#excellent writeup

[fjordfolk]

We tend to explain the difference between American and British/FCI shelties by stating that the standards are different, and I do this too, but in truth the standards are very close and we just have very different ideas of a) whether the interpretation of the sheltie standard should follow the interpretation of the collie standard and b) what is "wedge" and "almond"

[itstimeforstarwars]

I need a fully equipped laboratory. I must test things other than my patience.

[secretmellowblog]

Ahh this is such a good analysis!!! Myriel often gets reduced to “the Ideal Person” in analysis of Les Mis, but I like the way you analyze Hugo’s portrayal of his limitations— the way he focuses on “staunching wounds” over preventing them, and his fear of challenges to the royalist government.

Around the candlesticks: Id like to add I think it’s also significant that they’re a material comfort and also the last remnant of his former pre-Revolution aristocratic wealth. They’re politically weighted too, in a way that ties into all of Myriel’s character flaws; the way he gives up his former aristocratic life, but only to a point.

Compiled some thoughts/observation/analysis of Vol I, Book 1!

Les Misérables Vol I, Book 1: A Good Man

Victor Hugo starts everything off with essentially the life and times of Bishop Myriel. Even though he says it has little relevance to do with the rest of the tale, the book not only touches on some major themes (and personal points of conflict for Hugo) but also has some foreshadowing that I already know will make some future scenes hit so much harder.

Less importantly, but more entertainingly, Myriel throws so much shade and gives so many backhanded compliments for a short, happy, elderly guy. Sometimes he's subtle about it and it flies over the head of the person he's talking to, but other times he just goes out of his way to make his disapproval known in very comical ways. Nothing I saw before reading the brick prepared me for this guy having personality, but I'm so happy it's there.

Notes on themes & foreshadowing/parallels under the cut! Would love to read about alternate opinions/things I didn't catch, especially as a first-time reader 👀👀

Themes

When is a violent revolution justified?

Down with the death penalty

What makes a person good?

Nobody's perfect, or why Myriel is a staunch royalist

Hedonism as a privelege for the rich

The importance of education

When is a violent revolution justified?

Myriel seems to have a very micro approach to goodness — he uses most of his own funds for the benefit of those in need and chides the bishops who hoard individual wealth, but repeatedly shies away from political change. It’s both pacifist and very cure-over-prevention, which is what makes his clash with the Conventionist G so interesting.

Their conversation really felt like Hugo’s own internal dialogue, attempting to address the conflict between the progress won through revolutions and the violence wielded to get there. Despite some back and forth, there was a clear ‘victor’ in the debate. G states “I voted for the end of the tyrant. That’s to say, the end of prostitution for women, the end of slavery for men, the end of benightedness for children. In voting for the Republic, that’s what I voted for.” Since this is extremely reminiscent of the preface, it’s clear that this is the voice Hugo endorses. He also appears to give his own definition for when violence is forgivable when G concludes his speech with “Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, what we recognize is this: the human race has had a rough time, but it has advanced.” It’s therefore quite intriguing that he chose to centre Les Misérables around the 1832 rebellion that didn’t succeed. Maybe future chapters will reveal a tighter definition for progress that will include the aftershocks (if any) of the June Rebellion?

Despite ending on a pretty unambiguous statement of philosophy, some of Hugo’s misgivings (previously published in his public announcements regarding past revolutions) are also voiced in this passage, like when Myriel says “You’ve brought about destruction. Destruction can be useful but I distrust destruction compounded with anger.” G responds by listing what that first revolution gifted France (though “sent tides of civilisation sweeping across the earth” could be referring to Napoleon’s conquests which is somewhat unbalancing), but I think the true rebuttal is when he responds with a crime against the people for every crime against the monarchy. This is particularly enjoyable because it mirrors Myriel’s own attitude in rejecting artificial divides between normal people and ‘higher powers’ back from when he wittily rebuked Napoleon.

Down with the death penalty

A vivid part of France’s violent revolutions is of course the use of the guillotine (or more broadly, the death penalty). Hugo uses some pretty unambiguous language to describe and personify the guillotine, leaving us very clear on his personal stance towards the death penalty; namely, that he’s extremely against it. Myriel himself says “I didn’t realize it was so monstrous. It’s wrong to be so deeply absorbed in divine law that you become unaware of human law. Death depends on God alone. By what right do men meddle with this matter of destiny?” Again, lines from the preface incorporated into the text, highlighting how this section is not in fact without bearing on the rest of the story, at least thematically.

However, Myriel’s actions after this revelation are quite interesting. While his exclamation appears to denounce the use of religion as a band-aid or distraction from material, man-made horrors, Myriel henceforth avoids the guillotine and continues to avoid interactions with changing the law. Later, he even says “Whatever his fellow man does, God allows it.” This is in-line with his character, which so far seems to primarily advocate for mercy and mundane acts of kindness, and avoids questioning the religion he serves. He even writes (of god) “Solomon names you Mercy, and of all your names this is the most beautiful.” in one of his books.

This also comes up in his conversation with G, except here it seems Hugo’s stance on the death penalty isn’t part of the debate. Instead, G is a Conventionist who voted against killing Louis XVI. Personally, I get the feeling that Hugo is drawing a line here. It seems like had G voted for Louis XVI’s death, Hugo would have found him unfit as a mouthpiece for his ideology.

What makes a person good?

Certainly not success, or a good social standing. The section where Hugo says “success is a fairly hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.” feels like one side of the coin to one of Les Misérables’ main tenets, with the flipside being that poverty does not imply weakness of character. I have it on pretty good authority that Les Misérables is very much about the goodness of the ordinary or lower class individual as opposed to the greatness of powerful figures, which was clear from Myriel’s very first snipe at Napoleon.

Hugo also describes Myriel as “Infantile if you will, but these sublime infantilisms were those of St Francis of Assisi and Marcus Aurelius.” I have a vague impression of childlike innocence being present in Cosette and to some extent Fantine (given her name). Hugo might not point to it as the primary or sole example of goodness, but he definitely props it up as one of the examples.

Nobody’s perfect, or why Myriel is a staunch royalist

It’s quite paradoxical for Myriel to believe that as a bishop — advisor to the people — he should live close to poverty, but simultaneously be a royalist and therefore implicitly accept that the king — leader of the people — can live in never-before witnessed splendour starting from the reign of Louis XIV.

This character flaw is again emphasised in the passing of Conventionist G, where Myriel (without much given reason) looks at a man peacefully accepting his death and thinks “He did not think there was any sense of God in this manner of dying.”. This is especially jarring since he’d said “Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers.” a couple pages prior.

I guess no character can have it all?

Hedonism as a privilege of the rich

I don’t think I need to make too many notes here — his speech at the end of 1.1.8 speaks for itself. As an excerpt:

You fine gentlemen, as you say, have a philosophy of your own, for yourselves. An exquisite, refined philosophy available only to the rich

But you are kindly princes and you don’t mind that belief in God should be the philosophy of the people, rather in the same way that goose stuffed with chestnuts is the truffled turkey of the poor.

The importance of education

I imagine this will be touched on more later, but for now we have the quote:

Society is to blame for not giving free education. It’s responsible for the darkness it produces. In any benighted soul – that’s where sin will be committed. It’s not he who commits the sin that’s to blame but he who causes the darkness to prevail.’

This is obviously still relevant to us now, but unsurprisingly, the issue of education was even more important in the 19th century. Literacy rates are still quite low, and new scientific/philosophical/political theories were often spread via the written word. You can't convince the illiterate with writing! If the people who are most marginalised are the ones least able to engage with ideologies made to help them, the vehicle that might enable them to connect with new ideas is naturally extremely important.

Foreshadowing/parallels

Myriel’s silver

I think the following quotes speak for themselves, and add so much significance to Myriel’s later actions:

It must be acknowledged, though, that of his former possessions he was still left with six silver forks and spoons and a large soup ladle that for Madame Magloire were a daily joy to see gleaming splendidly on the white linen tablecloth.

… he had more than once been heard to say, “It would be hard to give up eating off silver.”

In the bishop’s own bedroom… was a small cupboard in which Madame Magloire locked away the six silver forks and spoons and the large ladle every evening. It has to be said, the key was never removed.

This little old guy just likes his one material indulgence, but gives it away to Jean Valjean anyways!

