor physical, and he definitely wouldn't do that to Rak, who only met him today.

Sitting beside Rak like this reminded him of their chat before the workshop battle, on the balcony. It was when Rak truly let him see his buried feelings, his desire to climb the tower together with him and Grace. And with that, the grief finally started to dawn on him. The scar on his face felt itchy and his hand was already clawing at his mask before he registered the motion. He sighed and put his hand back on his knee, pushing the tangled feeling to the back of his mind to be dealt with later. And since the silence had stretched out for too long, he asked; "What was he to you?"

"A rival," Rak looked thoughtful before adding, "and family."

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[babyscilence]

Honestly

While I love the clones we're familiar with

Give me more clone oc's with little to no canon interaction

Give me headcanons that have absolutely nothing to do with the as seen on tv copy paste men

Like show me your clone that definitely could exist because there's millions of them

And honestly give me clones that have nothing to do with any regiment we've seen before. There's so much that can be done and expanded on that I think is either a missed opportunity or I'm just not seeing it

[jessamine-rose]

*lovingly tackles Aine*

Read my Yandere! Pierro longfics first ♪( ´▽｀)

Last week, my beloved mutual @ainescribe surprised me with Savior! Darling fan art and AHAI9232@2-!/! CRYING SCREAMING I WANT TO LOOK AT THIS ART AND WORSHIP YOUR VERSION OF SAVIOR THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BLESSING ME WITH YOUR ART—

*clears throat* Anyway, now that I finally have the time to properly sit down and comment on the fan art, I’ll do just that. Feedback will be in the tags and it will be unhinged. Once again, thank you so much to Aine for drawing this <3

[thedarkone121]

I have a question about the Anne-Marie fic

Does she know that hyde and jekyll are the same person aka does she know that hyde is also her father?

Cus it's been bugging me for ages and I just couldn't figure it out :3

Ah, someone has finally asked the question I’ve been dying to answer. Sorry if I’m about to ramble-dump on here 🤣

Long story short, yes. She knows Hyde and Jekyll are the same person. Well, I say she knows it’s more of a she figured it out 2 months before Jasper came into the picture.

The longer version is this; Anne-Marie — once she got over her shock of suddenly seeing a man she never met in her home — pretty quickly clocked onto the fact that Hyde looked familiar. This was before she lost her sight, by the way. Like she noticed he looked similar to her father. Hyde, realizing that she could easily figure out the connection between him and Jekyll, immediately began to avoid her after that. For that first year, Hyde was able to avoid her like he avoided Lanyon and Anne-Marie was left to stew with the fact her father’s new assistant looked similar to him.

Then the Chemical Accident came around and Hyde, out of concern and guilt, decided to check on Anne-Marie while she was recovering.

Now, for a long time, Anne-Marie didn’t think much of Hyde. To her, he was her father’s awfully brash assistant who kept getting her angry by calling her Annie, something only her father was allowed to do. In fact, a lot of the early days of Hyde-Hunting was Anne-Marie genuinely being angry at him for calling her Annie.

But as the days went on, Anne-Marie began to notice things.

Like how Hyde would always place her back in her room once she’s tired out from chasing him. How he would sometimes slip into a Scottish accent if she surprised hit him. Or how when he does call her Annie, it’s more of him not thinking twice about it and not actually to antagonize her.

For a good while, Anne-Marie thought Hyde was like a long-lost relative of her father’s because of her memory him closely resembling her father. It’s why she was super against the rumors of the two sleeping together, even though Hyde tries to play it off like that. But then she started to notice other things…

Stuff like how Hyde would talk to himself, like he’s talking to her father when he’s not in the room. How her father would do the same even though Hyde is also not in the room. How at one point, when Anne-Marie slammed a piano lid onto Hyde’s hand and injuring him, her father had the same injury when she touched his bandaged hand.

But the biggest thing that confirmed it for her? It was when she took her glasses off with him the room.

Hyde had a meltdown. He begged, pleaded, screamed at her to put her glasses back on. Anne-Marie, not used to hearing Hyde like that, immediately put her glasses back on. Hyde took a few minutes to calm down. Then he moved on like nothing had happened.

