#m: rambles

[bulletproofheartless]

gertrude "i thought it would hurt more" robinson is hands down the best character in that whole podcast she never did anything wrong in her life except for maybe all the atrocities but they were kinda slay so it's fine

[fryday]

actually one of my favourite (least favourite?) things about sister daniel appearances is how dnp will inevitably spend half the time she's onscreen (and lots more time after the fact) talking about how a single wrong move could expose dan's entire cheek or crack or hole or whatever to the entire internet, thereby also shoving in our faces the fact that dan must be flashing phil the entire time. all. the time. in the cut-out scenes from halloween baking. behind the pheal during the livestream. and we just have to Know that. thanks

[cadaverkeys]

Let's just all be transgender, OK?

[fleshdyke]

bad drag makes the world go round <3

[jazeswhbhaven]

after slowing down and looking at this man for like the uptenth time

that's a shadow......he does not have melanin and now I am sad

Beel being the only "brown" skin representation is killing me lmao (mostly because I know that's just a tan... his booty was lighter in the card art) I would be up for the vitiligo debate, however, it's too crisp of a divide instead of the soft edges or splotch/spotty pattern that folks with it typically have. But it would be awesome to have a character that does have vitiligo because one of my OCs has it. *disclaimer: nothing wrong with lighter skin tones btw. but as someone who is not light-skinned, I always get excited when I see a variety of skin tones in a dating sim/visual novel*

[leporellian]

actually i'm going to talk about the met's weird thing with the rust belt more because it was definitely one of those things where a few years ago when the new met lucia was in development i was like, oh cool i wonder what they'll do with that, but now that we're here... man does it leave a bad taste in the mouth.

here's a question for you: Why Do So Many Operas Take Place In Seville?

seville is the setting for some hundreds of operas, including many of the famous ones: the barber of seville, carmen, la forza del destino, the marriage of figaro, fidelio, don giovanni (which actually might not take place in seville but given don juan stories up to them did it sticks)... the list keeps going. and there was a legitimate reason for this- for hundreds of years, seville was seen as a seedy and sexualized location where anything could happen. that exoticism carries over into the plot of many of the Seville Operas, which often feature seductions, crimes, and passion stories that fit neatly into the tales of the seedy city.

opera is about, in a lot of ways, EXOTICIZING OTHER PLACES. the spectacle of a setting was often a major part of the excitement of seeing a new opera, especially in the 19th century. but some of these places 'work' better than others, for a variety of reasons that boil down to the politics of representation and who is being who onstage.

seville works as an Exotic Opera Location Du Jour for multiple reasons. for one thing, if you notice, a lot of the seville operas take place 60-100+ years before the composition of the opera. for example, the marriage of figaro and don giovanni were composed in 1786 and 1787 respectively, and both depict 1600s seville. if you were writing a Seville Opera right now, for comparison, it would probably take place between 1890 and 1960- there's enough of a time gap that exploring the world as a more fantastical setting is easier to swallow. for another, seville is in western europe, and many of the composers depicting it were also from western europe. there is an evened playing field. (THERE IS A NOTABLE EXCEPTION about this that I WILL GET TO SOON.) finally, now that these operas are over a century old, we're even more removed from their concept of 'seville' and the 'seville' in operas has been turned into something of a convenient fantasy location in which to put an opera. it's something out of a medieval times dinner and tournament and not necessarily meant to be Actual Real Seville at all, which works fine because Seville Operas work without needing much context about the location. don jose is a soldier, you don't need to know what seville soldiers' duties were. figaro is a barber, you don't need to know what barbers in seville were like. and so on.

but there are other opera locations that don't serve this purpose as well- often nonwhite regions appropriated by white composers. the incredibly warped conceptions of egypt that show up in aida and the magic flute, the looking-glass japan of madama butterfly, the brief moment in which la fanciulla del west wherein the opera remembers the existence of native american peoples... suddenly the make-believe of exoticism goes away and is replaced by a sour feeling because in many cases these cultures could not have a say on their own depictions in the operatic world, while the western europeans featured in the operas that exoticize locations like seville or paris could.