Jean Valjean’s future arrival

Myriel writes in another one of his books:

Don’t ask the name of anyone that asks you for shelter. It is especially the person whose name is a burden to him that has need of shelter.

Castles in the air

I’m not sure if this was just common imagery at the time, and I’m also not sure if the wording is similar in the original French, but in 1.1.12, “blushing choristers… young priests, like Perrette with her pot of milk, build castles in the air!” is used to describe those seeking to advance socially via the seminary. As far as I’m aware, Cosette doesn’t really have any ambitions to do with the church, but still… castle on a cloud in the air mentioned!

Baptistine’s family is rich!

We obviously find out in her letter to her sister, but previous sections foreshadow this by connecting Baptistine with some nicer material goods:

Mademoiselle Baptistine also had in her room a very large bergère of wood that had once been gilt, and upholstered in a flower-patterned Peking silk.

… first a very nice armchair…

However, as we shall see, underneath the whitewashed paper Madame Magloire had recently discovered paintings that decorated Mademoiselle Baptistine’s room.

… and second, a plain exterior peeled off to expose art or luxury.

Honestly, when I first read those sentences, I almost thought she was being set up for like… a villain arc? Or at least a secret reveal arc? But nothing I’ve heard in fandom seems to indicate that so. I just suspected a wealthy background a couple chapters in advance, I guess.

A sentence in Baptistine’s letter

I don’t know if this leads to anything, or if it’s just an excuse for Hugo to shout “[Myriel] is still a true royalist”, but why was Baptistine’s sister asking about a De Faux family?

Facing death with radiance

This one is definitely more of a stretch, but when Myriel accompanies the man sentenced to death onto the scaffold of the guillotine, the criminal is described as such:

So crushed and despondent the previous day, the man facing death was radiant. He felt his soul have been reconciled and his trust was in God.

I’m not very into canon Enjoltaire, and the context here is a believer comforting the wretched by following them instead of the wretched following the believer, but I'll stretch to get the parallel anyways. I also just think the general concept of taking happiness and comfort in not facing it alone is very nice.

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 Where to find good XF fanfics

👽 On Tumblr

@lilydalexf has an encyclopedic knowledge of fics and continues to be an invaluable resource. You'll find a boatload of themed fic lists, individual rec posts and helpful answers to anon asks.

@txf-fic-chicks-blog seven years of almost daily recs, with well-written blurbs and a lot of fun, run by @kateyes224 and @piecesofscully. Look out for their themed days: "Casefile Monday", "Tumblr Tuesday", "Editor's Pick Wednesday", "Post-Ep/Missing Scene Thursday", "Novel Length Friday", "Smut Sunday", and the very cool "Because You Watched"

@msrlibrary a well-tagged library of MSR fics; each entry includes a short excerpt and a nicely chosen image from the show.

@201daysofxfiles a rewatch blog by fandom veteran @wendelah. Each episode in season 1-7 is paired with its own fic rec post.

@enigmaticxbee an aesthetically pleasing and neatly organized rewatch blog that is packed with great content, including excellent fic rec lists categorized by season, story type, trope, and more. Each episode guide sometimes features related fic recs.

@thatfragilecapricorn30 posts one fic rec every Friday, accompanied by a nice writeup.

@randomfoggytiger curates many fic rec lists sorted by often fun and creative categories.

@cecilysass has a google doc titled "fics I love", which is a fantastic fic list categorized by story type, complete with thoughtful blurbs. She's also shared two episode-related fic rec lists on Tumblr: here and here.

@pookie-mulder writes a monthly fic journal with good recs.

**self-promo plug** I post fic recs on my Tumblr blog @fine-nephrit under #nephrit's fic rec. Plus, I reblog others' fic recs that I come across!

👽 Rec Communities

XF Book Club: the best thing ever, an absolute gem that deserves to be preserved for posterity. During its run, 270 fics were recced and discussed in depth here. The community's intelligent and insightful comments on this blog are sometimes even more enjoyable to read than the fics themselves.

The Fic Filter (xf tag): well-curated selections with short blurbs.

Multifandom Het Recs (xf tag): a major rec site's xf section that offers nice "why this must be read" writeups. @het-reccers

Crack Van (xf tag): another major rec site with a big xf section, featuring endless recs and blurbs

Fancake (xf tag): another major rec community's xf section boasting an extensive thematic tagging system

👽 Personal Blogs

Emily Shore aka Naraht: meta essays, fanvid recs, fic recs—great stuff aplenty

Bad for the Fish aka Scarlet Baldy: fantastic fic list paired with highly enjoyable reviews and analyses of the fics she's read. @badforthefish

Ramblings of a Mind Untamed: reviews of a dozen or so classic fics

xxSKSxx XF Fanfic Recs: still active in 2024! @xxsksxxx

X-Libris: more of a fic library, this is the best place to download nicely-formatted ebooks of pre-AO3 oldies. What I love most is the incredibly detailed and extensive tagging system.

👽 Individual Rec Lists with good writeup

Character Manifesto - Dana Scully: a character analysis and 10 Scully-centric fic recs, categorized by "best of .." selections. Amazing format and choices!

Character Manifesto - Fox Mulder: same format as above for Spooky

bachlava's awesome fic rec essays, covering classic fics and slash fics

ShipRecced blog's classic MSR fics and newer MSR fics recs

luminary's 16-fic rec post

RivkaT recs fics and writers @rivkat

Anna Otto's favorite stories

Syntax6's rec list on her site, great rec list on Tumblr and FTF rec list @syntax6

👽 90s Old School Rec Sites

The Basement Office - Musea: a treasure trove of extensive fic lists with lovely written blurbs, recced by a group of talented writers from back in the day

The Other Side - Fanfic Recs from Beyond the Grave: a large collection of 'scary' or 'spooky' story recs with nice blurbs. Beautiful web design.

the Rookery - Favorite Authors: nice commentary on a list of classic fic writers

X-Files Fanfiction 101: an intro guide to fic categories and what to read for each

The Primal Screamers: a fun site run by a mailing list that hosts fic recs with blurbs, and a 'Coffee Talk' section full of delightful discussions of canon

Idealists Haven - Elemental Fanfic Archive: an archive with rec blurbs

Chronicle X: a large, well-organized archive with blurbs, plus a 'Can We Talk' discussion section of novel-length fics, plus a total of 46 author interviews. Simply incredible!

👽 Special Mention

The X-Files Lost and Found: a fic finder message board that is miraculously still very active today—How wonderful! Its FAQ page hosts a huge collection of well-categorized themed fic lists (not recs), including "Classics (or, Your Fanfic Education is Not Complete Until You've Read ...)".

Where do you find your next read? What did I miss? Reblog and share your favorites!

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 424: Detroit Tears

Previously on BnHA: You know what, fandom is way too heated about this still so we’re just going to leave that be that for now and not get involved. I have some conflicted feelings about it, but this is not the place or time. This is a happy post.

Today on BnHA: Oh right, Horikoshi still owns the rights to my soul. And I’ve just been reminded of why I willingly signed them over to him so freely.

Quick heads up that this isn’t going to be my usual style of chapter reaction post, in that it’s really just going to be a ton of rambling about That One Scene. Partly because I’m only halfway caught up with stuff, but mostly because tbh, this is the only thing that matters to me right at this moment.

Also this is your friendly neighborhood spoiler warning that I’m posting about a chapter which hasn’t officially been released yet! So proceed at your own discretion. This reaction is based on @pikahlua’s excellent spoiler translation writeup here. I’ve officially lost all of my fucks about spoilers and it’s extremely liberating.