But Anne-Marie didn’t move on. She realized that Hyde didn’t want to see her scars. Even when she commented on this, Hyde’s careless words finally hit her.

“Well, it’s not my fault you stood close to a sizzling potion made by sham of a scientist who didn’t sleep properly that day.”

How did Hyde knew that? The story she told everyone was that she was alone in her father’s lab, how she became curious with his things and started to mess around. That’s what cause the explosion, according to Anne-Marie.

How did Hyde knew the truth? There was no way her father would tell someone like his bad-mouthed assistant.

Then, it clicked for her. Hyde was her father, in some way. Hadn’t her father talked about splitting souls at some point? And looking back on it now, of course Hyde’s very bad impression of a theater villain would be her father’s idea of evil.

Anne-Marie figured it out. But she never told Jekyll and Hyde that she figured it out. Since the two kept the secret, then Anne-Marie figured she could keep it as well.

Anne-Marie knew. But Jekyll and Hyde don’t realize that she knows.

[betweenlands]

ivory is doing juvenalian satire now, holy shit

[legobiwan]

TotJ Rewatch: Ramblings (1 of 3)

After a long abstention from consuming anything Star Wars-related, I plopped down on my couch yesterday and decided it was time to dip my toes back into this arena, mostly for the purposes of writing.

And what better way to delve back into this universe than by starting with the Dooku episodes of Tales of the Jedi?

Boi, oh boi, had I forgotten how much I love this character.

And so without a thesis or much a point whatsoever, I'd like to ramble about a few dozen thoughts I had while yelling incoherently through this rewatch.

Episode 2, "Justice"

One of the overarching themes of Dooku's episodes is this unsettling notion of darkness. Even at the start of this episode, gone are the usual triumphant Star Wars themes are so familiar with - the militant and boisterous brass, the rising strings and woodwinds. Instead, this episode opens with somewhat dissonant string passages interspersed with with a subtle, almost glistening electronic tones that meld in and out of the sustained string notes.

There is no optimism whatsoever as Dooku and Qui-gon set down on what looks to be the charred husk of village.

The remainder of these episodes rarely lighten in tone. And I don't think the thrust here is that Dooku is the only Jedi to have encountered these unfortunate situations - suffering and devastation due to corrupt politicians in a Republic the Jedi is supposedly tasked with protecting. What I do think is that this is all meant to be seen through the lens of Dooku's increasing disillusion. That these scenes are bleak because that's what Dooku is focusing on, more and more, to the point where...well, we know what happens.

But anyway, to get back to the episode.

You have give props to the animation team here. The continuity with Qui-gon's older self having a tendency to show cleavage apparently stems from his youth, where it was even more exacerbated. (Aren't you cold, Qui-gon?) The best part of this is the contrast with Dooku and he (of course) very well put-together outfit.

Maybe teen!Qui-gon just went through too many growth spurts and the Jedi tailor threw up their hands in frustration. I do find it infinitely amusing that Dooku - Mr. Propriety himself - had two students (Rael and Qui-gon) who might as well have been wearing burlap sacks half the time. Never let it be said that Dooku didn't allow his charges to express themselves, even though I'm certain it vexed the hell out him.

What's fascinating about this episode is the absolute economy of dialogue. There's not much of it, letting the visuals of the ravaged village and Dooku's own tight-lipped anger carry much of the weight of the narrative. It's almost as if we're at a point with Dooku where he knows he's angry, he knows his base instincts are trending in a bad direction, but he's still trying so, so hard to be a Jedi and toe the line, to believe in the Order he brought up in, which I think is partially why Dooku is so reserved in this particular episode, minus the part where he tries to Force-choke a guy.

I love that Qui-gon is doing the majority of the talking here. There's no disapproval written on Dooku's face, no motion made for him to hold his tongue or know his place. It truly shows the level of trust Dooku has in his student (and the level of trust in himself as a teacher) and also the level of respect he has for Qui-gon (despite his sartorial missteps). I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dooku is a teacher, through and through. He trains Qui-gon and is devastated at his death. He trains Ventress and is unwillingly forced to abandon her. He trains Savage as if he were a dark Padawan. He's constantly making remarks to Obi-wan as to how he could improve. The man can't help himself. But Qui-gon was special to him, as we'll see in another few episodes.

