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#so this one is answered on its own
rocksinmuffin · 2 years
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You ever seen Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal? Any thoughts on it?
I have not but I respect people who want to unga that bunga
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puppyeared · 1 month
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good morning sifloop nation
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hinamie · 3 months
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hhmmmmm uh im dusting the cobwebs off my brain trying 2 come up w something interestinf uhh.......anything non spoiler-y you can discuss w regards to geto in the atla au perchance?
hi rin !!!!! tysm fr sending i hope u r doing well <3
atla geto lore fr u courtesy of sam:
he's a waterbender from the northern water tribe. he can bloodbend but finds it distasteful
he gave gojo the betrothal necklace/proposed to him when they were 20 (all of the adult characters are aged up in the fic vs jjk canon ages)
all of his decisions are driven by a desire to lighten the burden placed on gojo's shoulders
aaaaand atla geto draws fr u courtesy of Me :3
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jjk atla!au with @philosophiums
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slavhew · 2 months
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And I just have to tell you that I
Love you so much these days,
#homestuck#dirk strider#bgd#brain ghost dirk#jake english#dirkjake#hs2#homestuck^2#homestuck 2#hsbc#homestuck beyond canon#homestuck epilogues#candy epilogue#admin draws#fanart#i cant even pretend im normal about my own art or this song im sorry#im tryna think of something to say abour this and i keep thinking about the lyrics and i GRGRHHHHFHFJG#i dunno man. i love plastic beach. i cant say anything here that is not gallbladder-achingly cheesy#but just. i dont know.#jake keeping a little bit of dirk in his heart all those years. even if bgd is 'all' jake hes still in the memory he carries#when i listen i find myself stuck between which singer/verse should be jake and which should be dirk. but the answer is simple#theyre both both.#jake thinks hes the one singing abour getting abandoned. but really hes the one losing himself in the substance#and dirk. dirk is the one watching him lose himself. but since hes just a part of jake. yeah.#'i have to tell you that i love you so much these days' both as something jake is saying to dirk and what jake wishes dirk was there to say#hes so alone in that reality. even if he might not admit and go so far as to imagine dirk saying it. its something that deep down#he aches to hear. the man who has deemed himself unlovable and incapable of love. he still wants to hear it despite himself#he still wants to say it despite nnot being able to bring himself to even process that emotion#sigh. see what happens. i cant talk aboht it bc a single line turns intoTHIS
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shopcat · 1 year
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i think in the hamster wheel of my mind a big part of where people go wrong with eddie and his shitty garage band as an extension is that they for some bizarre reason think he's gene simmons metal when he's jack black metal. heavy metal. he's tenacious d metal. he's school of rock. he's stoner lord of the rings metal he nearly wore blue jeans and plaid. jack black literally in real life once said eddie was the best character bc he's heavy metal like him. LOOK AT THIS
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#🍦#answer it's bc people think he's some mishmash of all alternative scenes without any actual knowledge of where the mashing occurs 😭#eddie is . a heavy metal guy. A cool one. a nice one even. he likes rock and roll#it's so funny when ppl try and describe it and they've never heard the stuff he actually listens to in their lives for some reason#literally so much of the appeal of eddie's character within his subculture is that its theatrical and dramatic but its still grounded#he's very alternative and Out There but he's still just some guy. he's not wearing spiked leather jackets#in fact he's not wearing any of the other kinds of leather jackets i've seen people say he would ... TO ME#sts#if u haven't seen the clip he then proceeds to air guitar the MoP melody then shouts heavy metal is everywhere#i don't even know how to explain this bc it's like ... okay#the general .. VIBE? aestheticsm? is kind of similar to what people sometimes portray but they're missing thst it's tongue in cheek#like it's like that buff poster of him being this anachronistic homage to heavy metal album covers#fire and satanic imagery and skulls and lightning and big drama and ROCK AND ROLL#it's rock and ROLL man...