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spacemagicandlaserswords · 1 year

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The Clone Wars 5.18 ‘The Jedi Who Knew Too Much' Reaction

I always like trying to spot which characters are in the background of big group scenes like this. So far I’ve spotted 3 admirals (Coburn, Yularen and Tarkin), assorted jedi, Master Sinube, Kit Fisto, Bail Organa and I think that’s Mon Mothma as well.

Oh, hi again Barriss. Fancy seeing you here again! Funny that we keep meeting like this after so long.

I think that’s Ki-Adi-Mundi and Plo next to Barriss.

So, Barriss killed one of her childhood mentors? I’m probably going to collate my thoughts on Barriss at the end of this arc, rather than scattering them across various recaps. But so much of her characterisation here doesn’t make sense and doesn’t feel right, at all.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this in the recaps when Barriss first appeared, but why is she British?

There’s a shot of 6 beams of light going up from the floor so I’m presuming that means 6 Jedi died in the temple bombings, which seems like an awfully large amount. What were 6 Jedi doing in a hanger of the temple? 1 or 2, maybe 3 at a stretch, makes sense, but 6? I’m guessing this is a story telling decision to make it more impactful, rather than for any logical in-universe reason.

I really despise Tarkin.

Oh, so now the deaths of clones are convenient for you Tarkin. “Military matter” my arse.

Who are the military police? Is that not the Coruscant Guard? I know the general fandom take is that the Corries are saddled with having to do everything but is that the case in canon?

Ahsoka’s angry attitude is definitely going to come back and bite her in the arse later.

“Remember, revenge is not the Jedi way.” says the future DARTH VADER

“Nothing will ever change.” FORESHADOWING KLAXON

Ok, Tarkin is getting very close to being up there with Krell and Nolan. His fucking contemptuous finger waggle at Ahsoka. Ugh.

“I assure you that he [Palps] rarely does anything without a strategy.” Oh, if only you knew Tarkin. Or maybe he does? Hmmm.

Is Barriss a Jedi Knight here or is she still a Padawan? I haven’t seen Luminara anywhere so I’m guessing she’s a Knight by now.

Barriss seems a lot more conflicted and upset than I thought for someone that’s just bombed the Jedi temple and killed a childhood mentor who clearly meant a lot to her. Maybe she’s regretting what she’s done? Hmmm, not sure.

Saleucami! I hope Cut and Suu and the kids are doing ok.

Lmao that ominous brass section was not subtle. FOREBODING KLAXON

Why do they have the Venator shipping yards next to the prison?

That shot of the prison felt very Imperial Empire. All stark architecture, sharp shadows, black and white lighting, red flags and giant symbols everywhere. It’s interesting how Imperial iconography and visuals are starting to creep into Republic locations and situations. Something something visual metaphor about the end approaching.

Why is the memorial to the clones outside the prison? Or is this not the prison and is some other building? Is this the same clone memorial that Crosshair and Cody have their little chat in front of in The Bad Batch?

Corries! Wow, they do all match and have exactly the same armour paint.

FOX!

That grumpy “Yes?” spoke volumes.

Fox, can you not cross your arms properly? What was that? I’m guessing it was more of a functional animation limitation than Fox not actually being unable to cross his arms. Insert your own fandom theories here about injuries that Palps inflicted on him while torturing him or similar that meant he can't cross his arms. Maybe he's got Force lightning burns across his back and it's painful and pulls when he moves too much.

The scan has Ahsoka standing there with her arms out but then the next shot of her is with her arms crossed? Continuity, hello?

At “Leave your comlink and lightsabers here.” Fox gestures down with his index and middle finger outstretched next to each other and oh boy did my mind go straight to the horny bin.

“Follow me.” Omg Fox did you have to say that in such a low, husky voice? That had a distinct feel of ‘Come with me if you want to live’ about it. If Fox basically whispered that to me it’d be “Sir, yes Sir, immediately Sir, however you want me Sir.”

The reference to the first 4 notes of the Imperial March theme there was pretty damn obvious. I remember reading a really interesting theory that Fox was a prototype for Vader and basically functioned as Palps’ attack dog before he turned Anakin to the Dark Side. I wish I could find it again because it was a fascinating read and might explain the presence of the Imperial March here. The music for the entire scene from when Ahsoka entered the prison was particularly foreboding, which makes sense seeing as it’s a prison. However, I’m not entirely sure who the theme is referencing because I don’t think it’s Ahsoka and Anakin isn’t here. Or perhaps it’s just adding to the general foreboding atmosphere. It’s entirely possible I’m reading too much into this.

Surely there are cameras and microphones recording this information that Letta is telling Ahsoka?

Is Barriss Force choking Letta from outside the prison? If so, then she’s fallen quite a long way to the Dark side because that seems like quite a powerful use of the Force.

That shot from the camera in the cell is definitely going to make it look like Ahsoka is the one choking Letta. And how convenient, the feed from that camera just cut out too.

Lmao Fox didn’t even hesitate. He was ready to fuck shit up.

Oh hey, Fox also duel wields.

Hmmm, I’m not sure how I feel about Fox immediately arresting Ahsoka. I think this is another example of the struggle I have with canon Fox vs fanon Fox. I’m going to have to collate my thoughts on that somewhere as well, probably after the chip conspiracy arc *sobs*. I think I’ve come to the realisation that I’m going to have to treat them as completely separate characters. I adore the version of Fox that the fandom has created. And every time I see the tiny bits of canon Fox that we get, it’s almost like a disappointment compared to the depth and layers of fanon Fox, to the point that canon Fox almost feels out of character. I know he doesn’t have any choice in the matter (none of the clones do) and I’m viewing this from an outside perspective looking in. I guess it’s more of an interesting conundrum to be aware of.

That shot of the prison felt even more evil Imperial Empire than the first one.

Great, fucking Tarkin again. Accompanied by hints of the Imperial March while marching down a stark corridor with harsh, ominous lighting. Definitely leaning on the Imperial Empire visuals this episode.

Called it. The footage from the cell is being used to frame Ahsoka as choking Letta. And the sound didn’t work either. How convenient.

Called it again. Tarkin using Ahsoka’s earlier attitude against her. Attitude doesn’t feel like the right word but it’s far too early in the morning and I can’t think of the right one.

Tarkin makes understandable points if this was some kind of detached, impersonal debate about an imaginary situation. But it’s not. He’s just being a deliberately abusive bastard. Definitely getting up there with Krell and Nolan.

Anakin being very Dark Side there when threatening Fox.

Who is helping Ahsoka escape? Is it Barriss? I don’t think it’s Anakin because he arrives after Ahsoka escapes. Plus clones were killed and injured and while we just saw Anakin threaten them and be all very Dark Side about it, I don’t think he’s fallen far enough to that level of Sithliness yet.

Utterly unnecessary acrobatics but ok.

“If you see the target, shoot to kill.” Oh no, that is some painful foreshadowing right there.

Fucking yes, thank you Rex. Knew we could count on Rex to believe in Ahsoka.

“Then who did?” Fox asking the question we’re all wondering.

Why is Anakin telling Rex to call security when Fox, the Commander of the Coruscant Guard, is right there? Surely he is the security?

How does Anakin telling Rex to tell security to search the entire base translate to an all-points bulletin on Ahsoka?

You can really tell from Rex’s voice how much this is affecting him. How he can’t believe that Ahsoka could do this. It was almost like he didn’t want to issue the order that he had to. I’m really glad that someone apart from Anakin believes Ahsoka, and that it’s Rex. Of course we could rely on our king. He can’t actually do anything to help her though. None of the clones can. They’re slaves. They have to follow orders. But at least we actually get to see that Rex doesn’t believe Ahsoka is capable of this and that he believes her, and believes in her. We’ve seen Rex’s belief and trust in Ahsoka crop up a few times now. The most obvious being his defence of her to Tarkin in the Citadel arc.

Complete switch of tone but Rex, do you ever clean your armour? I know he’s busy fighting a war and all that but I’ve noticed his armour being especially dirty in a number of episodes now. It’s particularly noticeable on his bucket. That’s a lot of gunk and grime across the top of his visor.

Wtf is that giant vehicle and isn’t that just a little bit of overkill for trying to find one Jedi Padawan? I feel like there’s a point about excessive police violence in there somewhere.

So many of the shots of the prison feel very Imperial Empire. They’d barely have to change anything to make the switch from the Republic to the Empire. That’s probably the point too.

Grizzer!

Hound sounded distinctly Aussie there. More funkiness happening with the clones' accents.

Thunder and lightning? That is hilariously on the nose.

Clone troopers shooting like stormtroopers. Fanon Fox would not stand for this lack of accuracy from his Corries. He has standards and he expects them to be met.

Jhc they just used a canon to fire on a child. Fuck me that is far too excessive.

“Set weapons to stun.” The foreshadowing is causing me great, deep pain.

Ahsoka is deflecting stun bolts so I’m guessing the training that happens in episode 5 ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ of Tales of the Jedi has happened already? I wish I could find a resource of where all these episodes happen in the timeline and around which dates they happen as well.

We need to talk about the kama, because I am now utterly befuddled about which clones can get one.

Hound has a kama, but he’s an ARF (Advanced Recon Force) Scout Trooper.

The other ARF trooper in the Coruscant Guard also has a kama.

Fox has a kama and he’s a clone commander and the Commander of the Coruscant Guard but he isn’t listed as having ARC training.

I think I’ve seen other Corrie Guard commanders with kama’s as well.

Rex, Fives and Echo (and eventually Jesse) all have kama's and they are ARCs.

Cody is a clone commander and The Marshal Commander but he doesn’t have a kama and isn’t listed as having ARC training (I cannot believe that The Marshal Commander Cody doesn’t have ARC training but that’s another point for another time).

Ponds had a kama and was a clone commander but isn’t listed as having ARC training.

Bly is a Marshal Commander and has ARC training and has a kama.

Wolffe is a clone commander and has a kama but isn’t listed as having ARC training (I also can’t believe that Wolffe doesn’t have ARC training either but that’s the same point as Cody so for another time).

Keeli was a captain, not a commander, isn’t listed as having ARC training but did have a kama.

So what decides whether a clone can have a kama or not? I thought it was an ARC thing but clearly not seeing as other clones that aren’t ARCs can have one.

They’re mobilising a giant rolling tank thing and gunships to hunt down a child? This is definitely beyond excessive. I know at this point Ahsoka is considered armed and dangerous but she’s also A Child. This just feels completely excessive and cruel. And not that far removed from the Empire, which, again, is probably the point.

And now it’s raining. Because of course it is.

“Do not shoot to kill.” I hate all of this foreshadowing. All of it.

What are these pipelines supposed to be for? I’m guessing not petrol seeing as nothing has exploded yet.

That is a lot of skill from Ahsoka to be able to deflect multiple repeated stun bolts while sprinting flat out.

Did you just really fire on a child with a fucking rocket launcher?!

Oddball, what are you doing? I know you’re just following orders but you don’t have to sound so gleeful about it. Also, why is his helmet yellow? Actually that kind of looks like 212th orange. I thought Oddball was in the 501st? A quick google says he’s in the 212th but none of the search results seem particularly definitive or legit. If he is part of the 212th, what is he doing on Coruscant? We saw Obi-Wan on a holocall at the start of the episode talking about going to the Anoat system so presumably the 212th is there, and not on Coruscant?

Is this the first time we see Ahsoka do the move of cutting a hole in the floor with her lightsaber?

Ah, so the pipes are for water. Or at least I think they are.

Anakin is looking particularly conflicted and upset throughout all of this.

TW: Discussion of abuse below. If you want to skip this, it's the section between the three dashes '---'

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That exchange at the end between Ahsoka and Anakin was very interesting. Anakin is making some fairly reasonable and understandable points, which is intriguing given he’s characterised as the opposite of that most of the time. It’s another insight into how complex of a character he is. I think TCW has done a very good job of showing not only the depth and complexity to Anakin’s character but also how much more there was to his fall to the Dark Side. He is undoubtedly aggressive, possessive, abusive, and dangerous. Yet he’s also being groomed by a monster in a position of power that no one even notices or realises before it’s all too late. He was also a slave and had an abusive and traumatic childhood and seems to falling into the pattern of how abusees can often turn into abusers.

Amongst all of this, you can also see how much he cares for those who mean a lot to him. He and Rex are the only ones that believe Ahsoka, but Anakin is the only one in any meaningful position of power with the ability to do something about it. It’s plainly obvious how much he cares for Ahsoka.

However, that care and belief still veers too far into aggression and possession and he continues to cross the line multiple times with unacceptable actions and behaviour. I wonder if he lets Ahsoka go at the end of the episode because he trusts her or because he doesn’t know what to do?

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Ahsoka was also making wholly valid and understandable points, which I think Anakin knew as well, even as he was trying to convince her to come back. Is this the first time we hear Ahsoka call Anakin by his first name? She usually calls him ‘Master’ or ‘Skyguy’ and her use of his first name here feels particularly personal and loaded with meaning. I’m glad Ahsoka knows that at least Anakin trusts and believes her, even when no one else does.

I wanted to include this gif because look at Rex looking like James Bond in the background being framed by the pipe.

Then this gif and the two above made me realise another thing about Anakin.

TW: Discussion of abuse and domestic violence below. If you want to skip this, it's the section between the three dashes '---'

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As much as Anakin cares about Ahsoka and is trying to help her, his possession and controlling is very evident here. The way he said "I would never let anyone hurt you Ahsoka" felt very much like something a domestic abuser would say after hurting their partner. Or what a possessive and controlling domestic abuser would say to their partner. There's a dangerous and desperate edge to it. You can also see Anakin doesn't agree with what Ahsoka is doing and is angry at her for not doing it his way. He thinks his way is the best way to try and fix this and of course he immediately gets pissed as soon as someone doesn't do what he says and follows what he thinks should be done. Anakin is refusing to let Ahsoka go, even while trying to help her. His possession and controlling is still here, even if it isn't as overt as when he's with Padmé.

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The voice acting throughout TCW has been pretty damn excellent and Ahsoka is no different. Ashley Eckstein did a fantastic job. But it felt like it stepped up another level, particularly in that exchange between Ahsoka and Anakin at the end. There was so much emotion and upset and betrayal in Ahsoka’s voice.