I’m glad that Kacchan’s arm isn’t just magically better and that he’s never going to be 100% again. and also that the doctor mentions him needing to rest his heart as well. because I did feel like there needed to be at least a few lasting consequences from him LITERALLY DYING AND UNDERGOING OPEN-HEART SURGERY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLEFIELD. but I’m also glad they established that it wasn’t career-ending or anything. he’ll probably have some chronic pain and occasionally aggravate his old injuries while fighting, all of which is great for angst purposes. but it was good to see him being calmly accepting of that while also being determined to put the work in to rehab it as much as possible.

also enjoyed the doctor summing up Kacchan’s highly improbable main character resurrection and subsequent antics as basically being some wild bullshit that nobody can explain. lampshaded the shit out of it. “I don’t really understand” lol. nobody understands. in truth it’s that his secondary quirk is bending reality to his will in order to kick ass.

moving on to the main event now! so Kacchan and Izuku’s reunion was obviously the highlight of this chapter and of my life, probably. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like it wasn’t. y’all know how it is.

what really made this scene for me was Kacchan being more upset at Izuku’s loss than Izuku himself. all those callbacks and all that guilt. that careful selection of flashback panels. the fact that Kacchan’s past bullying of the quirkless Izuku wasn’t glossed over or forgotten, and in fact is the emotional core that fuels Kacchan’s reaction here. Horikoshi didn't have to cut that deep, but he knows what he's about.

and then the crying. I need to write a lot of words about this right the fuck now. first off, having Kacchan just flat out sob while Izuku for once is the calm one (at least until All Might goes in for the emotional kill later on), is such a beautiful reversal and really shows how far they’ve come. even better is that none of it was even remotely out of character. I’m always appreciative when an author can produce top tier emotional hurt/comfort like this and have it feel earned and authentic rather than forced. well done.

also, “Na--cchan!!” fuck yeah Izuku. we’ll never let him live this down. (but also, him later trying to reconcile his forever-tough image of Kacchan with the crying, hiccupping version standing in front of him, by blaming it on Kacchan’s weakened physical state... oh, Izuku.)

also the fact that Kacchan so easily reverts to this smol crying boy even after defeating the world’s greatest evil pretty much activated every protective instinct that I have. he’s seventeen. he’s practically a man now. he’s objectively one of the strongest and toughest people in the entire world. and yet his eyes still go so wide and his face is still so young and Horikoshi still draws him so tiny and vulnerable whenever he’s like this. goddamn gets me EVERY single time. let’s be real, it’s been this way ever since the “you looked like you needed saving” scene back in the literal first chapter. just, omg. he’s still just a kid and he’s too small to contain all these feelings SOMEONE HELP HIM.

anyway so NEEDLESS TO SAY, Kacchan full on mourning in between sobs because he wanted to keep being rivals with Izuku cut me to my core. I cried too, goddammit. because in Katsuki’s mind it’s like. he wasted a dozen years of potential friendship by being a giant asshole. and they were only able to start getting things back on track less than a year ago. and that was probably the best year of both of their lives. and that rivalry meant so much to both of them. pursuing their dreams together as equals. and he wanted it to continue!! he missed out on so much, and it was his own damn fault, and now it’s all being taken away again maybe!!

and I think it’s especially devastating to Katsuki because he was trying so hard to make up for how he treated Izuku, and then this comes along and now he’s worried it was all for nothing. he’s scared that Izuku will maybe have to quit being a hero. (we know that won’t happen, obviously, but Katsuki is living this and not just reading it. he’s never met narrator!Deku and doesn’t have the benefit of all that foreshadowing and stuff.) but even more than that, I think he’s scared that it will undo all of their progress toward mending their relationship. not because Katsuki thinks any less of Izuku now, quirk or no quirk; but because of how Izuku might feel about being quirkless again, and because of the memories it might bring flooding back to the surface. I don’t think Katsuki fully believes that Izuku has forgiven him. so that’s a major fear potentially rearing its ugly head once more now.

and of course, he’s also just sad and upset on Izuku’s behalf, because he knows Izuku is sad about it too, even if he’ll never show it and will just downplay it because of his selfless nature. it’s a major loss, and one deserving of tears being shed, even if Izuku won’t shed any of his.

so yeah. it’s a lot. in Katsuki’s mind it’s the potential loss of a partner (if Izuku quits heroics), and a friend (if Izuku does cool toward Katsuki as a result of being quirkless again), and a dream (of them reaching the highest heights together), and his friend’s dream. so it makes perfect sense that all of that would overwhelm him. all of this is stuff that’s broken him down on past occasions as well.

so anyway it’s going be very cathartic when all those fears prove to be unfounded (because they better be unfounded lol). but in the meantime it’s a very moving reminder of how much he really does care and how far the both of them have come.

also Horikoshi really couldn’t resist giving Nobu one last chance to destroy everyone when this scene rolls up in the anime. that’s so reckless of him. there will be no survivors.

All Might telling both of them they’d become the greatest heroes was also the perfect chef’s kiss moment on top of everything else. we already knew it, of course. but it was good to hear him say it. and they needed him to say it. they needed and deserved to hear it.

and I really love that the qualities he specifically praised them for were the same things that each of them had struggled with the most in their respective journeys. he tells Izuku, who had such a difficult time learning how to tell the world “I am here!!”, that he inspires everyone and has become everyone’s hero. and he reminds Katsuki, who struggled with learning how to save people, and has especially struggled with his guilt over what happened to All Might at Kamino, that he saved All Might’s life and is the reason he’s able to still be there with them. both of them just really needed to hear that acknowledgement and encouragement, and it was such a powerful passing of the torch moment. All Might gets so much shit from the fandom, but he really is a phenomenal mentor when he’s in the zone, and I’ll die on that hill.

also a nice touch keeping the focus of those panels on the two boys and their reactions. even though I would have liked to see All Might’s face when he thanked them at the end, it definitely felt deliberate. this is their moment. their soft little tearful smiles afterwards punted my heart off a cliff and then picked it up and held it gently.

lastly, let it be known that I’m still convinced Katsuki has OFA (All Might vestige explanation when??), and it’s not lost on me that that would be a mighty convenient way for Izuku to potentially still go on a-quirkin’ in the end, if that’s how Horikoshi wants to play it. I'm just saying.

also before I forget, just a quick shoutout to Horikoshi for FINALLY showing all three members of the Bakufam in a scene together in which they finally managed to not be completely dysfunctional lol. my deepest darkest BnHA secret is that Mitsuki is secretly super high up on my list of favorite characters. and she was great in this chapter, and I love how she was just “WHAT THE FUCK” aghast at Katsuki using his main character powers to continuously ignore his injuries. and then she and Masaru kind of silently agreeing to step outside the room and let the boys and All Might have their moment. while still secretly listening in. because you know they were. good for them.

lastly for reals, I just want you all to remember that as great as this chapter was, the one thing that it was STILL missing which we have STILL not gotten is a HUG. we demand HUGS. I’m not leaving this manga till I get a bkdk hug goddammit. I will stay here all night if I have to.

[chaifootsteps]

as a girl who grew up with G3 and was ~13-14 when G4 came out, i attribute 90% of bronies’ rarity hate to misogyny and not taking confident femmes seriously.

the only reason they accepted pinkie pie’s femininity is because of her “lol so randomz xD” humor, which was in vogue in the early 2010s. fluttershy got the uwu must protecc treatment because of her, well, shyness. twilight was “the smart one” which in some spaces could defeminize her (thus making her “stronger”), but because she was a bit dorky she’d also get the uwu treatment at times as well. rainbow dash was a fan favorite specifically because she was a tomboy (and i think it’s good she wasn’t “girly!” one of mlp’s strengths was showing off different ways of being a girl, and plenty of girls, even cishet ones, prefer sports and pranks to glitter and fashion. but i think men were more drawn to her because she was “not like other girls”). and applejack…well, we all know she was kind of ignored lol. i dont think anyone hated her, but her personality was just “nice cowgirl” (see Jenny Nicholsons “The Applejack Problem”).

ANYWAY, rarity was conventionally feminine like fluttershy and pinkie, but was confident and poised in a way that men couldn’t quite objectify. she was a businesswoman. she was beautiful and she knew it, but she wasn’t (usually) shallow. i think subconsciously or not, a lot of bronies’ internalized misogyny went for rarity. like remember the sonic rainboom episode? yea, rarity is kind of a brat in that episode! but in the episodes where the more “fetishized feminine” characters or the more “masc coded” ones are jerks? they get let off the hook.

i like all of the mane 6 but rarity has always been my fave. but for a long time i remember everyone (read: grown men) complaining she was toxic and terrible when she was just a. a fictional character in a children’s cartoon and b. punished for being a high femme character who is ALSO self-assured and independent. im always happy to see other rarity stans.