One of the most fascinating layers of Dooku's character is his political idealism. I'll point it out in more detailed fashion when I recap the next episode, but young Dooku and Padmé Amidala have so much in common. And it's wild for Dooku, as someone who (both canonically and in the EU) was born into a noble family, was aware of his heritage, and by all accounts, maintained a level of haughty distance from most people exacerbated by a taste for the finer things in life.

And yet...and yet. This is a man who is unbelievably angry at the actions of a corrupt Senate. That a village could be treated and forgotten this way. Padmé is little different, as we see in TPM and throughout TCW. (You have to wonder what a political powerhouse those could have been if they had stood on the same side of the aisle at the same time).

When we think of Dooku, we think of a relentless man who would go to any length to see the Jedi destroyed. And later, he goes on to commit some true atrocities. But like many roads paved to hell, it begins with good intentions, even if they may be self-serving.

Is it noblesse oblige? Maybe there's a hint of that. Does Dooku really care about the little person? In a way, but I don't think that's his major motivating factor.

Dooku grew up with the Jedi. He loves the Jedi, or at least loved the Jedi. He was talented and became one of their best. And then he started to see the cracks in the foundation and began to question everything about the Jedi, everything about himself. So much of this, in my mind, stems from a sense of betrayal by an organization and ideal which he held so dear to his heart (not to mention his main teacher was the head of the whole shebang).

What do you do when the thing you identify with the most - the thing that is you identity - your passion, in a way, your first love - curdles into something unrecognizable? If Dooku loved the Jedi any less, he would have left. (And that touches on a whole other cultural aspect of the Jedi Order and a type of institutional pressure that I won't get into here). Well, in Dooku's case, you start by trying to reform it from the inside. By bucking authority and replacing cracked edifice with your own hewn stone. Until you can't anymore, until the weight is too much to bear and your grievances begin to spill and metastasize into something else altogether.

The funny thing is, I feel like the start of this confrontation would have gone the same with almost any other Jedi. I can't see, say, Mace Windu (and I choose him as he gets underserved flak for being rule-abiding to the point of inhumanity) just up and saying, "Oh yeah, dude, you're totally right. Let's fuck over these peasants."

But where it gets interesting is when Dooku allows it to become a firefight. There's a long series of shots showing the fear of the villagers, the way Qui-gon looks around and is uncertain as to whether or not this is the right path.

Yes, Dooku, you do.

But. You're also willing (if not thrilled) for these people to become momentary collateral damage in an idealogical battle, as we see during the firefight exchange.

And the thing is...there's no easy answer here. It's not Republic vs. the Confederacy. It's not good versus evil. It's a lot more complicated than that, and Dooku isn't wrong in allowing the confrontation to happen. The Senator is corrupt. The Senator is willing to burn the village to the ground. The Jedi do (or should) serve the people of the Republic, first and foremost.

You can see why Dooku Force-choked the guy, in a way. He's still at a point where this collateral damage goes against everything he believes in, where he sees that the only option of restoring justice is through darkness, and he's willing to go there. For justice. For peace. (For himself).

The real hero here is Qui-gon, who is quick enough to realize number one, that his Master is going over the edge again (and given Qui-gon's response, I have zero reason to believe this was the first incident), and number two, that the Senator's son would be far more effective in persuading his father to abandon his terrible, awful plan of obliteration (although would his father have listened had Dooku not choked out of him first?)

As we know, Dooku is an aloof man. Touch is probably not one of his most-used emotional languages. I realize that in raising a child, even if they are ten to twelve years old when they come into your care, you probably have to have some comfort or at least tolerance of physical touch. But the fact that Qui-gon has no fear of Dooku and his possible reaction, that he instinctually takes him by the shoulder. I feel that with Dooku, so little can say so much, and to me, this is obvious proof of the solidity and trust in that relationship.