There is the subtlest of hints of the Imperial March after Ahsoka jumps and we get a shot of Anakin, Rex and Fox at the mouth of the tunnel, followed by a shot of Ahsoka falling. It’s very subtle, probably the subtlest I’ve heard throughout the whole series but it’s definitely there. The intervals between the notes of the Imperial March are very distinct. Again, I’m not sure what it’s referencing or emphasising here. Probably Anakin seeing as he does turn into Darth Vader. But like the scene earlier where Ahsoka first enters the prison, it also feels slightly out of place. Usually when the Imperial March turns up, it’s fairly clear that it’s referring to Anakin, like when he killed Merrik in ‘Voyage of Temptation’. It could also be a misdirection to make Ahsoka appear to be falling to the Dark side. Though that doesn’t entirely make sense seeing as we know that she didn’t kill Letta and is being set up. Hmmm.

I know it’s meant to be a big climactic ending to the episode but couldn’t Anakin just follow Ahsoka and jump down onto the ship that she’s standing on that’s floating down the giant tunnel? And couldn’t Fox just comm some Corries to follow the ship and meet it when it lands? He is the Commander of the Coruscant Guard after all.

That episode was intense and A Lot. And there’s still 2 episodes of this arc to go. Oof.

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betterbooksandthings · 2 years

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All The Things I love About Shadow and Bone Season 2

I am here today to give you a Tumblr classic list post about my new favorite thing Shadow and Bone Season 2. You might say “but they deviated from the source material so far” and “it was rushed” and “how are they going to move on from everyone being in the wrong place” and to that, I have a series of answers. Naturally, SPOILERS are below.

First, the season was based on books two and three of the shadow and bone series and Crooked Kingdom as well as some new stuff thrown in to make the Crows and the SOB stuff combine. I think they did a good job of exploring specific character backgrounds and trauma for the Crows (with the assumption that the aspects that were missing will be in Season 3). In my opinion, they fixed the problems I had with SOB primarily by making both Alina and Mal reasonable characters that I want to root for. My guess is they are setting up an Alina and Mal reunite plotline that will coincide with Nikolai and Zoya developing their relationship. The ending sets us up for the main plot of Six of Crows and King of Scars and so I think the pirate ship will return, but not before dropping off Inej in the barrel because she is needed for a job with the Crows. Now, I assume Matthias will die at the end of Season 3 so Nina is set up for the rest of the King of Scars plotline so we will have to prepare for that. With the early death of you know who, these things might just happen. I think the show did a great job setting us up for a new season and I support all the changes so, without further ado, here is what I loved.

1. Jesper and Waylan are perfect. I love their new relationship timeline and the actors have such good chemistry. I think the internet agrees that Waylan is perfectly written and cast and is so good at his job. I don’t mind the absence of a slow burn there and was a big fan of the butterfly scene. Also, the costume department knows how to dress them both and to whoever made the skirt choice thank you sincerely.

2. Matthias in prison did a great job extending the angst of being wrongly convicted that we just did not see in the books. Also, those flashbacks to Nina are golden and I cannot wait for him to be freed and meet the rest of the Crows.

3. Kazzle Dazzle is really giving book Kaz and I love him. I really did not think they would cast a child actor to reenact his backstory because that is a lot to ask for a child to do with a level of believability but they got every detail. What a great casting choice there. Then we have a thorough examination of his trauma and vendetta against Rollins. Those fight scenes were perfect and I loved every side-eye in the show.

4. Inej and Kaz moments were all here. We got a lot of their iconic scenes but not all of them and you bet I am waiting for season 3 to see where they develop things. So many times Kaz gave the “well obviously I’m in love with you” body language that accompanied something unhinged like firing her from the Crows to keep her safe. These actors understood the assignment. I love them and need more please and thank you.

5. Nina is my favorite. I can’t wait for her and Matthias to get together but she is still excellent and she at least got to eat waffles in this season so that’s something.

6. I am hoarding all the Nikolai and Zoya scenes but I do love what they got as individuals. Nikolai is a wonderful example of casting gone right. Perfect as both a second son and a chaotic pirate. Just yes.

7. Alina is so much better in the show. It needs to be acknowledged. Also, great scenes with her and Mal. Small amounts of resentment between them because of her power is unfortunately book accurate, but it was more reasonable in the show if I’m honest. I also think her ending was interesting. I know we see her smiling at the end after the murder happens but honestly I don’t think that is an immediate red flag for her being a villain. She did prevent the deaths of everyone around her and they can do whatever they want with her next season. I think they will resolve it halfway through the next season honestly.

8. Last for now, the addition of the sword heist was excellent. It did a lot to flesh out the rest of the world prior to the Six of Crows plot. I was also a big fan of the drug-based character development. Plus, it gave Waylan a chance to save the day. I like how it gave Nina and Zoya a chance to resolve their disagreements about leaving the army. It also gave us a Inej saves Kaz scene that was really important. It never existed in the books and was a great addition to the show. Big fan.

So I loved basically everything and I for sure missed some but here is my current list. I am really banking on the Tumblr gifsets and Tiktok fan edits to see me through (free idea for someone to do an edit of any of the crows but mostly Matthias to hozier’s eat your young please). Now I am waiting for an announcement where hopefully we are given a Season 3. Nothing is guaranteed these days but I love delusionally manifesting more content for the things I am invested in.

#All The Things I love About Shadow and Bone Season 2 #Shadow and Bone Season 2 #SOB #six of crows #leigh bardugo #Shadow and Bone spoilers #Shadow and Bone #please give me a season 3 #I need it

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butididnottried · 1 year

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Of Billy antis and, apparantely, their, i guess, apprecation for Neil, more or less <3

Am gonna be “whiny” because why not Neil, whyyy never Neeeil, it’s fucking never fucking Neil, FUCK. HIM. All of my homies hate Neil.

So, this post, this fucking post, that was made, like, two days ago? Because of reason this one specific post snapped something in my brain. I don’t even know why, it’s typical anti post, with typical “oh how irremediable monster Billy is” arguments. Nothing new. Ok, the new thing is that op removed this post and apologized. Like, that’s nice and all, but also ??? People usually don’t behave like that, good for you op for handling that properly and nicely.

(I already wrote some of this post and it’s longer than i expected, so, under the cut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Funny thing is, that i started following fandom some time after season 4, because of how steddie flooded everything, and it was really nice, seriously, jut a bunch of fans cooing over their new blorbo. In a few weeks i learned very much about ST and it’s characters only from fandom (not valid very bad way of doing that, misinformation and bad takes and interpretations up to the roof xD), but from perspective of time i can recognize how weirdly selective that knowledge was, because, holy shit, from what i saw while there was no hate towards Billy, his existence was fully ignored. It took me over a month of reading fanfics before i came up to one with Billy in it (evil, very evil, because steddie need to happen somehow), and despite reading many fics with Max in them, i had absolutely no idea who the guy was. Like, the heck? Just some background bully character? With absolutely no connections to this disabled, kinda bitchy poor girl? Or fully abled, happy and with no worries bitchy girl. Depressed in canon? No sir, we don’t know her. Just superior characterization. :/

I don’t remember how i stumble to the Billy side of fandom, but wow, that was fast. While steddie side was - still then - nice nad fluffy and mostly with no real worries, Billy stans had the real, fat meat with thick gravy, and guys, my dudes, the most smartest girlies, you we’re and still are, taking this apart - child and domestic abuse, homophobia, racism, classism, repression, masculinity, objectification, parentification, disability, mental illnesess, ableism, prejudicions, writing of the show, themes, cinematography, all that stuff, just, mmm, delicioso *chefs kiss* And this is also how i learned about Billys antis, i saw how they behave and talk, how hateful they are and how steddies grew just to be most awful, sadly making ST fandom almost as bad as Star Wars fandom, if not at the same level. But. But i’m not active in the fandom, i’m one of these fans that are just stalking, watching, reading, reblogging. No, i never had to handle antis myself. (Like, it’s my third post about ST and in previous two i was just making fun of it xD) And yet i know how many, many of them are full of hate, almost deliberate ignorance and just horrible views. Listen, if somebody is harshly and negatively criticising the supernatural/fantasy side of a show, ok, we can talk and exchange opinions, because these parts of plot are not real, usually have no equivalent in real world, even if they can be metaphors for real problems, most times we don’t need to be so serious about these. But if someone says that abused character that is not, how to put it, not behaving nice about their abuse, deserve only to suffer and die, then big yikes on a red flag, because for 99,9% that’s also their opinion on real people. And like, i never was abused. My dad, while more or less neglectful, was against hitting kids, and in school, while bullied, i never was beaten up or in a real fight (but, yo, my good people, it was because i was radioactive back then so no close contact, why not), and still, i can have empathy, sympathy and fucking compassion for Billy. Just like i had it in elementary school after learning that one of my bullies was beating by his parents. We didn’t become friends or anything like that, but. It’s not that hard, to have some basic understanding.

Sooo, it feels like this is kinda too long already and not very necessary, but i just wanted you to know my, eeeh... where do i stand in fandom, my position towards it? Because it’s different, how i’m just silently hoovering above, and how you all are in this all, dealing with antis even for years, since season 2, and most probably many of you already had conversations about this, but in this almost a year i’m here i didn’t saw mentions of that thing. Maybe it was just talked to death and left behind. Because, honestly, i’m not a smart person, kinda of a dumbass even, and in no way i’m first to notice that. That thing, with antis, that i started this post with. Get back to the ponit, which is...

FUCKING NEIL.

Those two lines in post i mentioned, about “Runaway Max”.

“anyway, the amount of pure hatred i feel for billy hargrove just keeps intensifying with every chapter i read.“

“according to max, him and neil “have a lot of opinions about anyone who isn’t white and Lutheran and a man (128).“

Pure hatred for Billy. But Billy and Neil. Billy AND Neil. Are having these same bigotes views. With emphasis on “these same bigotes views”, because of course, yeah, sure, why not. But there’s no hatred for Neil. Only Billy. Neil is almost non-existent. He’s noticed only when it need to be made very crystal clear that abuse that Billy is going through is absolutely not an excuse for his actions, nuh uh, no sir, there’s a checkmark on this and that’s all, no need to say more abou that one particular man. He is schrodinger abuser - has everything to do with Billys behaviour and absolutely nothing at all. Seriously, Neil is talked about only on Billys side of fandom.

It’s fucking never “during season 2 Billy was just the worst, so violent and agressive, he was a bigot, a sexist, so SOOO so racist, a murderer and rapist and facist and nazi and he was speeding and smoking, drinking alcohol, having sex and throwing slurs left and right all the time, and he was abusing Max literally all the time and was controlling her every move just because he was an asshole and a bitch and dick and, oh the HORRORS, he was pursuing married, middle-aged woman that just simply could not say ‘no’ and cut that teenange bullshit behavior, becuase she’s a delicate and weak woman with no free wil and he’s an toxic man so she needs to do whatever he wants, i’m gonna faint any moment because of how vile and irremediable villain he is. Oh what’s that. His father is the same? Neil is using slurs? Violent towrads his own son? He’s the one making Billy hoovering over Max like a hawk? Is Neil treating Max like that? Is Max safe in her own home? What abou Susan? Oh, oh, Jail for Neil! Jail for Neil for one thousand years! And Billy too, because i hate them BOTH. They’re togehter just the worst. And in season 4, when Max admits that she’s happy that Billy died, and it’s truth and only truth and nothing more and less that just the truthies truth, and she says in her letter that Neil left? Oh, how relieveing that this monster is gone. Maybe Max and her mom are poorer right now and are living in a trailer, but at least they’re finally free of abuse, violence and bigotry.

Ah, no, sorry, it’s actually only about Billy. They just do not hate Neil. Why? Like, i know why, but WHY? I did not read “Runaway Max”, but i know that there’s a few pages long (good fucking god) of very depictive descrpition of how Neil beat the shit out of Billy. Seriously. Not only to the blood, but enough tto Billy having problems with event standing up from the floor. But his grown man hurting and teenanger is not that bad really, only kinda bad, not as much as his victim, we don’t need to focus on mr. Hargrove too much because his role in Max life is apparently not big enough to be in any way important. But i know that from Billy side of fandom, while antis are without any break relieving over and over how Billy cast dead cat on fire (not gonna lie, i personally also would not like that). But also it looks like this book is written in a way that makes Max an very reliabe narrator, that always says the most unbiased and objective truth. Well, at least antis are believing her every word. And yea, books shouldn’t at every step reminding reader that, hey, do not believe that person every word, they’re fucking kid and know almost nothing of world, but - and, eh, i don’t want it to sound like i’m throwing accusation at this book author, i don’t know this person and this is just how it looks from the outside, from opinions and quotes that i saw on both sides. But, it unfortunately looks like this author is more or less Billy anti themself, like they’re sharing and endorsing these same views at abuse. Maybe they don’t care, maybe before writing this book they watched the show once and had very shallow outcomes from it, maybe they weren’t digging deeper into that and wanted just get some fat check for writing a book for a popular franchise. Honestly, valid. But why then be so cruel and careless towards depictions of abuse? Just for shock value? Like Duffers? I guess :/

Anyway, antis. So fucking adamant of how they hate abuse, how it’s bad, how they are so good and right and caring, but the real abuser it out of their picture. It almost looks like they have nothing against him. Oh, Neil is calling Billy slurs, slapping him and humiliating? He can have that, be a violent homophobe as a treat, because i also hate Billy, so Neil is my kind of guy. But also Billy deserve to be called slurs and beaten up, so. Are they the same type of person? Antis and Neil? That’s why they don’t talk about him? Because they’re aware thay they would sound very similar to him? (i coneccted the dots lol) Neil with no doubt is a bigot. And many Billy antis are racist and ableist towards his fans. Victimblaming Billy for what’s happening to him. I’m sooo veRY PREtty sure that Neil do not want to do these things to Billy, but this boy just don’t know how to behave properly, like a real man, with respect and all that other bullshit, yadda yadda.

Maybe instead of stranger-rants bingo cars about bullshit that anits are repeating about Billy we should have this one shrek meme with Lord Farquaad pointing finger and text “child and domestic abuse apologizer”. Because there’s no middle ground on this topic. If in this situation you’re againts Billy, then you’re on Neils side. You’re against any kind of abuse, or you’re just an asshole that is using poor excuses to doom ceartain people to suffering because you don’t like them or they don’t met your very specific and weird (and more or less unethical) morals. God fucking not bless holy shit kurwa mać ja pierdolę. :/

Or, maybe, you we’re a victim yourself and that’s why you hate Billy. But, listen, if you wen’t through hell because someone was hurting you, why you think that there are people that deserve the same? When you know how horrible and scary that is? Did you deserved that? No. Then why someone else should be abused? Because they’re reacting bad to what’s happening to them? They can’t copy in a healthy way? Hey, hey. You know what, sounds like you also can’t copy healty, if you’re harassing strangers, calling them names and use your own abuse as an excuse for how you behave, while be very, agressively firm about how Billys abuse is not an excuse to be a shitty person. Get off internet, get off fandom, really curate your safe space and get away from antis, apply some self care.

