#and I like decisive action

[fortune-card]

I think Cows can scare a weaker audience by talking about killing. And I think, in some ways, it should be used as a litmus test for people who are questioning if abuse has driven them crazy. If you can understand,

“Many were like you before they learned the secret that killing holds. Timid. Yes, boy, timid, but with the cock to push themselves beyond what they thought they could endure. They didn't know what they would find, but they went looking anyway. And when they confronted their own uncertainty, when they crossed to the place weaker men had forbidden them to enter, they found a strength greater than they ever dreamt existed. Come close and watch."

Not as ‘killing’ but rather general violence - then it all kinda clicks into place.

I talk about this a lot with my therapist but it’s wild knowing the powers of a slap.

It’s hard to know that this conversation where you have to debate your right to exist could be over, dead and buried, if you beat your opponent. If you slapped them like their own fathers used to. Or if you showed them the truth of the world with that slap - that that slap will silence them even though they screamed it could not.

To be abused or abuse is to learn the secrets violence holds, the secrets killing holds. And it’s uncomfortable. It’s ’problematic’. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It’s yucky.

But you still eat beef. You still benefit from cow slaughter, do you not? You still benefit from a violence unseen to you.

Imagine if we only took people behind closed doors and beat them into submission. You would never know. And you would never acknowledge that. But you would be happier, hmm?

[bi-bi-buckleys]

I can see Buck and Tommy deciding to give it another go by the end of the season.

I think Tommy will be there for Buck, and assure him that he’s not trying to make a move on him and take advantage of his grief. And Buck will realize he doesn’t want to lose another person, he doesn’t want to miss an opportunity to say everything he wants to say to the people he cares about.

So he tells Tommy he still has feelings for him, he’s missed him, there’s no competition it’s only him, and that he wants to make things work.

Tommy asks him if he’s sure, and Buck will say he is, and Tommy will be like thank god cause I’ve missed you so much. They’ll agree to go not at Buck’s pace but their pace. They’ll agree to talk and work through their issues.

Then season nine will pick up with them being settled and in love. It’s what they both deserve.

[storge]

Don't you both think your pairing, is a bit dull and weak? It feels like it's lacking something... a manager.

Lu Guang, Qiao Ling, & Cheng Xiaoshi Link Click (2024)

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

[qoldenskies]

i just have beef with tales of the hidden city cause it's like ... would you rather have Second Hand Embarrassment The Episode, the episode that's about fucking Racial Profiling towards an already heavily adultified black-coded character, nuclear family propaganda that comes down to "well he made us so we should be GRATEFUL to him" (seriously what the hell even was that), or leo vibing for 11 minutes 😭😭😭😭

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Certain lines and scenes in seasons 1 and 2 take on a very different (largely tragic) lens after the reveal that Lu Guang dived to save Cheng Xiaoshi, but there is also something darkly comedic about this guy going back in time and planning everything out as perfectly as he can, only for him to have to frantically improv in several instances because the guy he’s trying to save won’t stop doing things

[milkymolle]

I agree with copyright abolishment in theory, but there are a couple fringe cases where I see it being good in protecting the creations of small artists from being poached by large businesses, like with emily gwen

I'm genuinely curious, is there any way to have a system that protects the work of people under a certain profit margin vs having the wealthy hoard art for their own gain?

[iammissingautumn]

i hate you the need to explain how actually louis was the most toxic one in this relationships. i hate you the need to explain how actually lestat was the most toxic one in this relationship. i hate you the need to explain how actually armand was the most toxic one in this relationship. I hate you iwtv fans using the word “abused” or “X deserves better” like a weapon to destroy another characters integrity. yes they do suck in whatever way you are highlighting but also so many are getting too close to just making up shit takes bc they want to see it that way. Like just wait for marius if you need someone to hate with yr whole being

[blueskittlesart]

is detcon actually good

no <3 hope this helps

[aliusfrater]

similar cinematographic choices to portray the same imagery with insanely different circumstantial contexts

[bokvshou]

"jc didn't understand wwx".

no, and rightly so. because wwx decided to shut down completely and not let anyone know anything. that was his decision. because yes, we knew why wei wuxian did what he did and we understand him, but other people? other characters? they had no idea, not even the love interest knew what was going on with wwx. jiang cheng didn't knew shit nor did he have enough information until the very end of the story.

you can blame other characters for the decisions they made all you want, but don't pretend that wei wuxian's silence and stubbornness didn't influence these very decisions.

[ruvviks]

He did not care. His reputation preceded him; the bruising of his knuckles as dark as the rims underneath his eyes, everyone knew Vitali Dobrynin was a fighter first and a fixer second. All to protect, all out of love- but no one cared about that. They only ever saw what was on show.

taglist (opt in/out)

@nistarot, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @mojaves;

@shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption, @ncytiri;

@calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm, @strafethesesinners;

@fashionablyfyrdraaca, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian, @estevnys, @devilbrakers;

@aezyrraesh, @carlosoliveiraa, @adelaidedrubman, @fromgotham, @wardenevka

[feroluce]

So I spoke somewhat about my thoughts on Emanator Sampo here, but I never really thought of it from a design point of view or what kind of powers he would have until just recently. But I actually kind of love leaning into it from a "stage hand" perspective?

Because like. Aha's body in THEIR official art is completely black, giving attention to all the fun brightly colored things around THEM. And that's so fitting for Sampo! He usually prefers to be a side character. He likes to act from the shadows. His is a much more subtle hand.

So I wonder if as an Emanator, a lot of his clothes are actually very dark? Not necessarily plain, still extravagant and needlessly detailed in things like cut and quality with lots of different fabrics and textures and ornamentation, but dark. Or maybe even his skin itself becomes blackened further down his body; his hands in particular are dark, as a sort of sleight of hand reference.