Part of the issue here is - Dooku's gambit works. Now, yes, he is absolutely correct in the exchange below that Qui-gon truly saved the day, but as I noted, it's not guaranteed the Senator would have listened to his son prior to having the life choked out of him. And what does Dooku received in response? Positive reinforcement. The village is being rebuilt. The Senator (for now) is reconsidering his actions. Brute force, in a way, worked, even if Dooku at the time was not fully in control of his own actions. And there's this weird negative/positive feedback loop where Dooku is rewarded for his actions, even if he knows his methods were less than savory, even his guilt eats at him, leading to the discussion below.

It's so interesting that Dooku is teetering on the edge during these years, but is always somehow brought back. It's really when he stops having a Padawan - that's one of the tipping points, where he has no counter-balance, has no one else to invest himself in, to learn from and, in some ways, live for. You almost have to wonder if some of Dooku's issues could have been solved by forcing another student on him after Qui-gon was knighted.

Next post on the docket: "Choices"

[winter-spark]

Do you guys ever think about the amount of pressure and how draining it must be to have been Orange growing up?

No no like seriously think about it, think about it.

When everyone found out that Citron would be next in line for the throne, Orange was dragged into the spotlight with him. It had to have been from the jump that people who didn't want Citron, the son of a commoner, as King latched onto Orange.

"Orange would be a better fit." "Orange should be king." "Why the son of a commoner when the next son isn't one?"

Like Orange probably heard stuff like that all throughout his life, that's a lot. To immediately be put in a box as a better fit for ruler, and you know it was a lot of pressure because he then dedicated his life to proving that point. He had to be better than his hard-working, calculative, already training/set-to-be-the-King older brother, when from the get-go people preferred him.

Sure Citron worked to win over the public's opinion but don't you think that hurt more? So many thought you'd be a better fit and now they're saying your brother is a good fit, that they're happy and satisfied with that? What? Was your hard work not good enough? Were you somehow worse than him? Did you dissatisfy the people?

Orange grew up feeling in constant comparison to Citron. Feeling in the eye of the people. Knowing that if anything happened to lead to Citron not being King, he was next up. And even with the number of people who liked Citron, there were still people who thought Orange should be King instead, including extremists, one of which worked for Orange directly for who knows how long. He couldn't relax, he couldn't quit, he didn't have the room to.

They tell us that Citron couldn't get along with his brothers because the competition for the crown but we don't get to see it from Orange and Navel's perspective much. We know they were curious enough about Citron that they'd copy some things he did, such as reading one of his favorite books. But let's not forget they had a negative takeaway from that book, they didn't get it. Their world, though similar to Citron's, has colored their lenses darker than his, to where they couldn't see the positive over the parts that didn't make sense to them, over the negative. Also, they see Citron as lucky, that he was born under a lucky star. While Citron was the one to say they then must've been born under unlucky stars, they already were somewhat thinking that to point out how lucky Citron is. After all, they had to have been comparing his luck to something to conclude he was lucky.

Being Orange was being bitter and cold and working hard to accomplish a goal. A goal many thought you were suited for, to the point that you believed it yourself, that you had to prove it to your father-- to everyone, that you had to be ready if it ever came to pass. And that's what he did.

He worked hard, and plotted, and schemed, and grew so desperate. And it wasn't even because he hated Citron. Because he doesn't hate Citron. Orange resents Citron, he thinks it should've been him instead, he thinks he needs to prove himself better than Citron, he thinks Citron is in his way. But he doesn't hate him. If he hated him he wouldn't read his favorite book to try and get that bit of understanding. If he hated him he wouldn't care if Citron died, so long as he got the throne. But he did read that book, and he did care that Citron lived, making it clear that he thought just kidnapping him was suffice. So yea, Orange didn't do all of that out of hatred for Citron, but moreso out of (self)obligation, expectation and determination.

It was hard in his earliest years for him not to desire the crown, the comments against Citron likely initially felt somewhat as a compliment. So of course, it became something more something he just had to make tangible. People believed he could, he believed he could, he just had to get there. He'd been convinced from a young age that this was what he wanted. And maybe he really did. But it wasn't easy and all his hard work never seemed to come to fruition.