#billy hargrove #neil hargrove #runaway max #stranger things #billys antis #child abuse #fandom wank #it took me fours to write that #what the fuck #i should be sleeping #asdfghjkl #gotta take doggo on a walk instead

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macgyvertape · 2 years

Text

IWTV season 1 liveblog & thoughts (spoilers)

Watching the series before I’ve seen the movie, haven’t read the books at all

Ep1

Wow this is really modernized (this year), very interesting intro with reporter Daniel Molloy and it’s set after the film I guess

This is a really cool penthouse, but yeah online anonymity would be expensive

Really curious how much of the car and sets were cgi vs practical

Absolutely need subtitles I can barely hear the dialogue over background noise

The time stop scene was really cool, and you can hear Louis get more animated

I need a fashion breakdown between Lestat’s intro style and his updated fashion

this show fucks because it’s Anne rice, and it’s somehow the most tasteful I’ve seen seen any show do it (looking at you GoT

bite time! why are they floating

i only know Lestat from fandom osmosis and I keep waiting for something to go wrong during the wedding. I feel like he has something to do with Paul’s death

Oh yeah Lestat is torturing Louis with telepathy and killed Lilly here’s the Lestat I’ve heard of

Oh shit this show is great with cgi to show difference in relative speeds. I flinched at the head punch out, there’s the AMC gore I dislike

Ep2

How does the domestic staff arrangement work, it’s a lot of them and they all know about the vampire thing. No idea what the farm is but I bet it’s horrifying

Lestat really got Louis in really deep really quick

Somehow the death of the salesman isn’t as sad as the poor fox screaming

Killing the alderman, this going to go very poorly

The coffin scene just comes off as couples humor through the absurdity

“did you eat the baby” really enjoy how that question was repeated as a hardball

Also wow they’re leaning hard into Covid and other geopolitical unrest for vampire conspiracy

I’m having a hard time picturing how the original story went without one of the main characters being Black. Like racism affects the plot multiple times, and often highlights the power difference between Louis and Lestat.

Louis keeps describing so many red flags about Lestat, lots to unpack about his own “afraid to disappoint” line because he doesn’t have the same sadism disposition as Lestat

Ep 3

Louis’ reflection of the past changing in the retelling, is it more nuanced or more rehearsed. “The odyssey of recollection” loving that this is both an interplay of the previous movie and how memory of fallible and surely that is worse the longer you live as an immortal

Love the suit fashion in this show, wish I had a good fitting suit. Also love the art Nouveau

The domestic issues are so obvious, like Lestat is not happy about being poly despite proposing it. Like I’ve seen this cliche play out irl, including the other people have more success at dating than the person who proposed it

I don't fully get why Lestat keeps investing his energy into a relationship that is clearly starting to fall apart unless he doesn’t do breakups

Did it rain??? How much of my dislike of Lestat is filtered through Louis’ unreliability as a narrator vs not having a good understanding on what motivates him beyond control issues

What’s the deal with Rashid

Holy shit his family relations literally fell apart so quick

“Is your very nature that of the devil”, and it calls back to beginning of the episode where Louis wonders if they are meant for something greater.

What did Louis expect from the public killing and display other then the resulting white mob violence. It’s a decision made out of anger, but incredibly short sighted. Lestat is just so turned on by the gore and chaos

Ep 4

From fandom osmosis I didn’t expect Louis to be the one to advocate turning Claudia, then Lestat goes along with to keep Lous with him.

Wow Lestat is pissed at being left out in the next scene. There’s absolutely gonna be family secrets

Really interesting how the framing is Daniel looking at Claudia’s journals, and so its her voice overs and Lestat and Louis points of view are so shifted. The actress did a great job

I paused on Daniel’s notes, Rashid is sus

I think they were watching Nosferatu, I recognized the scene

Had to double check apparently she’s 14 physically but mentally 18, since I knew she was a child in the movie. Being forever a teen would be hell especially if its before puberty

I wasn’t sure if she meant to kill Charlie until she begged for Lestat to bring him back. Then she copes by self harm

I notice the costuming changing, the show is so detailed

Ep 5

Louis just feeding on Rashid, like they’re making out while Daniel goes through the journals

Louis doing this interview as a form of suicide, is like the one hint we get at global vampire politics

Claudia’s killing rapidly got crazy with a lot of bodies and a lot of trophies. The danger from the cops is real and they disappeared in the middle of a bar which didn’t help

The relationship is rapidly falling apart (it wasn't great before) where Lestat loses interest in parenting as soon as it isn’t fun. Wonder when Lestat started cheating; when Claudia started catching police attention or if he was cheating the whole time

Claudia’s line of “where is my Lestat” a lot to process in that rant but being alone with no companionship at all would destroy someone's mental health

Daniel's lack of sympathy for Claudia with all the murders and his framing of "once you put it out there it's open to interpretation" I'd love to see more meta on that

Why don't they just break up?! Sure they have their own reasons for not leaving the city but they could live apart

Oh shit a new vampire, Bruce. Waiting for the shoe to drop. Oh shit it dropped real quick

After I finish the series I want to check reviews, because I think when Claudia was an actual child this plot went very differently. I do have reservations about why sexual assault was added if didn't happen in the source.

Louis aggravating Daniel's Parkinson's feels like a bigger asshole move than Daniel pushing these questions

The framing on Claudia as Lestat beats her then him, it's so explicitly framed as domestic violence than a vampire fight

Lol also I forgot they can fly

Title credit music "home is where you're happy" is a good wham music to contrast with what you just saw

I've seen comments that this show is an example of the showrunners not liking the source material, I bet this episode is divisive.

I finish this episode still "eh" on Lestat, I don't like him I don't hate him, I just don't get his motivation other than control issues

Ep 6:

I think the interplay between Louis and Daniel is interesting, Daniel pushes that the doctor who attends the leaders of Dubai is in the apartment and Louis pushes about Daniel dreaming of their first meeting with all the implications that had last time it was brought up

So Louis didnt remember Lestat flying when they fucked?! Yeah someone you’ve lived with for decades suddenly flying and dropping you from such a height gains a new level of horror

I’m really enjoying the 40s or 50s? Fashion.(lmao it was 30s fashion but I don’t know enough to differentiate)

Claudia and Louis seem to be getting along so well

Lestat is really trying to buy his way back in, theres like 10 seconds where I thought maybe he did some self reflection and changing but keeping it up for multiple attempts is a bad sign

Really impressed with the visual framing where Daniel is the only one sitting in sunlight

“I hate you” “as you should” then vampire teeth and he takes Lestat back. Ok this is interesting toxic codependency where Louis had an opportunity to walk away but didn’t take it, and Lestat had an opportunity to move on with Antoinette and didn’t take it.

Louis asking Lestat if he had anything to do with Paul’s death since he always wondered. No wonder their relationship was a mess all these years, i was on the fence on believing Lestat when he said no right up until Antoinette was revealed to be alive

Damn Lestat’s story with the lookalike corpses and his maker killing himself explains so much

Claudia seems to have reached a place of acceptance with her issues, her sense of dress has really changed and you can see how she matured

Holy shit like you think for a moment she got away then the horror of her sobbing as Lestat psychologically tortures her and I think it’s one of the most chilling Lestat scenes in the whole show.

The dreaming then its back to their first meeting. Also lots to unpack about Daniel turning down vampirism. Maybe he would hate to be stuck as he is for eternity.

THATS RASHID HES A VAMPIRE I KNEW IT (good reveal). Him and Louis are definitely together

Ep7:

Sound editing is off, where you can barely hear the dialogue over the music

Surprised it took this long for them and the house to be under a lot of scrutiny especially how they were not subtle

Rashid is in the sun?? I assume its a special vampire power, but Louis totally notices Daniel noticing Rashid

The jaw getting ripped off was a bit too much AMC style gore

Why didn’t Lestat turn Antoinette earlier and just leave Louis other than he can’t handle not possessing Louis. I wasn’t expecting her to have been turned so long ago

Damn that’s an emotionally powerful throat cutting scene

Leaving Lestat as garbage but couldn’t burn him, so I guess that’s how he comes back in Queen of the Damned. Lol Daniel explicitly calls this out

Oh shit the bouncer passing out but Rashid not, that was a big clue I missed but Daniel caught

“Was it raining Louis” great callback to Louis’ editorializing or omissions and what the fuck happened with Claudia where is she now

Rashid literally takes the gloves off when he floats and starts with the threats. Makes sense now why the bookshelves are high enough to be unreachable without a ladder. Love how many good costuming/set details there are that I just missed

“Armand the love of my life” uhhhh lots to unpack about Louis lovelife. How much of this relationship is unhealthy like the relationship with Lestat

Also dammit I don’t think Daniel gets out of this alive. Rashid pivoted so hard to very threating so quick. Like Daniel’s whole interview methodology is push at people to make them uncomfortable and that’s dangerous even without vampires.

Glad tvtropes is filling me in that Armand is a big deal. Ok so does Lestat fight Armand over Louis or does he accept Louis left and move on

TLDR: it’s interesting how much of the relationship storyline would hold up if you removed vampirism, especially since the racial issues would become even more of a focus. I think a lot of my thoughts of “why don’t they break up” come from most of the time both Louis and Lestat are turning away and not towards when the other makes an emotional bid. I’ve read and enjoyed other relationships that are super toxic and codependent like RvB Locus/Felix and enjoyed them. This one just feels like outside forces are keeping them together more than the push and pull of their personal feelings.

#Liveblog #mac watches tv #iwtv #iwtv spoilers #the vampire chronicles

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hylaversicolor · 2 years

Text

beauty and the beast ramble

because of the timeline and the intricacies of the plot and also the very specific way the characters are written, belle and beast are perfect for one another. belle is the ideal person for the beast’s character development to stem from, beast is the perfect companion for belle, the way the whole romance unfolds is so well plotted and smart it completely avoids every red flag that COULD have been there (side eye @ enchanted christmas)

it’s established at the point in the story where belle exchanges her life for her father’s that she’s kind of at the end of her rope in the village. she’s isolated, friendless, has nobody to talk to, gaston is breathing down her neck trying to propose, she just feels stuck. i don’t think her decision to take her father’s place is framed as explicitly Good And Righteous either (in fact maybe it’s a little selfish? which i like btw. she’s at her wit’s end and she just wants SOMETHING different, some kind of adventure to break up the monotony) but we at least understand why she did it.

and in this scene the beast (who sounds like a kid who’s just making shit up as he goes) is like yyyou have to promise to stay here FOREVER but uhh don’t go in the west wing, it’s FORBIDDEN. belle doesn’t actually explicitly agree to follow this term in their agreement but it IS put out there and beast is rightfully angry when she intrudes for complicated reasons that we’ll get into in a minute

anyway belle is so distraught when she first agrees to the bargain not because of the agreement itself but because the beast doesn’t let her say goodbye to her father. and this comes back later and shows how much the beast has grown as a person but we’ll get there in a bit!!! later that same day belle is all cried out and is basically like, eh, whatever, guess i’ll fuck around and find out for a while.

so she fucks around and finds out, shit gets a LITTLE too real, and she immediately is like yeah fuck this shit i’m gone. keep in mind this is on night ONE. i think the idea of escaping was always kind of in the back of her mind, that she would just explore as much as possible and…hope that a chance would arise that would allow her to escape if things got too intense, which they did, but right up to when the beast showed up in the west wing and yelled at her to GET OUT!!!!!! she was LIVING HER ABSOLUTE DREAM, she was uncovering mysteries and exploring forbidden chambers and coming to terms with the existence of sentient candelabras, like this was her THING!! this was her adventure in the great wide somewhere! just look at what she says to cogsworth and lumiere at dinner on that first night, she’s talking a mile a minute, she’s like “this is my first time being in an enchanted castle and i —“ she was really just there to find out as much as possible and then bail the moment she felt unsafe.

so back to the beast for a bit. the beast didn’t want her in the west wing because he knew there was a chance she could break the spell. this was probably the closest he’d come to another non enchanted human all this time since the curse began, and if belle saw the west wing and saw the ugliest parts of himself, he feared that she would never see him as anything but a beast (he outright says this) which is why he’s so angry when she goes in there.

but in lashing out he scares her off anyway and he realizes this, which is why he has that moment right after she leaves where he puts his head in his hand and is like what have i done. unlike his earlier outburst, where he yells and she’s like yeah fuck off actually, when he shouts at her and she runs he IMMEDIATELY realizes he’s gone too far. i think it’s implied he knows about the wolves (the barely visible animal skeletons in the background of his room imply he was hunting out there and was just. eating wild animals lol) so when he shows up to save her this is not a “i need my property back” thing it’s “she’s already seen the darkest parts of me, it’s hopeless, she won’t break the curse but the least i can do is save her life, if i die then whatever lol” (i believe in the directors commentary they imply he was suicidal during the wolves battle. what the fuck.)

but then belle chooses to uphold her end of the deal! that’s the thing about belle, she does not at any point stoop to his level, but she IS fair and she acknowledges the beast’s attempts to better himself. and at this point she wants to repay him for saving her life because she knows it’s the right thing to do (plus i think her latent curiosity kicked in again once she was no longer in danger). so she brings him back to the castle and patches him up but she also DOES NOT put up with any of his shit, which you can see in the dialogue and in the framing of the two characters on screen, they have this really neat push and pull animation as they argue and the scene ends with them gaining mutual respect and understanding and suddenly the whole dynamic has shifted and it is GLORIOUS.

btw at this point i think she had already lowkey put two and two together, that the beast was under a curse and wasn’t really a beast, and again she was just kind of ready to fuck around and find out. importantly she did not know the terms of the curse (cough 2017 remake!!) so other than that lingering regret about her father, she was, i think, perfectly happy to hang out at the castle for a while and get to know the mystery of the place a bit better. the whole time i just know she was thinking “this’ll be the best story ever when i get back” but she also was in no hurry to leave, because again, boring ass town, unwanted suitors, etc.