Excellent writeup! I always got the sense that the worst of the bronies knew damn well they wouldn't stand a chance with Rarity if she were real, hence the dislike. All the more reason to love her.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

https://www.tumblr.com/wisteriagoesvroom/765425050649231362/what-happened-between-carlos-and-oscar-in-the-gap

Can you list the clues we have? 🕵️‍♀️

I am not sure I know what all happened but I’m ready to put my RPF brain into it 

i don't have many clues, but here are some thoughts if we wish to put the capital F in rpF:

🇸🇬 singapore

iirc, oscar was the one who roared past carlos in quali and carlos somehow put it in the barrier during q3 in singapore (oscar was the "another car"):

from

so in singapore, oscar qualified p5, and carlos in p10.

oscar ends the race p3 / podium, and carlos in p7

cue 3 week break, then, cut to:

🇺🇸 austin

oscar has a lacklustre sprint quali (he qualified so bad i had to zoom so far out to get the screenshot, rip). carlos starts austin sprint in p5, oscar p16.

oscar ends up fighting his way in this sprint to p10, vs carlos's p2 finish.

oscar drives relatively hard in the austin sprint, incurring a 5 second penalty for pushing gasly off in the process, and manages to hold yuki behind him. i say relatively 'cus he's still pretty clean, but he was scrappy here.

THEN, carlos defended oscar, fully on the record, in the face of the FIA penalty. which he thought was "harsh" on oscar...

much to consider...

from

later. carlos starts p3. oscar is side by side on the starting grid in p5.

carlos finishes p2 there, oscar p5. fairly uneventful race for oscar. not the case for carlos, where iirc ferrari allowed the two red cars to fight.

results from

then...

🇲🇽 mexico city

and BOOM for some reason by mexico city practice they are beefing again. but wait! what's been happening in the background?

my rpf mind says oscar is grumpy because he was denied the additional mclaren upgrades, where the team has prioritised lando. add in: helmut marko dragging oscar's name into the media discourse to mess with zak (who is busy defending lando's position as Prized Top Boy because helmut decided to play mind games with all of them as part of the driver and constructors' championship fight. max haunts the narrative).

from

meanwhile!! carlos is coming to the end of his ferrari run, the end of one of his childhood dreams. (launching his own karting business this year was another one - side note, interesting shift in PR strategy.)

anyway, he didn't win austin like he probably wanted. but, he's kind of doing excellent in mexico. i am not as familiar with ferrari's overall dynamics tbh, but it seems like he and charles were also openly at odds with each other over strategy again at some point in austin (??):

screenshot. + austin writeup from.

so BACK TO MEXICO CITY! where we are now. i think oscar thought carlos was in the way in fp3? which resulted in this lil throwaway snipey comment from oscar:

from

maybe it's a one-sided beef from oscar @ carlos atp. but one thing about carlos is he will NAWT back down when someone bares his teeth at him.

therefore. carcar is like. so fully back y'all.

and as a footnote. or maybe not a footnote actually. it's just. kind of. very funny. when carlos has ended up on pole / p1 in mexico city quali. meanwhile oscar is p17 behind...a sauber.

like. i love that australian twink, but this is kinda hilarious ngl. piastri + americas = no bueno.

make what you will of these. my third eye is OPEN 👁️👄👁️

[cleolinda]

Weekend links, June 1, 2025

My posts

First things first: I LOVE Pride month on Tumblr, but those posts won't be reflected in the Weekend Links until next time. 

Reminder that Silent Hill 2 commentary #5 is up; I managed to record #6 this past week in two days rather than, you know, a MONTH. I'm very tired from... everything this past week, but we are moving at a better pace with the writeup this time, certainly. I know these are long, so I'm going to be cutting more clips along the way if you want to dip in here and there. Here's my eternal struggle getting Maria into the secret garage.

(I accidentally sideblogged on main yesterday and had to delete that post, mostly because I didn't want something so close to the big game spoiler out there for the unsuspecting. It's not a state secret, though. It's a wobbly commentary outtake about why I want you to like James for as long as you can, and I wish that at the time I'd thought to phrase it as "James is experiencing Silent Hill as the best version of himself to pay for the worst version of himself.")

Ian's Wednesday stream (I just got to Brookhaven Hospital and he just left it) is here. I'm in the chat--we talk back and forth a good bit, actually--and I was jealous because this is one of my favorite areas to fight play. 

If you're on Bluesky, I'm trying to spend more time over there, although I refuse to speak of "skeets" (can't y'all at least call them skytes or something?). 

In terms of needing to play any other game ever, I'd bought Dragon Age: Inquisition on deep discount, and I am currently deciding on character name(s). I am advised to play as an elf first for romance options. 

(I was browsing Steam for free to play and <$5 and... they sure have some games there, huh? I didn't even know you could show that.) 

Reblogs of interest

Mozilla is shutting Pocket down, because we cannot have nice things ever. I'm currently trying out Raindrop and Instapaper as replacements. 

"Are you 🫵 pissed off about the Lilo and Stitch monstrosity remake? Do you want to know how you can actually make a difference in supporting the people and ecosystems of Hawaii?"

"The climate crisis is ongoing. And, also, a bird is building a nest in the eaves outside my window. Come spring, there will be new birth. In shaky hands, I hold these two truths together."

Another beautiful post: "the thing is that childhood doesn’t just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21."

This post about Magneto and Elon Musk is basically just an argument in the notes as to whether Cybertrucks even contain metal. 

Beneficent chain posts: "Reblog the Money Tubbs and you’ll find money!"

"please dear god everyone look at this przewalski’s horse" (it is extremely shaped)

"Barn Owl (Tyto alba), fledgling chick hauling ass across a lawn"

150 meter aluminum sea serpent skeleton sculpture in Nantes, France. Artist Huang Yong Ping

The book where Eldritch Horror and Gothic Horror meet

I didn't realize that kpop had LORE, and I am now very very concerned

Yashwant Rao Holkar II and Sanyogita Bai Holkar, Maharaja and Maharani of Indore, fashionable supercouple

Khalen Saunders: "Being an ally is [...] also kind of showing up." Also Khalen Saunders: "these hands rated E for everyone lol [...] If you got a problem with what I'm doing then come beat my ass abt it"

"not junji ito. where did he come from."

Lauren Hough seems like an excellent person

The reviews of Arizona Hard Green Tea are in

try staying up for 3 to 4 hours

"We are all fragile as fuck. Swag city"

Video

The new Garbage album has dropped; I think my initial favorite song may be "Love to Give."

In moments of madness I am tempted to play Elden Ring for Ranni, and then I see whatever THIS is. (If you had specifically played as Melina, I would have been back to tempted.) Also, Elden Ring is so fucking hard that even ELDEN RING thinks it's too fucking hard.

NIMBLE DESTROYS THE WEAVE POLES!!!

@hybridcalisthenics: "This helps us walk up things!"

The benefits of Spoonie Threads hoodies

Two orange kittens, one brain cell

"My neighbor's cat gives me an awkward wave every morning"

The sacred texts

"got vowels coming out the oiseaux": A favorite got better

"Fear is knowing that a werewolf is hunting you"

"none pizza with left beef"

"One legitimately weird thing about Tumblr is that we literally can’t code for shit"

"Ah lads not again"

Personal tag of the week

Apparently fashion history is particularly queue-friendly; it had a lot going on this week. 

[old-people-like-avatar]

Netflix Avatar the Last Airbender S1 - Overall Thoughts [SPOILERS]

I am a longtime fan of Avatar the Last Airbender. I did not watch it in its original 2005 run, but I discovered it in around 2010 after my good friend R.S. recommended it to me. It's been my #1 favorite TV show ever since and I have rewatched it more times than I can count. I was cautiously optimistic about NATLA.

Now, having watched the whole first season of NATLA, and looking at the season as a whole, I think the best word to describe it is uneven. I can't say that I loved it, and I can't say that I hated it. But there were things I really liked about it and things that really did not work for me. Overall, I enjoyed watching it -- if only to dissect what did and did not work about the adaptation -- and would want to watch more.

WHAT WORKED

Everything to do with Zuko and Iroh. I found myself going back through just to rewatch all of the Zuko and Iroh-related scenes. I thought Dallas Liu really nailed Zuko -- from tantrums about his journal being stolen to incredible action sequences to the boyish vulnerability of worrying about the laces on his gauntlets. He took an iconic character and made him his own. NATLA added some incredible scenes and lines to my favorite duo: Lu Ten's funeral (coupled with orchestral version of "Leaves from the Vine"); Zuko's first war council; Iroh choosing to go with Zuko on the boat; the 41st Division; Iroh putting a blanket on Zuko. And I liked that NATLA emphasized that Iroh needed Zuko in the wake of Lu Ten's death as much as Zuko needed Iroh after his mother left.