He worked hard and people grew to like Citron as next in line. He studies to be prince, was days away from his coronation, and Citron shows up for the crown. Orange kidnaps his brother, (says no on the killing of him) to try a last ditch effort of getting the crown because if Citron was coronated he wouldn't get any other chances. But the one person who was supposed to be on his side and listen to him directly, didn't and everything went up in flames, which he didn't want, and he's been stripped of the chances to become king(because he did set up basically an attempted hit on his brother). And his reputation was completely tarnished, being blamed for things he didn't do, such as breaking the translation device.

Of course, Orange's actions are his own and of course he has to make up for the harm he's caused and of course people's view of him was gonna change. But gosh it's so exhausting being Orange, working your whole life for the affection, respect and approval of the people, of your father, and for it all to turn to dust. All that hard work down the drain.

You think he ever wished he was Tangerine? Blissfully out of the race for Crown, able to have time without people looking closely at your actions in comparison to Citron's, able to breathe?

[philhoffman]

I just stumbled on an article by film professor Caetlin Benson-Allott called "The Queer Fat of Philip Seymour Hoffman," originally published in the book Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema and it is FASCINATING. Here's an excerpt that lays out her basic thesis:

In these films, the actor manipulates his physical breadth and weight as well as his gestural scale to draw the viewer’s attention to how compulsory heterosexuality marginalizes certain lives and bodies. These physical techniques help Hoffman visually exceed the fat male stereotypes of his early career, stereotypes that coded his body as immoderate, less than masculine, and thus most suited for minor roles, comedic turns, and pathetic losers. In such cases, fat male stereotypes rely on stock meanings attached to the actor’s stockier build. Hoffman transcends these roles with nuances of movement and deft exploitations of gesture and in so doing illuminates the process through which overweight male bodies are made unintelligible by a filmic culture that denigrates fat genders even among the gender and sexual alterities that it occasionally exploits.

Hoffman’s physical acting exemplifies the gendered as well as sexual potential of gesture and performance, for he uses his corpulence to visually refuse the traditional masculine-feminine gender binary and dramatize orientations and physical expressions of the body otherwise excluded from heteronormative American cinema... In each [film], he offers another version of what has remained a pale, overweight male body... As James Lipton notes, these relentlessly physical performances suggest that “Philip Seymour Hoffman may be the archetypal sex symbol of our time” in that he gestures toward new approaches to representation for marginalized sexualities and genders.

She goes into a deeper analysis of PSH's roles in Twister, Boogie Nights, and Mission: Impossible III, mentioning a few other performances throughout and focusing on how he used his body to challenge cinema's traditional ideas about fat male bodies and sexuality.

On his role as Dusty in Twister:

Hoffman must still perform the invisibility traditionally associated with fat bodies on-screen or risk violating Twister’s already tenuous verisimilitude. The genius of Hoffman’s performance is that he manages to do both by exploiting the cultural unintelligibility of obesity; he uses the spectator’s own tendency to dismiss fat men to camouflage Dusty’s narrative centrality. Because Hoffman is the only overweight actor in this film, his girth emphasizes Dusty’s position as the film’s fool, which helps disguise his formulaic responsibilities. Hoffman’s weight opens up a dramatic tradition through which he can exacerbate his character’s hedonistic qualities and conceal his intelligence and manipulative capacity. By making his body both overly visible and easily overlooked, Hoffman obscures Dusty’s generic necessity.

On Scotty J in Boogie Nights:

Hoffman orients Scotty’s physical expression of his sexuality around his belly. Because Scotty is written as inarticulate and suffering from unspeakable desires, Hoffman uses his body, specifically his largest and perhaps least mentionable feature, to communicate Scotty’s unmentionable orientation. Hoffman thus borrows a technique from gay male fat pornography and “displaces erotic pleasures [or their symbolic representation] from the genitals and disperses it to other parts of the body, thereby reconfiguring what can count as a pleasurable body.”

