#but guillermo interpreted it the wrong way

[gerandor]

Nandor babygirl you were so unhinged for this

gifs by the ever awesome @deliciousnecks

[ohallows]

i wish I could make wwdits fans understand that after four seasons of nandor having the same exact arc in each season only for it to be largely erased at the beginning of the next season it's no longer cute or funny or entertaining like.

"his journey is just starting!" after FOUR (4) YEARS?? his journey also started in season 1 and season 2 and season 3 and he still hasn't had *any growth* and starts over at the same exact point every season

"guys he's SUPPOSED to be an asshole obviously he doesn't care about Marwa!" I am literally begging you to look up watsonian and doylist interpretations of media because while in character sure it makes sense for nandor to be a giant fucking dick, it can *also* stem from racist choices the writers made, intentionally or implicitly. it doesn't need to be intentional to still be *racist*

"Guillermo also didn't care about Marwa until it affected him!" Guillermo also isn't a good person we know this! that doesn't discount the way Marwa was treated by the narrative and the writers! people are allowed to be irritated and frustrated about this and it's frankly tone deaf and dismissive to act as though people who are upset are somehow in the wrong (edit: or "bad at media analysis").

"they had to explode nandor and Guillermos relationship so that they could rebuild from the ground up!" oh like they did all those other times Guillermo finally decided to leave bc he was tired of the way nandor was treating him? again happening every season. also we once again have an Arab woman being sacrificed for the character/relationship development of two men. is it 2007 i swear to god we left this in 2007.

[delightful-mirth]

Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy in Disney's live-action adaptation of 'Pinocchio':

And the Blue Fairy (voiced by Tilda Swinton) in Netflix's 'Pinocchio', directed by Guillermo del Toro:

Of course, there is nothing wrong in preferring the latter, if such preference is purely a matter of tastes. However, if you say that Guillermo del Toro's outlandish creature looks more motherly and reassuring than Cynthia Erivo's Fairy (like I read too many times), then you are a racist with outdated views on beauty and gender. It proves that you're more comfortable with literally anything than with a person of color.

Cynthia Erivo doesn't need to wear a wig just to comply with your bigoted beauty canons. She doesn't look creepy or unattractive, just because you think that long hair represents the only way to beauty and sweetness for a woman.

Honestly, I find Netflix's Fairy intriguing, but she surely has a weird and mysterious vibe about her, and considering del Toro's usual style, this is probably the purpose.

I don't think that one must necessarily be better than the other, they simply represent two different interpretations of the same character. It is also impossible to form an opinion on which one is better before watching both versions, and as I write neither has been released.

[thenexusofsouls]

even tho I was on Hellboy's side, I was so sad when the earth elemental died :( that could've been a good turning point for Nuada, he should've realized his desire for revenge was destroying everything he cared about but oh well, royalty is gonna be royalty I guess xD on a lighter note, the elemental is probably still alive in the Knowhere verse :') or at least the seed it grew from. in that verse Nuada never kills his dad, formally declares war on humans and he doesn't use the earth elemental to wreak havoc. maybe he could let it grow and develop on the more rural areas of Knowhere.

{i am the caretaker of souls} Okay but I want to talk a bit about this because this is one of the most pivotal moments for Nuada in the movie and it warrants a deep dive, heh. Below the cut for length!

Honestly, that's been one of the hardest things for me to explain over the years as far as people asking me about Nuada's motivations/intentions/etc. I've been writing him for 8.5 years on this site, and in that time I've gotten a lot of "Why would Nuada do this?" or "What was the motivation behind this?" questions, and "Why did he waste/abuse/throw away/endanger the forest god?" was at the top of the list of questions I've been asked. It's hard for me to reconcile, because even though there is a lot about Nuada's behavior that was despicable, hurting nature and non-human creatures was not something he wanted to do. If anything, the forest god/elemental would have been something he'd want to protect, so it makes no sense that he would just throw it to its death like that. So I've had to really come up with some realistic reasons as to why he'd seem to waste the creature's life the way he did.

I've thought of things like... well, there wasn't exactly a handbook for taking care of one of these things and maybe he didn't realize it wasn't quite ready to germinate yet. It could have needed more incubation time or other nutrients or whatever to grow properly, and if it didn't get that, it was going to be weak and not at it's peak of power, making it more vulnerable to attack.

Or, I've also thought of the whole Scarlet Witch defense, heh, where I basically say that Nuada at that point was so corrupted that it was poisoning his thinking. Guillermo del Toro and Luke Goss have both said in interviews that the dark coloration around Nuada's eyes and lips is a physical symptom of his moral corruption. How I interpret that is... for elves who are supposed to have souls that are a lot purer than Nuada's, to be thinking and doing the things he's doing (and for centuries) has a detrimental effect on things like physical health, mental health, and brain chemistry. I'm not saying oh he's innocent and just crazy, heh, that's far from the truth. But one could argue that his decision-making skills, level of impulsivity, or situational perception might have been altered by the effects of reaching a level of moral corruption that was actually physically poisonous to people of his race.

However... both of those explanations seem to just fall flat for me. Nuada never seem unhinged, ever. Say what you will about how wrong he was and how terrible his choices were, but never did he seem incompetent, not in control of faculties, or ignorant of the difference between right and wrong. In other words, he knew exactly what he was doing, and I don't think the decision to use the forest god was due to physical or mental illness. And... while it is true that maybe it isn't common knowledge how to take care of the seed of a forest god, if anyone would know, it'd be Nuada, heh. So I'm just not buying it.