#and people r making him this weird sanitised dork LOL 😭 when he's a dork in a different more fun way.. imo#and it's not that those types of people don't exist and that they're not cool in their own way cuz they are sure but that's not THIS GUY#he is an 80S METALHEAD... and yeah i try and ground him in thinfs and poke and prod at it until it fits my own understanding of alternative#scenes better but that's bc i've had a hand in the punk scene for years and years#i dunno sometimes i feel like ppl r just not doing the full potential and then going way too hard in this super specific direction#and he ends up first of all usually just a massive douchebag not sure what that's about. But a guy who he would in canon HATE 😭#YOU ARE MAKING HIM A POSER. is what i'm saying#he is alwyas some guy before he's anything else and before he's that he's a 20 year old loser#you need to reflect this... You need to bottle it. ugh. ugh#so much of this reminds me of the time someone was like he would never wear PLAID#like are you kidding me. are you actually kidding me rn#ppl have this weird arstheticised mostly modern and mostly literallt just eboy Idea of what he'd wear it's crazy to me sorry#also it's ugly#i also think. this is so long lol . anyway . i also think going too ''authentic'' in the 80s metalhead direction also lands u w different#problems. my advice to people trying to write or draw alternative characters is they are People. before they are anything else#🍏
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choccy-milky · 2 months
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THANK YOU ALL TO THE SUPER NICE AND SUPPORTIVE MESSAGES I GOT AFTER FINISHING MY FIC💖💖💖🥹🥹🥹there were too many to respond to separately and i didnt wanna feel like i was repeating myself, so i just wanna say thank you all at once, it really means so much to me that you all read along and enjoyed it so much and what it meant to u all personally🥹 second pic is how i feel....ur all my proud parents congratulating me after i just finished building something cool and im showing it off to you LMFAOO
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FUN FACT men actually didnt wear engagement/wedding rings back in the 1890s! it was only in the beginning of the 1900s that they started wearing them (due to the first world war) bc they wanted to have something to bring with them to remember their wives. SO YEAH thats why!! i guess wizard society could be different, but i just went with real world lore on that front BAHA
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@psyducktastic BAHAH THANK YOUU!! tbh i was originally planning on making the wedding even shorter/glossing over it even more, and didnt really MAKE a decision on whos POV it was gonna be in...it just happened as i started writing LOL. i guess i wrote it from sebs POV bc less emotions there to focus on, unlike CLORAS pov, which like you said, would be running a mile a minute and filled with all these thoughts, and subsequently make me unable to gloss over the scene like i wanted to LOL. plus, the whole anticipation of a wedding is in finally seeing the bride, so even tho it wasnt even intended, i kinda like that the reader will be in the same position as seb/the audiences POV as they wait for the bride to enter. and yes clora defs had a lot of bittersweet feelings, i think i have her mention it internally in that conversation with anne, that its still an adjustment and that even tho shes ofc happy with seb, its still kinda lonely/will take some getting used to. but i didnt wanna bring down the mood in the last chapter by focusing too much on those bittersweet feelings, so i just focused on the sweet instead 🥹💖and also i cant even imagine what clive and clora were doing outside the door before they entered...i imagine clive was secretly choked up and clora was nervous, which resulted in the two of them just being completely silent BAHAHA. maybe some subtle squeezes of reassurance and comfort back and forth BUT THANK YOU AGAIN💖💖💖AND IM HAPPY YOU LIKED HOW I ENDED IT🥹💖💖💖
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prideprejudce · 1 month
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I feel like people have read into Alicent's response to Rhaenyra's ultimatum in both good AND bad faith ways, but i feel like I haven't seen much of what Rhaenyra was feeling about it!!
Personally, I feel like the ultimatum she gave Alicent was the product of 3 different motivations- first, it was the obvious political move to kill the usurper to her throne, duh. The second, is that I think Rhaenyra is super aware- and terrified of- being trapped in a cycle of loss, being passed over for a son, and her claim to the throne standing only because of what she represents not her as a person. Thats its own whole fascinating character essay i cant get into here lol.
But the third reason is that I THINK she has a desperate personal obsession with being chosen by Alicent over Aegon, and leans into the ultimatum as a way to extract what she needs from Alicent-- to be chosen and prioritized over her father's son, and be the centre of Alicent's attention (romantic or not).
The directors/writers have mentioned one of the crucial aspects of Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship is how many times Rhaenyra reaches out, only to be rejected by Alicent over and over. I think Rhaenyra, as someone who really internalized going after what she wants from a young age, is a bit spoiled, and is obsessed with Alicent's continuous rejection as both a novelty, and a deep source of insecurity.
