#white collar analysis

[tenebrius-excellium]

Neil being made to believe he can't change his ways by some stupid psychiatrist in 5x04 hurts so much T_T

Fascinatingly, we meet an ex-criminal who DID change his life for the better in the same episode. And on the other hand there's Dr. Mara Summers who sows this terrible doubt in Neals mind about who he is and who he can be. That he can never be anything else but a thief.

It's very untypical for Neal to listen to random strangers, and so that had me startled. However, there's a distinct difference between the woman's and the other ex-criminal's voice of influence on him...: He is just a family man, she is cunning and on his level intellectually.

When Neal meets Dr. Summers, they immediately spar a mindgame.

And I'm not sure what about that made Neal change his mind about getting clean of his criminal history, because he clearly despises himself for being a con man afterwards. He's learned to hate the manipulation which he is able to intuitively force on the people he interacts with. It becomes wildly apparent who Neal is and who he is not in Season 6 with Keller and Amy (no more spoilers but those who have already watched know what I'm talking about).

So what did Dr. Summers trigger in Neal that made him lose faith in Peter and in himself? Why does he give up on the legal life again when he - once free - could have easily found work that feeds his desire for the thrill within the FBI, within security firms or insurance companies (like Sara)? Of course the conversation with Dr. Summers may have reminded Neal of how much he missed the high life. But it shouldn't have tampered with his identity. Neal claims to not know who he is, I say he has a fairly good idea. He knows what he's good at, he knows he doesn't do violence, he knows he wants an extravagant lifestyle and he knows who his friends are. That's a lot more than can be said about just any person.

So in a way, Neal went back to old habits, but they became very purposeful. It stopped being a game to him and it became about getting out for good. He somehow went back to shady behavior yet grew as a person and lost all joy in it.

I feel that part of his arc remained unfinished at the end of Season 6. Neal was on his way to learn that he doesn't need to steal to be able to live out who he is. And it kinda stopped there halfway.

I feel like Neal was about to become a Robin Hood type of guy. In saying that he could never change, Dr. Summers solidified the fact for him that he had definitely changed, but since everything was going too slow for him, he used the old methods to speed up the terms of his release. One last con.

The con to get out. For good.

I just wish I didn't have to analyze that in a wholeass essay. I wish it had been spelled out for us in the ending of the show. I wish I didn't merely have to hope that Neal found his peace after Dr. Summers got into his mind, while deep down knowing he is haunted. I wish someone had told him that he didn't have to listen to her.

I wish him peace.

@e7y1 @kimkhimhant

[traffic-duck]

I’ve been watching Supernatural recently and considering when supernatural was filmed it has amazing camera quality. Compare season one of Supernatural to season one of Doctor Who (which were filmed in the same year) Supernatural has way better camera quality. Like on face ups you can see each and every pore on the skin. It’s crazy! Same thing with season two. I mean season two of Doctor Who got better camera quality but Supernatural’s camera quality was still better. Also White Collar and Merlin were filmed in 2009 and Supernatural season one (which was filmed in 2005) still has better camera quality even after 4 years!Also the special effects are insane. Like you compare the special effects (sfx) in supernatural to the special effects in other popular shows that came out at around the same time and Supernaturals sfx look way more advanced and realistic.The only other show that I can think of that matched this level of realism in its sfx is Harry Potter. It is that insane.

[twisted-tales-told]

In the ending of season 3 of white collar we finally get Neal admitting he doesn’t want to run anymore, but I don’t think through any of season 3 he actually wanted to. I think he was going along with moz’s plan because he can’t admit to himself that he has changed. And that courage to stand his ground is exactly why what Kramer does is so goddamn cruel. He doesn’t know the Neal we know, and all he sees him as is a tool at his disposal. He has no respect for the human inside the con man and that is also why he’s my least favourite character on this show. At least the rest of the villains know exactly where they stand. They know they’re against the law. Kramer uses the system to manipulate Neal, and that is what makes him as well as real life FBI, police etc. so terrifying.

[lemuel-apologist]

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffrey Reiman

[whatsagirltoblogabout]

I quite literally paused an episode to zoom and enhance an image to try to read the text in a personnel file that was shown for less than a second, as research for a fic that's idea #34 on my list... I'm losing my marbles. And I kind of love it.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Bc I’m so obsessive…

… I present, analysis of Peter and Neal’s age difference for no purpose other than my own justification.

Basically, Neal is the closest to having a confirmed age. He goes into witness protection at about three, runs away at the age of eighteen, he shows up in NY eight years before the plot, and in s4, Mozzie says that Ellen made the tape thirty years ago. This makes sense, bc presumably Neal would need some time to forge those bonds and get to NY after running away, so it puts him at about twenty eight to twenty nine at the start of the series (yes, it does mean Matt Bomer was playing younger than his age, but he’s one of those people who can get away w/ that).