Daniel Dae Kim's interpretation of Ozai. Ozai in ATLA is kind of one-dimensional. Daniel Dae Kim's Ozai adds a deeper layer to him in that he genuinely seems to think he's doing legitimate parenting -- even going so far as to visit Zuko after burning his face and remarking, glibly, that he'll recover ("but he'll never heal," says Iroh). It adds an even more monstrous angle to his cruelty because Kim's Ozai seems to think he's doing it for his children's own good. This post perfectly encapsulates my feelings about why I thought the agni kai between Ozai and Zuko was an excellent addition to NATLA.

Zuko/Aang. These two bonding over goat hair brushes was the scene I never knew I needed. The way Aang managed to wrest a little smile out of Zuko in that scene before Zuko blew up at him for criticizing the Fire Lord? And the way that tied into the "Compassion is a sign of weakness" scene from the agni kai? Great character work.

WHAT DID NOT WORK

Dialogue. I already observed at length my dissatisfaction with the clunky, exposition-dumping dialogue in my episode-by-episode writeups. It certainly wasn't as bad as the Movie-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but . . . there was no art or subtlety to it, and no trust in the audience. A disappointment.

The GAang did not feel like family. The lack of breathing room in the 8-episode season meant that all of the "filler" episodes that fleshed out the relationships between Aang, Katara, and Sokka were sacrificed. I am not saying NATLA needed to recapture each of the filler episodes. But they needed to build the foundational bonds between the main trio with showing not telling and they really didn't. They separated them for big chunks of 2 episodes. And, really, they just felt like traveling companions. That took all of the emotional heft out of, well, everything related to Aang, Katara, and Sokka. I mean, frankly, the kid actors did a better job establishing the "family" dynamic just by being themselves in their press interviews than the show did with the characters.

Aang did not run away from responsibility. I am not one of those people that's just mad that the show wasn't exactly like the cartoon. No. What I mean is, even putting aside the cartoon, even if you just look at NATLA itself: their own themes were undercut by never showing Aang actually running away from responsibility. Each avatar seemed to be berating Aang for doing something he was never actually shown to be doing.

Katara. I really don't think this one is on the actress. Katara felt like a fundamentally different character from ATLA's Katara. It's not to say an adaption is not allowed to have their own interpretation of a character, but... I just did not understand NATLA Katara. There was no passion, no rage, no overbearing nurturing. She was... I don't know what she was. Traumatized, yes, but nothing grew out of that trauma? Meek, until the plot demanded that she suddenly become a waterbending master without any guidance other than a waterbending scroll? The "younger sister"? More than any of the main characters, I'm not sure what NATLA was trying to say about Katara at all. And, as a result, I'm afraid the word to describe it might be uninteresting. And given that she is the heart and soul of Team Avatar, this one was really tough.

Despite the fact that a lot of NATLA did not work for me, I still enjoyed it because the things that did work for me, well, really worked. So. I'm here for all of the Zuko/Iroh scenes!

[sl-walker]

Boldly Reading: Watsonian vs. Doylist Reads, Death of the Author and Exploitation

I apparently couldn't help myself. I dunno yet whether I'm gonna keep that in the actual review of Issue 3 on Boldly Reading (where I apparently go into the deepest possible dives on this stuff), but I think it's an interesting enough chunk of writing and meta that I wanted to share it anyway.

Especially if any of you Boosteroos out there have any thoughts on it.

(I didn't get into the queer reading of him here, but I also believe that's another factor that does come into play. Whenever I do the inevitable writeup about that, I'll likely include this, or at least summarize it, but you can bet that it was on my mind as I worked on this.

--

One of the reasons why it’s particularly interesting to view Booster (as a character) through both the Watsonian and Doylist lenses is there’s usually something intriguing about both of those and how they sometimes tie together. Or how what happens in-universe can serve as a commentary on what’s going on outside of it.

Most of the people who would end up reading these reviews of mine — which are some pretty deep dives — already know Booster’s backstory. In its earliest form, it was just: Highly promising college football hero gets greedy and decides to bet on his own games only to end up disgraced. As time went on, though, more and more interesting details got added in, most often by Dan himself, which completely change the framing of that story. The basic facts of it remain the same — Booster getting caught up in a gambling scheme and completely wrecking his own future — but the context and reasoning go from being somewhat simplistic (if unique) at the outset to some frankly brilliant character writing.

And all the more brilliant because of what it says about the creative process, in addition what layers it adds to Booster in-universe, too.

I know that very probably it wasn’t planned out in that fashion from the jump because any creative writer will tell you that stories often end up telling themselves, winging off in directions unexpected. Good characters essentially seem to write themselves. That doesn’t make the writing itself any less amazing, mind; this is still fiction, springing forth from the mind of an author, and therefore the author deserves credit for that excellence. But it does make for a fascinating look into the organic nature of character development, as well as what time can often lend to a story as it passes.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a merciless critic when it comes to professional writers. I don’t mean cruel (and generally try not to be) and I always believe in giving credit where I feel it’s due (and try to never forget that my opinion is still only an opinion), but I’ve been in this game myself long enough to not lionize anyone. Part of that is because I firmly believe you shouldn’t ever put people on pedestals; that you should always bear in mind that these people are people, no better nor worse than you. That way, when shit like what went down with Neil Gaiman happens, you’re not devastated.

Believe me, I do have a point I’m coming to with this, so you can keep reading to get to it, or you can skip to the rest of the review.

So back on the train — crazy or not — I sometimes try to take into account the author’s life (Doylist) when analyzing the character’s life (Watsonian) because the push-pull influences are neat as hell. Not always, though, because I believe there’s merit in the concept of Death of the Author; that a story’s meaning cannot simply be attributed to only the author, but also to the reader interpreting it.

Walter (owner of the legitimately comprehensive and fantastic Boosterrific) and I have discussed Dan’s writing some and our own individual interpretations, and I’ve even corresponded once with Dan himself, so my own opinion ultimately is that while Dan’s a perfectly fine writer — meaning that he can tell a competent story³, has some good ideas and you’re not likely to find yourself wincing too often — his spark of actual genius really was in the creation of Booster himself, and moreso, specifically in this volume.

In various interviews, Dan doesn’t exactly trash-talk his early work here, but he does make sure to include the caveat of how inexperienced he was and how much better he got over time. And as a writer, I can see that’s true. There’s a definite difference between early Vol. 1 and later Vol. 1. Dan’s skills improve with practice, just like the rest of us.

But again— there’s also a fundamental difference between skill and genius. His skills improved, but his genius — intentional or un — is on display in Booster himself, and how Booster interacts with the world, most evident here early on.

The evidence for this is in how Dan wrote Booster in Vol. 1 versus, say, when he took over the JLA. Dan does a better job in Vol. 1 by about three country miles. How he handles his own creation in JLA is just fundamentally bad at some points (specifically in making Booster a sexist asshole, which he never had been before); it’s almost as if he looked at how Giffen and DeMatteis wrote Booster (and well!) and then latched onto all the exact wrong things, some of which didn’t even exist prior, and pasted them over-top the lovely framework he put together himself, leaving both his writing and his character the poorer for it.

Dan might have been a more practiced and skilled writer in JLA, but I’d argue that — at least in terms of Booster as a character — he wasn’t actually a better one.

So, the point basically is:

(Doylist) Dan displayed real, shining brilliance in his creation of Booster, both initially and with the building revisions to Booster’s backstory.

(Doylist) The revisions of Booster’s backstory from ‘driven by greed’ to ‘desperately poor kid gets a taste of something better than subsistence survival and wants more’ to ‘desperately poor kid in a dire situation bets his entire future in order to save his mother and family and then gets a taste of having money and wants more’ in particular are absolutely fantastic from a character development standpoint PARTICULARLY because they’re doled out over time and actually build on each other. (Dan wasn’t the one who got to the ‘blackmailed by the mob’ part, that was Mark Waid, but that’s the one thing that brings it all together in ways that make me flail my hands.)

(Doylist) Seriously, I could write you at least 10K words on the brilliance of that psychology for storytelling purposes, and it’s made no less good because it probably wasn’t all that intentional.