So that's when I came up with the idea of Nuada just... completely misjudging the forest god's power/durability with regard to facing off against manmade weapons. Nuada would not be familiar with upgraded guns, heavy artillery, or specialized ammunition, because his race doesn't utilize those at all. He's all about blades... swords, spears, daggers, etc. He may very well have not fully understood just how devastating human weapons are and/or not understood how vulnerable the forest god would be to them. Because of that, he used a creature that he thought would really teach Hellboy & Co. a lesson, hand the humans their collective ass, and start a whole huge new forest right in the middle of their city. Instead, it made a tiny garden that will probably be ripped up and cleared by the end of the week, and it died in less than a half hour. I don't think Nuada expected that to happen at all, and as soon as he realized this was not going to go well for the elemental, he left.

I headcanon that he left not only because of disappointment in Hellboy, but because he couldn't watch. He could see what was happening, knew the creature would die, knew it was his fault, and he couldn't watch it happen. My version of Nuada grieved terribly for that creature, like for real. I've written threads with various muses where he falls into a depression and for several days cannot leave his bed. I've written threads where his grief is so intense that Nuala cannot block it out and she seeks him out after the whole thing to assess his mental state... or catch him in a vulnerable moment and try to talk him out of things, depending upon how cunning/manipulative others wrote Nuala, heh. One Nuala mun ran with my Iron Malady idea and, knowing their mother died of it, was concerned that if Nuada fell into a deep enough depression, he might die in a similar manner. So I've definitely delved into Nuada's mental state following the death of the elemental and counted it as a major moment for him.

However, just as you said, he could have taken that major moment and changed course, but he didn't. It seemed to only make him angrier, and I think feeling responsible for the elemental's death as well as losing Mr. Wink who was a close friend and comfort to be sure, really sent him spiraling. Instead of taking a step back and reassessing his plans, he doubled down and became even more fanatical about it. The result of the corruption deepening as a result of his stressed mental state, or simply Nuada turning to anger and hatred rather than being willing to say enough is enough? I think the latter, but I've explored both concepts over the years.

And now I'm going to say OMG THANK YOU FOR THIS IDEA because... I wasn't even thinking about it, but you're right... if Balor is still alive in the Knowhere verse, then so is the Earth elemental. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but now that you've put that idea in my head, it's too good and I have to do something with it. So thank you for that, because I'm going to run right over and write that reply right now, haha.

[thetorturedarchives]

i just feel like. we could have had guillermo realising he didnt want to be a vampire while he was still in vampiric limbo, or else even directly after turning. or it could have happened at the last possible moment or even a moment too late and all these ways it would have hit just as hard with the right execution but instead we got like. a fanfiction interpretation of how he would react like yes i absolutely believe he'd realise at exactly the wrong moment that vampirism isnt for him i do believe he'd cry about it i don't believe he'd be a little bitch and make nandor kill the guy who stuck his neck out (figuratively and literally) for him (albeit having been paid i guess) because he's too pissy to do it isnt he LITERALLY a van helsing isnt he literally a vampire killer would he not have had an easier time killing derek to honour his own conviction toward not killing humans seeing as derek is a vampire or else wouldnt it have been more impactful, maybe even funnier as well, if he had bitched and moaned about not killing people and then without a second thought fucking shanked the guy who turned him despite their sacred bond because ultimately guillermo values family and as he said being a vampire only isolated him because he had to leave his bio family AND his chosen family behind for a while so killing a vampire he didnt even like that much wouldnt faze him. idk theres just so many ways they couldve gone with it and all of them couldve been justified with guillermos characterisation AND been hilariously funny and tragic at the same time but they opted for the most boring anticlimactic ending and its not even anticlimactic in a funny way. they couldve at least made it funny

[teacupsandcyanide]

It's clear that it totally wasn't intentional, it's just that whole 'game of telephone' effect of fandom rumours etc. but the whole "Harvey said that Nandor and Guillermo are gonna talk about Meg" thing is starting to actually get to levels of misinformation and I don't want people to get disappointed if it doesn't happen, or feel lied to

Harvey has, to my knowledge, never explicitly said "there is an upcoming scene where Nandor and Guillermo talk about the fallout from Meg". I'm fairly certain the idea came from something he said at the NYCC panel, and tbf I can see why people interpret it that way, but I think it's unlikely that he meant it in the way that fandom has built it up via that accidental game of telephone

Here's a transcript from the relevant bit in the panel, including the question from the moderator, Anne Clark:

ANNE: And, Harvey, where do you think, uh, Nandor and Guillermo ended up after that talk with Meg? Like, what do you – what do you feel is going on there with them?

HARVEY: I mean, that was a really – We were talking about that scene and how, uh, it was a great grounded moment for them to be honest with each other and, uh, to see the trajectory of their friendship and what they … mean to each other, you know? So I’m interested for you guys to see what happens in the next couple episodes and where it leads, but, uh … It was nice. It was nice to do that. And we’re doing that scene like at four in the morning under a bridge in Toronto in the winter, and … Yeah. And so, it was nice. It was – it was great.

I've said before it's honestly unclear what Harvey meant here, but it seems likely that something's gotten lost in translation. It sounds more like he's talking about the car scene from "The Wellness Center", as they just watched that at the panel, he mentions the scene in question being "under a bridge", filmed in the middle of the night, and he talks about it more as if it's a scene that everyone has seen, not something upcoming/unseen that he's teasing – he calls it "that scene" instead of "this scene coming up" and seems to say he's looking forward to people seeing what happens afterwards, which makes more sense if he's talking about ep8.