Meanwhile, Peter has been in the FBI for at least ten years, married to El for twelve. We know he first met her when her when he was fairly new to the field. Presumably they dated for at least year before he proposed, and then there was some time before the actual wedding. We know he has a BA in accounting at least, but from the way they talk, it’s a good guess that he’s got a Master’s, too (you need more than a BA to work for a Fortune 500 company). I can’t remember if they said it was his first case that he met El on, but we may need a little bit of padding for that, too, and there may have been other pauses in between these events. You have to be at least twenty three and at most thirty six to apply for the FBI. Assuming he went to all that school, he probably wasn’t twenty three… We also know he spent time as a baseball player, which I don’t think they give dates for, and probably wasn’t while he was in the FBI, and if he was minor league enough to have a card made, it would have been fairly serious… And when Peter has to go undercover as Neal’s father, he acknowledges that he’s ‘much older,’ which I doubt he’d say if they were only five years apart or something. It still makes sense to me to interpret Peter as being somewhere in his mid forties at the start of the series, and not just bc that’s how old Tim was.

As a result, that put him as at least ten years older than Neal, probably a bit more. No, it’s not enough for them to be biologically related, but they’re not that close, and even if it’s not as common as babies, older kids are adopted all the time by parents not technically ““““old enough”””” all the time. Especially given Neal’s unconventional history, it’s definitely enough for there to be an experience/maturity gap.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Spies are supposed to be good at keeping secrets, but soldiers in 8200 like to talk about their service. Technically, David said, he combed through data from a base in central Israel to determine where bombs should fall. But at the end of the day, he assured me, the military was really more of a networking opportunity—a surefire way to land a high-paying gig at Google or Facebook. As his time in the army neared an end, he turned his work surveilling the occupied Palestinian territories into a line on a corporate CV, toured high-tech companies in Central Tel Aviv, and was connected to cybersecurity CEOs over WhatsApp. While some soldiers in 8200 spend their time monitoring Hezbollah cells in Lebanon or waging covert war against Iran, others are tasked with managing Israel’s high-tech military occupation of Palestine. The destructive effects of Israel’s surveillance regime in the West Bank and Gaza are well-documented, but veterans of intelligence units who surveilled Palestinians often describe their work as removed from the reality of occupation. David was just one of many veterans I spoke with who framed his service in the parlance of high-tech careerism: as another kind of DevOps, product management, or data analysis. These days, intelligence units are structured in the image of tech conglomerates, and tech conglomerates are contracted to do the work of intelligence units. From Israeli military bases to Silicon Valley corporate campuses, warfare has simply become a white-collar tech job.

[centrally-unplanned]

So because I tend to be described as "center-left" by the forces of all that is evil and unpure assailed against me in their limitless and merciless cruelty, the way the far-right in the US misuses economic statistics tends to find no sympathy from me - in ways that I find difficult to even engage with. (Also, for balance's sake, true libertarians tend to be the ones who make this mistake the least, a solid W for them - they average the highest on this kind of economic literacy alongside the technocratic left). I am on the other hand more sympathetic to the reasons some on the left have for this mistake - but it is still unproductively misguided.

The idea from far-left is is essentially that the US economy is and must always be broken in all ways, because that is a premise that implies the platform of reform they endorse. This is a stance that, imo, most leftists will have because they want to help the poor. They will discuss child poverty and homelessness in the same breath as "living paycheck to paycheck" and the "immiserated middle class". They see these things as united, both causally but also practically - that the solution for the homeless and for the working class are the same, the bonds that will form a united front strong enough to cut the chains of capital in one fell swoop.

This is not only not true, but it is the opposite of true. A middle class that believes itself immiserated and struggling is one least likely to support the redistributive policies necessary to address chronic poverty because they are in fact very different problems. Those people are going to ask for tax cuts! They have jobs, they don't think they need welfare checks, but they do (correctly!) think lower taxes will help them. Cheaper grocery prices means cheaper wages for workers in the grocery industry, the current economy has been really good for the lower income working classes as the tight labor market has boosted their relative wages. Which middle class white collar people haaaaate, because it raises their prices. And since you want lower taxes but the money has to come from somewhere, you are more willing to cut things like welfare to pay for them.

When the problems are real they can align - like yes the housing market in the US is pretty busted, "everyone" will benefit from just making more houses. But even then, the "everyone" doesn't include all the incumbent upper-middle class housing owners, and it particularly doesn't help new home owners who have a mortgage to pay off that are banking on rising real estate prices. All these policies have real tradeoffs. Opportunities for solidarity do exist, don't get me wrong, but its not the default state. You think America won't raise taxes on the rich just to expand the mortgage tax deduction? In your heart you know we would.