(Watsonian) This also comes back to what I brought up last issue about the boy having some serious issues about vulnerability. Because once you get to the part where he got tangled up in all this trying to save his mother, in retrospect you realize that Booster himself must have given the harshest possible explanation for his behavior every time it came up prior to that. He had to have intentionally left out the parts of his story that would gain him at least sympathy from whoever was listening to it, which is polar opposite behavior from what one would expect from a young superhero looking to make it big. Booster doesn’t try to give himself a redemption arc. He basically paints himself as a villain. And that’s— incredibly damned interesting.

(Watsonian) The only reason I can see why he would do this, when it’s actually sabotaging him as a heroic figure, is because he can’t stand the idea of anyone knowing something that intimate (and likely sore) about him — meaning that he got on the path to wrecking his life because he was living in poverty and trying to save his mother — because of course they’d use it against him. This is the same dude who didn’t tell anyone his given name for at least several months in canon. Even more intriguing, it doesn’t seem to occur to Booster to invent a less lousy backstory, which is another fascinating twist of psychology. Booster’s a pretty unreliable narrator, but not for any fundamental dishonesty; whenever he lies — at least about big stuff — it seems to be mostly done in self-defense.

(Doylist AND Watsonian) The conclusion is: When you take all of these various factors in, you realize that Booster’s entire story — both backstory and in Vol. 1 here — is a hell of a tale of exploitation. And thus, the sociology (and psychology) in play.

The reason I’m saying all of that is because there are some things which are established as fact: Booster’s really fricken young here. Even in Vol. 1., Dan himself pointed out that Booster’s also pretty naïve, which certainly fits with his characterization, not only here, but also later in JLI. It dovetails neatly with those scenes I loved last issue, where Dirk is being controlling and Booster’s initial response is to try to appease and disarm the situation, and it’s only when pushed well past what most people on better footing would tolerate that he pushes back himself.

It also falls in line with the eighties in general, which was a mercenary time to be alive, at least here in the States. Reagan had dismantled a fair number of social safety nets, trickle-down bullshit was a thing, AIDS was killing people en masse, press secretaries were joking about gay plagues and everyone seemed to mostly be out for themselves.

While you can’t remove from Booster the fact that he was partially complicit in his own exploitation, you can also acknowledge that said exploitation was not only there, but a real thing: Everyone wants a piece of this kid. Everyone wants to figure out how to market him, how to make money off of him, how to manipulate him, and Booster trying to make money off of himself — which is why I said his evolving backstory is so damn genius — doesn’t actually make that any less reprehensible.

Tying it all together…! Thanks to his backstory, we know he was already primed for it, too. Because, as we find out later, everyone’s betting on him, everyone has a stake in this kid, everyone wants a piece of him. Add in that college football is rife with exploitation even today (I should know, I worked right next to a university football locker room and was heavily involved with every game), and young men are beating their bodies (and brains) to hell and back for an education or a shot at the pros, and suddenly, everything about Booster not only makes infinitely more sense, it also makes your heart ache for him.

So many of his experiences as a young adult are about his value to others as something more than as someone. Even, ostensibly, with the people who are nearest to him and should care about him as a person, with the exception of his family in his era, and Skeets and (partially, not totally, as we’ll get into later) Trixie. It’s little wonder he’s such a hot mess, one who has a deeply dysfunctional relationship with his own self-worth.

It doesn’t excuse his bad decisions, or those moments he acts like an ass and I wanna slap him silly, but it does explain them.

So, when you have people on the ground freaking out because his ‘bot got wrecked, not because it’ll hurt him but because it might either raise or ruin his earning potential, the sheer genius of how it all comes together in both the Doylist and Watsonian senses means Dan deserves a standing ovation, whether he intended to earn one or not.

And now back to your (ir)regularly scheduled review.

--

3. Unlike some people. (Tom King, for the uninitiated.)

[sexhaver]

people on here will reblog a post after reading half of it and never finish it afterwards, even if the second half of the post completely contradicts the first half. which would be bad enough, but then theyll add tags agreeing with the first half! this isn't even a joke! sorry to keep harping on the 4B feminism post but after i reblogged the version with @ruisa-faa 's excellent writeup/takedown/explanation of how it's explicitly transmisogynistic, i STILL had someone reblog it from me with tags along the lines of "#you go girls! #to read later". we are not making it out of [gesticulates vaguely in all directions] this, i fear

[connor6sex]

EPHEMERAL SMP (My writeup)

Hi, my IGN is Lunethh. I joined the server 20 minutes late, and wandered around until i found someone (Lulu175) who said there was a trial chamber near spawn. I decided to accompany them to the trial. On the way we ran into a Catbboymmilo, who had iron and gave us shields. Catboy also gave me a bone, and with it i was able to tame a single nearby Wolf. This wolf was to be named Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And if anything bad happened to him, i swore i would find a way to start a world war.

Before our journey to the trial chamber commenced, Lulu declared we must get a bed, because she would surely die and wanted to set her spawn. This was an excellent call from Lulu, who got the most deaths on the server with 42.

We wandered into a forest where we met DarubyPrincxx, who had gone mining and had iron for shears. They lent us shears so we could make a bed and head off to the Chamber.

And to the Trial Chamber we went. There was a little trouble getting to it due to the immense lag we had mining straight down. It took ten minutes to mine maybe 30 blocks down. But eventually we were in the Trial Chamber, with stone tools and no food.

And none of us were really experienced Trialers, I'd not actually played the latest version of the game at all, and Lulu only ever poked around Trial chambers in creative, but we managed. Managed to get the most deaths on the server.

Eventually we ran into someone else in the trials. Mothyboyo i think. And they had cleared a room and gotten a omen potion. (Or milo found the first omen bottle, not entirely clear, but regardless) The trials got harder. With the omen, but we did, eventually. With a lot of deaths, manage to get some ominous keys and start opening a vault. And on our second ominous vault, Milo dropped a heavy core.

This was the first of many maces we would acquire.

We all got to kill each other with the mace right away, getting the achievements in chat and we declared ourselves Mace Trio. I wanted to leave the trials right away to go start killing people at spawn with the mace, but Lulu and Milo insisted we get more maces. I said that us getting more maces was statistically unlikely.

However Milo said "LETS GO GAMBLING" and that's hard to argue with. So we cleared the next rooms, and eventually got another Mace. At that point i said, we should really go back to spawn now, but the response once more was LETS GO GAMBLING. And that's really hard to argue with.

We ended up leaving the trail chamber with not two, not three, but FIVE maces.

At one point i nearly had a diplomatic incident in chat, when i asked very politely, if i could abolish the monarchy that had been growing in strength while Mace Trio and I were below the ground.

The leader of the Monarchy, the Monarch themself, RGBmothman, promptly declared war on me Specifically. However, when i pointed out that i merely asked to abolish the monarchy, and didn't threaten it at all beyond asking. A ceasefire was declared, and i asked if we were about to kiss. They did not Reply to me about if we were in fact about to kiss. But I digress.

Eventually we did surface, maces in hand and ready to kill. But before i went on a killing spree, we gathered candles in the Trial Chamber that we wanted to bring to the Vigil. It wasn't enough candles to offset the combined deaths we all had in the trials. But it seemed like a nice thing to do.

We spent some time at spawn, and noticed The Emerald Throne, which had been there since i logged on. The throne was made of dirt. Not emerald, so with Trial Chamber loot, Lulu fixed this.

On the way to the Vigil, we witnessed a wafflehouse massacre, and I ended up getting murdered on the steps of the Wafflehouse. I believe it was either Engibot or Kafrisuru, who killed a lot of people. The only thing i recovered from my death was my Mace. Thankfully. I really don't know how that worked out, it had fallen into the river, and i guess they didn't spend too long looting my corpse. But i did have good stuff on me. like 1/2 diamond and 2 god apples.

Anyhow. With one more death, we made our way to the vigil to give them some candles. On our way there, we were stopped by the Monarchy's soldiers. They were looking for someone who stole something or something. idk, i was a little wary of them because they had previously declared war on me.

We didn't end up having any trouble with them, but that would not be our last encounter with the Monarchy (i don't like monarchs out of principle)

Heading back to spawn, we searched for the rumoured Sex House. When i had asked Willow what it was, i was told that it was a house at spawn with all the player beds. And someone just put a sign there. And i wanted to see it for myself.