The motif of a lot of straps wrapped around him like in his canon design is still present, but they're all loose and flowing off of him like paper streamers now instead of restraining him or holding him together. He is no longer contained! Or maybe they're still a bit more rigid/heavy, but just draped more like red stage curtains!

And this is like. Fully self-indulgent, but I love inhuman designs, and there's nothing in canon to say I can't do this, so screw it! Go for broke!! Maybe it's not visible to normal people, but Sampo having a second set of arms would be really cool, as further sleight of hand reference. One set is almost normal looking, but his hands are a bright, attention-drawing white, and the other is dark, set almost in the shadows of the first arms, to act less noticeably.

He also has something of a broken heart design to him in canon (the front of his black shirt with its jagged shape down the middle; his coat looks like a full heart shape in the back), and I actually like him keeping that element as an Emanator, because I think it suits him. Sampo says his taste in aesthetics and views on Elation involve human dignity,

and the story he helps create in Belobog involves the long and winding road of resistance and survival and eventual triumph in the face of some very adverse, oppressing odds. (I'm pretty sure I heard he once called Wildfire "artless" though, plus the man acts like he thinks Shame is some kind of dessert, so like ndkdjzjskkd) But the point being!!

I think Sampo is someone who can appreciate heartbreak and angst and tragedy in a story, because it makes the victory at the end all the sweeter. And this would be another thing he shares with Aha, because I think THEY did bless the Mourning Actors partly just to be a little shit, but also because Aha does recognize tragedy as part of THEIR Path, too, and you can see it in some of the game. So a broken heart motif can still suit him, and I like him having elements of both comedy and tragedy. Like his clothing having a happy sun/sad moon (like the moon in Aha's art) or him having both of the traditional comedy/tragedy masks in his design.

And as Emanator, Sampo can maybe play with the stage settings environment, too. Like lights sometimes behave strangely around him, appearing blindingly bright to someone or dramatically dark. Sampo wills it and suddenly there seems to be a metaphorical spotlight right where he wants everyone to look. And when he doesn't want to be noticed, his face seems to be cast in shadow, he seemingly just fades into the background, no one notices or recognizes him and he sneaks away easily. He can create smoke or fog literally out of thin air without his bombs now, too, the air will just suddenly thicken until his stage is obscured, and Sampo can set the scene as he pleases or disappear without a trace.

And in line with being a stage hand, Sampo can direct attention like no other. He was already extremely good at this as a normal mortal, and becoming an Emanator only took it up to 11, past human limits. Sampo points, and all present feel compelled to follow his fingertip. He looks away, and they all follow his gaze. He can even affect the mood of an audience; he can influence everyone to be calm and placid or he can whip them into a feverish frenzy. Sometimes a crowd will start to become unsettled, agitation stirring until it boils over, until it incites a full on violent mob.

And in the middle of all that chaos will stand one perfectly calm figure, face cast in shadow, until they quietly slip away out of sight.

[jereange]

possibly one of my favorite jean moments in tgr….his growing relationship with the trojans (as the team, not them as friends/individuals) is so so special to me

[dykedvonte]

Why do you think did Curly let Jimmy go before the crash? I've seen the theory Curly briefly thought about crashing too but didn't expect Jimmy to go through with it

I generally believe it was shock and a bit of denial.

It’s the sort of thing where Curly knew Jimmy enough to know he blows up at things but he never would’ve expected him to go through with something so crazy. He gives Jimmy way too much benefit. It’s just his nature and the dynamics he has with Jimmy. They have a stable relationship as friends but it’s stabilized by the unhealthy toxic aspects that keep him in it. He’s like this with Anya, taking the gun is something he really shouldn’t have kept off the record, so is Swansea’s feigned hostility toward Daisuke. He doesn’t want to get people in trouble and doesn’t want to believe anyone would cause trouble other than to themselves. He’s a very lenient man.

I think the words were hollow in his head. Said but not really meant like all the times Jimmy lashes out and says something cruel to him or others. He never means it, if he did why would he still be Curly’s friend? Curly’s head wasn’t in the right space in that moment, he just got through panicking with Anya and if the sound design is anything to go by, was panicked and preoccupied going to confront Jimmy. I mean, the flash of the warning signs before he runs back are identical to the dissociative episode of sort he has when going to talk to Jimmy to do his Psyc eval.

There is this sort of assumption in fanon that Curly was the idealic person for the job and simply failed. None of them were the idealic people to be there, it’s Curly’s entire concern with the ladder he chose. I see more interpretations of him being purposefully ignorant where I see him as just always looking the wrong way or not in a place where he can see it. There’s something different about seeing something than being told about it in the human mind. It may just be the psych student in me but Curly def has some sort of cognitive dissonance just like Jimmy but when it comes to his role as a Captain vs who he is.

They blur in his head to where if you ask him if he was acting as a Captain or a friend or himself to his crew he couldn’t answer. Not with confidence even if he did. There are many times we see that Curly himself is not in the right headspace to lead the Tulpar and that’s outside of anything with Jimmy. He’s spacey, he’s not sleeping, he’s deeply unhappy with himself and life. It’s why there’s believability he crashed the ship. Maybe the others saw it, or maybe Jimmy heard enough of it to spin it in a way that made Curly seem suicidally depressed.

So the tdlr is I think it wasn’t so much letting Jimmy go, more so not seeing the severity of what he was allowing to transpire. In his mind it’s just another one of Jimmy’s bluffs, cruel words, off words but just words. Jimmy rarely ever acts, why would he now? Maybe he’s never seen it because Jimmy hides those actions? Either way, he just never thought he’d really do it.