Rhaenyra has a bit of magical thinking where she really does think that if she just pushes hard enough she can change the world into the shape she wants it to be, and I think when Alicent CONTINUES to deny her, she gets more and more frustrated.
Double this with her general issues around being passed over for a son, first from her father with baelon, and then COMPOUNDED with baby aegon stealing both her father AND alicent's attention as alicent prioritized birthing and probably caring for her son over rhaenyra's sulking when Rhaenyra was in the most pain she had been in yet in her life.
I think Rhaenyra is HIGHLY resentful about not just aegon usurping her throne, but also the lack of attention during the HEIGHT of her teenage years, where she already has a contentious relationship with her father AND .....stepmother?? first love??? sister?? (targaryen family incest issues are a wonderful icing on top of this cake)
It was very clear that the reason Alicent married viserys was SPECIFICALLY to have more children, and that Alicent CHOSE (from Rhaenyra's perspective) to put herself in that position JUST after Aemma died from the same cause, becoming a mother rather than staying with Rhaenyra and daydreaming about riding off into the sunset. In Rhaenyra's mind, she lost her mother to the promise of a son, only to lose Her Alicent™️ to ANOTHER promise of a son right after. This is probably the deepest rejection Alicent could have given her.
The entire second half of season 2 is more denial; Rhaenyra's marriage proposal of their children is rejected, Alicent rejects Rhaenyra's bastard sons in general, and Rhaenyra's choices by extension, then driftmark happens, then the ENTIRE USURPTION happens, rejecting Rhaenyra's claim to her own birthright.
Rhaenyra even tries AGAIN in season 3 - extending herself to go into Alicent's place of comfort to sue for peace, even telling Alicent bits of a personally sacred religious doctrine only to be rejected AGAINNNNNNN.
(I could write forever about how Rhaenyra indulges Alicent's religious but never gets the same back on her own customs)
Yah, I think when Rhaenyra sees Alicent next, its not just that the ultimatum is a political necessity, but its decades of rejection culminating in 'you need to choose and prioritize me over everything, including your son, bc i cannot take anymore rejection from you, and I cant handle NOT being the most important thing in your whole world tbh :)' Especially on the heels of her newfound radicalization i feel like Rhaenyra sees Alicent's 'Choosing Rhaenyra' this time as a Holy Blessing and the last crucial piece she needs to self actualize.
(Also never forget all of this takes place in the targaryen CESSPOOL that is Rhaenyra having Alicent as a sister/step mother/half employee?? Alicent was at least her subordinate at one point/only confidante/possible first love-- theres probably alot of projection on Rhaenyra's part for what Alicent's approval means to her)
sorry this is so long the word rejection has ceased to mean anything to me at this point
"Rhaenyra sees Alicent's 'choosing Rhaenyra' this time as a Holy Blessing and the last crucial piece that she needs to self actualize"
what if we all just set each other on fire
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felassan · 4 days
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#iirc the datv embargo lifts in a few hours time#its exciting for sure!! ◕‿◕#(theres some good info out there about what u can expect etc)#everyones level of comfort/preference for spoilers or what they consider/dont consider spoilers or do/dont want to see beforehand#is different and thats valid#for me rn my pref is not seeing much more of the game than i have so far so i will probably not be watching/reading most of those bits of#coverage which are described as 'spoilery' due to this#im just at a stage personally where in the main the last thing I'd like to see now is just a good look at the CC and the CC options#and then just any of the more 'generic' stuff like any new official screenshots that get tweeted or if theres one more trailer or something#(know what i mean? maybe generic is the wrong word but like vague or general or something). and thats about it#so if i'm quieter on here or not postin about sth new that you've seen or focusing more on less-new stuff like V&V eps i didnt get a chance#to listen to yet or i dont know the answer to something etc thats why ^^#i've turned off asks and submit as well jic#sry for any inconvenience caused by that and for not following/posting everything in the coming weeks hh!!#its like a push and pull between wanting to be hyped with everyone/overanalyze every new crumb/wanting my blog to be useful and#not wanting to know much more about the game besides CC than i do atm hh#ultimately we will only get to go into this game and play this game for for the first time once so yea :D#(and in case it helps to know for your own curation purposes my datv spoilers tag is 'dragon age the veilguard spoilers'!!)#mj and the world
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hulloitsdani · 2 months
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What do u think Kiran is
How do u think the order sees kiran
*slowly sits up in my chair*
I think Kiran is a very normal person. This is someone you and I have met before. Be that from the other side of grocery store cashier, waiting in the same elevator, or walking by on a crosswalk. Kiran is a civilian from our world trying to roll with the punches of being warped somewhere completely alien. And you can see it in how they conduct themselves.
