#exact inverse

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

havent really had more indepth thoughts since than the posts i made last night but i just got to the "my name is zephyr" line again

like it's meant to be heavy bc we knows names are Sacred (<- lots of worldbuilding questions there forever to remain unanswered) and so yes theres the trust in penance, but it's also like, to claim a name, "my", is to claim an identity. it's an expression that there is something more to you than just your role, your function, the cause youre in service of.

and if transition is the only thing shes ever done for herself, right? and all the rest has been in Service. what shes called at any point is just the title of her function in the circumstances. but to say My Name is to claim an identity, that exists for its own sake. as is. not for anything. just is.

and if she chose the name herself, it's like an expression of a Want. which is what i was talking abt with the joy/pleasure thing. she doesnt Want anything, really, except maybe just for "this to be over". she starts out, in this story, at like the most Unwanting state you can have. being suicidal, most of the time, rather than a positive wanting to be dead, usually it's more a negative not wanting to be alive, you know what i mean?

and she remains in that state for all of the story we get. she doesnt really Want anything in a positive sense, mostly just wants like, things not to be like this. the world not to be like this. and not to be in the position shes in. but shes stuck in that position bc the world is like this. so the only way out is to try and make it,,,not like this. which is the main thing driving her for the whole season i think.

to say "my name is zephyr" i think is an expression of a positive desire. it's i want to be zephyr. it's, maybe, i want to just live. i want to just live instead of i want to stop fighting.

[clarkgriffon]

BUFFY SUMMERS & DAWN SUMMERS ➤ Outfit Parallels

[lucabyte]

So does anybody else ever think about how Loop felt the need to demonstrate that the party's deaths wouldn't have any effect on the loops. I know I do but that's besides the point. Anyway I don't think Loop actually needs to bathe, they just like to feel included.

[mummer]

there is something i find inherently fun and interesting about an unethical power gap relationship where the lower down person is the initiator in a random feat of courage and the higher up feels insanely guilty for reciprocating but does it anyway because well they asked.... then they're BOTH complicit.. the drama and conflict and craziness of that <3

[spokenfromtheheartandsoul]

oh but the clothing choices are SO interesting here.

right when mew finally seems to be letting ray in, mew starts dressing in a style that's awfully reminiscent of ray himself:

meanwhile, right when ray is finally getting to receive the type of affection from mew he's yearned for ages - ray's not dressed the way he usually does for nights out.

in fact if i didn't know any better, i might even say he's dressed up in an outfit that's awfully reminiscent of a style a certain someone picked out just for him:

what a coincidence, that right when mew's external appearance finally seems to imply he's ready to be on the same page as ray...........ray's external appearance has shifted to reflect the lingering influence of someone new.

[centrally-unplanned]

To share another thought on the Folding Ideas video I Don't Know James Rolfe from my last post, while I enjoyed it a ton I do think its core "meta" element fails to reach the heights it could. It is never made that explicit so I am making a subjective read here, but essentially while most of the content of the video is textually about James Rolfe, there are dozens of moments where Dan performs actions that mimic or parallel James, culminating in his own parodic angry video game review as the finale. The idea is something of a "there but for the grace of god I go" point, that perhaps all youtubers, and Dan specifically, are too close for comfort to Rolfe's reality of limited creative options and a hostile fanbase clinging to the past .

But I can't really say for sure! Because he is very adverse to making this concrete enough for the audience.

At times the visual parallels are incredibly direct. There is one moment, where Dan is explaining the real skill and craft of being an internet clown on demand, where he mimics Rolfe's style of rant to explain it while projected AVGN videos that were looping in the background flash over his own body:

And it really works, the meaning shines through; it is a moment you can see back through time where the idea for this shot was, spiritually, the impetus for the film, that this idea must have come to him and he built the essay around making it happen.