On the other hand, him describing the scene as showing "the trajectory of their friendship" and "what they mean to each other" and that they're being "honest" with each other doesn't exactly capture the vibe of the car scene. Maybe when he said "I'm interested for you guys to see what happens" he meant "I'm interested for you guys to see the scene I'm referring to". So it's entirely possible that Harvey is talking about some upcoming scene where Nandor's attempts to find love are discussed.

However, at the moment I'm cautiously leaning more towards "Harvey got his wires crossed and was talking about some bit from tWC, possibly an alt take that got cut without him realising". It's been a while since filming those eps, he's saying this off-the-cuff in front a big sea of people, I can honestly understand why he'd flub his sentence or not hear/register part of what the mod asked. (Earlier in the panel Matt is asked a question about "The Cloak of Duplication" and answers it as if the question was about "The Wellness Center", it happens lol).

Also, due to the ad-lib-heavy style of shooting, as I understand it a lot of "alt-takes" and extended bits get cut from the show, and the actors don't know which takes and how much of said takes end up in the final cut until they watch the episode. (According to Yana Gorskaya there's a whole bit from "Collaboration" that got cut where Guillermo and Nandor had a bigger fight at Celeste's and Guillermo called him Nandor for the first time).

Anyway, apologies for the long post !! I'm looking forward to seeing whatever happens, obviously would be delighted to be proved wrong.

[feathered-serpents]

To be fair, you can have homophobic parents who still love and care about you, just not whenever your sexuality comes up

That is true! What I think that post was getting at or at least what I interpreted it as getting at is there are other ways to characterize Guillermo's family than solely aggressively homophobic? Like, to include the complexity that yes, his mother does love him, but she struggles with the fact that he is gay or doesn't understand is one thing, but write her as just a violently homophobic woman who disowns her son for being gay for drama is less good.

I will be 100% honest and say I haven't seen this happen in fic in wwdits yet (but granted I haven't READ much fic for wwdits yet) but I certainly HAVE seen it happen a lot in other fandoms and it always rubs me the wrong way and would like it if people looked into a bit more nuance here

[morose-magnetrix]

Darkhold Iron Man by Ryan North (writer), Guillermo Sanna (artist), and Ian Herring (colorist)

After reading this, I have actual chills - I feel deeply unsettled and there are goosebumps going up and down my arm. I never expected for a comic, much less one spun out of a rather lackluster Darkhold event with a random cast of characters made ‘crazy’ for the fun of it, would actually make me feel this way. It feels like watching the first few seasons of American Horror Story again for the first time, back when the scares were actually scary and the plot twists made me sick to my stomach. If you love horror and you love a good ‘What if?’ sort of one-shot, then this is a must read. 

In Darkhold Alpha, Wanda Maximoff had five heroes read from the Darkhold to temper their minds with insanity so they could face Chthon in his dimension and stop him from coming to Earth. Despite being a Wanda stan, I found Darkhold Alpha to be a pretty average comic without a lot of huge selling points. I expected that Darkhold Iron Man would be the same - I was so so happily wrong. The artwork is simple but grotesque. The moody lighting really brings on the chilling vibes of things that can go wrong in the night. Pepper is a fantastic narrator for this (and I love the interpretation of her being a scientist equal to Tony! I hadn’t seen that before <3 ). The subtle change in dialogue from when Tony wants to leave the suit and when he doesn’t really adds to this sense of foreboding. Pretty early on, you can predict the twist at the end, you can see it coming - but it doesn’t take away from how horrific and gruesome, yet compelling it is.  

If this is the standard for the rest of the Darkhold issues, then this is going to be an amazing event, and one that I’ll happily re-read. 

Verdict: Ten out of ten twisted jelly beans

[bookwyrminspiration]

Okay! Rereading wings au because I can’t remember anything from the last time I read it!

Chapter 1 thoughts:

-The Neverseen letting them win is such a good concept, it takes the kind of chessmaster image Shannon’s given them in canon to a whole new level and I’m here for it!

-oh we got monsters already? How did the Neverseen create them? Did they create them? I have so many questions /pos

-Are the monsters maybe normal animals the Neverseen infected with a virus? That’s what the mushroom create is making me think of.

-oh they found where the monsters are coming from! This plan is going to go terribly horribly wrong and I am so excited

-Mindbubble is such a neat word and a cool concept I love it

-who is this kid? Why is she with the Neverseen?

-ooo monster room! These descriptions are so good, I can see the vats in my mind like a movie

-Oh I love this ending, it creates such a dramatic image and I’m excited to see where things go now!

(warning: I am very excitable when it comes to the wings au because people don't send asks about it often, so this got long as I take every opportunity to ramble that I can)

Excellent! This is a great way for me to also remember what happens because it's been a lot and the wings au is coming up on one year of consistent posts and some of the chapters I haven't looked at in months!

thank you! We haven't really seen the Neverseen or other enemies in the au aside from very briefly given that for a good while now the kotlcrew's enemy has been the monsters everywhere and also themselves, but I've always really liked the idea of them being more cunning than they are in canon. Not to say they aren't smart or secretive, but there's always this element of like...childish villains? to them. I don't know how to explain it. Where they're dramatic and have monologues and their mistake is explaining their plan at length, that kind of thing. Which isn't bad, I just think they could be elevated and more strategic and cold-blooded, so I tried to give them a sense of that while keeping parts of their personalities.