carmen is an interesting case study in Opera Exoticism because it features a location that is fine enough to exoticize (early 1800s seville) and a titular character that is not. carmen was- and, in many productions, is still- written as romani. she embodies many negative stereotypes about the culture- she is seductive, morally ambiguous, a smuggler, a femme fatale. yet we as an audience are made to sympathize with her. she is honest about who she is, accepting of the hard truths that are given to her; she is close to her friends and her crueler moments come across as more of an ill-planned joke than a real sense of antipathy. carmen is both a product of how romani people were written by white men in her time, and progressive in that we root for her against the (white) don jose. (and it should be noted that she knows that if he kills her he will be executed for it- carmen is about a mutual kill.) a good carmen production will evaluate all of these features and include them into the work somehow; be it through metatextual commentary, or careful representation, or understanding of what the audience is seeing.

anyway, now that we've covered all that, let's go look at The Met Opera's Current Fascination With Lower Class American Communities and see what we find there.

the rust belt and the sun belt have captured the imagination of the met opera recently, as seen in their current productions of lucia di lammermoor and carmen. these settings are depicted as grimy, miserable, and joyless; women are thrown around by men, men are depicted as one-dimensional monsters that are not to be understood or seen into. the cruelty is the point- these productions do not treat lower-class americans as people to relate to or understand. the sole exceptions are lucia- who is made out to be something of an outsider, so the audience can relate to her- and carmen, who is misinterpreted into being a sad woman who just wants love (god forbid a woman have some other motivation). the racial issues that dominate the cultural conversation in america are unspoken of in these productions, even when there is an opportunity to; this becomes especially uncomfortable in carmen, where the above history of carmen as a nonwhite woman and the opera's setting on the US-Mexico border (with the soldiers cast as border agents!) goes unmentioned in the name of 'heightening the class and gender inequality'- both of which were already in the original work along with the race inequality! these productions are both directed by non-american white people. simon stone is from australia, carrie cracknell is from britain. why would they want to depict this setting? because they see it as a dark, cynical den of seediness and repressed sexuality- a world where we don't have to worry about empathy, or broader implications, because the people in these settings do not go to the met- a world where we can look on with revulsion and unease.... this crosses the line from exoticism into fetishization, in which lower class people become pawns for the met to use as set dressing.

this is especially uncomfortable because of opera's long history being seen as a 'rich people hobby'. opera is characterized as snobbish, useless, reprehensible; an art form that exists only to please the rich and the white and the male-dominated. all of which is not true! i believe to the bottom of my heart that everybody deserves a night at the opera, and that there is an opera for everyone, and everybody should feel welcome in the opera house (or other opera space du jour). and there are so many people working to change the industry from the inside, particularly the work of artists of color to broaden the opera canon and depictions of that canon as we know them. but as long as the met continues to use poor people as set dressing instead of bothering to communicate with them in a meaningful way, as long as the met sees these settings as places where brutes live instead of human beings, that stereotype of the rich man's hobby is going to continue. and the met is going to suffer for it- as i suspect that, as time goes on, the voyeuristic lens of these operas into the lives of abused lower-class women will be seen as more and more revolting.

TLDR

[cyber-corp]

Why do bosses feel they need to patronisingly explain something when someone does a task incorrectly. Please just get fucking mad man don’t treat your employees like preschoolers

[tsams-and-co-memes]

Where has Eclipse been sleeping/charging. I feel like he'd probably hate the fazcade, and he hates the daycare, so he likely wouldn't go to either of those places. He might not be able to get to any of his previous hideouts either, with how weak he's been getting, and he's not just camping out with Earth

Has he been pulling A Puppet™️ and sleeping on couches in people's rooms, over in rockstar row?? Maybe there's a security office somewhere he's been chilling out in, I have no idea

I'm just imagining. Monty or Roxanne going to rockstar row, just to pop into their room for whatever reason, only to walk in and see Eclipse. Sprawled out on the couch, plugged into an outlet and charging while he naps, and maybe he piled some plushies and things up under his back or head, to try getting more comfortable

He looks homeless and would probably freak them out a little, but my brother in christ, someone please get this man somewhere to stay. Preferably somewhere quiet with a stable internet connection, where he can feel safe and not like some maniac might show up and break his fingers again

[psystirene]

i've been thinking about this reddit comment ever since i read it. the sheer rage. almost tearful i think. the horrendous take. underestimating the ability of sapphics to find sickly little leech women irresistible.