I always have a lot of fun writing Kiran’s dialogue because their casual modern speech almost feels like a dialect in comparison to the more formal fantasy tone everyone else speaks with. An “ain’t” will never exit Alfonse’s mouth, you know? And there’s a difference in “Do you have gold?” vs “You got gold?” To me, this gives Kiran an air of unfamiliarity to anyone they interact with. Let’s use Grima as an example, because it doesn’t sound like this grammatical change would make much of difference until Kiran has the audacity to hit Grima with a bro mid sentence. But that’s just how they talk. And as sweet and friendly as they are, there’s always moments like that to remind that no one has the cultural context to fully understand Kiran. Except for the audience, who can realize that Kiran let the customer service voice drop to talk to Grima like he’s an actual person.
And that’s just about how they talk! This view is only emphasized by every other thing about them! They’re a lovable goof, which is normal chill person behavior in the audience’s eyes but feels REALLY ODD to the characters of FE’s medieval fantasy war setting. There is this air of unknown about them that the more socially perceptive will pick up on and will try to come to a conclusion about. Example, I imagine Soren would interpret a lot of this as a dangerous and deeply annoying lack of intelligence from someone he has the displeasure of sharing a tactics table with. Or looping back to the Grima example, he would totally think Kiran has greedy ulterior motives behind that pleasant facade. It takes a lot of work for those types to realize that the discrepancy present isn’t really any of those things. But I also wouldn’t be too surprised if Kiran doesn’t try to directly prove any of those assumptions wrong unless they have to.
Why? Well now it’s time for the implications! Oh how we love the implications.
Because the Summoner is a different story. No one has any fucking clue what that is.
I can tell you what Kiran has pieced together so far. Summoning people from across time and space is apparently not easy. It’s not some school of magical study that some mage could pull off with enough time and research. Trust, Eitri tried. It’s a lot of complex moving parts. For example, the contracts. The contracts Kiran automatically binds their summoned to don’t even compare to the ones Veronica used in book 1. They are far more intense and infinitely harder to break. The only way out of them is if Kiran wills it so. Not even death is an option, because Kiran can come in for the revive. If they had to guess, it’s an older, more completed version of the art. Something lost to time. But no matter the case, Kiran has the ability to take full control of whoever they manage to summon. From a lowly farmer to the divine. And their power only grows.
In a similar vein, if there was any character to canonically see the hud, I think it would be Kiran. It’s genuinely part of their power set. I have previously described Kiran as the party mage until Veronica shows up to be the actual mage, but it would be way more accurate to call them a mystic/seer. They see the map, everyone’s stats, and is doing a fast amount of math to give the combat forecast. Then, upon processing all this information their enemies couldn’t dream of having at their disposal, Kiran can telepathically communicate any change in plans to anyone under contract. Kiran is not inherently some great tactician the moment they touch ground in Askr; they simply can do things no one else can. They’re learning the actual tactics part on the fly. This makes them simultaneously the largest ace up the Order’s sleeve and potentially its biggest liability. If they fall, it could cause a whole system cascade. By that same token, some of the biggest threats the Order has faced are the ones who do their research and rightfully target Kiran.
Now. Thinking critically about all that. That’s downright terrifying. A ridiculous amount of power has been dropped callously into Kiran’s lap and they have to work extremely hard to be moral with it. It’s terrifyingly easy not to be. It would actively take less effort to ‘take the reins’ as it were. But in order to be able to sleep at night ever again, they go the extra mile to not invalidate the will of their summoned. To take over like that. To make a colony of worker bees out of people. Because oh dear god they just summoned a child and the fact that they could easily force them to fight and die for them, only to be revived and do it all over again, is HAUNTING. No. No the Order has an in house orphanage now. This kid is getting adopted and cared for god damnit or Kiran might just pop a blood vessel. And sure that child is going to be a child and there will never be a world where they get along with everyone else, but that’s just going to need be a problem they address when they get there and not an excuse to use Hubris; the power set. Now replace the word child with everyone they ever summoned and you have the wider philosophy they apply to the entire Order.