Obviously none of this applies to you if you think the world is corrupted root to stem and only the blood of the capitalist class can water the soil of revolution and birth the flower of a new age, or whatever. But unless you want that you are gonna need accurate policy analysis to actually solve the problems within the system, and they will have tradeoffs. And a middle class that thinks itself too poor to help is not an asset in that.

[kalims]

‎˃ ᵕ ˂ . . "i kinda wanna throw my phone across the room 'cause all I see are girls too good to be true"

jealousy, jealousy,

I reckon yuu has atleast some people admiring them for their 'heroic' acts for each dorms, ironically enough

characters. riddle, leona, azul, kalim, vil, idia, malleus.

includes. gn!reader, flowers aren't limited to girls.

cw. each has a student from their dorm/another liking reader, book 5 spoilers? kinda.

note. this was supposed to be for celebrating 4k and originally I had a fic that I was supposed to publish but I got really busy w/ school and stuff so I supposed I'll just drop this 😚 I'm also sick btw *cries

if someone asked you; "what do you think the students see you as?" you'd probably answer, "a wannabe I guess." technically you were sure that you were right about your guess. if there's anything that you'd know about a school that worships villians is that they'd hate someone whose the polar opposite.

which is you, with you basically 'saving' the dorm leaders and all. atleast the person in question didn't seem to pick at you for helping them and not going like 'I don't need your help.'

which is also why you're.. shocked to say the least when some random student you can't say that looks familiar hands you a bouquet of flowers, clearly flushing at your stare. you notice a white envelope tucked into the variety of flowers as well as a box of chocolates.

funnily enough you wondered if twisted wonderland celebrated valentines day on a different month.

albeit the possibly hundred other gazes from the other people. why'd they have to do this in the cafeteria exactly? it would've saved you the trouble if they did it on a more private scale.

you can only smile at them politely. honesty feeling a mixture of embarrassment and shyness cause you've never received such a bold confession yourself. "thank you?" you feel a little bad when they deflate at your short answer to their gifts but nevertheless pleased.

"you're welcome. I tried to pick out the flowers for someone as special as you but it can't compare." they absent-mindedly state. you can't hide the grin on your face, you just met this person and they're already flattering you. it feels nice to be appreciated.

kinda cringe but you take it back this person is really cool.

— riddle rosehearts

bystander number 1. who wants to collar that person by anger, along with jealousy then proceed to stomp away. riddle would actually do that but only when you're not around cause you'd probably not be too happy if he punishes your 'friend' and he wants you to see him as the 😇 reliable young lad everyone loves.

suddenly had the will to impress you and one upped everything the other person did. so they got a 49 on the magical analysis test? that's too bad, riddle got 50. get on his level. so they answer correctly only when called? well riddle's voluntarily raising his hand and getting them all correct. oh they can cook?

oh well. he can do everything else better else than cooking so it doesn't really matter. you'd be a fool to choose someone else over him. but he supposes its part of the charm, infatuatingly enough.

— leona kingscholar

bystander number 2 who either just doesn't care or is secretly really mad. knowing leona it's probably the latter because it's leona and if there's something he hates it's probably getting upped by some random person whom he's clearly better than. you must be really blind if you have the audacity to ramble about said person to him.

went really grumpy for the span of days to weeks. ruggie literally would do anything you ask if it meant that leona's gonna be to his old self, lazy sure but he didn't used to place this much work on him!

your fault or not you'd probably also get affected by his drastic change of attitude. bro literally ignored you as well as everyone else, reverting to his mean self but treating you with more bitterness. it's probably not your fault but he doesn't regret a thing because you actually look upset when he pays you no mind. so you do feel something for him 😒😏. flashbacks to kaeya

— azul ashengrotto

bystander number 3. who's borderlining between wanting to get depressed then crawl in his octo pot to cry and absolutely ruining everything this random cheap made. I mean, really? those aren't even your favorite flowers! where did they get them, at the nearest dollar store? if he were them he'd give you the most expensive flowers you'd ever lay your eyes on!

and that's what he does actually; literally showed up on your doorstep with a handsome smile and gave you the most prettiest flowers you've seen yet. consider yourself charmed! bro literally made you forget about that other person for days until you saw them like a month later which is kinda bizarre..

the twins don't let you know that azul put them up on a 'job' to keep em' away. but it does use for good blackmail material against the jealous octopus.

— kalim al asim

bystander number 4. legit doesn't get jealous. kalim literally is just happy that you have admirers like him because you deserve it! he'd be more upset if you didn't have admirers honestly. okay but lowkey though, he isn't trying to compete at all but you receive a large bouquet, definitely much grander than the one you received and a heartfelt letter tucked into it.

how was that person supposed to win you over when kalim does it better?? ok but this is like the jamil situation in book 5 LOL.

if he actually somehow gets jealous he feels bad because he knows he'll do it better ( not condescending /gen ) so he just resorts to trying to win your affection and forgets about not trying then completely overshadowed the other person's previous attempts. bro only spared a 'I feel bad' look then smiling again because yay! you like him better now :)

— vil schoenheit

bystander number 5. AKA, the one who knows he'll do better and actually does do it better ( condescending ). vil doesn't even bother doing anything cause he trusts you enough to make the.. correct, choice. you do know that he's one of the most sought off person in the world, right? you'd be a fool to not see that.

okay but maybe he is a little paranoid that you actually will choose them so he actually does put in effort..