Also the idea of you thinking you've won and are finally safe after years only to find out that was all part of the enemies plan and they've been in control this whole time and you victories have just been given to you to convince you you were winning sounds super horrifying and I loved it.

yes! monsters from chapter one! I mean, they're a very central part of the story and also I love them so I wanted to include them as soon as possible. What's that one Guillermo del Toro quote? because I want to share it hang on. Here: "Since childhood I've been faithful to monsters. I've been saved and absolved by them because monsters are the patron saints of our blissful imperfections." Monsters and inhumanity are very important to me, and so capturing that and giving these horrible, awe-inspiring creatures a world where they could reign over it is very rewarding.

How they were created and by who is relevant and important to the story, but more than that I find monsters are the most ambiguous, understanding kinds of creatures.

Wait I'm getting off topic we're talking about the au. I can't straight up tell you how the monsters were made or what they are without spoiling things, but I love that you're asking questions! Though one that I can answer is that Sophie and her friends believe that the monsters were created and released on the world by the Neverseen and another group. the second group is represented by a broken chain and they don't know who or what they are, just that they're involved with the monsters.

Also I love that little mushroom guy so much. I originally wanted to draw a little sketch of it to go along with the chapter but it's been over a year since I wrote the description of him and I forgot a very important detail which is where?? the mouth is?? I know I mention it but my description isn't clear enough for myself, so unless someone else draws their interpretation of the small mushroom thing it will only exist mentally.

They did find where the monsters are coming from! It is going to go horribly wrong! it is very exciting. that's one of the things i love about the au: where it starts. Because the beginning of the wings au is the end of another story gone awry. it's the ending to an apocalypse story where everyone's been forced underground and are fighting monsters and where entire species are being killed (the gnomes) and the kotlcrew are trying to stop the investation. And they've become a solid unit, knowing each others minds, planning things. And the breeding facility in chapter one is their final battle. it's the climax of another story. In another story, that's where everything ends and winds down from there.

but I've made it the beginning. That story doesn't end well and I used it as the setting for something new. That's why the first chapter is so much more tense than some of the following, why it's faster, why it's more coordinated and specific. It's the climax of another story but without any build-up. Which was super fun to write btw.

And thank you! mindbubble was a word I came up with on a whim and wasn't sure whether or not I'd stick with it. I wanted a word unique to the au, and I kinda just stuck to a bubble theme after that. The mindbubble, healing bubble, probably more I'm forgetting. It was a moment where I also had to let the characters name it, as it's the word they use to refer to it. And given keefe is in the mix something a little more light hearted seemed appropriate.

as for the kid...well, lets just say that is not the last you will see of her! she pops up a few more times and is actually a key part of the story. Which happened entirely on accident. Originally she was just a throwaway character who existed to be a distraction so Sophie's group wasn't caught and also to give them a moral dilemma because she's just a kid. But then I think it was Ed who made a comment about her and wondering who she was and what her importance was and I went "oh. I can actually do a lot with her." That's why you may notice a change in her demeanor later on that doesn't fully match chapter one, which is because her personality and backstory was created after that scene where she screams and runs away. Still trying to make it smooth enough to be excusable, but it's fine!!

She actually fit perfectly into the story, so i'm very glad ed commented about her. I've got the main ideas for the au planned out already, but as I go and as people comment I keep finding ways to make it tie together and more detailed and it's super fun.

that's part of why I really appreciate comments so much!! You guys notice and latch onto things I wouldn't think of, and then I get to turn it into fun things in the story!! Like Linh being connected to dragons. That wasn't originally planned, but someone made a comment theorizing about Linh having dragon wings (might've been Synonym!) and i went...well she doesn't have dragon wings but I can do something with the dragon part.

I've getting distracted again oops!!

Monster room!! I think that was the first glimpse of the monsters and the horrors Sophie had been talking about mentally to give the reader background. And I'm glad you like the descriptions!! I think the imagery from chapter one might be my favorite because it just feels so poignant. I mean, it was the first introduction to everything. I had to give you all the details of what the world was like! I had to describe everything to give context. Later on in the series the state of the world has already been established and we have ideas on what the monsters are like so I'm more recycling descriptions, but that first chapter? it's all new and where i am establishing the things!! idk maybe it's just me but whenever I reread the first chapter I just get so caught up on the imagery I love it so much.

I'm glad you like the ending as well!! That marked the beginning of my evil cliffhangers, and I look back on it fondly. it was like...okay, the story this should've been has gone wrong, now I get to tell my story. And i have been telling it for the better part of a year now and it has been. So much fun! So thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the rest of the chapters!!

[valerie]

TWITL - week forty-two - here comes the rain

New Post has been published on https://kiari.com/2021/10/twitl-week-forty-two-here-comes-the-rain/

TWITL - week forty-two - here comes the rain

We’re in the middle of a few rainy days and I don’t mind at all. Looks to be over by Monday morning so must enjoy it now. We certainly need the rain out this way. I’m just glad we didn’t have much to do but sit here and watch football.

MOVIES

Dune – We headed to the movies on Friday night to watch Dune in the Dolby Cinema auditorium at our local AMC Theatre. If you can watch this movie at the theatre, do it. It’s GORGEOUS. I’ve read the books and I’ve seen the 1984 movie so I knew the story well enough and this interpretation is just so well done. It ended and I wanted MORE. (Please tell me there is more!)

Cronos – I had never seen this movie and not sure why we started watching this one. The hubby happened upon it while browsing for movies and saw that it was Guillermo Del Toro’s first feature film. I like that I knew nothing about it yet and could enjoy it as is. I liked it. It was very well done, with the drama and horror very well balanced.