They’re hyper aware of the power imbalance. They hate it with every bone in their body. They work really hard to correct it in whatever way they can.
So Kiran might not jump on the opportunity to correct those who think lesser of them. It’s… oddly comforting to know someone is keeping a critical eye on them. Holding them accountable. Especially since so much of the order just thinks of them as this quirky yet well meaning host. And, really, what can they even do about that? They have gone over the contract with every hero they summon and despite that they still choose to stay. So, what, do they try to inspire more mistrust? The problem with that they would have to actually do acts that intentionally inspire mistrust. And even if that was successful they can’t just waste the extra man power because every other month there’s some new divine asshole who wants them all dead. And if they fail that means they have to start their life from square one and god they can’t do that again so—
Just breathe Kiran.
It’s fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.
You have work to do.
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moeblob · 4 days
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son boy raccoon trash can man suffering in a dnd au as a cleric bc his warlock will not stop committing murders and he has to keep coming up with reasons murder is valid to convince the gm its fine and under control
#my characters#oops i fell in love#right is trying his best in the au to think about all the logic behind killing someone despite being a cleric SPECIFICALLY#bc he refuses to hurt anyone irl or in dnd and ok fine their warlock can have a little murder as a treat#and the body count is adding up and hes like ... so tired..... please can you not kill for five minutes im running out of excuses#fwiw he has the weird logic of the group in the base plot and the guy who is the gm here#is v open about ok but if we ask right then hell give an unhinged answer completely thought out and rationalized#and in fact asks him hey i know you refuse to hurt people but im having a debate with these two coworkers#if you had to commit a crime for aaaaaanyone on the planet who would you commit a crime for#and he doesnt even hesitate to say luca obviously to which the asker is like WHAT ABOUT MY DAUGHTER#YOU WANNA MARRY HER AND WONT COMMIT A CRIME FOR HER? but LUCA? of all people???? not even brent?#and right is just so confused because first off brent would probably be the one committing a crime for him without being forced#(brent agrees with this statement with a shrug) and second off luca has really weird coworkers and thought he was getting stalked for a bit#due to a misunderstanding with said one weird coworker so yeah obviously right would threaten the guy with a gun which is illegal and#third and final how could he face his beloved angel (the daughter mentioned above) if he was a criminal#he cant tarnish a sweet little innocent girls opinion by committing a crime IN HER NAME gosh fuck off with that attitude#he has STANDARDS thank you very much#and the three at the table are all like okay yeah that was really thought out on the fly youre right#also brent do not commit any crimes for him please and brent just nods in agreement bc ok he wont commit a crime unprompted#also hi animal crossing emotes are so fun to doodle for bye#once again i am baffled by how different the colors look on my laptop in the art program vs posting to tumblr#im going to go insane at how different they look#IM COLOR PICKING FOR MY OWN OCS AND ITS SO WRONG LOOKING IDK MAN
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carlyraejepsans · 8 months
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Do you enjoy underfell? I thought you disliked aus /genq
i don't dislike the concept of AUs itself, I'm just not a fan of like... the subculture that spawned around them in the UT fandom specifically and how it eventually took over almost all canon content (especially when it limits itself to the bros)
i like aus visually! i am an artist at heart after all. it's just that, if I'm going to care about them as stories and not just fun design ideas, my bar is uhh almost impossibly high the further you move from canon lolol.
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i think. i need to go for a drive and get myself a tasty beverage
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xlillyle · 6 months
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"We can delay the mission for another two minutes."
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silverskye13 · 2 months
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talks to u
You will regret talking to me I'm very very sorry
So recently my sister has been reading out loud to me [it is very fun I wish I had someone to read out loud to] and the book she picked was Haunting on the Hill. This book was an absolute minefield of a read because it was advertised as a spiritual sequel to Haunting of Hill House and HOHH is probably one of the books I've been the most emotionally invested in ever. Mostly because I see people take the book and Try To Do It Better constantly, and they do it wrong over and over and over again. I don't know how this became My Hill To Die On, but no one can do a remix of the genre right, especially those that pretend like they're trying to.