meanwhile at this point the beast is falling HARD. like oh my god, adam is down bad. he was so shocked at her basic human decency after the whole wolves thing that he was inspired to do something selfless for her and he goes out of his way to be like “what does she like??? what can i do???” and settles on showing her the library not because he’s expecting anything in return but because he genuinely wants to do something for her!! and look at his face. he is SO excited to see her happy. and i also love that moment in something there when he’s like “hmmmm i think i am experiencing the emotion called affection. oooooh. fuck. turn it off”

and the library thing just starts this whole chain reaction of them interacting and getting to know one another better and having chemistry and like. you know in the mob song where belle is like “no he’s really kind and gentle!!” she is SO right. he’s so gentle. i like to think that belle’s “true that he’s no prince charming” line in something there is her being like “now i’m PRETTY sure this guy is the prince from that ripped up painting that i didn’t get a good look at during my first night here, and if he is, well he kinda sucks as a prince but he is kind of adorable in a somewhat pathetic way. plus he likes when i read to him so that’s a huge bonus.”

importantly though belle doesn’t pity him or look down on him at all. she’s tactful when he’s unable to use a spoon and seems to subtly be like “i see you, let’s do this other thing rather than struggle through using the utensil that’s giving you trouble, and we’ll throw in a toast as well to show that we’re on the same level. it’s ok. this doesn’t make you lesser” and you just know he’s over there thinking “oh thank god”

but also importantly i don’t think belle even begins to think about harboring romantic feelings for the beast until after he releases her from her contract (even during mob song she refers to him as her friend!). and i think the beast also did not dare think about confronting his own feelings until he lets belle go, like he literally says he lets her go because he loves her. it’s the ultimate selfless act, he’d rather remain cursed and let his beloved be free than keep her there with him against her will. and it’s a hard decision for him! you see him look at the rose, turn away from her, you see the pain in his eyes before he’s like “you must go to your father, i release you.” it’s this beautiful dark irony that the moment he comes to terms with his feelings is also the moment that he also becomes convinced he will never see her again.

i think belle’s vague romantic ideas had been kind of floating in the back of her mind for however long she stayed at the palace, but she locked them away alongside the whole “hmmm beast miiiiiight be that guy from the portrait lol, also something funky is going on with that rose” theory. when beast’s life was in danger it really hit her, maybe even from seeing the contrast between beast and gaston. (also i love that she initially stays at the castle to save her father’s life, and then leaves the castle for the same reason)

but oh my god can we talk about beast. from his perspective he lets belle go back to her father and mere hours later an angry mob led by a handsome douchebag shows up at his door to kill him, and the handsome guy (who he probably assumes is belle’s boyfriend from back home) mockingly says “were you in love with her?? did you honestly think she’d want you when she could have me???” and he doesn’t even try to fight back, he’s just lying there ready to die, until belle shows up too late to warn him but even when she does show up he’s more shocked than anything else, he doesn’t even CONSIDER that his feelings might be reciprocated, even when he’s lying there dying he’s still just so surprised that belle came back. and THEN he’s like, “maybe it’s better this way. at least i got to see you one last time” like he’s happy to just die in belle’s arms.

and then the transformation happens, beast gets the biggest shock of his life, it hits him that belle actually, miracle of miracles, loves him in return. belle realizes the same thing, that she’s broken the curse by loving him. they kiss. sparks literally fly. absolute masterclass storytelling, i am on the floor.

#txt #batb #meta #wrote this a while ago and just unearthed it in my notes hi

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pookamhura · 18 days

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World of Warcraft as a Grunt Simulator.

Even when the new expansion's bugs completely break the “game” in the level 20s bracket where F2Ps like the Pook have to live, it just becomes so much more immersive when you’re just a grunt in the Alliance Militia for Low Level Immortals.

Let me tell you about the glory which is the Potion of Power Bomb. It’s a wonderful weapon of mass destruction that has changed what it means to be a Baby Twink in a bracket where Daddy Twinks are like the heroes of epic mythology. Some Daddy Twinks smite with might and some of them would have more productive epic ballads if maybe they didn’t let their blood lust distract them from the mission objectives because their gear is playing the game for them… …but the Pook digresses. In the Pook’s bracket the Potion of Power Bomb has become a legend in its own right.

It is an item crafted from a recipe for some profession in the current expansion. The Pook doesn’t know if alchemists are responsible for this war crime of awe inducing levels or if a gnomish engineer pondered what would it be like if players could summon a troupe of Hozen and those Hozen would start ooking their dook at you and that dook was covered in the germs of every disease the thought of which keeps you awake at night when you suddenly become self aware of some sort of ache or pain in your flesh cursed body and you think you got that horrific disease you heard about once upon a time.

THAT would be the effect of the Potion of Power Bomb in the Pook’s bracket. It one shots Daddy Twinks, Baby Twinks and noobs alike. None are safe from this weapon.

There was a time when some Daddy Twinks would play with honour and only go after other Daddy Twinks and do what they must to protect the Baby Twinks on their side. The Potion of Power Bomb has ended those days. In its current busted form it’s just too tempting a weapon not to use. One side (guess which) decided to unleash this WMD that someone is going to Revendreth for inventing. Once unleashed upon the battleground it didn’t matter that there were Daddy Twinks who wished to play with the kind of honour that made the Baby Twinks call them senpai. No, the only way a force like the Potion of Power Bomb can be countered is with an equal or superior force.

So what is the Pook’s bracket like now? What is life like for a level 20 F2P in the Alliance Militia for Low Level Immortals?

Imagine you’re a background character stuck in a story filled with legendary heroes and Captain Kirk and Hercules turn into Hozen and start ooking the deadly diseased infested dook at you and you’re wearing a red shirt.

All pretense of civility in the face of adversity has just been ooked in the dook. Baby Twinks just have to dance between the rain drops while the Daddy Twinks are in an arms race to see who can get the most Potion of Power Bombs. I’m sure there’s a run on these in the auction houses right now because the Daddy Twinks are gearing for war.

You would normally think that a PvP experience that horrifically chaotic would be extremely unenjoyable but honestly, it is just so damned weird I gotta see where this nonsense is going. Once both sides committed to it, the magnitude of the awfulness of this bracket felt like unlocking a new more difficult level in this Grunt Simulator.

Yeah sure the Pook gets to keep all the abilities she had before this expansion dropped and I got a few new ones but now I have to use them in a world where warfare amongst the immortals is resulting the everyone having to duck the ooks of dooks being flung by beings who already had godlike destructive powers.

But it’s not all being ooked in the dook by legendary warriors. It’s also chilling in Goldshire with the other PvPers waiting for Mathias to send us into a battleground where the Pook now has to avoid instant death to steal flags, fondle orbs, ninja carts, mine war candy or whatever else it is the Alliance needs its militia of low level immortals to do (why the Alliance needs these things is above the Pook’s pay grade).

Baby Twinks can’t form groups to make premades. A Daddy Twink has to invite a Baby Twink to a group. When the Pook gets invited to join a group of Baby Twinks and Daddy Twinks there’s no guarantee that the Pook is coming back to the same realm I originally came from when the battle ground is over. No I could go to one of the Daddy Twink’s realms or one of the other Baby Twink’s realms. Let me tell you what Goldshire is like in other realities.

The Goldshire in the Pook’s reality is probably the results of a gnome saying “what if I could make a dimension where everyday was Mardi Gras in Vegas” and he did it. In these other dimensions Goldshire has the atmosphere of a Tourist Town off season and the locals are just trying to recover from all those tourists and the way they didn’t get the local customs and treated us like townies but we like their money and I got a cousin who can set me up with an off season job fixing up the camp so it’ll be ready the next time all those tourists come back here and make our lives heck.

Yeah that’s the vibe of Goldshire in every other reality the Pook has been to. Just PvPers hanging out waiting for their queues to pop and talking about whatever magic suffering the Blizzard Wizard is cursing us poor grunts with. While I’m there I get to tell them about what life is like in the reality the Pook comes from and they tell me what reality is like where they’re from. It’s an interesting trans-dimensional cultural exchange.

It’s nice little something to take your mind off the fact that you’ve just queued up to go into a battle ground where a pantheon of Daddy Twinks are going to ook the dook at anything that moves. War is heck.

#moon guard #world of warcraft #pookamhura #rp #gnome #wow #role play #pvp

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m1ckeyb3rry · 2 months

Note

No…don’t mention meet cute Karasu….not in the presence of an Otoya fic….gotta stay in the Otoya headspace for hollyhock….

FR it’s almost kinda nice how since it’s not in your face if you aren’t feeling particularly angsty he can kinda just be a silly guy LOL

Oh yeah the malicious sliding double press…yikes…also when Kuon tackles Nagi?? If he’s taking down a 6’3 giant imagine like a 5’3 girl like that’s just getting sudden deathed

LMAOOO I love the use of that emoji it’s so funny to me the shaking head one, but fr the Itoshis can’t have it all!! Another Karasu request on top of all the ones I already knew of oh em gee Karasu nation rise up….take it easy though LOL!!! Can’t rush greatness but also burnout is the worst too so I hope you’re having fun writing everything too hehe

That’s honestly a big brain move…gotta leave some space in between reading to allow myself to forget some details so I can kinda be surprised when I watch LMAO

BRO THE CHIGIRI LEG MENTIONS SHSH every time they bring it up im like…haha…hahahahaha…whyarewebringingupthepast….heshealedright??? Erm yeah I feel like it’d be a huge waste of his development if he didn’t at LEAST make it to the World Cup so praying the authors don’t pull an Akutami Gege!!!!

LMAOOO in character it is….yeah I wonder if maybe it’s because of the way his hair is styled that the pairing of the two makes him look extra scruffy….not sure but yeah not my favorite

No definitely…fs present in every fandom I’ve definitely seen a bunch in JJK too (sometimes with Yuta which leaves me so confused) but um!! To each their own I guess. Lol.

BRUH RIN AND NANASE HAS ME CRYING “you are my property now” WHAT???

You could never make me hate kurona omg FR his character profile shdgshs the braid bread (?? I think) and his fav animal being a shark is so cute he’s really just chilling, not a single mean bone in his body!! The way he cheered up Reo was ADORABLE im so glad they included that additional time in the movie shdgshs especially since we won’t really be seeing him in S2 besides maybe some background shots…I really wanna see more scenes of them off field too!! Kinda like the manga additional time with Team Kindness LOL show me some real friends please…..

OOOOOO gonna go hunt for them those look good…

Wait also LIGHT NOVEL?? Waiting to get my hands on the full thing but from what I’ve seen floating around DHDGSHSH BAROUUUUUU omg it’s basically exactly what we discussed before LMAO

-Karasu anon

AHHHH it’s def a slow burn with otoya so especially at first it’s going to be tough but i think it will be worth it…it’s hard work making eita “red flag” otoya into a tragic love interest but i think i may pull it off yet 😏

TRULY he is so versatile like you can explore his complexities and whatnot or you can just be like. fluffy squishy cutie boy. and both work honestly!! i will always be a nagi lover at heart fr

literally omg or can you imagine playing in the u20 match and getting absolutely slammed by oliver AKDFJHSDF pls…the reality of being a female in bllk may not be the most glamorous (but at least you’re surrounded by hot guys??? although like half of them are lowkey weird asf so it’s not really that much of a bonus)

THE SHAKING HEAD AND NODDING EMOJIS CRACK ME UP EVERYTIME they’re so unserious 😭 especially w that fuckass little smile they have SKDLJFLS and yes i agree the itoshi bros should suffer too sometimes!! lmao i’ve written for both of them once and like they honestly are fun to write but smth about how popular they are makes me not want to write for them even more!! and YESSS karasu nation is pulling up fr HAHA i think he is slowly but surely becoming this blog’s brand but ykw i’m okay with that!! and yes i have been enjoying writing hehe especially for karasu bro…he’s so perfect i love him 🥹 (as you know vv well HAHA)

yeah like i lowkey could not tell you most of what happens during the third selection and sometimes i want to go back and reread because there’s so many good karasu and otoya panels in it (that’s like the arc where they’re most prominent after all) but then i stop myself because i want to be delighted by watching it animated!! i do think that if nothing else it’ll be super hype to see a lot of the goals that happen in third selection/u20 arc so i’m doing my best to hold out for now…we’ll see if i can last until october though

my guess is that he’s going to have some “going out in a blaze of glory” type of moment where he says something that mirrors his awakening where he says that he doesn’t care if he never runs again and puts everything into that one game, which allows him to score a goal for bllk that wins them a crucial game but also puts him out of commission possibly forever. depressing af but i do agree that he’s probably not going to go out for a while just because he’s one of the main characters and seems to be one of the author’s favs

his hair is like super thick idk?? i do think it adds smth to the stubble that overall is an interesting picture…honestly the panels of him younger where he doesn’t have the facial hair are soo handsome though like give me five seconds and i can fix him fr (not his womanizing though just the mustache LMAOAO)

it’s the most random characters!! i’ve seen it for nagi too kind of?? like that man canonically has 0 friends 0 bitches 0 parents that care about him…he is NOT going to be flirty or good at intimacy!! otoya aiku yukimiya and reo are right there too like all of them are stated to be popular w girls and half of them are also fboys…but oh well whatever makes people happy!! i shan’t yuck anyone’s yum (though i will most likely stay away for the most part)

dude rin was so foul for that too LMAOAO??? like why did he feel the need to say that…“you are my property now” rin you are a 16 year old boy. that is also a 16 year old boy. HELP?? he’s so lucky karasu and shidou weren’t on the field when he whipped that one out i knowww they would’ve bullied him so bad (lowkey karasu and shidou both give such older brother vibes but in exact opposite ways SDJKFNS)

KURONA IS SO SWEET!! and he just has no beef no problems kind to everyone truly an ideal man. he was so sweet cheering up reo too i hope we see more of them (iirc they were standing kinda together in the s2 trailer?? so maybe that means we’ll get scenes of them!!). i also feel like the additional times are going to be funny and will hopefully show more of them just being silly…manifesting a karasu and otoya additional time that’s just them being menaces 🤞🏻 i feel like additional time is one thing that the anime def got right they’re always so funny to watch and really show the dynamics between characters that you might not consider otherwise yk

they are really good HAHAH i hope you like them if you try them!!

WE READ BAROU TO FILTH FR!! like the ln basically confirmed everything we’ve been saying which is so validating like omg maybe we do understand these characters on a deeper and cooler and more intellectual level than everyone else 🙄🤩 LMAOA the illustration of him helping his sisters is so cute too the way he’s so pressed but still being so sweet…plus the tank top and hair down combo is LETHAL!! i can’t wait to read them properly hehehe i love barou sm he’s surprisingly underrated considering how much screen time he got in season 1

#answered asks #hollyhock

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sweettartsloveryo · 1 year

Note

Sorry, randomly saw your post and I'm wondering if you're aware that Yana Toboso, the creator of Black Butler, is a shotacon that published shotacon manga before?