On Mission: Impossible III:

In contrast with Tom Cruise’s strong jaw and hard muscles, Hoffman’s relaxed flesh becomes a manifestation of his confidence; Hunt is tense, but Davian is at ease. This lack of visible affect exempts Davian from the tradition of fat villains whose bodies incarnate their overabundance of desire, appetite, or greed. His smooth contours and the reflection of light off the broad planes of his golden skin allow Davian to transcend associations of his body with appetite as he refuses to show interest in Hunt’s interrogation or subsequent threats to his mortality. Hoffman’s elimination of gesture thus helps Davian become a new kind of fat villain, one whose body suggests a lack of interest in the physical world rather than an excess thereof.

Pleaseee seek out this article if you have any interest in Phil's work and physicality—it's one of the most detailed and intriguing pieces I've ever read on him and I'd loveeee to talk about it, the good and the bad. You can download the PDF for free on academia.edu but if anyone has a problem getting it... just DM me lol. Wrapping this up with one excerpt from the conclusion bc I know Phil has taught ME a lot about "being in one's body," as the author says, so I love seeing that in print:

Hoffman’s body offers a new vision of male embodiment outside compulsory heterosexuality, an alternative use of the flesh we might even consider queer. Kathleen LeBesco has observed that the queer and fat liberation movements share many similar projects, but watching Philip Seymour Hoffman suggests that in some cases fat is queer... [Hoffman's] movements propose a new way of being in one’s body, for even within the highly structured heterosexual order of Hollywood cinema, Hoffman helps us envision the body outside normalizing gender strictures.

[alienssstufff]

smth smth about the Federation tampering with the memories of island members as a way of keeping them on the island like before he was kidnapped q!Quackity was going on about no longer having attachments to the island after finally coming to terms with Tilin's death. Similar as well with q!Slime but not as obvious, throughout the Election arc showing signs that he's ready to grow from his mistakes and also was ready to leave the island to be himself before he met New!Juanaflippa and the fake paradise under Eggxile pushing him back to square 1, essentially overwriting all that development.

Possible reason why Quackity's mind was completely wiped and not Slime's was because his memories are tied closely with the damage he has caused on the island and at least Slime is already isolated himself.

[otteritos]

its so sad knowing that the danger days era was like one of the worst times in gerard way's life and that he was suffering and had really unhealthy habits at the time, and even looks back on it only seeing someone headed for death... and it KILLS me inside that i'm so into the red hair look of that era and yet. it was not a good time

[voiceofsword]

Yaaay ^_^ hiii

Ummm. Rinniki. I love them. Uh. Do you think that Rinne waiting to kiss until marriage is a genuine thing he's committed to or do you just think he was a massive coward because of how forward Niki asked and now he's gotta commit to the bit. Both are funny but I think the latter is funnier.

OK PERSONALLY.... i do think rinne would be committed to it. i think hiiro would probably be too, if its something thats ever crossed his mind. but at the same time, i also think rinne could be convinced if niki really kept insisting, because if it happened once it's easy enough for rinne to shrug off, but after that i can only imagine it really feels like niki's testing his patience.... tradition vs the love of his life FIGHT!!

but also the one u suggested is so funny too. its like playing a game of gay chicken but niki doesnt even know hes participating in it, he would fully believe it's part of rinne's hometown traditions and just occasionally suggest them kissing but it wouldnt cross his mind that its not true. meanwhile rinnes like (tightens fist) idk how much longer i can do this. its really funny when rinnes portrayed as a huge playboy by people when in my head its more enjoyable to see him as a blushing virgin who doesnt even know how to kiss properly and wants to be with niki forever. he simply doesnt know where to start 😭 whereas niki doesnt think that hard about anything, so wanting to kiss rinne is just Easy. it comes naturally

in either case i think niki would probably be the one to initiate, i.e getting all close to rinne, intimate atmosphere, etc.. but rinne would have to be in just the right mood/mindset to know nikis serious and that he really really wants this, too. there's this beautifully written fic that expresses my thoughts on this really well; the fact that deep down rinne's insecure, too, and he wants confirmation of niki's affections just as much as niki would want his, even if theyre not entirely on the same page (but they can learn to be, theyre very important to each other!)

so rinne being really insistent about wanting to get married first is because he wants to make sure niki really loves him, too, even though its obvious he does — he just expresses his love differently.

something that doesnt change tho is that both of them want kissy. i think spiritually theyre both married anyway