I mean nearly everyone is scared terrified of rook right? what's one more person to the count? he totally does not purposely send out rook to stalk them so he can expose them on social media .. or make him stall them somewhere so he has the chance to whisk you away and you losing the ability to see them for this day.. oh well, it's better to just spend it with vil since you're free anyways..

— idia shroud

bystander number 6 who was there but actually not there..? physically not present but he was there, somehow.. *looks at camera in the far, FAR corner of the ceiling*. idia doesn't know whether to start crying because you actually looked happy with their CRINGE. confession.. the crying is a more intense period than azul's btw.

or.. actually there's no or, that's just what he's gonna do. close his electronic device, crawl into his bed and cry into his body pillow. fear not. little brother ortho to the rescue! ortho actually suggested destroying any evidence of a 'disappearance' if that poor soul just happened to not be present for years but idia quickly shot that idea down, he actually pondered on agreeing but no way he's gonna let them win by that!

hijacks all their phones, PC's, whatever other stuff so that it's completely off, no other person can fix it besides him. and he's definitely not gonna do that so the person ghosts you for weeks, so you get mad and ghost them irl.. wow his masterplan actually worked. no ortho pls don't force me to 'comfort' them..

— malleus draconia

bystander number 7 who genuinely doesn't see the appeal of this basic little b— human :). like? hello?? he's right here, open your eyes child of man. no need to tolerate the pathetic display they just did that doesn't live up to your very existence, they might as well compare you to gravel on the floor from how poor they executed their weird analogy.

he could legit go on and on about every single feature you have, your eyes, mouth, face, shape.. he would present you a microsoft presentation for it if you ask and it literally is godly description type of thing. you could finish listening to one of them and you'd be in TEARS ☠.

bros so sentimental. he thanks lilia for the advice of microsoft presentation because you now look completely convinced. malleus has the pride to spare the other person a smirk when your attention is fully on him :D.

[sm-baby]

HELLOOO I'M BACK ok ok remember how I said in Jax's analysis that the zapping scene could actually have a lot of information into it?? Let me elaborate:

There are two things that mainly caught my attention in that scene:

1 - How the lightning bolts that come out of the collar are yellow

2- How the shock is really quick (literally just a snap)

"Oh that must be just a stylistic choice right? don't look too deep into it-" WRONG!!!

In the Jax's Doodles, when Caine bites down Jax's head, we can see that he started bleeding in black. Why can I affirm that his blood really is black and it's not just because the comic is in grayscale?

For this reason:

During the Teatre Shenanigans, though it was all an act, it's implied that Ragatha does bleed in red, since, you know, the color is there, and because if it was any other color Pomni might have not believed it.

Also, let's be real, Gangle would not mess up something as simple as someone's blood color - her plays need to be >perfect< I love her so much omg

Still using the Theatre Shenanigans doodles as information, but with the addition of the new comic of Pomni taking the shortest stick, we can see through Gangle's ribbons that if there are colors that are portrayed, even when the comics are in black and white, those colors are red and yellow, so if his blood was actually red, it would've been painted as such.

So with that in mind we can pretty much say that his blood is, in fact, black.

As we can see in the part 2 of the neck pieces, his speaking bubbles are also in black and white, and, through an ask made some time ago, it was confirmed that he can only see in grayscale, and that's the reason why Gangle is the one in charge of coloring his animations.

EVERYTHING, literally EVERYTHING about Jax is monochromatic, grayscale, black and white, 50 shades of gr- you got it. He is NOT supposed to be associated with any color AT ALL

And that really highlights how out of place are the yellow bolts that come out of his collar. Jax is not supposed to have any type of color. The shock emitted from his neckpiece does not match with the way his level is supposed to be, doesn't match with his room, his character, his code, but why would that be??

Is there the chance that the chain wasn't his original collar? It does make sense if you look at some of the theories, especially regarding Kinger's role in the bigger picture. In the Imgur image, Kinger does mention to Queenie that he found a code that could free everyone from their collars, but, the main catch here, is that he could NOT disable it after it was done.

Well, we know that he did disabled it, and as a consequence, Queenie abstracted soon after

After it happened, Kinger probably was really desperate to put the collars back on the other AIs, he didn't want his friends to have the same fate his wife had,

But he couldn't disable the code that took them off, so what could he do now??