I find it strange that you want to engage with her content but at the same time disparage sebaciel shippers as if it's just a random fan created ship and not something intended and encouraged by Yana herself considering her background and the way she writes and draws those two characters. Luckily, tag filtering and blocking exists on this website, please use those features and have a good day.

Nah man, I’m not wanting to engage in the content at all, I’m aware of all that I just didn’t feel like doing a deep dive into it lol. I guess I should have worded it better but what I meant is that I miss the enjoyment from back when I was unaware of it rather than the actual series itself? I no longer like the series, it gives me icky feelings and I find it kinda cringey that I didn’t notice all the red flags when I was a fan of it.

Anyway, I should have worded it better, but the series is a big nope from me. I left it untagged because I don’t want to start anything as I have neither the time or energy to argue with people about it lol Hope that clears it up a bit.

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11queensupreme11 · 2 years

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What are your biggest pet peeves when it comes to fics? My pet peeve is when I read a "reader x various" fic and everyone automatically loves/favors/likes the reader 🤮 there's this bnha fic im reading on wattpad rn and there's literally almost 20 love interests, and I was like "oh great, lemme guess, everyone loves the reader automatically" and i was right 🤢

Oh god I hate that too. And whenever I open a fic and I see that they got like... 20+ love interests, I get immediate red flags. Usually if there’s THAT many love interests, there’s a good chance the author might forego properly developing the MC and love interests’ relationships and choose to make it an immediate love connection instead. It would be really hard trying to develop 20+ relationship dynamics so most authors choose to make everyone love their MC instantly 😞

(And I know this from experience 💀 I remember my persona/bnha fic had over ten love interests and it was SO hard for me to realistically develop everyone’s relationships and I just kept removing boys from the harem)

This isn’t really a list, but these are my TOP TWO pet peeves when it comes to fics. Like, I literally hate these SO MUCH that the second I see them, I click out of the book.

FAVORITISM FROM THE AUTHOR

Basically how Mary Sues are born. It’s when an author favors their MC so much that they try to make them as likable and perfect as possible.

MC is:

naturally beautiful

overpowered with no explanation as to how or any proper development

everyone loves MC & those who don’t are written to be as dislikable as possible so readers would sympathize with the MC more

MC’s literary flaws aren’t actual flaws that impact them or the story (like clumsiness or being shy uwu) and their actual flaws are never called out because the author doesn’t notice them since they’re usually made unintentionally (which means readers might not notice it either unless they’re deep, analytical, sharp readers who don’t read at a surface-level)

Ex: I won’t name the character or book cuz I know it’ll just stir up drama, but Character A is depicted as a symbol of feminism because of how strong they are. The flaws that the author tried to give her was ‘insecurity’, but her real flaw is internalized misogyny because of how much she looks down on girly characters

MC’s background is either super privileged but they hate it “i’m so rich, I hate it but I won’t explain why because the author doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing uwu 🥺” or super fucking tragic but they have no signs of any trauma or illness “i’m an orphan/abused/runaway my life is so hard but I act perfectly normal”

and if the MC ever does anything wrong, their consequences are so minimal and have less impact to the story and their forgiven quickly...

the list goes on.

Ex2: again, won’t name the character and book, but Character B literally cheats on her boyfriend with six(?) other dudes (one’s a teacher). When they find out, she’s forgiven instantly. What’s worse, the author demonizes this blonde character (who’s the ‘mean girly girl’) and Character B and her friends call her a slut when SHE’S the one cheating and sleeping around while Blondie has only dated two dudes separately (also, Blondie has PROPER development)

There’s nothing wrong with favoring your MC.

But it’s a big issue if you keep favoring them too much. You can’t keep babying your MC and trying to make them likable to the readers or making their lives easier by letting everything go their way 😓

You’re completely derailing their development and making them more like a Mary Sue than an actual realistic person so STOP IT.

MISINTERPRETING “STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS”

I HATE THIS ONE THE MOST

I don’t know how many times I have to say this, BUT A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER DOESN’T MEAN TO MAKE THEM LITERALLY PHYSICALLY STRONG!

Also, please stop making your fem character hate femininity because they see it as “weak”. It sickens me so much every time I read about a fem!MC sneering at girls who wear skirts and makeup because the author has it in their head that anything ‘girly’ is automatically bad.

They keep demonizing feminine characters or depicting them as weak too! That is SO misogynistic wtf. Femininity doesn’t equal weakness 🙄

It’s okay if your MC is a tomboy or just has masculine traits. THAT’S PERFECTLY FINE. The issue here is that some dumb authors make their MC that way because they see femininity as bad and they make it obvious by treating their feminine characters like shit while glorifying their masculine fem MC.

Again, lemme repeat this: MASCULINE FEM!MCS ARE OKAY! IT’S NOT OKAY TO MAKE THEM THAT WAY BECAUSE YOU SEE FEMININITY AS BAD.

MC’s that kick ass and have nothing else to their personality is not a “strong female character” they’re just physically strong and nothing else. An MC that is masculine but bashes on femininity isn’t a “strong female character” either, they’re just hella misogynistic because the author is misogynistic 😐

Oh and about the “badass female character that beats people up trope”, I hate it when they write off male characters as weak just to make their Fem!MC look strong. I’ve seen so many books about aggressive fem MCs that just go around beating up boys for the most dumbest reasons and it just aggravates me BECAUSE THEY REALLY HAVE NO REASON TO DO THAT.

If you want them to look “badass”, have them beat someone up for a VALID REASON instead of something dumb as “that boy looked at me funny, time to scream at their face like a crazy person and punch them so I can look tOugH”. Your MC doesn’t look ‘badass’, they look fucking cringy.

YOUR MC IS NOT BADASS! THEY’RE JUST VIOLENT AND AGGRESSIVE. And I know the author’s intention wasn’t to give their MC those two flaws (violent and aggressive) because their act of “bAdAssErY” is usually glorified either by another character praising them for what they did or the MC never receiving any consequences for their act of unnecessary violence.

Anyways, I talk more about these topics in my guidebook so you can check the chapters out if you want!

#👸🏻| asks #👸🏻| writing

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forgiveness-in-the-misery · 3 years

Text

Skwisgaar's Psychology

After rewatching Metalocalypse a total of three times ever since the news of the potential finale movie I kind of had a realization; I really fucking love Skwisgaar. I also started by halfway through rewatch two realized that his story and background and general psychology is really fucking fascinating to me.

So I am going to do my best to discuss his character and his psychology and how we see him progress through the show....I already did this with Toki a while back and kind of would love to do it with Murderface and maybe Pickles as well, I'd say Nathan, but he's the....least fucked up in a sense.

Skwisgaar let's start has the most dialogue in the first couple of seasons of the show and even then it isn't overwhelming compared to the other members of the band. By season four he speaks very little and rarely.

When we are introduced to him in the beginning of the show he seems to be like the rest of the group; a diva spoiled rich rocker who has been grossly wealthy for so long that he's forgotten how to function as a human.

You also with the first season especially have this running gag that isn't even a running gag that Skwisgaar or Toki will say something weird and then the other will add onto it and they just say weird shit about life and death or the violence of man, it's weird, and strangely endearing.

Which speaking of how those two play off each other brings me to the fact the pilot episode immediately establishes that these two are almost always together. The band goes to a grocery store and everybody splits up, except for Skwisgaar and Toki who go off together when in all reality that isn't remotely necessary. We also learn in that first episode that Skwisgaar gets pissed when Toki teases him and calls him a woman despite Skwisgaar calling him one like a second earlier and also that Skwisgaar is sexually attracted to elderly women.

Two things are heavily associated with Skwisgaar as a character; he is extremely sexually active and he's got his guitar with him in 99% of scenes. Skwisgaar also doesn't appear to be the most talkative, he can be bitchy and throw tantrums like the rest of his bandmates, but also seems to be more prone to crying and becoming anxious or worried for his friends and their wellbeing/safety, in terms of socializing he seems to be a bit awkward and seems the most comfortable communicating through sex and music. He's teasing and can be a dick, but there's no real edge to it. He also while seeming in some regards to be a bit....dumb to be blunt about it seems to actually be rather smart, though often seems to just keep that to himself probably because he knows who his friends are and they aren't prone to listening to people.

Season one wasted no time in introducing the band's parents and this included Skwisgaar's mother, Serveta. One thing that I do find super interesting is that he is the only member of the band who comes from a single mother, technically it isn't interesting, but the theory (probably canon) that their fathers aren't really their fathers at all and that their mothers became pregnant by the Deth Star makes it interesting. To me at least.

With Skwisgaar's mom in regards to the first season of the show we quickly learn that their relationship is strained. She's an older woman who just like Skwisgaar is very sexually active, we see her come onto Nathan's father who is married and sitting with his wife and son, Skwisgaar's reaction to this is to get upset and begin frantically playing his guitar. Skwisgaar spends a good portion of this episode drinking and at one point saying that ever since his mom got there his stomach had been hurting and he'd just been feeling like absolute shit. When we see him bonding with his mom he's brushing her hair and looking like he'd rather be dead or any place else, seeing him helping her groom is weirdly a red flag to me.

We learn by the third season of the show that his mother is intensely vain and in love with herself, she resents Skwisgaar because being pregnant with him and giving birth to him ruined her 'perfect' body and I'm sure the years where he was too young to fend for himself annoyed her because it meant she couldn't party or have men over or run off whenever she wanted, something I get the feeling that changed when he was about ten years of age. In a bonus video that comes with the first season of the show you see interviews with the band on various random topics; one of the scenes that is...uncomfortable to say the least is when family is brought up. Skwisgaar begins to say something, but trails off and becomes visibly upset before saying he's just going to shut down for a while, Toki confesses some more physical abuse before also shutting down.

I'm going to take a guess that Skwisgaar only had his mother when he was growing up and she only had him, I'm sure she has parents and maybe even siblings and aunts and uncles, but it appears that she has absolutely no relationship with them and Skwisgaar most probably never met these people.

The walls of Serveta's home sport dozens of headshots of herself and a couple of pictures of Skwisgaar as a kid thrown up by the front door almost as an after thought. It's likely and most probable that Skwisgaar was thrusted into the position of caretaker and even a husband sort of position when it came to his relationship with his mom; given the task of looking after her, holding her hair back when she pukes after a night of drinking, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. We know when he was about ten or thirteen years old he came home from school to find his mom having sex with two men, an event that scared him and led to him being chased by wolves and falling into a pit where if he weren't a demi-god he legit would have died. I feel like his mom reached a point with him where she stopped caring whether or not he saw her....personal life, perceiving him as an adult despite still just being a boy and also seeing him as somebody who is taking up space in her home and preventing her from having fun.

When she marries Tyr they're all over each other constantly....until Skwisgaar and Tyr become friends and begin spending time together, then she cheats on him. She was jealous that her latest man wasn't giving her constant attention and got angry at the concept of sharing him with her own child, which is super fucked up.

Skwisgaar throughout the show has a fake persona. He likes to pretend he in some way is like his mom; he likes to pretend he has his head up his own ass and doesn't need anybody but himself, he loves himself more than he could ever love another person. Which isn't true. At all.

I think that growing up with a narcissistic parent who emotionally neglected and emotionally abused him put him in a position where he had to shut down like that. He had to learn at a very young age that crying and yelling and being angry gets nothing done except maybe piss his mom off more, after finding his guitar he threw himself into music and appeared to shut himself off socially, preferring music over human interactions.

Music is something that Skwisgaar can rely on no matter what happens; he will always have a guitar, he will always be able to create music even if it is just for himself and nobody else. People come and go, people physically hurt you, people emotionally hurt you, or make you feel worthless. When we see the flashback to the night Magnus was kicked out of Dethklok Skwisgaar is faded into the background, almost like a ghost with his slumped shoulders and his hair curtaining his face as if he wants to just disappear. When they're auditioning for a replacement Skwisgaar is positive he doesn't want somebody else in the band, that they are fine just being four.

I think it comes from the fact he was terrified of repeating what just happened with Magnus, finding somebody he might think he can bond with over music only for that person to turn into a monster who makes him feel like he can't even do the thing he loves more than anything correctly....Then Toki came in and when they had their duel it quickly turned from a competition into a conversation. Because that's the one way Skwisgaar knows how to communicate, the way he is the most comfortable with; he likes to communicate through guitar and finding somebody who he could speak to through music excited him.

It's clear for obvious age related reasons that Skwisgaar has/had a care taker role where Toki is concerned. I mean he was about 15/16 when Skwisgaar took him into the band so he was a literal child, even when he's older Skwisgaar still looks out for him and is in his own sense immensely protective where he's concerned. Skwisgaar is also that way with the rest of the band even if it's more subtle. He worries about his bandmates, if they get injured or nearly killed it bothers him and he doesn't want anything to happen to them. When the band is going to break up he completely shuts down, because admit to it or not they had become the only family he ever had. I think Skwisgaar is so hard wired from his childhood to care for people that it's something he can't shake and maybe with the band he doesn't feel its a bad habit, because unlike with his mom, his bandmates arent forcing him to look after them. It's something he does because he wants to do it.

Of course in regards to his attraction to older women that definitely comes from issues relating to his mother....I don't think it's in a creepy Freud way, but more so just wanting to feel cared for back. Very obviously he can't exactly approach any of his bandmates and ask for a hug....well except maybe Toki and Pickles if he's super drunk or high, but outside of those two instances....they aren't people he could exactly just ask for validation or comfort or consolation. They aren't....good with that shit. Older women though usually have a tendency to be coddling and kind, Skwisgaar probably learned that as a teen or in his twenties, I think it's less about the sex factor and just feeling important. In terms of sex with people closer to him in age (I will die on the hill that he's bisexual, because he keeps just throwing it out there that he would blow a guy and he had multiple three ways with Melmord) I think it's a distraction for the most part, he uses sex the same way he often uses music, and honestly....He grew up seeing his mother have men over constantly.