DOWNTOWN

We spent Saturday afternoon downtown for cornhole! Well, I didn’t play. I just watched. It was great seeing people downtown and cornhole is always fun times. The weather was perfect but as there was rain in the forecast, they hurried the play a bit. The rain probably came a bit before the event was set to end but we were already home, I think.

Oh, and I wore my All Blacks gear (beanie and jersey) because they were playing the Eagles in Washington DC. The All Blacks ended up winning 104-14. Yikes! But hey, it felt good wearing my All Blacks stuff. The jersey I wore is tight so it’s something to wear under hoodies and such.

RANDOM MUSINGS

Full week back to work after fall break wasn’t really too bad for me. Our COVID-19 testing days changed for the district office, which means I go in early on Mondays and Friday now. I actually don’t mind that bit at all. It’s nice leaving early on a Friday, even better this first week because I had a meeting in the afternoon and when I came back to the office, it was nearly time to go home. Joy!

Now let me rant a little bit.

Our COVID-19 tester is a super sweet woman, newly hired (so yes, she’s an actual employee) and the harassment and abuse she took from fellow employees is damn appalling. I am so disappointed and angry about the stories she told me after administering tests at our school sites this week. Employees in our district must be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. To make it easy for those employees who must test every week, our tester is stationed at each school a certain day every week. Apparently, some of those unvaccinated employees decided it was their place to voice their frustrations to her, accusing her of being a spy, asking her how she slept at night, refusing to sign the forms or wear their masks, and just being plain unpleasant to her. It was unprofessional, rude, and just plain WRONG. I wonder, if this is how they treat a fellow employee, how do they treat the students or their fellow site employees? They should be ashamed of themselves. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care why people won’t get vaccinated. You do you. But if your employer requires you to be tested if you’re not vaccinated, you do NOT have the right to treat the tester with anything other than polite professionalism and respect.

End of rant.

Ben Barnes – Songs for You

My autographed Ben Barnes EP finally arrived! I haven’t taken off the plastic yet. I will. Of course, my EP arrived and a couple of days later, I bought something else Ben Barnes. Hope that doesn’t take as long to get to me.

Here’s to a good week. Looking forward to the cooler weather. Love being able to wear my sweaters!

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Awww...I’m out of episodes of What We Do in the Shadows to watch. Rationing only goes so far.

Every day when I call Mom I recount whatever I watched the night before in as much detail as I can manage, and this show always gets her laughing. I mean, as much as you can expect when you are giving a one woman audio performance from memory to someone that has never actually seen an episode.

Pity I can’t send her DVDs or something, but I seriously doubt my brother would approve of it being played in his house. I mean, not because of vulgar content (OMG, they used to play South Park when my nephew was a toddler) but they have an anti-horror thing, Heck, they almost didn’t see Pirates of the Caribbean because they assumed it was horror from a trailer! 

Well, that and they wouldn’t want to play anything I suggested because, ya’ know, I would be the one suggesting. 

Shocking confession: I think I’m shipping Guillermo and Nandor! 

(Sorry, got rambling. The rest is safely behind the cut.)

I am not really a shipper, if by shipper you mean someone that sighs that two characters simply must be a couple, whatever the scripts say. The idea two characters care about each other so much that it “can only be” romantic love almost offends me when there are so many other kinds of love too.  I NEVER ship characters that aren’t explicitly meant to by the text. 

Oh wait, the text kinda goes for that, structuring some arguments as lovers’ quarrels and so forth. Maybe I can pretend it’s text...

Geez, I just do NOT want to be a shipper! And I NEVER, EVER want to be one of those shippers desperately trying to prove their OTP is cannon that everyone else is just too stupid to admit. I hate that shit.

Seriously, I had a traumatic brief friendship over a fandom when a “friend” insisted that two characters could only be in love and not friends, despite me telling them I saw them as friends. The “friend”  got cruel. I was told I was a broken person who has obviously never had a friend in her life, and probably homophobic to boot (?!). I’d made a point of saying it as great they shipped the characters, but simply saying  I read characters as competitive best friends or almost siblings and not lovers was enough to raise their ire. 

Let’s just say my first Tumblr friend ended up hurting me enough I’ve been more wary of interacting. It simply isn’t worth getting yelled at for liking something the “wrong” way.

Nothing like folks in fandoms insisting there is “only” one way to read characters even when it’s based on reading between the lines to sour me not just on talking to shippers, but fandoms in general.

I love that every possible pairing of every possible sort of character are shipped by someone...but that doesn’t mean I have to ship them or that I can’t value a character relationship just because I don’t think it is always sexually or romantically based. 

Honestly, I just wish everyone would accept that each of us brings ourself to entertainment, percieving through our own experience and projecting what we need to find. They are all valid. They are all a hybrid of the creators and the contents of our own heads. There in NEVER just one way to interpret anything as long as more that one person experience it.

This goes for everything about characters, shipping just being part if all the things we can see in them. Think a character has ADHD, autistim, had a troubled childhood, secretly loves origami or anything else. It will be absolutely true to the version that lives in your head, but just don’t demand it be true to the version that lives in your friend’s head. 

So I want to make something clear. While I do...awww, do I really have to say it....okay, okay...***sigh***...ship Nandor and Guillermo, I have absolutely no problem with anyone not seeing them that way.  

But damn, I feel so embarrassed admitting to shipping at all.

OMG, have I really become a shipper? 