Simple answer:

He created a new code, so there could be new collars

That ties up with the ask answered with "it's hard to put a chain on someone if they have a scarf on", Jax's chain was probably not part of his design originally, it was not made for him, it was not part of his code in the first place,

Pure speculation, but this might be why Jax's supposedly new collar doesn't follow in every aspect the whole monochromatic idea that his design was meant to have. The yellow lightnings stand out because Kinger probably didn't put a lot of effort into the new collars, he didn't make sure that they matched with the quirks and characteristics already coded into the characters, as he was too desperate to put them back on and just made the code as quickly as he could.

At most he just made the neckpieces blend in with the AIs designs, so they wouldn't stand out. They just match at a superficial level.

(funny part is that Jax probably didn't even notice the yellow coming out of his collar, he can't see colors 😭).

This is why I imagine that his original design never had a chain to begin with, both because of this information, AND, because in Jax's room, we can see him wearing the scarf in the ripped out poster.

Was the scarf supposed to be his original neckpiece? But why would he still wear it after everyone had taken theirs off (as seen in the restarting scene, in the same comic)? To be honest I think he just liked how it looked, he did seem to have a fashion sense back then.

But, by that theory, of the chains not being his actual design, he has also chains on his feet, was his whole design altered?? Why would it be?? I still don't have any clue on why, gotta wait a little for more information.

I like to think that his current design reflects on his character, being a prisoner of both the game and his mind, and quite literally stuck in the past, being unable to move forward.

OK Now for the second part of the analysis

Remember my comment, saying that the shock he received was really quick? That stood out to me because during Ragatha's reset, when she also received the shock to avoid her abstraction, her shock was actually longer than his, being a "ZPPPPPP" instead of a "SNAP". Something I've also noticed is that both times when Jax got shocked, it seemed to be at a less intensity then when Raghata was, because there was a difference in line thickness and size of the lightning bolts shown.

After Jax's restart, in his room, we can see three centipedes, that's the most bugs we've ever seen in the same room until now, since we had only seen a single ladybug in Ragatha's garden, right after her reset.

Ok, so, I did talk a little about how Kinger might be the one responsible for the collars, and I also made an ask this one time to know if he was using the bugs as a way to keep an eye on the others (that was me!!! Hi!!)

If you pay attention to the relationships between the cast, we can see that Ragatha and Kinger are actually pretty close. They trust each other, while Jax seems to have a rocky relationship with everyone.

That might be the reason why there were more bugs than usual in Jax's room, because Kinger doesn't trust him and is aware of his rebellious nature, so he must feel the need to supervise him to a higher extent when compared to others.

Besides that, while Ragatha is really unstable, she doesn't seem to need to restart that frequently, therefore it's possible that only a small shock is able to make her restart. Jax, on the other hand, has already been shown being shocked twice, both with a bigger intensity than seen with Rags.

I believe that if Kinger truly was the one responsible for the collars, he also must have set the potency of the shocks in a way that it was only used the intensity necessary to reset them, so they didn't need to suffer more than needed.

Since Jax does behave in a more erratic manner when compared to the other AIs, the potency of the collar must have been set in a way that it would be able to restart him as quickly as possible, which means it must be in a higher setting,

On the other hand, Raghata probably needs less power for her to reset, because, while unstable, she's not as rebellious as him, so her settings are lower. In the comic used as a reference, however, she is shown to be extremely stressed, so for her to restart it might have been needed for the shock to be at a higher intensity.

Since her collar is not programmed to give such strong shocks, the solution found was for it to last longer, at least in that moment. That can also be the reason why Kinger appeared in the loading screen, because he got worried with the possibility of the collar not being able to stop her from abstraction, so he went to check on her.

That's everything for now!!! It did take lot of work to transcribe the stuff from the theory board to here (it's pretty disorganized ashuhuash) ,but I think I managed to express most of my analysis/theory!!

-carol

CAROL WHEN I CATCH YOU CAROL- DHLJKHKSJGH

I ADORED THIS SO MUCH- HDKJH i want you to know that I was reading it all in Matpat's voice which made it so much cooler "omg guys a Gametheorist made a theory about me hhehehe"

saving this.. SAVING THIS.. CAROL YOU ARE A GIFT= HXCKJSKA definitely gonna read this again.............