Skwisgaar didn't grow up seeing love or healthy relationships, he saw his mom parade various men through the house and maybe she kept some of them for a while and I doubt the relationships were healthy and I'm sure he knew that his mother didn't love any man she dated or married for a short while. Even in the show he isn't fond of love or marriage, the only time he dates somebody is when he moves back to Sweden and finally starts to get his life together in a more healthy sense and that relationship didn't feel like it was based on sex. It was based on physical and emotional affection and it was the only time Skwisgaar ever looked actually happy in terms of intimacy.

Sex is a job, a chore for him; he's the God of Life so it's technically what....it's y'know his thing, creating life. As a lot of people notice....he seems far more sexually active after him and Toki's second fight in regards to music and petty bull shit. Season four is essentially the season where Salacia gets what he wanted aka the band tearing itself apart and you can see them all fall apart individually. For Skwisgaar falling apart means closing himself off, throwing himself more into his guitar and more into sex. He becomes more of a tool and an object as if that's all he wants to be, because being a person who opens yourself up and lets people in and tries to care about people ends up with you being hurt, badly.

Which does bring things back to his super complicated slightly homoerotic to the point even the show had to mention it for a hot second relationship with Toki.

We can gather from Doomstar that Toki was far more into music when he first joined Dethklok which I think worked out great for Skwisgaar, because as I said before; Skwisgaar communicates through music and this gave him somebody that he could talk to without the awkwardness of verbally conversing.

Though that changed clearly and you can feel that Skwisgaar is bothered by it, like in some weird way it feels like a minor betrayal. Toki notoriously never practices or puts in a lot of effort in terms of making music which Skwisgaar often comments on, complains about, or gets on him about. Reasonable. Guitar is part of who he is, but at the end of the day a talent that made him rich, that's what it is to Toki.....Skwisgaar on the other hand his guitar is literally an extension of himself and seeing him without a guitar in his hand for longer than a single scene gets weird.

Still despite the two of them losing the art of communicating through their music....they're close. Super fucking close. If you watch Metalocalypse and tell yourself going into the show that you're going to focus heavily on a single character or on a certain relationship you notice a ton of shit. Like you notice that Toki and Skwisgaar almost always sit together, stand together, talk over one another, finish each others weird sentences or ideas, copy each other to the point they spend an entire episode bickering like children over copying each other, and often spend their time hanging out together. Again. They're really close as if they're a single person split into two.

They're close to the point that inverse their fans just to some extent assume the two of them are fucking and madly in love and I mean I'm gonna be honest just objectively speaking here I would not be surprised to find out they have had sex before at least once or more times. Just saying.

That aside though and just sticking to the platonic here....They're close, Toki means as much to Skwisgaar as guitar does, and that's saying a lot. One big reason I want to bring up their relationship is that his relationship with Toki brings to light Skwisgaar's issues with death or more specifically death where Toki is concerned.

In season one when Toki has a bit of a breakdown and Pickles suggest they kill him, Skwisgaar looks tense and uncomfortable and says that he doesn't like the idea because it's a lot and it makes him feel not so good. In a deleted scene where the band watch Nascar together Pickles ask Toki and Skwisgaar if they were supposed to be dead or in jail or something because it's the same episode where they got shit faced and got into a high speed chase. Skwisgaar when responding about it changes the word dead/death out for sleep, stating they were supposed to be put to sleep but just had to do community service instead (Toki corrects that it was jail, not being put to sleep). In the deleted IKEA scene when Toki stressed says maybe the two of them should just kill themselves Skwisgaar immediately freaks out and later when they return to Nathan and Murderface they both look super emotionally fucked up and when Nathan ask if they had been crying Toki gets defensive and says no while Skwisgaar beginning to cry again says they had been crying. Then of course after Toki ruins Skwisgaar's reputation and becomes Magnus Jr. for a few weeks and ends up having a panic attack and making an ass of himself....Skwisgaar thinks he's having a heart attack and freaks the fuck out terrified that he's dying.

Then finally for a compilation of Skwisgaar not handling Toki dying well; in Doomstar before they go in to save Toki Skwisgaar makes the sorrowful comment that sometimes he wonders if they should have stayed a one guitar band. It isn't him being a dick, he isn't saying this isn't worth it. He's saying essentially that Toki was stabbed, kidnapped and possibly murdered and it's completely his fault; if he hadn't taken Toki in then none of this would have happened. Which immediately leads me to believe that post the funeral episode that Skwisgaar spent those months high and drunk and late at night blaming himself for Toki being taken/murdered. That's a lot of blame to put onto yourself and to say its your fault solely because a few years ago you took this kid in off the streets is honestly heart breaking.

Early on in the series there's an episode where Toki's pissed that he isn't seen as Skwisgaar's musical equal, he wants solos, and Skwisgaar turns him down. Which through the series and within that episode itself we easily learn why Skwisgaar never gives him a solo; Toki has performance anxiety and he never practices and quite honestly knows almost nothing about guitar. It's valid. Either way in this particular episode Toki gets pissed and decides he wants to take lessons, Skwisgaar offers and Toki turns him down because last time they tried...he kind of just ended up beating the shit out of Skwisgaar. (to be fair don't dump a bucket of blood on your friend's head) So he goes off and finds an elderly man to teach him how to play guitar, Murderface being a dick decides to tell Skwisgaar that Toki is super good at guitar now and.....Skwisgaar doesn't react well. He gets pissed off and has nightmares about Toki becoming better than him. He even confronts Toki and his guitar teacher and threatens to kick him out of the band. When he realizes at the end of the episode that Toki is still....really not great with music....he's chill again, everything is forgiven.

I kind of think that episode is a reason people perceived Skwisgaar as a dick or is one reason, but honestly he isn't being a dick. I mean sure, a bit, but they're all dicks. The thing is guitar is a crutch for Skwisgaar, it is super important to him and he doesn't know who he is without his guitar, without his music. So somebody else threatening to take that from him freaks him out and he reacts poorly to it.

Then we get to near the end of the show when the same issue arises except completely different. Toki again later in the series ask Skwisgaar for a solo and Skwisgaar annoyed refuses him, Toki being the mild psycho shit that he is decides to just kind of ruin his life as revenge. Again by this point in the show its kind of obvious if you actually pay attention at all that Skwisgaar keeps telling him he can't have solos because Toki never fucking practices and even in the studio Skwisgaar has to record most of the rhythm guitar parts. He's also known since Toki's audition that the kid is prone to choking up and making mistakes, so he's technically protecting him without just outright confronting him.

Toki writes a book calling out Skwisgaar as an abusive tyrant and an over dramatic bitch. Admittedly Skwisgaar is a slight diva and just like the rest of them can be a total asshole, admittedly to a lesser degree than the others. What's really fucking interesting for me personally about this episode is that Skwisgaar is catatonic and depressed for 99% of it. He doesn't speak. This starts literally the second that Toki releases his book saying that Skwisgaar abuses him, this is before Skwisgaar's career goes down the toilet, his career hadn't been impacted by this yet.

Skwisgaar falls to pieces because Toki, Toki who he's known since he was just sixteen and took in off the streets and they're always practically attached at the hip and have been since day one just released a book calling him an abusive monster.

I do have a feeling one reason this fucked him up is because he might be terrified that he's turning into Magnus without realizing it, that perhaps he has become an abusive monster and has been making Toki feel the way that Magnus made him feel towards the end of his time in Dethklok. I think there also is probably something soul crushing about the person you love platonically or otherwise referring to you very publicly as abusive. Of course all of this worsens when Skwisgaar's career begins to fall to shit, eventually towards the end when Toki is at the top of his ego trip being a prick Skwisgaar does confront him, that in itself is interesting.

Skwisgaar goes in way calmer than I would be in that situation, sure he gets pissed off as they bicker, but again he's waaayyyy fucking calmer than anybody else would be especially since Toki just yells at him through the entire conversation. Of course interestingly is that Toki perceives Skwisgaar in a way that isn't entirely true, he thinks Skwisgaar mocks him and thinks of him as nothing which isn't true at all, when he says Skwisgaar laughed at him he just responds that he never did that and he sounds slightly hurt by that. They're both hurt and none of these men are good with healthy emotions. Skwisgaar never loses his shit on him in the entire conversation, he looks like he could easily go ape shit but instead warns him that the audience will eat him alive the second he fucks up.

Which turns out to be true, Toki fucks up and people begin turning against him which leads to him having a severe panic attack. Like I mentioned before Skwisgaar thinks he's dying and tries to save him, scared out of his fucking mind at the concept of Toki dying. Which....the dude just spent several weeks treating you like garbage and calling you a monster who abuses him, if Skwisgaar was actually a shitty person then he would have laughed at him or mocked him or given him shit about this moment for years to come....but he doesn't do any of that. He is worried about saving him, probably terrified that if Toki dies then their last conversation was a fight.

Their dynamic changes a lot after this, not in a way that's overly obvious unless you watch it closely. They spend a lot less time together and what feels almost out of character initially in Dethcamp is....Skwisgaar easily going along with Murderface and bitching about Toki, because....again can't stress the Scandinavian dudes are always attached at the hip and now suddenly he's easily saying mean shit about Toki. It feels weird until you remember that not long before this they had a massive fight, Toki called him abusive and momentarily ruined his career and most likely afterwards tried to act like nothing happened at all while Skwisgaar probably wasn't capable of doing that.

Occasionally in season four Skwisgaar and Toki will sit together or stand together, still talk or have that physical closeness but it's far between and you see Toki spend a majority of his time with the toxic trio: Murderface, Rockso, and Magnus. Skwisgaar spends his time typically with Murderface and Pickles then near the end spends most of his time with Nathan.

Skwisgaar is a person who grew up in a home lacking affection and love or safety, he didn't grow up with examples of love or healthy relationships and as far as he's concerned relationships are a waste of time and energy because they all end the same.

Of course for as much as he says that, as they all say that....it's bull shit. He cares deeply about his bands and him trying to act near the end like Dethklok was just another gig it isn't, these people are his close friends and his only real family. Seeing Pickles and Nathan fall apart wrecked him and having Toki turn on him so easily gutted him. Skwisgaar is a super emotionally fragile person, he seems absolutely terrified of showing anger or aggression as if it's something he's never been comfortable with or learned when he was young gets you nowhere or perhaps there were men around who were violent and loud and it made him scared to ever be that way. He's the only one of the band we never see really lose his shit or be randomly aggressive and violent, he also strangely enough cries the most out of them canonically. People always make the assumption Toki cries a lot, but like canonically he cries waaayyyy fucking less than Skwisgaar.

I really find Skwisgaar interesting....clearly and this analysis might be a jumbled mess, but there's strangely a lot of things to unpack and things I probably didn't even touch on as much as I could have, because this is already insanely long. I have a deep appreciation of him rewatching this show now that I'm older and far more into analyzing works of fiction.

I hope that this was remotely coherent.

#metalocalypse #skwisgaar skwigelf #character analysis #character psychology

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

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it’s a fucking metaphor!

Titans 3.08

i’ve finally gathered the mental and emotional resources to do this thing, so let’s go! as always, i’m typing this up as i see the episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. on watching this opening scene, i was thinking back to how gar was in s1, or even the early bits of s2. the way he idolised the others, particularly dick, and his readiness to go along with whatever they said, and the way he practically bled the need for acceptance. and here he is now, openly defying dick, fully open to and aware of the flaws of the people he loves and admires, knowing he is accepted no matter what and extending that generosity elsewhere. it’s a remarkable bit of character growth that’s... sort of blossomed in the background and so rewarding to see and acknowledge.

1.25. i guess what i really love about this conflict over how to respond to jason--as clumsily as it is sometimes written--is how their histories and individual traumas inform each character’s reaction. dick is torn between his guilt over what’s become of jason and his drive to do what batman had essentially given up on doing: he is motivated to track down red hood at all costs but there’s a sense that he’s not completely sold on the idea that the only way to stop him is to kill him. (he might go the comics route and try to put him in arkham? god, imagine if the season ended with jason in arkham.) kory’s never had much of a connection with jason in the first place, and jason has done one of the worst things he could do in her book: track and kill a member of her newfound family and is threatening to kill more.

and gar... sure. look. the idea of jason and red hood as separate entities appeals to him; that red hood emerged when jason was drugged to the gills by scarecrow and lost his usual inhibitions. gar’s struggled with what he becomes when he’s pushed to his limits, too--he did rip open that experimenting scientist with his teeth way back in 1.07, after all, and he was brainwashed by cadmus in s2 into becoming a literal monster. he needs to think, to know, there’s a dichotomy, a line that can only be crossed under extreme duress or by outside influence.

and he says--and we say--that he was accepted back into the titans in spite of what he’d done, but was he really? gar’s always struggled with his footing in this group; relegated to the caretaker, the tech guy, the gatekeeper, and sometimes punching bag even though everybody’s paying lip service to how much of a family they all are. perhaps gar reaching out to jason and offering acceptance is aspirational on his part: perhaps this is the effort he hoped the titans put/or will put into getting gar back, even when it would seem like he’s too far gone.

1.5. anyway my point is that i don’t think it’s worth discussing this in terms of right/wrong decisions because all of their reactions make a lot of sense given their backgrounds/personalities. gar is doing a fine job here of tracking down jason’s friends and trying to find him that way, but we the audience know that jason is ultimately going to end up an anti-hero/eventually-hero character, so with that knowledge in mind we know that gar’s reaction is the right one. it’s knowledge that the other characters don’t have, so to judge them on it is... uh, unfair.

1.8. also, molly is awesome, yay!

2. dick and barbara flirting over the phone is so cute! i love to see this side of dick: lighter, peppier, willing (even if somewhat reluctantly) to put his mission aside to go out on a date with his girlfriend. and i love how easy this makes his dynamic with kory too: it’s all very domestic and utterly delightful.

(also, re: the water leak in barbara’s office--you’re saying GCPD could afford fancy-schmancy table-wide touch screen computers and evil-lair lighting but needs its frickin’ commissioner to catch leaking water from above her desk with mugs and fishbowls????)

2.2225. this is probably a teeny tiny thing and i’m not sure i want to bring it up at all BUT. the fact that dick feels compelled to lie to barbara about not liking fancy gala food and eating something more substantial before the date? not a terribly great sign, though i wouldn’t call it a red flag per se.

“this from a man who forced his students to eat cauliflower crust pizza...”

