MEME: Canon Excerpts

[number_five]

How about a Saturday night meme?

We all love to ramble about our characters and our canons, so here's an opportunity to do just that! Post samples of your canon (video, text, gifs, what have you), moments that you love or inform your playing, talk about why you like it and what it says about them! Others can obviously reply with questions/comments/flailing or whatever strikes!

Comments

[lan_wangji]

1. This is the moment that after watching Wei Ying die, Lan Wangji FINALLY says fuck you to everyone around him trying to protect Wei Ying's home (all he has left of him) and gets his ass beat. He also retains his fuck you throughout the beating. A major changing point for a seemingly perfect and upright model of a man filled with regret because it came too late. It's told in a flashback to Wei Ying by Lan Wangji's brother as Lan Wangji would never tell Wei Ying, himself.

https://youtu.be/t6VszgYZYsI?t=602

2. After getting Wei Ying back after 16 years of mourning, Lan Wangji is SUPER fucking team Wei Ying. But this is him finally using his words and declaring it in front of everyone and their mother.

https://youtu.be/IWNjDZ3oir0?t=1177

[psychometricguy]

"Lan Zhan. You fuddy-duddy."

I LOVE TRANSLATIONS SO MUCH LMAO

[yiling_laozu]

wow those subs remind me of the lawless wilds when it was only on viki XD

[and_resplendent]

Ugh what a weird nerd I love him so muuuuuuuch.

Also constantly astonished by how much heavy lifting his face does considering that it basically never moves at all.

[bring_balance]

Playing Anakin can be really tough, because his portrayal in the prequels and his portrayal in the Clone Wars show are a bit different. In the show, he's much more a big hero type: overconfident and a little boastful. He's fearless. It's the way they talk about him post-prequels, but Clone Wars really amps that up. One of my favorite moments of this comes nearer the end of the series, and it quintessential Anakin in a confrontation.

And I have to say that some of my absolute favorite Anakin moments come from the Revenge of the Sith novelization, which I will talk about at length to anyone who will listen. It's better than it has any right to be, and reframes some of the more awkward moments of the movie. It's like 90% metaphor and it somehow works. Here's one of my favorite bits, that basically sums of Anakin's headspace. I refer back to it a LOT when I'm playing him.

This is Anakin Skywalker: The most powerful Jedi of his generation. Perhaps of any generation. The fastest. The strongest. An unbeatable pilot. An unstoppable warrior. On the ground, in the air or sea or space, there is no one even close. He has not just power, not just skill, but dash: that rare, invaluable combination of boldness and grace.

He is the best there is at what he does. The best there has ever been. And he knows it. HoloNet features call him the Hero With No Fear. And why not? What should he be afraid of? Except— Fear lives inside him anyway, chewing away the firewalls around his heart.

Anakin sometimes thinks of the dread that eats at his heart as a dragon. Children on Tatooine tell each other of the dragons that live inside the suns; smaller cousins of the sun-dragons are supposed to live inside the fusion furnaces that power everything from starships to Podracers. But Anakin’s fear is another kind of dragon. A cold kind. A dead kind.

Not nearly dead enough. Not long after he became Obi-Wan’s Padawan, all those years ago, a minor mission had brought them to a dead system: one so immeasurably old that its star had long ago turned to a frigid dwarf of hypercompacted trace metals, hovering a quantum fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Anakin couldn’t even remember what the mission might have been, but he’d never forgotten that dead star. It had scared him.

“Stars can die—?”

“It is the way of the universe, which is another manner of saying that it is the will of the Force,” Obi-Wan had told him. “Everything dies. In time, even stars burn out. This is why Jedi form no attachments: all things pass. To hold on to something—or someone—beyond its time is to set your selfish desires against the Force. That is a path of misery, Anakin; the Jedi do not walk it.”

That is the kind of fear that lives inside Anakin Skywalker: the dragon of that dead star. It is an ancient, cold dead voice within his heart that whispers all things die …

In bright day he can’t hear it; battle, a mission, even a report before the Jedi Council, can make him forget it’s even there. But at night— At night, the walls he has built sometimes start to frost over. Sometimes they start to crack. At night, the dead-star dragon sometimes sneaks through the cracks and crawls up into his brain and chews at the inside of his skull. The dragon whispers of what Anakin has lost. And what he will lose. The dragon reminds him, every night, of how he held his dying mother in his arms, of how she had spent her last strength to say I knew you would come for me, Anakin … The dragon reminds him, every night, that someday he will lose Obi-Wan. He will lose Padmé. Or they will lose him.

All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out …

And the only answers he ever has for these dead cold whispers are his memories of Obi-Wan’s voice, or Yoda’s. But sometimes he can’t quite remember them. all things die … He can barely even think about it. But right now he doesn’t have a choice: the man he flies to rescue is a closer friend than he’d ever hoped to have. That’s what puts the edge in his voice when he tries to make a joke; that’s what flattens his mouth and tightens the burn-scar high on his right cheek.