With a bed of my own, and a hefty shaft in my hand, i found nothing at spawn. But i did see the monarch nearish. I figured a ruler would know of the comings and goings of the world, and asked if they knew of the Sex House.

They did not know where it was, but as we fell into discussion, i said "its not about finding a sex house, but building a sex home" and the monarch and I discovered the true meaning of Sexmas. As well as found out that we were in fact, about to kiss.

But we had to split ways with our insight shared, I had to start construction of a new Sex House. A house for all of us, a house for Sex.

Just off the coast of spawn, right where the stone beach turns to grass sat a small roof held up by fenceposts with a single wall. It wasn't much, but it was the start of the SexHouse that i know and (made) love.

Now that i had two of my primal needs satisfied, (Shelter & Companionship), i needed to sate my thirst for blood. I had a mace, and i had windcharges, i wanted murder almost as much as i wanted sexhouse.

Most of my time left on the server was spent trying to kill people. I think i killed a lot of people. I killed God even. I asked them if they wanted to be killed by my Mace. And they said yes, and switched to survival.

The rest of the time went peacefully and bloodily, at one point there was a dirt mansion massacre, where the dirt baron brought me and lulu to the highest point of the manor, and stood directly below it, with a small crowd of other people who wanted to be killed by the mace. It was a smashing time.

And best of all, nothing bad ever happened to my dog. Nothing bad has ever, or will ever happen to my dog.

[transfemme-shelterdog]

Hi !! Idk if you use Bluesky but I just found an excellent thread on bio-essentialiam in queer spaces weaponized towards transmascs under the guise of "fighting patriarchy."

https://bsky.app/profile/alexpetrovnia.bsky.social/post/3lgj6nbyapc2u

Yeah, that's a good short little writeup. I don't disagree with their points at all.

[dailydemonspotlight]

Mishaguji - Day 169

Race: Vile Arcana: Heirophant Alignment: Dark-Law March 6th, 2025

I can't believe this is how I'm starting one of these fucking uploads, but here goes... sex has been an incredibly important part of human existence in history. Let's all be mature here, people... and trust me, this is coming from someone on the asexual spectrum. Without having sex, babies wouldn't be made (at least for most people, I'm capable of mitosis), and our species would have come to a complete, sterile stop. As such, because intercourse is so important, it's not... uncommon to have deities that represent lust, arousal, and all that horny stuff, let alone deities of intercourse itself, in many mythologies. This was no different, of course, for the Suwa people of Ancient Japan. Also, once again, I have to thank @eirikrjs for his excellent writeup about Mishaguji- it's a fantastic source for information about this strange, phallic entity, and contains a girth of sources that were severely lacking. god dammit i almost made it through the intro without a sex joke

Mishaguji has several names, and many of them are used interchangeably from area to area from what I can tell. Interestingly, it appears to be female according to some sources, and she's described as the deity of Suwa Lake, worshipped by an ancient cult and taking the form of a white snake. The cult also worshipped 'Mother Earth,' rather than attaining heaven, and as they were a cult primarily located at the Suwa shrine, before they were overtaken by other forms of worship and cults of other beings. Several shrines to Mishaguji can be found throughout the Suwa region, such as the Ontō Mishaguji Sōsha, and many shrines were spread out throughout much of Japan as a whole, in fact, called Mishaguji-sha. At least, according to a map from a seemingly defunct mapping website of Japan, there were several Mishaguji shrines spread through a lot of Japan. Unfortunately, as is likely obvious at this point, the online sources for Mishaguji are incredibly scarce, so I can't back up everything with concrete evidence past what I've already linked above.

The cults of Mishaguji celebrated Mishaguji as a god of fertility, safe birth, and as a guardian of children, and the being could basically inhabit any object they gave up to be inhabited by it. I'm admittedly kinda confused here, but it seems that Mishaguji wasn't one single being but rather a collective of spirits that were each deities that inhabited these beings. Yeah, I just linked the homepage to the museum that says this, because again, sources are scarce. The objects that the Mishaguji would typically inhabit were often things like grinding slabs, stone mortars, or... uh... well...

Things like this, except sometimes far smaller. Yeah, I'm sure you get the picture. Mishaguji also have connections to fellow gods, are often conflated with Takeminakata, and were paired with another deity- Sosou- which were their male counterparts- and they were also seemingly at the center of a war with Takeminakata that they ultimately lost, leading to Takeminakata becoming the primary figure of worship, paralleling the real-world takeover of the Suwa cults by the Yamato imperial people. Lastly, they were often involved in a rather disgusting ritual involving young boys that I won't be getting into here because it personally makes me sick to even think about, but if you can stomach it, just read the blog post.

As for the design in SMT, while I've blocked off the dick head like a prick, it works fantastically- Mishaguji, as a goddess of fertility, was often associated with sex and baby-making due to that, and her appearance takes many cues from other sources revolving around her as well- namely, the white snake association, as well as the fact she's literally wrapped around a stone pillar that shares many similarities to the rocky... massage machines that were often used to embody them. This is, of course, only the tip; there's so much more to this being that I'm not reading off here, so I'd recommend you do your research if you can find anything more.

[wordsandrobots]

I just finished Iron Blooded Orphans just a few days ago and I don't know how to feel about it. I know not everything is supposed to be a happy ending and tragedy is abundant in war stories, but characters are the most important thing for me in stories.

Athough I really liked the characters of Iron Blooded Orphans, a lot of the them didn't seem to have character development based on few opinions I hear about Iron Blooded Orphans. Could you summarize the character arcs and character development of Orga, Mika, McGillis, and maybe even Kudelia (I like her in season one but she didn't do a lot in season two) as to me they are main characters of the show. Although some of my favorites were Akhiro, Gaelio, Lafter and Atra.

I haven't read your writeups but some of my mutuals on MyAnimeList reccomend your blog.

Okidokie. I'm going to say three things before answering this, and then I'm going to be quite verbose for a bit, as I tend to be. I hope you'll stick with me, Anon, I promise I'll get to the point eventually.

First, people on a completely different site are recommending my blog? That's extremely flattering and slightly disconcerting, since my fandom experience with this show extends to here and Ao3!

Second, I want to stress that I'm an amateur when it comes to analysis. Past secondary school, I never studied literature/media in a formal setting; my academic training is in philosophy (which taught me how to make an argument) and history (which taught me how to handle sources), and also in physics but that's not relevant. So when I make statements about a piece of media, it doesn't make me an authority; it just means I have things to say. This isn't me trying to be humble, by the way. If I didn't have confidence in my opinions, I wouldn't state them publicly. I simply want to make it clear my essays are based on of years of taking an interest, not formal expertise. Your question touches on how we engage with things, and Tumblr being a rather combative place regarding reading comprehension, I think it's important to say upfront, I mainly muddle along on two decades of experience stringing words together on the page.

Third, while I love Iron-Blooded Orphans to a ridiculous degree, I'll do my best not to tell you what your opinion should be. If what I say makes you approach it from an angle you'd not considered, great! But it might simply be that it's not the show for you and that's equally fine. There are plenty of well-made stories I cannot get along with, despite knowing exactly how they work and seeing that they are constructed with great skill. Such is life!

Right then.

Let's start with a question: what do you mean by 'character development'?

Because I think there's a natural tendency, especially when talking about the protagonists in a story, to treat it as synonymous with character growth, that is, with characters learning and maturing over the course of the events being depicted. This is why we watch heroes struggle, right, so they become better people through the experience? And that is an absolutely valid thing to do in a piece of fiction: it feels good, it's rewarding, and it can make for some excellent triumphant moments. Quite apart from anything else, I think most of us would like to be able to take what we experience and learn from it, to do better next time.

However, this isn't always how it goes. Like, obviously, there are people in the world who commit whole-heartedly to never learning anything, ever, but more importantly, there are stories where the point is not that the characters becoming better and triumph; rather it's the opposite. They get worse. They fail. Their world falls apart. Indeed, character collapse is often a vital part of the same stories that feature character growth; it's what happens to the villains the heroes confront.

And there's a third way of looking at character development, which is as purely an increase in complexity. A character who starts off with simply defined motives and responses may be gradually built up into something far more nuanced, often (but not always) by revealing their past in greater detail. Their actions and personality do not necessarily change as part of this process, but their context does. We, the audience, come to see them in a new light, which helps us understand more thoroughly why they are Like That, even when they haven't meaningfully changed in and of themselves.