Hell House, for example, a book that I hate with my entire being, was a very intentional stab at HOHH. It took the trope of four people -- one a slightly older gentleman who is doing research on the property -- two women -- who is a lonely homebody, and one who is a (implied) bisexual psychic -- and one younger man about their age who has some Obvious Substance Abuse Problems, and sets them in a haunted house to try and figure out why its haunted. The author then spends the rest of the book punishing those characters for obvious perceived societal slights. The old man's sin is being old, and dies because he isn't virile and strong enough to withstand the house [unlike the young male protagonist]. The psychic is punished for believing she is psychic, being a confident woman who lives alone, and being implied bisexual [this is evident in the nature of her death, which I won't share here. It's fucking bad]. Then after these characters die, the white male savior comes back, something to do with the old owner of the house haunting it with his willpower, in a closet with a glass of water? It made no sense. But the metaphor the book was obviously leaning towards was, the Good Guy can win and get the girl if he has strength of mind, is vaguely psychic [but better than the psychic lady obviously] and fucking stands around long enough while his friends are killed.
House on the Hill, which should have been marketed as a reference to Hill House and not as a spiritual successor, is a passable haunted house book that attempts to remix the story by making all of the main characters theater kids. There is an older lady who has been ousted from her community for being too old, the young woman main protagonist who is the Ellie parallel, the Theadora parallel is her girlfriend, a bisexual actress who is maybe a little too full of herself, and their single male character has a substance abuse problem involving cocaine instead of alcohol, like Luke from the original book. The author even seems to have grasped some of the original intention of HoHH as a conversation about isolation and loneliness. However about halfway through the book, it takes a turn and seems to punish Theadora for being the character she was written as, in the same way Hell House punished its Theadora allegory character. The rest of the book proceeds with a lot of standard haunted house tropes -- not a bug exactly, but they don't reinforce any extended metaphor. They're mostly there to be spooky. Which would be fine for a standard haunted house book, but not for a haunted house book that claims its the sequel to HoHH.
You see, Haunting of Hill House, and by extension, Shirley Jackson, the author, have a very subtle but also deeply impactful metaphor about loneliness going on in the background, and everything from the haunted house to the fallout of the characters reemphasizes this theme.
Ellie, Eleanor, is an exhausted housewife-style woman in the 1960s, whose never gone anywhere or done anything with her life, because instead of marrying and moving across the country somewhere, she stayed home to take care of her ailing mother. Now that her mother is dead, she lives with her sister and brother-in-law, and believes herself to be a general tax on the family. She fills stuck, alone, unloved and unwanted. The story is in her point of view, and you quickly realize her way of coping with her trapped feelings involves fantasticizing the world around her. She dreams of who she would be if she just lived over there in that little cottage, how differently her life would turn out if she had a cute little life in that one room house. Etc. When she accepts the summons to Hill House, she steals her brother in law's car and drives there on her own, her first trip alone anywhere in her entire life.
Theadora is a psychic who, if I'm remembering right, lives alone and owns a flower shop. She lives a much more interesting lifestyle than most women in the 60s, in a big city with many different friends and lovers coming and going, completely independent. There is an implication that she has trouble keeping interpersonal relationships -- she's a little too flighty -- and really a woman who can't settle down with a man is a red flag.
Doctor Montague seems fine on the surface, if a little jaded. He's a professor at university who is being slowly pushed out of his scientific field because he believes in the supernatural, and wants to prove it using empirical evidence. You find out his wife is very supportive in this venture -- too supportive. He thinks all of her contributions are nonsense, and so is she. His loneliness is self inflicted. He has a fan club right there with his wife, if he gave two shits about her opinions.
Last is Luke, an alcoholic, and the person in line to inherit Hill House. His loneliness is that he, doesn't want the fuckin' house. But because of his alcoholism and gambling problems, the family has decided he, as the cursed child, gets to take care of the cursed mansion no one else wants to touch. So Luke, ostracized from the family and a little shitty about it, decides he might as well rent out the place for some extra cash to fuel his various addictions. The family is going to be cutting him off soon anyway...