3. so.... conner and kom are a Thing. huh.

in theory i really like the idea of them bonding over an innate alien-ness and longing for a place they could really belong. both of them are alien twice-over: conner a mix of kryptonian and human, practically generated in a test tube, and kom being somebody that was born different and rejected by her own people, now stuck on a planet dominated by an entirely different species. i even like them exploring this bond physically. i guess it’s the sense of... uneasiness around what we do and don’t know about kom that makes this scene land slightly left of centre to me. i think titans, especially through s2, has cultivated in its audience a sense of distrust even until the final episode, just in case somebody vital to the season is suddenly revealed to have had ulterior motives (i’m even low-key suspicious of leslie). i really want to see this kom-conner dynamic play out but the anticipation of watching the other shoe drop is sucking out the enjoyment.

4. for fuck’s sake dick, gar’s not your gatekeeper.

TIIIIIIIIMMMMM \O/

4.5. i love this nod to tim’s origins in the comics, the way he just comes in and lays out all his evidence and makes it clear to dick that he needs tim’s help as robin. the fact that he was there at the flying graysons’ last performance, he was obsessed with their acrobatic moves, and was observant enough to connect those moves with that of robin and later nightwing... all of this came together to put him where he is right now.

(i also love how he can’t contain his giddy excitement when talking about the day dick grayson’s parents died... to dick grayson. even if dick weren’t nightwing, that would be a deeply uncomfortable thing! yet tim can’t help himself, and i love him for it.)

4.8. it’s a testament to how much dick’s caught off-guard that he can’t come up with a better response to tim’s allegations other than “uh... he stole my moves! as you know, no two gymnasts in the world are allowed to do the same moves. now, let me escort you out while pretending poorly that i’m not at all shaken by this...”

4.9. i’ve talked about this before, but i find the logic around secret identities in this universe utterly fascinating. the titans don’t make much effort in keeping their identities secret: everybody seems to know that kory is starfire for instance, or that gar is beast boy. dick grayson is seen hanging out with kory a lot, especially at crime scenes. it won’t take a lot of sleuthing to find out that the titans are currently camped out at wayne manor, and to put two and two together.

my theory was that superheroes and villains have become such an integral part of daily society that it’s almost not worth it to seek out their secret identities, or that it’s just not a big deal anymore. like politicians or diplomats, not everybody bothers to look into who exactly their local politician is, but the people who know just... know. it’s a sort of unspoken social contract.

tim’s broken this contract by confronting dick about his identity, and dick’s not ready to deal with it. not entirely.

look at him! *pinches his cheeks*

5. ngl, it was quite satisfying to see jason knock the scarecrow out like that.

5.5. i guess... the question of jason’s culpability is always going to be a thorny one and would make for a great courtroom drama spinoff. there are a number of factors to consider: jason’s personality, the rough circumstances under which he grew up, his undoubtedly stressful transition to being robin, bruce wayne being... well, bruce wayne, never feeling accepted by the titans and having most of them turn on him, being roundly defeated and almost killed by deathstroke, alfred’s death, a fuckload of ptsd, his violent death, crane’s manipulations, coming back to life, crane plying him with a drug. but there is no easy line to draw between any of these factors to his actions. i think it would be a disservice to jason’s character to attribute his actions entirely to these things and rather irresponsible to do so. i think jason has to reckon with the fact that when he took crane’s drug, he wasn’t reckless and chaotic like the thugs he gave it to; the planning that went into hank’s death was meticulous and the way hank died--dawn essentially tricked into pulling the trigger that blew her lover into bits--is so drawn out and cruel.

5.75. it’s occurring to me that crane might have given jason a placebo. maybe jason’s dependence is psychological, and he’s externalised his fears in such a way that he believes crane’s drugs literally wipe them out, however temporarily.

in any case, the boy needs (more) therapy.

6. “he walked like robin...” fuck, tim

“gait recognition sweep” god, this show. i don’t know whether to laugh or cry. hey, once we’re done doing this gait recognition thingy, can we get a goddamn plumber in the house??? or move the commissioner’s desk so that sewage water isn’t dripping on her head or the million dollar touchscreen desk???????

6.5. oh no dick!!!!!! i am delighted that you got hurt but i feel ashamed about it! that looked like it really hurt!

he’s really not having a good time of it, is he. from being shot by a sniper to slamming at full speed into an suv, he’s got to be really fucking battered by now. and that’s just the physical side of it.

“can you believe that just over a week ago i was sitting in san francisco eating cauliflower crust pizza and feeling good about myself for the first time in five years...”

7. kory’s having visions again! now that she’s figured what they are, do you think the show’s just dropped justin? it’s curious that HPG hasn’t been brought up in a while after featuring relatively heavily in the beginning. hmmm.

8. dick’s in hospital but... he looks remarkably whole for someone who took a spill like that. you’d think he’d at least have a bruise to show for it. on the other hand, i love that the first thing he says is ‘i need to call home’. reminds me of season 1 dick and his clumsy attempts to explain away his found family as an ‘alliance of necessity’ or some bullshit. what a long way he’s come!

*gasp* dick’s hallucinating again!!!!!!!!!!!! i’m doing the dick’s hallucinating dance! can you believe that we’re carrying over these huge honking issues unearthed in season 2 onto season 3? can you believe?!!! all that time and effort i spent talking about dick’s mental health from last season has not gone in vain!!

... ahem. anyway. more on this later.

“hold on barbara, i think kory gave me the number to this therapist that she kept calling Hot Psychiatrist Guy...”

9. just an interlude to say that i’m barely halfway through the episode and i’ve already written 2k+ words... ugh. i’m going to try and be more concise.

10. man i fuckin love it when titans goes all out with its weird mindscapes and i’m extra glad that kory’s the focus this time. is that baby kom or maybe a secret sibling that neither of them knew about? was that lady luand’r? and is this place where kory was circling where the secret sibling is? it’s all very intriguing.

(if justin turned out to be that sibling... we’ve a real luke/leia situation on our hands.)

11. aw, i knew that nice security guard was going to die, but it still hurt to see him go :(

12. this show is so bizarre. like i get the mindscape as a narrative device, but jason using sex workers to try and vocalise his guilt about killing hank was just weird. like. i have to use tamil, sorry: idhulaan yaaru pa room pottu yosikara??? some things just can’t be translated into a second language.

i guess one way to interpret jason’s reckoning with what he did to the titans as a sign of him coming off crane’s drug, but i think it’s more to do with the disillusionment of realising that he was a mere pawn in a more sinister plan, and not, as he thought, a player in control of his destiny, rising to the purpose of liberating gotham of its fears in a way batman never could. along the way, he’s done some truly irreversible damage. it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

13. another hallucination! it’s really intriguing that it’s a young dick(?), younger than we’ve ever seen him, wearing an early-era robin costume from way before he even became robin. (this is also interesting in that it gives credence to the idea that ‘robin’ is an identity that dick created entirely on his own, and as a possible homage to his family.)

“old road, old house... it’s all gone.” i wonder what it all means.

13.5. it’s entirely likely dick’s hallucinating because of a brain injury from the accident, though just hallucinations without any other focal neurological deficit is unusual. he might’ve been microdosed with fear toxin at some point, though i wonder when... did jason do so after dick’s accident? did he get dosed at the factory from last episode?

it’s also possible it’s a continuing manifestation of dick’s issues from last season--which, if you remember, he never told anyone about and therefore never properly addressed. maybe he was hallucinating bruce wayne in a psychotic episode accompanying an acute stress reaction and maybe that’s what’s happening now. nobody’s denying that he’s under an extraordinary amount of stress right now. another way to look at it is that this is how he externalises conflict that he can’t bear to suppress anymore; if in s2 halluci!bruce manifested his insecurities and self-loathing, then these hallucinations... something to do with his fears, no doubt.

yet ANOTHER way to look at it might be: rachel is reaching out to him through their, well, psychic bond. after all, they were able to use that bond unconsciously last season to get the titans back together; maybe rachel has learned to gain a degree of control over it in themyscira and is sending across warnings? it’s all very intriguing.

anyway:

“i hear you skipped over the discowing suit in your evolution to nightwing... how could you??”

14. can you imagine, gar did all the work of reaching out to jason via molly and jason wants to meet dick? smh.

14.5. “i’m just a regular guy doing regular things” he says, standing at the opening of a secret old tunnel, like a secret person doing secret things, confronting someone who can now officially be called his stalker. neither of you guys are ‘regular’

14.8. ‘my dad was a cop and he taught me how to investigate’ - hmmm. i guess they’re trying to Explain Tim but i don’t think that’s really necessary. so he’s smart and he’s obsessed with batman and robin--that should be enough, imo.

15. that scene with scarecrow and his mother was... wow. i’m just laughing here helplessly, because what the hell? for a while i thought it was an extended dream sequence and i’m still not entirely sure that it isn’t...

anyway. i still love that titans is happy to throw out its plot in favour of extended character-exploration sessions.

15.5. it seems to me that this scene with crane and his mother (i have no idea if there’s anything in the comics similar to this) serves to move forward this season’s theme of harmful legacies and how parents can damage their children in the name of their mission. in a way it’s been the underlying message of the entire show but we’re really seeing it being reinforced this season. the titans, serving as a foil to scarecrow, are using the damage to rebuild themselves and actually work through their issues together, instead of spiralling further and further into the morass of their issues.

other than that... god, that scene was painful to watch. i can’t say i like this version of scarecrow or how this actor plays him at all.

16. i wonder what’s jason’s play here. i think he’s smart enough to realise that the titans aren’t going to just forgive him and let him be a titan again after what he did, and that dick agreeing to it is just a bid to pin both him and crane down. maybe it’s a ploy to trap them, get back on scarecrow’s good books so that he can have the drug again. who knows.

17. i absolutely felt dick when he said “we’ll bring him in and then re-assess the situation.” what the fuck else is he going to say? the priority is to get him.

so kory and dick are both hallucinating while potentially trying to rehabilitate their murderous siblings. CONFIDE IN EACH OTHER ALREADY

18. TIM NOOOO! you beautiful, reckless fool!

18.25. just to quickly address it here because i know it’s been brought up before: i think it’s perfectly justified to not have conner take tim to the hospital via superspeed because a) i don’t think we’ve seen conner do that with anybody so far and b) it’s probably not a good idea to submit tim’s body to that kind of stress without knowing what it would do to him. the paramedics with actual equipment and experience would be there in a few minutes, so on a risk assessment, i would say dick and conner absolutely made the right call.

18.5. i guess we won’t know what jason really intended to when the titans came to the pump to see him, but this is definitely going to set a big wedge in his relationship with crane. then again, crane got what he wanted--using starfire’s powers to blast through to the underground pipes--so jason can argue that this is exactly what he was working towards, too.

anyway, mortal peril, hallucinations, murderous family members, creepy visions and robins sprouting left and right. time to get rachel and donna on the scene, i think.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #garfield logan #dick grayson #koriand'r #jason todd #tim drake #jonathan crane #conner kent #komand'r #aaaaah this is 3k+#*collapses in a heap*

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tubbietommo · 4 years

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MY TOP 10 F1 HELMETS OF 2020 (AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER)

With finally that dumb rule about amount of helmet changes out of our system, I’ve been enjoying seeing all these different helmets this season. There have been beauties, some that I’m still thinking about till this day and there have been some uglies.. some also which I’ve been thinking about till this day and literally thinking: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!? to the drivers that wore them.

As I’m getting my official graphic design ‘papers’ I wanted to give my opinion about my top 10 helmets of this year:

10: Daniil Kvyat Abu Dhabi helmet

This is his last helmet and honestly I’m a fan of this one. It’s a pretty simple design and usually I’m not a big fan of the colour red being used in a helmet. Mostly because I find that colour a bit overdone in helmets. But it being sparkly makes it extremely beautiful and it’s the first Alpha Tauri helmet that I’ve seen that match fully with that big ass logo on there. With most of the Alpha Tauri helmets I feel like the helmets designs have two parts to it, the design and the big ass logo. But with this one I find it matching extremly well. Good job on that, love it.

9: Pierre AustrianGP helmet (fan made)

Oof, the front and the upper part of this helmet is just so fun. I’m a big fan of using a dark background with a very bright color scheme combined and I love the fact that this was a competition where fans could design Pierre’s helmet and that a beautiful design was chosen. I would have loved it even more if the alpha tauri logo wasn’t there. Especially that big. It would have looked so cool and given me an 80′s disco vibe if the whole colourful design was fully around the helmet, without the logo. But I guess with this one I just pretend the logo isn’t there. It's still so good though.

8: Sebastian Vettel Abu Dhabi (ferrari tribute) helmet.

Now I wasn’t sure which helmet of Seb I liked more, this helmet or the Styrian helmet. I decided on this helmet, because it’s such a Seb helmet and reminded me of one of his Red Bull helmet (which is prettier than this one tbh). But also because I think there’s a special concept to this helmet. This obviously could be wrong but to me this helmet is a bit of ‘self reflect’ for Seb. You obviously have the achievements with Ferrari on there and his famous quote ‘grazie ragazzi and the helmet has a bit of a mirror effect. but the colours to me that especially are being used in the number 5 tells me his F1 adventure (past and future). The colours start (in the number 5) with the Redbull colours, than goes into the red(Ferrari) which blends in with a little pink and goes straight to the green(AM). So I really like this little detail even if it wasn’t on purpose, which sorry but I am convinced it is.

7: The pink Hulkenberg helmet

I’m not gonna lie, I kind of had forgotten about this helmet, but as I’ve been looking back at these helmets this one has been really catching my eyes and is so well done. I find Pink a very hard colour to work with anyway, definitley the bright pink that just screams at you. And the fact that the bright pink isn’t overpowering with the pastel pink and white makes this helmet just nice to look at. The things that needs to grab your attention, grabs your attention and the fact that it has stripes going vertically over the helmet is one of my favourite design choices you can do with helmets so I absolutely love that. If a driver is doing a pink helmet, then this is what I love to see. Very beautiful.

6: Jack Aitken Abu Dhabi helmet

Now this one I was pleasent surprised by. Lets just put it this way: It’s a busy helmet well done. This is also a helmet that is just nice to look at it. Using these kinds of shapes that go from small once to big once is not easy to make it not look messy and the way they've done the white spaces inbetween the shapes is really well done. It looks like a puzzle that fits well and I have nothing bad to say about this. The color scheme with this one is just amazing. Really really love this one.

5: Lewis Hamilton purple helmet (bahrain)

I haven’t been a fan of Lewis’s helmets before BUT LET ME TELL YOU, this season he has really been bringing it. I am in love with the use of purple. Such an underrated color in this sport. And why? I have no clue. Purple is creative, magic, rich colour. How has it not been used more? It looks so good on this helmet, especially the Bahrein one with the glitter. Very pretty, good job Lewis. Finally! I have nothing bad to say about this helmet. The stars for his champions, the blm message on it. A good helmet right here.