[gerandor]

alexander accepted nandor's invite out of pity though so i don't know where this idea that he would want to see nandor again when their first outing was a disaster is coming from here. nandor can be pretty off putting to people who aren't used to him. so can all the other vampires, they're not exactly the most sensitive bunch or even the most up to date with social conventions as shown by nandor talking through the movie (that shit's annoying when you're watching tv at home but at the theatre that's just a full stop no for me). and i know we all collectively breathed a sigh of relief that the show didn't go down some antisemitic road but talking about wanting to meet a jewish person so badly like you'd talk about collecting pokemons and calling a jewish person a slur (yeah i know jewish people use it to refer to ourselves but goys really really shouldn't) is the kind of shit that flies around the vamps because they don't care and guillermo because he knows nandor doesn't mean any harm. but if nandor said any of that weird shit around alexander... yeah i don't think he would call again.

Hi! Sorry this answer got a bit too long!

Ok so for context, this ask is most likely in response to this post i made about one possible interpretation (actually two. I added another reading immediately after the first one) of the scene with Guillermo on the phone.

I think it's fair to assume that you know about interpretations and different readings of text as this is exactly the same practice you used to read Alexander's words “he seemed harmless and kinda lonely” as meaning “I pitied him and was so annoyed at him at the movies that I didn't want to be around him anymore.”

And well. That's also the same method i used. I had a text and I tried to use cues from the text to read it in my own way. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact that's what we all do with text. We try to read it in our own way and it's our different readings that enrich the actual text. But yes when the readings aren't supported by facts from text it gets annoying and unbelievable. But i thought i gave enough reasons in that post, so I won't repeat them here.

But i will expand on it.

In that scene when nandor asks if it's Alexander on the phone, Guillermo presses the phone to his chest and he actually cowers and he sounds so guilty for some reason. I'm not saying it definitely means it was Alexander on the phone but it shows Guillermo is hiding something. So the question is, what? I tried to come up with one possibility.

Also i thought most of us agreed that Guillermo looked jealous when nandor was talking about acquiring a new friend? He definitely didn't look pleased that nandor was spending his time with someone new.

And you used your own personal feeling about people talking in the movies to support your view that Alexander didn't want to be around nandor after watching a movie with him. But that's just a reading. As long as we don't get Alexander actually saying in words that he didn't want to be around nandor bc he found him so annoying at the movies, we can all have our own interpretations why he didn't want to be friends with nandor anymore. (And the scene with nandor showing him his...ehem penis, i think that was just the last straw, bc before that he was trying to completely ignore nandor.)

And in fact, the show seems to be encouraging our various readings by not actually telling us who it was Guillermo was talking to on the phone. Isn't it interesting that the scene immediately cuts off to nandor smashing the phone and saying ‘it's not fair’? What isn't fair? Who was Guillermo talking to? The show doesn't tell us bc it wants us to speculate.

I also wrote in the tags that i actually hope that my reading wasn't correct bc if Guillermo is being petty and jealous (like how he was about gail and jenna, so it's not too ooc for him) and wants to sabotage Nandor's friendship with others, then i want the show to actually be upfront about it. I don't want it to be sth people speculate about when every time nandor messes up, it's there for everyone to see (and hate nandor for it.)

As to the whole jewish discourse which i don't know how it's relevant to my post…i’m not jewish and i’m not the right person to talk about it and tbh i have no idea about the slur you talked about. But i have seen some posts by Jewish people who said they actually loved the representation. The episode was directed by yana Gorskaya who is of jewish descent and ive heard that she said she had taught kayvan the jewish slangs. I personally didn't think it was offensive that nandor always wanted to have a jewish friend. He even described them as brave and fierce warriors which are the kind of qualities nandor appreciates in others and prides himself on.

But you're welcome to your own interpretation.

[timestops4none]

RR 4: Overview of Performance Art

Pt 1- Roselee Goldberg Performance: A Hidden History

            This writing examines the origins of performance art in the twentieth century and touches on the raw, unstructured nature it encapsulates. Giving an in-depth look at the group, locations, and backgrounds of artists of all kinds who took not performance art to the world but a preforming artwork to an audience expecting or unsuspecting. These artists had a wide range of skills and a diverse array of motivation. Some may not want to be confined to museum exhibits while others want to share a message, but each one gave a personal presentation that lasted for a set duration and if performed again, would never be the same. With such a plethora of influencers, purposes, and artistic means it is no wonder that performance art is so hard to define. It can be anything.  It can show the unexpected, invade by demanding attention, or present a personal statement, all while being live to the eyes of its viewers. Then, it’s over, lingering only as an imprint on those who experienced it.

            When I was younger, I did not understand performance art. I did not like it because I did not understand it. Now being older and more open, I feel I understand that one doesn’t have to understand the performance art as a whole or even the specifics, but sometimes it helps. It comes down to experience. Life is not meant to be always understood, normal, what we expect, perfect or orderly. Having performance art interrupt our life should be a welcome moment. We should embrace surprise and allow ourselves to be thrown off by accepting something new. Even though performance art has a history of more than a century, each act is unique in so many ways and without rules I doubt it will ever truly be definable.           