These four characters, over the course of Hill House, become haunted by the house, not because of tragic deaths there, or because the house is alive in any literal sense of the word. But because the House has the quality of an overbearing mother, smothering its children with its expectations. Any piece of furniture moved in the place is replaced as soon as they leave the room. Any door opened to allow air or light inside is shut the minute they walk into the next. The house rights itself back to a self-inflicted perfection that is unlivable, and it wants to isolate you too, to be like it. Hill House tells you exactly what it is and what it wants to do in the first paragraph: And all who walk there, walk alone.
Shirley Jackson wrote this very intentionally. As a woman in the 60s trying to have a successful writing career, none of her books were taken seriously. She was pigeonholed into mother and housewife first. Articles that wrote about her works at the time held the patronizing tone of someone congratulating a child who found a new hobby -- not a serious writer wanting to make poignant stories. Her books are lovely now, the few that were published. But Shirley Jackson lived a life that was full of anxiety and agoraphobia, in a world where she felt belittled and token. Her books are written the way they are for a reason. There is great loneliness in being shoved in a box.
I really love that exploration. I love how the people in the book descend into the box of Hill House, the expectations they place on each other, and the way all the women feel tonally dissonant in their token roles. And that's why I hate so many modern adaptations, or inspired-bys, or spiritual sequels. Hill House is a metaphor before it's a ghost story -- and that is why it succeeds as a ghost story! It is scary because you get invested in the characters' wellbeings, their doomed qualities, their individual, very subtle, madnesses. Watching new writers read the book and punish those characters over and over again for not acting right [especially Theadora, Jesus Christ.]
In fact, since I'm already ranting, I'm going to give you a quick rant in defense of Theadora.
Theadora breaks into the book as a very bright star in Ellie's world. She is, literally, everything Ellie wishes she could be. She lives an interesting life, alone, without being too cripplingly lonely. Theadora, used to a little bit of flirting and over friendliness, falls in with Ellie and Luke immediately. She is charming, and bright and beautiful, and Ellie, who's character flaw is romanticizing everything, falls head over heels for her. They get scared together. They comfort each other when the ghosts start acting up. They get haunted together. And Ellie decides, in the way of someone romanticizing something, when all this is over, she would like to live with Theo. But when she tells Theo this, Theo laughs it off. "This is just a holiday, Ellie dear. We will have to get back to our lives eventually." It's unfair to say this is a game for Theadora. I feel like her feelings in the book, all her charm and her flirting, are genuine. But they're genuine in the way of someone going on vacation and flirting around with the people they meet -- she has a normal life she enjoys that she plans on getting back to. Ellie, who is incredibly alone, and who feels like she has only just tasted happiness now that she's come to Hill House, doesn't want to go back home after this. This is the happiest she's ever been.
Ellie informs Theo she is going to follow Theo home, and Theo turns very, very mean. She starts hitting much harder on Luke [something that makes Luke uncomfortable, but something he never really stops, because Luke also likes the attention he's getting] and belittling Ellie and her wild fantasies. She pushes Ellie away. It isn't kind, but what else can she do? She told Ellie she doesn't want to be followed home and Ellie, trapped in her daydreams, doesn't listen.
The rest of the book unfolds. Hill House isolates Ellie, and makes her feel like she can have no happiness outside its smothering walls. She gets taken by it.
In every book that takes on the mantle of trying to tackle the themes that made Hill House great, I would like to ask you all this: Why do they always punish Theo?
Hell House straight up kills its Theo allegory in a very brutal, overt way, implying she deserves that brutality for her promiscuity. The House on the Hill kills its Theo for being too full of herself, for believing she was entitled to greatness.
Why?
You can make a case for the queer aspects of her probably. Or for misogyny. Or for infidelity. Or for the fact that she appears to choose Luke over her relationship with Ellie. But I notice none of these books punish their Ellie allegory for also falling for Theo. For also aspiring to be something other than a stuffy housewife somewhere. For also falling for Luke, and wanting him to be a part of her happiness fantasy.
In honesty, I really think these authors read Theo and think she's the antagonist. So they write their stories to punish the angry woman who was mean to poor, lonely Ellie. But, here's the kicker, Theadora isn't the antagonist. The house is. Loneliness is. The house leads Ellie to a perfect world, and Ellie, who is the way that she is, cannot fathom a world where that perfection is broken, so she ignores it. So she scares people with her over-attachment. So they try to send her away, because whatever is going on with her, it's not safe and it needs to stop. So she decides she would rather die than leave.