4: George’s Abu Dhabi GP helmet

I guess a lot of drivers saved their best helmet for last... When I saw this helmet for the first time I was legit in love with it. I love that this helmet is for Frank and Claire and showing the success of Williams which haven’t been showed the last couple of years. But the use of the two dark blue shades with the white lines is complimenting all three colours so beautifully. I really hope George keeps those three colours and make a different kind of design as his main helmet because this looks beautiful to me. I wouldn’t even know anything bad to say about this helmet. Love it.

3: Alex’s Abu Dhabi GP Helmet

Now this one might come as a surprise and I don’t think anyone would’ve picked this one out as a number three BUT HEAR ME OUT. I’m absolutely OBSESSED with the cartoonish design that’s going on with this and it stands out a lot more compared to all the other Red Bull helmets that have been designed since 2015. To me they’ve been all looking kind of the same but this one to me is just so unique while still being a very RedBull helmet. The black outlining makes all of the colours pop out so much more and just the whole cartoon vibe is just right up my alley. If I were to design helmets, the whole cartoon vibe would be what I do and I think that’s one of the main reasons why this helmets speaks to me so much. Like I absolutely love it.

2: Seb’s Tuscan GP helmet

This was the hardest decision, because to me this is a clear number one. I have something with old designs coming back. And I LOVED Seb’s 2019 Monza helmet which was a love letter to the old helmets and I LOVE this helmet for the same reason, but even more so of how creative this is. Obviously it was the 1000GP for Ferrari so there was the inspiration. But I’m just obsessed with the way the old side looks. How they used an old drawing of the old racing car and made it really work. Like it almost looks like an old world map but to a racing driver. I’m obsessed with this side. But also I’m obsessed with the way it goes from the old side to the new with the old looking colours to the vibrant almost neon ‘now’ colours... is just amazing. I probably would’ve loved it even more (if that was possible lmao) if the old side was all around the helmet, but you just have to love this concept. For a 1000gp celebration it’s so good and well thought while still keeping your main design helmet in there. I would love to have this helmet. So cool.

1: Sebastian Vettel diversity helmet

Is it really a surprise that this one is on number one though? Now I’m gonna be honest with you, even though I absolutely love this design, it’s the combination of the design and the extremly strong message this helmet brings to the table that makes this helmet a number one of the season. This helmet is so special I will be thinking about this helmet in probably 10 years still. Now let me talk about the design. The stripes of rainbow where usually the German flag is (which I said before) something I’m obsessed with. I really love a helmet that has stripes going vertically over the helmet. I don’t think a lot of drivers use that and obviously Seb’s Ferrari helmet is known for that design and is so iconic. Your eyes will go straight to the vertically stripes, which in this case are the rainbow colours. But that’s not all. On the side you have all these unique illustrated people. Every character on there is differently that you almost could say you could ‘find yourself’ in there. It really shows the message of this helmet. What I also love and probably is a detail that is a forgotten detail, is how the number five slowly fades with the background. I’m very curious if that’s just a design choice, but I almost would think there’s a concept in that alone. Overall this is just a mind blowing helmet. I have nothing bad to say about it. It’s a beautiful design with an amazing message that should be talked more about in this sport.

#f1 #sebastian vettel #Alex Albon #george russell #Lewis Hamilton #Jack Aitken #nico hulkenberg #pierre gasly #daniil kvyat

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madam-melon-meow · 4 years

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Bisexual Kyoshi is something that can be so personal, actually

Panel edit by @flagellasturbation

[image I.D. : An edit of a comic panel of avatar Kyoshi. On the left in the image is a close-up of Kyoshi from the torso up, contained within an upside-down trapezoid shape. She wears her full battle uniform of olive and emerald robes, dark gloves and bracers, and a golden headpiece in a fan-like shape. Her eyes are the same emerald shade as her robes, she has black hair billowing to the left edge of the image, and her black eyebrows have been dramatically lengthened by black face paint. Her face and neck are artificially whitened with chalky makeup, she has black winged eyeliner, red eyeshadow that sweeps upwards to her temples and down the sides of her nose, and red lipstick outlined in black. This is the classic Kyoshi makeup. Her arms are crossed, the left arm behind her head pointing a golden fan away from the viewer, the right arm extended in front of her face, another golden fan pointed towards the viewer. She appears to be looking upwards and towards the right of the image. Above Kyoshi’s eye level and in the top right of the image is a comic text box. It reads in all caps: “even avatar Kyoshi- who by all accounts loved men and women- was unable to effect any kind of real progress.” The background art and color has been replaced with the Bisexual Flag, a thick horizontal line of pink on top, stopping at Kyoshi’s cheek level, then a thinner line of purple ending at her shoulders, and a thick line of blue that extends to the bottom of the image. End I.D.]

(If someone does not find my image I.D. sufficient, please let me know. This is my first time trying to make such a thing, as i am a lurker, not a poster)

Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee, page 99 (text copy / pasted from the b&n ebook version)

““Are those . . . fire lilies?” he said, a wide, knowing grin spreading across his face.

Kyoshi flushed beet red. “Stop it,” she said.

“That’s right,” Yun said. “The Ember Island tourism minister brought a bunch when he visited two weeks ago. I can’t believe you simply shred the flowers once they dry out. I guess nothing goes to waste in this house.”

“Knock it off,” Kyoshi snapped. But it was too hard keeping the corners of her lips from curling upward.

“Knock what off?” he said, enjoying her reaction. “I’m just commenting on a fragrance I’ve come to particularly enjoy.”

It was an inside reference that only the two of them shared. Rangi didn’t know. She hadn’t been there in the gifting room eight months ago while Kyoshi arranged a vast quantity of fire lilies sent by an admiral in the Fire Navy, one of Hei-Ran’s friends.

Yun had spent the afternoon watching Kyoshi work. Against every scrap of her better judgment, she’d allowed him to lie down on the floor and rest his head in her lap while she plucked deformed leaves and trimmed stems to the right length. Had anyone caught the two of them like that, there would have been a scandal that not even the Avatar could have recovered from.

That day, entranced by Yun’s upside-down features dappled with the flower petals she’d teasingly sprinkled over his face, she’d almost leaned down and kissed him. And he knew it. Because he’d almost reached up and kissed her.

They never spoke of it afterward, the shared impulse that had nearly crashed both of their carriages. It was too . . . well, they each had their duties was a good way to put it. That moment did not fit anywhere among their responsibilities.

But since then, whenever the two of them were in the presence of fire lilies, Yun’s eyes would dart toward the flowers repeatedly until he was sure Kyoshi noticed. She would try unsuccessfully to keep a straight face, the heat coloring her neck, and he’d sigh as if to mourn what could have been.

Today was no different. With a wistful blush on his own cheeks, Yun stared her down until her defenses broke and she let out a giggle through her nose.

“There’s that beautiful smile,” he said. He pressed his heels into the floor, sliding up against the wall, and straightened his rumpled shirt. “Kyoshi, trust me when I say this: If it turns out not to be me, I’ll be glad it’s you.”

~~~~~~~~~

Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee, page 210 (text copy / pasted from the b&n ebook version)

“You think you don’t deserve peace and happiness and good things, but you do!” Rangi yelled. “You, Kyoshi! Not the Avatar, but you!”

She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around Kyoshi’s waist. The embrace was a clever way to hide her face.

“Do you have any idea how painful it’s been for me to follow you on this journey where you’re so determined to punish yourself?” she said. “Watching you treat yourself like an empty vessel for revenge, when I’ve known you since you were a servant girl who couldn’t bend a pebble? The Avatar can be reborn. But you can’t, Kyoshi. I don’t want to give you up to the next generation. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Kyoshi realized she’d had it all wrong. Rangi was a true believer. But her greatest faith had been for her friends, not her assignment. She pulled Rangi in closer. She thought she heard a slight, contented sigh come from the other girl.

“I wish I could give you your due,” Rangi muttered after some time had passed. “The wisest teachers. Armies to defend you. A palace to live in.”

Kyoshi raised an eyebrow. “The Avatar gets a palace?”

“No, but you deserve one.”

“I don’t need it,” Kyoshi said. She smiled into Rangi’s hair, the soft strands caressing her lips. “And I don’t need an army. I have you.”

Psh,” Rangi scoffed. “A lot of good I’ve been so far. If I were better at my job you would never feel scared. Only loved. Adored by all.”

Kyoshi gently nudged Rangi’s chin upward. She could no more prevent herself from doing this than she could keep from breathing, living, fearing.

“I do feel loved,” she declared.

Rangi’s beautiful face shone in reflection. Kyoshi leaned in and kissed her.

A warm glow mapped Kyoshi’s veins. Eternity distilled in a single brush of skin. She thought she would never be more alive than now.

And then—

The shock of hands pushing her away. Kyoshi snapped out of her trance, aghast.

Rangi had flinched at the contact. Repelled her. Viscerally, reflexively.

Oh no. Oh no.

This couldn’t—not after everything they’d been through—this couldn’t be how it—

Kyoshi shut her eyes until they hurt. She wanted to shrink until she vanished within the cracks of the earth. She wanted to become dust and blow away in the wind.

But the sound of laughter pulled her back. Rangi was coughing, drowning herself with her own tears and mirth. She caught her breath and retook Kyoshi by the hips, turning to the side, offering up the smooth, unblemished skin of her throat.

“That side of my face is busted up, stupid,” she whispered in the darkness. “Kiss me where I’m not hurt.”

~~~~~

I include both these quotes because i've seen a few posts about the “gigantic lesbian” avatar, and although i am glad my sapphic sisters feel connected to Kyoshi (as well they should!), that doesn't mean i wish to simply be quiet on the matter of her textual bisexuality. I understand that not everyone has read her novels, nor has everyone read legend of Korra comics, but Kyoshi is *textually* bisexual.

Kyoshi had a loving romantic relationship with her firebending friend Rangi, but this does not erase her feelings for her earthbending friend Yun, even if neither of them were able to properly express it due to their respective “status”. (For context if you haven’t read, the masters believed that Yun was the avatar, and though he was bodyguarded by Rangi, and though Kyoshi was his servent, the three of them were simiar ages and thus close friends until the discovery of Kyoshi’s true ability destroyed their former lives). Hell, Kyoshi and Rangi do not become intimate until after fleeing their former lives. Who is to say what would have happened, had Yun not been captured by father glowworm ?

I know that there is a chance you will scoff at this, will write this off as comphet, accuse me of disproportionately weighting an almost-kiss with a true relationship, but these above quotes (as well as the comic panel from “the legend of korra: turf wars- part 1”) serve as proof that Kyoshi, “by all accounts loved men and women” (see panel directly below)

[image I.D. : the same comic panel as the edit above, this one without the bisexual flag edited in. Directly behind Kyoshi, within the upside-down trapezoid shape, is an olive to lime gradient, darker around her head and lighter near the bottom. Around and to the right in the image, outside of the trapezoid, is an aerial shot of buildings within an Earth Kingdom city, and what appears to be the lines of troops on the ground far below. the text box in the image is the same, but I have underlined the word “men” in blue, the word “and” in purple, and the word “women” in pink, to reflect the bisexual flag. End I.D.]

I am making such a big deal over this because Kyoshi is a massive figure, her long shadow cast over Aang’s life alongside Roku’s, and even before her novels came out there were often jokes about her “bloodthirsty” nature. I implore you to read the novels and see why Kyoshi believed in deadly justice at times, but also so you can see what a dynamic, loving, and beautiful character she is.

Some members of fandom have taken a “step on me” attitude towards Kyoshi, who has, even if the 7 feet tall thing is more fanon than canon, been explicitly described as “exceptionally tall”, and “towering” over others. This “strong woman who will break me and I thank them” attitude is one that butch &/or physically imposing sapphics, as well as trans women with similar statures to Kyoshi have expressed discomfort when applied to themselves and characters like them. I would love for more people to acknowledge her flaws and multi-faceted nature, that she is more than a “warrior goddess”, just as Aang is more than a living relic. Flattening her out to the easily-fetishable parts erases the depth of her character and the complexity of circumstances that led to the instances of deadly force.

There are very few bisexual characters in media, especially women, and especially in children’s media. Bisexual women have often been caricatured as loose, promiscuous, good for a threesome and not much else. (This is mot to say that i think any lesser of my fellow bisexuals who are proudly promiscious, nor can an actual live bisexual person be considered a stereotype for living their life, but media’s portayal of us as obsessed with desire is incredibly harmful). Knowing that a strong, beautiful, and important character in the avatar universe is a bisexual woman is amazing, even more so to have her first lady-love described in the novels with such care. F. C. Yee, the author of these novels, has my eternal gratitude. I sincerely hope that the new generation of fans, whether they are drawn to the cartoon or even the hypothetical live action show, will pick up these novels and discover the kind of bisexual character that I wish existed in my early days as a reader, and if a small fraction of them resonate with Kyoshi’s reciprocal on Yun and love for Rangi, then the world becomes a little bit brighter for it.

I mentioned her importance for the simple reason that Kyoshi IS important with the text of ATLA. As one of the avatars, she is one of the most historically important figures in that universe, one of the few avatars that Aang knows by name, and one of the only avatars to speak through his body. The fact that she has two whole novels to herself testifies to that effect, making her bisexual representation all the more important than a simple background character might be.

If or when the ATLA live action tv show occurs, we can expect some mention of Kyoshi. After all, there is a whole episode dedicated to exploring one of her missions, and the way that the descendants of her enemy have recolored history. It is my sincere desire that enough discussion is made about her canon bisexuality , that fandom trumphets it from the roof with as much force as crackshipping zukka, that when she does make it to the screen, there is some subtle nod in her bisexuality’s direction, even if it is something as meta as casting a bisexual actress for her. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

edit by @flagellasturbation

[image I.D. : An edit of a comic panel of avatar Kyoshi. This is like the first image, Kyoshi and the text box of the comic panel untouched, the background color and art replaced with the bisexual flag. However, this version has the words “by all accounts” blown up large and placed diagonally in the image, directly under Kyoshi’s face and stretching from one side of the image to the other. The bottom third of the image is similarly obscured, the words “men” , “and” , “women” blown up large enough to fill the panel and cover most of Kyoshi’s torso, as well as the purple and blue areas of the background flag. End I.D.]

#Avatar Kyoshi #Rangi #Yun #The Rise of Kyoshi #The Shadow of Kyoshi #father glowworm #bisexual

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