[transmutationisms]

what are your thoughts on fishers capitalist realism and how do you think it’s useful as a framework?

fisher is useful for pointing out that the realist attitude toward capitalism is neither inevitable nor transhistorical---ie, that it takes a massive economic effort to maintain capitalism just as it takes a massive superstructural cultural effort to maintain belief in its efficacy and necessity. specifically, fisher was theorising the way capital is presented as over-and-above human agency in the neoliberal epistemology, which doesn't tend to appeal to god or a divine right of kings in the way that eg 18th-century european capitalists did. what 'capitalist realism' helps elucidate is that, even in this neoliberal order that is often presented as being efficient, rationalised, & stripped of metaphysics, we are still being fed a trick whereby an immanently created social force is paraded around as a transcendent truth of human existence. the corollary is of course that revolution is possible and capitalism can topple.

that said, this type of analysis really wants more historicisation than fisher provided (the foucault problem) and i also find that the book's weakest points come in his analyses (polemics, really) on the psychological effects of capitalist society. these lines are often quoted and usually snappy, but they're not really grounded on much (again, many of his assertions demand historicisation) and are frequently extremely narrowly focussed on middle-class white-collar workers---which, a) haven't we heard enough about this demographic at this point and b) he'll try to extrapolate from there to a general analysis, like when he jumps from observations of his own university students to assertions about the general psychological cost of neoliberalism---but can we really assume the alienation of a 19 y/o uni student (who probably still has more access than the average person to upward economic mobility) is the same as, or generalisable to, the alienation of all working poor? i also think fisher had some reactionary tendencies that you can see in, for example, the way he talked about 'depressive anhedonia' and what that reveals about his attitude toward pleasure. many such cases on the academic left.

[bingiessm]

ANOTHER LONG POST for the Bridgerton over-analysis corner! SEASON 3 TRAILER & PROMO ANALYSIS

I JUST NOTICED SOMETHING!!

THAT IS VIOLET BRIDGERTON! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIRST "NON-INTRO" SHOT WITH FRANCESCA!

The first shot of any main character in the entire trailer is this one. Francesca is dancing with a suitor, the camera pushes forward and directs the eye right to Violet who is standing right in the middle, but with an unknown man in front of her.

Oh, I think there are going to be so many parallels between these two this season--especially in terms of romance. They have mostly been seen together or with "suitors" during all these promos and/or in direct comparison/association with one another.

MORE EVIDENCE:

SECOND SHOT of either of them: they are together--and are shown to be equals here, as compared to how Violet was when she presented Daphne or Eloise to the Queen:

Violet, with her other two daughters, was standing BEHIND them! (Also on their right side.) Now she's on the left, standing at Francesca's side--presenting them as equals.

Also, she isn't matching with Francesca like she was Eloise and Daphne--her outfit for this event changed slightly between the first two seasons (take note of the collar and crown), but has now changed dramatically. She at first presented herself as a fellow debutante (take note of the white dress and the gloves), but now is sporting a silver dress with long sleeves with clear grecian influence.

Violet has CHANGED, she isn't a background to or support for her daughter, she is her own person in front of the whole ton. She is also being "presented" in a way, but as this new self.

There is a new Viscountess, more of her children are married and leaving, and (as of Queen Charlotte we know that) she has had a lot of realizations about her marriage and sexuality. The world she knew as Viscountess and wife to Edmund is slowly changing, fading away to something new that she is beginning to embrace.

I think we will see her come more into her own, and not just as a mother or widow--this will be reflected in Francesca, who is going to struggle with finding a relationship that lives up to her mother & father's (and those of her siblings), especially watching her mother finally start to move on.

Right after this sequence is a sequence of Violet and her presumed new love interest, directly associating the two--they are also linked with the narration "what is the primary force that guides us along our paths?" A question I feel will be explored by the both of them.

It seems as if Violet is accepting this new love this season. Francesca, on the other hand, will struggle with romance this season. Every time we have seen her on her own, or with or having just spoken to suitors she seems unsure, worried.

Violet watches her sit at this ball (the Four Seasons one) and takes a breath and sighs in an interesting way--sort of knowingly but resigned(?).

It is also interesting to note within this dynamic that this is Francesca's first season, but not Violet's--as a mother or debutante.

TRAILER ANNOUNCEMENT:

Also, when looking at their appearances in the trailer announcement, it is interesting to see the difference in how they both were portrayed.

Violet is looking, then pulls back to look on in question, as if realizing something, but is curious for more. Francesca opens it and looks unsure again, twisting her mouth. I feel like this is reflective of how their seasons will be.

I just find the clear connection between their stories that the trailer in particular wants us to take note of to be very interesting. It is exciting to see how they will both grow/change. Especially being mother and daughter, which is a dynamic that has been explored to an extent in this show (thinking of Daphne and Violet in season 1, but even that didn't feel fleshed out), but not much. _______________

BUT ANYWAY to others who have read my other Bridgerton posts, omg thanks for chatting and indulging me in this.

I just finished a big film shoot for a project so this has been a nice reprieve from the stress of that.

Hope you are doing well!

[breekento]

Have you ever gone into possible hobbies that Nanami has vs Higuruma? I'm disappointed we never got to see his likes and hobbies 😭😭😭

Welcome back to another HiguNana analysis by Bree!