Now, I know you said you care primarily about characters, but I do need to talk about something else here. When I recommend Iron-Blooded Orphans to people, the very first thing I say is 'it's a tragedy'. And I don't mean it's going to make them sad -- although, yes, it probably will -- I mean that it has a tragic structure.

You might already be aware it wasn't originally planned to be a two-season show. It was always meant to end badly for Tekkadan, though, and you can see the ghost of the initial plan in Season 1, with the high point being the episodes from Kudelia ending the massacre on the Dort Colonies to the gang landing on Earth, and everything thereafter increasingly going off the rails. Getting a second season allowed the writers to turn this into a fake-out. The first season instead ends on a victory at Edmonton -- and then the next twenty-five episodes ramp the stakes and costs up and up and up until the catastrophe is inescapable. The whole has this beautiful rise/tall trajectory, with the very qualities that created success in Season 1 transforming into the reasons for the Season 2 failure.

You have to keep in mind that the characters serve this structure. They are characters within a tragedy. Therefore, you can't necessarily expect them to show growth and to learn from their mistakes. Tragedies explore negative emotions and their consequences and tend to be driven by characters making the absolutely worse decisions they possibly could in the circumstances, because of who they are and what they (don't) know. Oedipus hasn't a clue Jocasta is his mother when he marries her, Macbeth is too weak to stand up to his wife, Romeo and Juliet are dumb horny teenagers, etc, etc. Part of what makes this work is often characters' refusal to grow or change or adapt as the situation develops. They keep acting in the same fashion that worked for them previously, irrespective of whether it's still a good idea (spoiler: it 100% is not).

That is what makes the story of Iron-Blooded Orphans work. Tekkadan keep throwing themselves into fights because it's the only way they know how to survive. Orga keeps reaching for bigger prizes because he's got it into his head that he has to secure everyone's safety and prosperity as fast as possible (the poor boy does not know how casinos work, no). Mikazuki will not take back his promise to do whatever Orga needs him to, no matter how disabled he becomes as a result (or how many other people would really like it if he didn't die). McGillis cannot countenance the idea he can't change the world on his own (I mean, it's literally unthinkable or his entire self-image goes kaput). Gaelio is just flat out ignorant of the reasons behind McGillis' actions until it's far too late to stop (Gaelio's role, as I've said a few times, is to be Always Wrong (TM)). Etc, etc.

This is a story about a society run on exploitation and the damage that does, not only outright, but also by shaping people's responses such that they cannot see alternatives beyond violence. It's 'Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms: The Anime'. Everyone is screwing up, big time, and the only thing that could have stopped the resulting disaster is if they weren't the people they demonstrably are.

Mikazuki and Orga's character arc is one of a mutual collapse, Mika physically, Orga mentally, as their shared love for one another drives them to greater and greater acts of desperation. They both think the other is incredible and they cannot do anything less as a result. Their relationship sits at the heart of why Tekkadan goes wrong, the motive force behind the fatal end to which everything hurtles.

McGillis' character arc, we discover, happened years before the story started. What he is now is fixed, a man determined to be a singular force for change, unwilling to let finer feelings sway him. He knows the world is sick and corrupt and believes the only way to respond is to be stronger than it is, more powerful, in the fashion of a child imagining themselves a king, setting everything to rights. He fixated on an old story as the escape route from a life of abuse and won't give it up for anybody.

Kudelia, of all the characters in the show, has the most traditional 'growth' arc, shedding her naivete across the course of Season 1 and becoming better fitted to the challenge of building a fairer society. She learns to fight in her own way, to accept the cost of pushing forward, and most importantly, to see the people at the bottom of the existing social structure as equally real and human. She comes to understand exactly what she's fighting for, and grows into a force to be reckoned with as a result.

And then she runs straight into the problem anyone who wants to make a difference faces: she has to decide how best to compromise to get what she's after. That leads her into deals with Teiwaz and Nobliss Gordon, even with factions in Gjallarhorn, which in turn ties her hands. Structurally, she can't be in a position to save Tekkadan, come the final run of episodes. The writers turn that into a commentary on long-term versus short-term gain, whereby Kudelia committing herself to building up the Admoss Company means relying on Tekkadan's violent protection (contra her wish to save them from getting more blood on their hands) and restrictions around what she is able to do right now. That's the point of her conversation with Makanai after the Arbrau/SAU war arc: if she's serious about improving Mars' situation, she can't act recklessly. Which traps her into watching helplessly while Tekkadan do.

There you have it, really. The ways IBO develops its characters extend from its structure and I think you have to take that into account when considering how they act. Their arcs are all towards an immediate failure, with even the snatched, last-minute saves and the more hopeful future being bought at a terrible price. You're meant to like them and then watch them go through an absolute meat-grinder of a time. As I said, that might not be what you want from a story, but it's what this particular one is, fundamentally.

----

I don't know if this was all what you were after, but I do hope it's at least given you some help in sorting out how you feel about Iron-Blooded Orphans. I've written in more detail about all these points elsewhere: here's me talking about Mika and Orga's relationship; here's a long discussion of McGillis through the lens of what little we know about Agnika Kaieru (and also capitalism); and here's me turning getting huffy about people dismissing Kudelia into an exploration of her pragmatism.

If you're up for it, please feel free to browse my full index of essays. You'll find bits on Gaelio, Lafter's death, and the Turbines in general, along with a ton of other stuff. I also recently answered an ask about Atra, Mika and Kudelia's relationship (you are of course entirely correct that Atra is The Best). Sadly I've not done much focused on Akihiro; it's not that I have nothing to say about him, more that I haven't quite find the right angle to do so yet. Well, not outside fanfic.

Oh, yeah, I have also written an unconscionable amount of IBO fanfic, primarily a 20-part post-canon story called Wishing on Space Hardware. It takes a narrative approach to unpacking my many, many feelings about the show and I'm quite proud of it, so if that's your sort of thing, well, please give it a go!

Thank you for your ask, and feel free to drop me another if there's anything you'd like to hear my thoughts on that I haven't already written about (rapid responses not guaranteed).

[chaifootsteps]

one thing that's bugged me for a long time is that Stolas' go-to answer for why he never left Stella earlier is that he wanted Octavia to have a 'normal life', which like, what?

they're in Hell. why is a nuclear family so important in Hell?? Not to mention Stolas has literal servants who can attend to Via's every need, he's hardly going to struggle by himself to raise her. And going by the show's logic that Stolas is a good father (he's not, but let's pretend the show is right that he is), wouldn't it be better with just the two of them? The show is desperate not to show what Via's relationship with Stella is actually like, so it comes off like they never had one at all; she'd be missing her mother in her life but on some level she already was. (not to mention all the fanfics where Blitzo and Stolas become co-parents; she'd have far more love and affection from Blitzo than she could ever want)

Stella went from distant from Stolas while also being a rich, classist jerk -> a full blown abusive monster

why would Stolas want Via anywhere near her? the show wants to have it both ways - Stolas is such a martyr he suffered Stella's abuse for her sake, but that would suggest Stella knows how to behave herself around Via. but the show won't ever show any of that because it would make her less of a 2D Saturday morning cartoon villain. so which is it? is Stolas deluding himself that he was trying to do right by Via while actually not, because he should be trying to protect her by getting her away from Stella? or does Via actually get something out of her relationship with her mother? not to mention that Via circa s1 said they didn't use to fight all the time - is she catatonically unaware of Stella snapping at Stolas or was Stella actually putting in enough effort that her own child didn't know they disliked one another til the cheating happened??

like, kids aren't dumb. Via should have noticed her parents had issues long before now with how the show in s2 is written. they had a 'still not divorced party' in her house and announced it in the newspaper. Stolas would have been doing everyone a favor if they just divorced sooner!

honestly I'd love the twist other users have mentioned where it turns out s2 is all Stolas' perspective and then when we get to see Via's & it explains how she's so willing to throw her relationship with her father away just because he takes antidepressants and is in love with Blitzo - and it turns out it's more than that! because she recognizes his neglect and she actually does have a functional relationship with Stella, it just never existed til now because Stolas wouldn't allow anything onscreen in s2 that contradicts his own narrative of Stella: Monster Since Birth Who Exists to Torment Me

Extremely good point, and excellent writeup. It doesn't make sense, and Vivzie's continually failing to make it make sense. By the time all's said and done, it will probably make less sense than ever.