  Pt 2- Coco Fusco The Other History of Intercultural Performance

            This article was a complete surprise and yet not a surprise at all to me. It dives deep into an art performance from the early 1990’s that blurred lines of what we see, expect, perceive and interpret. This performance art piece, an “ethnographic exhibit of human beings” was performed by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Penia. It was the display of newly found Amerindians from an island called Guatinau in a golden cage overseen by “zoo” guards for several days at a time in museums and cities all throughout the western world. It is reminiscent of a time, not long ago, when Europeans and Americans would display “savages”--people from what the western world would have call uncivilized. It dives into the history of the practice to put culturally different people, usually unwillingly, on show for money. It also talks about how and what Coco and Guillermo did to sell the idea they were for real even though it was a performance art and a cultural statement. Even though they doubted their ability to sell the performance, they were continuously surprised to see about half of all visitors to the museums believed it was real. Their work was met with outrage, disbelief, uncertainty, amusement, skepticism, and criticism. I personally feel unoffended at this powerful statement of a reality so many deny or fail to recognize. Works like this bring up hard questions and they are not things we should shy from but openly approach to discuss. We, as humans and cultures can not change the past but if we can see past mistakes, wrong-doings, and injustices, we must recognize and own them.  If we can learn and change from them, we can make the future a more just, accepting and understanding place.    

[southeastasianists]

Princess Urduja is a mere legend, and not a historical figure.

According to legend, the Filipino heroine Princess Urduja ruled an island called Tawalisi in the 14th century. She led a group of warrior women called Kinalakihan, or the Amazons, across battlefields, and was known for her kindness and intelligence. She is said to have taken no husband because she would only choose a man who was braver, wiser, and stronger than she was, and nobody had enough guts to try to beat her in battle. However, it’s also believed by many that Urduja actually existed — as there were records of her in the accounts of Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta. A common theory is that Tawalisi was located in what is now known as Pangasinan, although common guesses for the princess’ native home also include Java, Cambodia, and China.

Lapu-Lapu killed Ferdinand Magellan.

Even first-graders know Lapu-Lapu, the ruler of Mactan who is also the first Philippine hero. He led his men to win the battle of Mactan against Portuguese colonizer Ferdinand Magellan (who probably preferred to be called “explorer” and, by the way, obviously did not “discover” the Philippines), and is usually said to have killed Magellan in the fight. The image may inspire nationalism, but the truth is, it’s impossible to tell whether Magellan did lose his life directly at the hands of Lapu-Lapu, who may be less young and vital than he is commonly depicted.

Jose Rizal wrote “Sa Aking Mga Kabata” in his childhood.

The poem “Sa Aking Mga Kabata,” written in Tagalog about embracing one’s native language, is often attributed to Dr. Jose Rizal, who supposedly wrote it when he was seven years old — “proof,” according to some, of his precocious nature and love of country. Historians such as Ambeth Ocampo, however, have researched and written in opposition of this, stating that there’s no evidence (whether it be a manuscript, a published byline, or an assertion from Rizal himself) supporting Rizal’s authorship of the work. In addition to this, Rizal did not have a strong enough command of Tagalog to match the fluency of the poem.

The viral love letter “Liham Para Kay Oryang” was written by Andres Bonifacio.

In 2015, the work of epistolary fiction “Liham Para Kay Oryang,” written by playwright Eljay Castro Deldoc as though it were a letter from Andres Bonifacio to his wife Gregoria de Jesus a few nights before he was killed, went viral on social media and reached far enough that people began to believe Bonifacio had actually written it. It was romantic and relayed the urgency of love and loss during wartime — but it was just the writer’s interpretation of historical events. On that note, a real poem written by Gregoria de Jesus, titled “Magmula, Giliw, Nang Ikaw ay Pumanaw,” was verified by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines. Talking about her grief over losing Bonifacio, it was copied by hand by her second husband Julio Nakpil, and is now on display in the Bahay-Nakpil museum.

Fernando Poe Sr. served as the model for the Oblation.

Commissioned for the University of the Philippines by then-president Rafael Palma and funded by the enrollees in 1935, the iconic statue known as the Oblation, or simply Oble, was created by Guillermo E. Tolentino and based on Rizal’s poem “Mi Ultimo Adios.” The symbol and touchstone of any UP campus is often said to have taken its physique from actor-director Fernando Poe, Sr., who was a UP student at the time of its creation; however, records show that Anastacio Caedo, a student assistant of Tolentino’s, and Caedo’s brother-in-law Virgilio Raymundo served as the models and references. Another fact that might not be all that well known? The original sculpture is located not in front of Quezon Hall along UP Diliman’s University Avenue, but instead inside Gonzales Hall.

The yo-yo was invented by ancient Filipinos.

It’s too simple to say the yo-yo was invented by a Filipino, and it’s almost impossible to determine its true origins: it traces its existence back to ancient Greece and arrived in Europe in the 1800s, long before it was trademarked and sold en masse in America. But in the late 1920s, a Filipino bellboy named Pedro Flores, who had traveled to the United States in hopes of studying law, innovated a stringing method that elevated the yo-yo from being a simple toy to the type we all know and can do tricks with today. He mass-produced his creation and established a yo-yo manufacturing company, but eventually sold the rights.

[chanelpirate]

😮- uhhh honestly one of my fave scenes of yours is the one where corpse!Daniel gives Alexander a horrible blowjob in front of Heinrich

😮- Leave a description of your favorite scene in the ask and I’ll tell you what I was thinking.

I must confess I am irl laughing, because as writers we all have our glowing proud moments of ‘yeah I did that’ and for me that was Nigredo, and especially this scene. It was in part born of the darkest of dark humour, because horror and comedy are bedmates in subverting expectation.