Other visual parallels are less explicit; when the parody sequence starts, Dan - who has built a 1/12th scale recreation of the Rolfe's "video game basement" aka studio set in order to "understand" him like normal people do - represents himself in that room via a tiny hand puppet

Which is cute if, like probably most people, know him as the guy who makes videos about NFTs or Qanon. But close to a decade ago, when he was first making ~20 minute media analysis takes, he represented himself on screen with a wooden puppet like this:

It is even like the same color, I am confident this is intentional, it is saying "yeah this could have been an alt version of me; I was not so far from this".

All these symbols function to make the emotional impact; but an emotional impact in service of...what? So in the essay he discusses the film Wavelength, a 1967 avant garde film that is almost entirely composed of filming the side of a room with minimal camera movement while actions occur around it. It is a movie that never gives you a meaning, and therefore you must project meaning into it, bring yourself to the table. That makes sense for Wavelength, and the aggressive cinematography of I Don't Know James Rolfe - which is stellar to be clear - is making the film out to be sort of its own personal Wavelength for YouTube.

But then we go back to that text, which is over an hour of Dan directly talking to the camera about a real person. It is incredibly concrete and detailed, with explicit points being made over and over. And through what those explicit points reveal... I don't think Dan Olsen is like James Rolfe! Does he have an hostile fanbase trapped in nostalgia? Do people acuse him of being cucked by his bitch wife? He has evolved as a filmmaker, intensely so, he does things completely differently than Rolfe does and completely differently from how he himself used to. He doesn't have a shitty biography that self-outs his own creative narcissism, he isn't obsessed with remaking his own childhood films - I am pretty sure as a kid he had never heard of NFTs, they didn't really exist! The final line of the film is "maybe you aren't a filmmaker either" - but idk, Dan, I kinda think you are! If documentarians can be filmmakers you have to qualify.

Now I'm not a fool, I understand that the film could be suggesting these are differences of degrees and not kind; that Dan is equally "trapped in the room" making vlogs for the net, just with more outward trappings of success. But, in the ruthless specificity and detail of his treatment of Rolfe...this film cannot be Wavelength. I am not capable of forging my own meaning from the pieces, he connected way too many of them. This is the trap of avant-garde; you are tempted to help the audience, but once you try to answer some of the questions, it forces the hand of the rest, they all have to fit into that schema. And the film is just too coy with Dan's own parallel life for me to figure the schema out. I make my guesses and I lack confidence in them, they feel "contradicted" by the text.

More detail would have been the easier path; less detail and more symbolic expression would have been the harder path. But right now the balance is just a bit too out of whack for it to come fully together.

[wannabebardrambles]

current mood: will champion in a blue hoodie sipping god knows what from a fantasy chalice with blood red painted nails

[ishgardapologist]

At the Crystal Tower's peak we clash. And later, from that selfsame spire, I send you forth...

[adanseying]

“You’re as bad as Gansey” said Adam in a tone that made it clear he was turned on.

[fellhellion]

lord save me from the constant A posting but I do think it’s deeply funny that they’re like “oh vampirism made me come back RIGHT” aka without of those pesky roiling emotions <- this literally came back exactly the same but buried within several layers of depression

[appendingfic]

Ad: Can you imagine a $4 trillion TAX INCREASE Ad: The average household will spend $1,500 in taxes a YEAR Me: sighhhhhhh

[llycaons]

Wei Wuxian is the only man capable of resisting Lan Wangji’s irresistible charm.

'charm'?

[malinaa]

i don’t have any intelligent thoughts because i haven’t rewatched dw. Ever bc of the emotional damage it left me. but tenrose and twelveclara are fraternal twins to ME

[tonysopranoproskater69420]

as fucked as it is I truly think tumblr is the only app I could ever find love on

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

It’s gonna be really jarring to go back to reading fanfiction written in the third person whenever this Jeeves and Wooster hyperfixation ends

[domesticatedmeatpig]

i kind of hate art. i can never make anythin.g i enjoy anymore. all i can draw nowadays is souless anime boy twink adopts for money. money money money. i dont even want money. i hate twinks. i hate drawing them .i hate the people that buy them. i hate my life