Unfortunately we don’t ever get to know very much about the personal interests and hobbies of Higuruma and Nanami throughout the show. They already have very little screen time and what we do see is usually pertaining only to the world of sorcery. But something that Higuruma and Nanami nation have decided is that both of these hunky men are wealthy and wealthy men have hobbies.

Like usual, these are my personal head-cannons please don’t be mad at me.

Hobbies that HiguNana have in common:

They are men of style and class, both wearing luxury suits and splurging on nice cars and watches. They adore shopping with you. They’ve worked hard in their careers to be able to afford their lifestyle and they both have the love language of gift giving. Those two things combined equals shopping trips for the two of you. They love dressing you up, watching you spin around for them. They can put their money where their mouth is. When you can’t decide which dress to buy for their work party, they say, “Just get both, darling. You can use one for a date night and one for the party.”

In a similar vein, they love traveling. And they love bringing you along. Even if it’s just a weekend getaway somewhere you’ve never been, they will book a last-minute trip and pack your bags for you. They already know your essentials and favorite outfits so you can expect your bag to be packed as soon as you get home.

Nanami’s hobbies:

Starting off with the most obvious, something we do know about Nanami is his love for reading. Before his death, he mentioned all of the books he never got around to reading. I like to think he has a home library and a wide range of taste in books from historical non-fiction to fiction fantasy books. In the mornings, he brews a cup of black coffee and sits outside, reading whatever current novel he is on before getting dressed and ready for work.

Something that we don’t have any clues for but is something that I can see fitting his character very well is a love for baking and cooking. He seems like the type of man to insist on cooking for holidays like Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. His love for pastries only signifies that he at some point has dabble in baking. Plus, he would look just adorable in an apron.

Maybe this is just me self-inserting myself but as an avid plant mother Nanami has the type of personality to be a loving plant father. He’s patient and gentle and would take the utmost care of a garden or home jungle. He could use his own fresh vegetables in his cooking!

Now, this might tie in to the shopping hobby but we all know Nanami is a man of funky ties. I could see him collecting fun ties. Shopping for other items and coming across a new pattern he has never seen before, he can’t help himself. He has a drawer only for his ties and picks them out for every occasion.

Nanami is a white collar man and who do all white collar man love? Golf. Nanami is a man of golf. It only makes sense that he would have a section of his closet dedicated to his golf attire. Many times, business deals and business meetings are done over a game of golf.

Higuruma’s hobbies:

Higuruma was much more difficult to identify some hobbies but after some deliberation, I think I’ve found a handful that I would coin. Maybe I will even write them into future Higuruma fanfics.

The first one would be poker. You can’t tell me you can’t imagine Higuruma, cigarette in mouth and whiskey on the table playing poker with a group of other lawyers in his firm. After a long and stressful day of being professional, they undo their ties and relax over a game of poker. They have enough money to make the stakes higher by adding bets and money on the line.

To me, Higuruma strikes me as a music type of guy. More specifically, old music. He has a collection of vinyls that he will pull out and show guests and more importantly, you. Weekend mornings, he heads down to the local record store and thumbs through the new albums they have in stock. He has a well up-kept vintage record player, only the finest machine to play his collection.

I honestly can’t remember if it was ever made evident in the manga that Higuruma smoked or if we all just collectively gave him that head cannon but Higuruma is a smoker. Not only a smoker but he collects cigars. Rarely does he smoke his fine cigars, only pulling them out for special occasions such as weddings or other important events.

Similarly, Higuruma is a bar hopper. Not in the same sense as a twenty-something college kid but as an established lawyer with a wealth behind him. He finds new and fun bars with good live music to sit and have a few drinks at. His favorite thing is bringing you along. He gets to hear about your day, listen to the smooth local band behind you and have a nice drink. It’s an excuse to see you dressed up in your shopping spree outfit.

[princefado]

I'm going a little insane over the symbolism in ROUND 3 of Alien Stage, so here's a (not-so) little visual analysis.

When I first watched this video, I was ecstatic, and not just because Ivan is my favorite. But I was also ecstatic to see once again the flowers that have been showing up very subtly throughout the series.

First, in the series theme, we see Till holding small red flowers behind his back. Then in ROUND 2, we see Till clutch them again, and then Till watch as Sua places a crown of red flowers upon Mizi's head. And then in ROUND 3, we see the flower crown itself, up close.

From what I can tell, these are either some kind of poppy, or maybe specifically poppy anemones/Anemone coronaria. I can't find any academic analysis for a common meaning, although the ever-unreliable flower meaning blogosphere associates them largely with forsaken love. But it doesn't really matter what the cultural meaning is, so much as the textual meaning.

Ivan's eyes are very clearly shown to be a visual inverse of these flowers. His eyes are black, deep black, and when his face is neutral we see no other color but black. But when he's experiencing intense emotion, we see that his irises are actually red!

