This #AssassinsCreedValhalla trailer looks super slick, but England in the late 800s had, like, *really not a lot to climb on top of*.
And the emphasis on "Dark-Ages England" feels a little too narrow for how expansive the Vikings ultimately were.
-B
And I'm SO CONFUSED because the baddies in the fight at the end REALLY LOOK LIKE BYZANTINES but they're 9th century English, im so wildly confused about what is happening here
I FIGURED IT OUT:
One emblem of the medieval house of Wessex is a gold cross with birds:
When you take that design and put it on a RED background it looks A LOT like a late-Byzantine cross.
No byzantines in sight, just a bunch of very weirdly-styled Wessex people.
What a mess
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I've been listening through the hobbit audiobook and it's really helping me collect my thoughts on the problem I had with the movies, which is that all the characters are sort of reworked to be more sympathetic in ways that undercut the chaos of the original book -R
Thorin isn't Tiny Aragorn and his being a selfish dickhead in the leadup to the Five Armies isn't the result of a dragon-induced heel-turn, he was basically ALWAYS like that but never had any actual power or leverage to back it up -R
and Bilbo stealing the Arkenstone is contorted into very twisty knots to make it an act of heroic concern for his friend rather than a bit of petty fuck-you-ness after getting sent alone down a dragon tunnel for the fourth time -R
lovely day to remember that trans rights are human rights, trans people deserve dignity and autonomy over their choices, none of this is up for debate, and trying to scapegoat a vulnerable population to further a transparent agenda is ugly and embarrassing 😘 -R
there is something very funny about how TERFs are so dedicated to enforcing the gender binary that they've circled back to the pre-feminist "every single woman is weaker than every single man and it is her fate to be crushingly victimized and powerless forever" -R
"no no we're very feminist we believe" *checks notes* "women are weak and" *checks footnotes* "femininity is a curse" -R
I think the best evidence for "people don't really know what they want and creators shouldn't just give what they're asked for" is what dropping entire seasons of TV at once is doing to us -R
"I want to know what happens next NOW" is the kind of question that forms the backbone of a lasting fandom. Incremental buildup of narrative and speculation on future development reinforces fan spaces and builds communities that can and do outlast the series finale. -R
Dropping an entire season at once may give the instant gratification fans exactly what they're asking for, but it actively sabotages the possibility of fan discussion. Anyone who can't binge the whole thing right away will AVOID fan spaces due to the spoiler saturation -R
There's a pattern I've observed in fandom that makes me really sad, and it's that a media property will be absolutely beloved for being groundbreaking or exciting or just really fun, and then about a year or two later all that enthusiasm violently reverses into shame -R
Not quiet shame, either - loud, aggressive, must-be-on-the-Not-Cringe-Side-of-history shaming. And like any cycle of bullying, it becomes self-reinforcing - unabashedly enjoying it puts a target on your back from everyone trying to prove how cool and cynical they are -R
Joke's on the rest of you, I made the Star Wars Prequels 1/7th of my personality
-B
sometimes I wonder why Encanto's ending didn't quite give me the warm and fuzzies it was clearly designed to do and then I remember not a single human being apologized to Bruno -R
Which is kind of indicative of something I observed in the movie overall that just didn't quite gel with me – which was this feeling that the resolution was the family overall saying "don't worry, we loved and valued you this whole time" -R
which is nice, sure, but for me that wasn't a question. Mirabel's family can love her without being GOOD for her. Her primary grievance was being excluded, ignored, minimized and shoved in a closet out of everyone's way. "We love you" doesn't undo or even acknowledge that. -R