So Alexander and Heinrich—they know each other well. Very well. Too well. They and Johann Weyer have an absolute clusterfuck of a backstory going back 250-odd years, the clusterfuckiness of which depends on how you think it all Went Down and whether there were sexual elements to the betrayal. Renaissance scholar ménage à trois gone horribly wrong, as it were. Fic coming ‘soon’

Heinrich, with his ‘compassion’, for lack of a better word and whether or not he was wielding it a manipulative tool, really pushed some buttons, whether or not he meant to. (This is all up to your interpretation, but mine is that nobody here is a saint.) At this point, Alexander seized the opportunity to go right for the throat in the way he knew would hurt the most for everyone. Now what could be more horrific? More spiteful? More ‘look at me I’m actually a bad motherfucker honest but also just look at me for once’? I think he’s done with blending in, having even Heinrich forget he’s not human, being held up to human morality and praised or censured by human standards. This is also on a meta level; in a lot of horror media, we stan Cthulhu but have him aspire to a white picket fence. Please refer to Guillermo del Toro a god amongst men

And Daniel? Daniel isn’t even Daniel. He’s a tool in this cosmic horror melodrama which he never had a hope of understanding even if alive, and there are some really interesting ideas about personhood here. Yeah I could talk about this scene forever

Also I do love any opportunity to extend a classical metaphor in every direction. (Salomé? ‘Giving head’? I’ll see myself out)

All that aside, short and most direct answer, the whole thing was written in under a day for a personal challenge. What I was thinking was, “Wouldn’t it be so fucked up if—”

[themonsterblogofmonsters]

Monsterblog Guide: Interpretation & Vagueness

Previously - Monsterblog Guide: Think

So this is one of those things which can drive people completely up the wall... or it can result in a really intriguing potentiality that leads people in wondering, thinking, dreaming and headcanoning to try to figure out what could work as the answer. I’m by no means supreme expert on this, but lets see if I can give at least a basic primer.

1. What the hell are you talking about, monstermod?

Okay, so you know when you really love something but instead of spelling everything out a lot is left up to interpretation and there’s actually multiple ways you can read something? When you don’t get the rules of a world explained down to the atom and instead you’re expected to pick up the themes and systems based on the stuff it shows you rather than tells you?

You remember how we have some people in the Potterverse claim that ghosts are no more than imprints of a wix, but Nearly Headless Nick tells us that they’re what returns when a wix is too afraid of death to truly pass on?

That. That is what I’m talking about.

2. But that’s really fucking annoying.

Oh yeah, yeah it can be. It can be absolutely rage-inducing if done badly, I will not even try to argue that but this isn’t about “done badly”.

This is about “done well”.

The thing is, if you leave something up to interpretation you can either start arguments in the fandom (which can be a great way to encourage creativity while everyone tries to prove their theory correct and write lots of long fic or meta to prove it) or you can do something that actually encourages you to question the themes of the text in order to hit on a resolution.

For example, the [SPOILERS] end of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth could mean you read it that the protagonist dies and the end is just her deathly fever dream OR it could mean the fairytale was real all along and death is what bridges reality and the fairytale OR it could be that it wasn’t a fairytale so much as a parable and in proving herself Ofelia is Becoming both part of the fairytale and part of the afterlife.

Its all in interpretation and how you interpret the vagueness of the ending can tell you a lot about yourself and can inform your understanding of the film and what you believe to be the point of the film.

Leaving things up to interpretation... well it ties back to what I said last Guide - to think.

3. Isn’t leaving everything up to interpretation going to drive them around the bend?

Oh yeah. Done badly it can, even done well it can. But then, so can writing characters who are grey as the world is, rather than moralistically black or white - we’ve all seen how fandom tears itself apart arguing over if Snape is good or Dumbledore evil. How much they each actually knew for certain vs. believed is left enough to interpretation that you can - especially with Dumbledore - make some strong arguments each way.

Done badly, however it really will be maddening. Done badly the vague is less “vague” so much as “nothing at all”, done badly its useless.

But if you do it well, if you make sure that some interpretations - if not all - are at least hinted at, you can create some interesting potential thoughts in those who consume the work you put out.

Here, for example, I like suggesting links between species or interpretations of magic with evidence one way or another. The point isn’t that any of these are necessarily the absolute truth, the point is that one of them may be true, and its up to you to decide which you think it is.

4. Okay, but everyone else’s interpretation is WRONG

No, its not. When people interpret stuff in different ways its rarely wrong. It may disagree with what you’ve said, but its based on their own understanding and interpretation - that doesn’t make it wrong. We’ve all got different perspectives and so we’re going to have different opinions. If we didn’t the world would be very boring.

Sometimes people will be wrong. They may have forgotten or ignored a piece of canon that discredits their theory, or they may refuse to remember or believe bits of canon - may even accuse you of making it up - if it defends a character they hate. Sure, in those cases they’re wrong.

But when it comes to fanworks... not necessarily. I’ve seen some fanfics with theories I don’t agree with - see my recommendation of Starfox5′s fic Patron - but I can handle it for the fic because its kept consistent. Other fics I’ve seen purposefully make alterations to the world and then go on to explain them - see my recommendation of the Sacrifices Arc.

Others make alterations and then try to have explanations which make no sense - see HPMOR and all the hate I have for that pile of mansplaining crap.

But even Word of God can be argued - see how the fandom responds to JKR these days. Even the nature of canon can be argued - Death of the Author an all that.

So... its rarely wrong. Just different. And if it is wrong, attacking them over it isn’t going to help. Starting a discussion, if they’re open to polite, calm and non-argumentative criticism, is.