[peepee-magee]

If you saw the first upload of this NO YOU DIDN’T- I deleted a frame accidentally n had to redraw it

I was possessed and two days ago sketched out a crap ton of comic panels for like the first 1/3rd of chapter one of sleuth jester in two-ish hours then passed out harder than I ever have in my life. I then woke up, and spent the rest of the next day cleaning sketches, a moving panels around, and trying to finish another third of the chapter, only to then be struck down by a headache which I promptly drank some water n ate some food about. Upon waking a third time n finding my possession had been lifted, I mourned that my Midas touch had been drained, and instead settled for just cleaning the ones I already had and didn’t hate n here we are.

Story: @naffeclipse

Designs: @/Sunnys-aesthetic, because possession visions don’t include design only paneling

[minittwastaken]

I will forever love the trope of villains who do horrific things but despite that, are the most loving and caring parents.

[fryday]

hey so.... why are phil's video blog and hello internet and saying goodbye forever the only 3 visible videos on the tv screens in the background hello what

edit: gtpwtw too!!!!

[cadaverkeys]

What they don't tell you when you start watching House MD is that there's an episode where they treat a mystery arsonist patient with a shady background and when he's just out the door. Fully healed and ready to take on the world. Someone comes in from out of frame and goes "omg did you guys let that guy go?! HE'S A SERIAL KILLER THAT THE COPS HAVE BEEN TRYING TO CATCH FOR YEARS 😭😭😭" and they all stare off like "fuckkkkk" and they play it COMPLETELY STRAIGHT and it's NEVER talked about EVER again.

[fleshdyke]

new least favourite image

(onewildlifer on ig)

[raining-asteroids]

Does anyone know why Cross!Sans was the one who killed his friends? I mean I could tell he wanted them to stop the violence, he wants everything the stay the same even though he knew what th me world and he was. he wants to be blissfully unaware with his routine but the others don't understand that, I presume. But did he go blind with rage?

X-Gaster isn't controlling him & neither is Frisk so was it because his code was messed up or something, I don't get why he was smiling while doing it? Unless it was just to be edgy or cool and I'm overthinking this lol

[abstractpenny]

Okay, real fast (maybe). So. Cole. He's super gay, I think we can all agree. But why? Why did they make Cole gay?

We always talk about the 'proof' that he's gay, like his true potential episode back in season 1 (about 12 years ago), his lack of true interest in women romantically, and his super homo ass relationship with Geo, but we never talk about the reason he is written as queer.

One argument I see repeated on the 'save my boy cole' side of the internet is the idea that the writers should have written a whole new character to be gay.

And guess what.

They did.

Who? Geo. He's the newly written gay character. He's the new representation.

The problem, though, with making only one new character (or even making a couple or a few) is that we don't have a connection with said character(s). They're reduced to 'the gay character'.

This harms the queer community more than helping sometimes because it reduces queer people to a single type of person. It makes queerness their entire identity when it's only part of it.

So, what's the solution? Write this new queer character into a romance with an old character that could totally be queer.

Cole has kind of always had queer undertones. That's seen most prominently in his season 1 true potential episode. (I won't get too into it here, if you need more information, you can find the episode free on multiple platforms or you can watch/read someone else analyze it.) He's always been able to be queer.

I don't know if Cole was initially written with the intention of being gay or queer. I don't know if he's always been written through that lense or how long he's been written with that idea in mind. But it's there and it's always had potential. It makes sense for his character and doesn't really introduce many plot holes, if any at all.

Him being written with Geo romantically and gay makes their relationship more human and appealing to a lot of people, including queer people.

We're familiar with a whole half of the couple. Many if us have known him for over a decade. He's a lovable character with good morals. He's a hero. Making Cole gay is honestly a wonderful choice for queer representation, especially for queer kids.

Making Cole and Geo a romantic couple makes sense. It would be such a big win for the LGBTQ+ community if they become a thing.