This happens first in the introduction, when he gazes at the stars (another heavily repeated piece of symbolism).

As he falls backwards, and the shadow of his former owner passes over him, his eyes become black once again, and remain black until he witnesses Till standing up against the creature with Mizi.

His iris swells red. Shooting stars flash across the sky, and in his eyes. As we cut back to his song in the present, his irises are still red. Stars shoot behind him now as he sings.

A flashback again, to Till. This time, the sky is warm, aflame; the glittering stars replaced by falling fire. Till's irises are also red now. But once Till turns back (presumably to go look for Mizi), his eyes return to their green color, and Ivan's become pure black once more.

Except in this last shot. This last shot, where, if you look closely, even beneath the shadows, you can see that his irises are once again inflamed with red.

The previous two songs mention flowers by name; clematis in ROUND 1, and edelweiss in ROUND 2. So I thought it strange that no flower appears within the lyrics of Ivan's song. Then I realized; a flower does appear in the lyrics, just not in the way you would expect!

At the end of this story There is only a cold spot stained with blood, and Such black, black sorrow

The flowers are red; stained with blood. They have a white ring in the middle; a cold spot. And their center is black; black sorrow. The same is true of Ivan's eyes; they reflect the coldness of space, except for the very center, a spot stained with blood, surrounded by black sorrow.

I wonder if we'll continue to see the flowers throughout the series, as they interconnect the relationships of Sua and Mizi, and Till and Ivan. Sua gives Mizi a flower crown as representative of her love. Till chases down and catches the flower crown as representative of his love for Mizi. And Ivan watches from afar, desire growing, as flowers bloom within his own eyes.

I've noticed also the repetition of red "eyes" throughout the series so far. First on the collars, which go from a bright green to red when locked. Then in the series theme, we see the red eyes of the soldiers. In ROUND 2, we see red lights around the stage, as well as in the security cameras in Till's room. Finally, in ROUND 3, we see red "eyes" several more times. Beyond Ivan, which I have already discussed, we see that his former master has red eyes. And, most importantly, we see them repeated throughout Ivan's flashback in which he fell in love with Till, and tried to escape with him.

For Ivan, red represents his desire, and his love. But within Alien Stage, red is also representative of control and authority. Ivan loves Till, yes. But he also wants to control him, and to monopolize his affections. Which is why I am so, so thoroughly excited to see what a Till vs. Ivan round will look like in the future.

[whatsagirltoblogabout]

Sometimes I'll be trying to analyze the power dynamics of a scene by looking at blocking and camera height, only to get distracted by the framing and pretty colours. And that's okay.

See below for a sneak peek at my notes for the "thank you" analysis essay (no promises that I'll ever finish and post it, but I have been working on it):

I'm making the executive decision to ignore the foreground/reflection elements of Peter’s coverage, because that would also involve editing choices and that opens up too many variables for something that isn’t even directly related to the analysis at hand. The fact that there isn’t a single reflection-less shot of Jennings’ face, denoting his duplicity (as well as the brightly-coloured reflections probably referencing the distraction tactics employed in politics), is more of a fun fact than a relevant one.

(There’s also a reflection when Dylan pokes his head in, but it disappears in the shot of Peter walking through the door. I have to conclude that this was a deliberate choice to indicate Dylan’s deceit in pretending he doesn’t know Peter.)

Back to the power dynamics, it appears that everyone’s shot at a low angle, thought the degree varies. This does seem to be a pretty common theme in WC cinematography. Jennings goes from moderately low angle, same as Peter, to just slightly lower than his eyeline when he sits down. It’s a physically logical change, and maintains that while he's putting himself in a physically inferior position, he has not actually lost power in this exchange.

Conclusion: filmmaking techniques do not appear to be relevant to this particular analysis. The blocking is of interest, however it is not pertinent enough to the purpose of “thank you” as an opening line; it can be easily folded into a general summary of the scene’s tactics.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Thinking about it…

… That’s also probably why Neal got blindsided by Adler so badly.

Mozzie looks out for him, but he’s not really a fatherly type, quirky older brother is closer, but much more mentor-y. Adler had a business persona, but I think he took advantage of the lonely runaway side of Neal that was just looking for a family/parents to pull one over on him (the whole suit thing, the talking to him about life), and betray him.

It’s after that Neal got more interaction w/ and found out more about Peter and Peter became an expert on him. Neal loses his parents for all intents and purposes, then runs away from the other closest thing he has, meets Adler and that seems to fill the void until Adler betrays him too. But then there’s Peter, who keeps coming back, not flashy or money or anything, he’s trying to arrest him, but he’s there and he keeps coming back, and Peter’s just so… Goddamn fatherly, even w/out trying. And secretly, Neal’s desperate for that kind of affection, even if he doesn’t realise it. So the puppy imprint switches from Adler to Peter, and all the better for it.