Theadora is only "the bad guy" because she's the one that reminds everyone that the fantasy of this perfect house must break eventually. The Doctor will have to go back to his university that doesn't take him seriously and his wife who takes him too seriously. Theadora will have to go back to her shop with her rotating friends who aren't as close as she'd like, but whom she can't force to stay. Luke will have to go back to his place as the unwanted, failing heir and Eleanor --
Well. Eleanor doesn't leave Hill House.
Everyone gets so mad at Theodora because of Ellie's investment in her. Because Ellie is lonely, and sad, and relatable. The first time I read Hill House, some of Ellie's lines made me want to cry they hit so close to home. All her assertions that when she spoke to people she said too much and was too stupid, she would be better tomorrow. All her quiet chastisements that she needs to be more interesting. All her attachments and how scared she is of being spurned. All her wonder when she looks around at the world and tries to imagine a better life. But it's not Theodora's fault that Ellie doesn't get that. It's Ellie's fault for becoming too attached to something that isn't there, and it sucks, and if this were a story with a happy ending, she would realize that and grow past that, but she doesn't. That's not how the story is written.
On one of the nights when the haunting happens, Ellie and Theo are sharing a room. They are laying in bed and holding hands while the house comes alive around them. Knocking on the walls. Slamming doors. Claws, and whispering, and scraping and screaming. Ellie and Theo hold each other's hands tightly. She hears the torturous sounds of a baby in the other room, a child in pain, screaming for its mother, and she's terrified and she's holding tight to Theadora's hand.
And finds, when the haunting stops, that Theo was out of reach the whole time.
Ellie asks, who's hand was I holding?
[The Haunting of Hill House is a metaphor.]
One of these days I'm going to sit down and write the Haunting of Hill House remake in my head, that I am just egotistical enough to believe I could do well. I would find a more modern metaphor first. Something to do with the loneliness of an infinitely interconnected world. Something to do with how boxed in we all feel, how trapped, and how so many people blame it on computers, even though they should be able to connect us more.
I would build a Hill House where the four characters meet on a forum, the first time they've found someone with similar interests. They would meet in person for this haunting expedition. They too would take in the oddness of a house that rights itself on its own, pretends they were never there. They two would fall in love with each other, and bond, and find community in a group of people who are constantly isolated and are glad to finally find someone they relate to.
They too would have to dear with the objective, lonely horror of realizing this doesn't magically fix their problems. That they were alone in the rest of their lives not just because the world isolated them, but because they're bad at forming connections. They would get catty, and disagree, and worry about the lives they need to go back to, and complain about spouses and partners. And one of them, as is Hill House's tithe, wouldn't be able to cope.
One of them, as is Hill House's tithe, wouldn't be able to leave.
Anyway, not sure where exactly this rant was going. Uh. Nice Sunday we're having anon. Got any niche special interests you've been meaning to unload recently?
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gokubrain · 7 months
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Did u know that besides "like a ballad of love" there's another official song that's blatantly about vegeta's feelings for goku? It's called "memories - an evening (or night) without him" and it's even more romantic and beautiful than the other imo. I've listened to it a lot <3. Song: youtu*be/mQkChCzRbYo?feature=shared / Lyrics: dragonball*fandom*com/wiki/Memor%C4%ABzu_%E2%80%93Yatsu_no_Inai_Yoru%E2%80%93 (I really hope they give us another vegeta->goku song just to complete the trinity hehe)
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FGHJKRFGHJGH??????? H ELLO??
i was not aware of this oh my godddd......... do you people really expect me to believe vegeta is in love with a woman when theyre out here writing songs from his pov like this lmfao helpppfgjhg i'm losing it rn
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boydykedevo · 1 year
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just curious if there's a consensus here so:
Specifically THEME music, this isn't about the rest of the soundtrack (or the rest of the campaign for that matter). I’m excluding Balance both so as not to bias the results, and cuz the theme’s not original music.
Linky links under the cut in case anyone needs a refresher (listen to all of them before voting if you can!) Also feel free to listen to them all and vote even if ur not in the fandom! ^^
Commitment
Amnesty
Dust
Graduation
Ethersea
Steeplechase
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