The Supreme Chancellor has been family to Anakin: always there, always caring, always free with advice and unstinting aid. A sympathetic ear and a kindly, loving, unconditional acceptance of Anakin exactly as he is—the sort of acceptance Anakin could never get from another Jedi. Not even from Obi-Wan. He can tell Palpatine things he could never share with his Master. He can tell Palpatine things he can’t even tell Padmé. Now the Supreme Chancellor is in the worst kind of danger. And Anakin is on his way despite the dread boiling through his blood. That’s what makes him a real hero. Not the way the HoloNet labels him; not without fear, but stronger than fear. He looks the dragon in the eye and doesn’t even slow down. If anyone can save Palpatine, Anakin will. Because he’s already the best, and he’s still getting better. But locked away behind the walls of his heart, the dragon that is his fear coils and squirms and hisses.

Because his real fear, in a universe where even stars can die, is that being the best will never be quite good enough.

[psychometricguy]

Okay yeah, that novelization is pretty good. Damn.

Also LMAO @ Obi Wan in that clip. The head shake of the long suffering

[psychometricguy]

Korean Drama by nature is a very heightened, very over the top genre so Ahn goes from the goofiest highs to the LOWEST of dramatic lows with lots of romance and heartbreak in between. It's wild how much a show can do in just 16 episodes and how far they stretch the limits.

Here is a decent collection of clips (no spoilers) to get a sense for the way Ahn acts and talks. HE IS ADORABLE, TY VERY MUCH. Also, the 4 other people in these scenes are pretty much the sum total of all the people in his life.

Here's a clip from the first episode for some goofiness, and to show what a little shit Ahn can be. Plus, a glimpse of how his powers work (warning for brief CGI dead bodies).

Here is what happens right before I pull Ahn into Darrow. Basic backstory is Ahn's family died in an apartment fire. Jaein's father was a security guard for the building and was convicted of arson for setting that fire. Here, Ahn finds out their shared history and he does nooooot take it well. Tragic as this scene is, it's one of my favorites for the glimpse into Ahn's mind we get about how he views the world because of all the tragedy in his life.

(But it's okay because he feels bad and later he stalks Jaein! And watches her cry in the street! Because romance.)

Here is Ahn and Jaein after the canon moment I took Ahn from... after which Jaein gets kidnapped by the bad guy and Ahn tears his hands to shreds trying to use psychometry to find her and he saves her from drowning and they reunite and he promises he won't stop until he helps her clear her dad's name. I love this scene mostly because it's a serious emotional breakthrough for both characters, and it's a more natural, tender romantic moment to make you believe in them vs the stalking above.

Oh, speaking of tender romantic moments, this is also a nice one between them and speaks to HOW MUCH GAME AHN HAS, like damn he just went all in with the perfect words to say. (Also, having a romantic song made just for a drama so it can play over moments like this is peak k-drama.)

Here is my favorite dumb little side plot that is a set up for like one punch line in the show. Sungmo is the only person Ahn can't read, and he often tries his best to be an annoying little shit to him. The couple in both clips think they're a gay couple living in the apartment next to theirs lmfao

This is a really sweet clip of Ahn and Sungmo visiting their parents' memorials on the anniversary of their deaths; you can see how much Ahn cares for him.

Heading into the more ridiculous heightened aspect of the genre, here is Ahn and Jaein kicking the ass of like 20 trained fighters because it looks cool af.

Here is a montage of why Ahn needs proper psychometry training, he's basically a himbo sometimes tbh

Okay thanks for reading/watching all that, here is a mostly nsfw shower scene, and here are gifs of Jinyoung filming that scene, you're welcome.

[bring_balance]

OMG he's so cute though.

[and_resplendent]

My basic reference point for whether or not I'm doing Lup right is if I can hear Griffin McElroy's voice reading her narration in my head, but that's SUPREMELY uninteresting to talk about, so here's some animatics instead. GO WATCH 'EM, THEY'RE REAL GOOD.

This is my very favorite bit to refer back to, and honestly this scene in particular fuels so much of how I play her, because it really gets to who she is underneath all the snark and bluster - her anger and her protective streak and her insistence on fixing the things she fucked up, no matter the personal cost - but at the end of all the serious narration there's a dumbass joke and that is also Lup, like, down to her core. This is also where she was right before coming to Darrow, so it's a pretty good benchmark to come back to if I need.

Speaking of serious narration interspersed with dumbass jokes, this is another moment I refer back to when I'm worried I might be skewing too earnest or too jokey, because it's very indicative of how Lup talks when she is being serious.

And finally, this moment doesn't currently inform my playing because her boyfriend ISN'T HERE, but you asked for moments I love as well, so, uh, here, have two big stupid nerds in love. (And then bring me a Barry gdi.)

[statement_ends]

I really need to thread SOMEone off Lup, because I'm love her.

[maloscuridad]

Nova isn't actually the narrator of any of the books, but each of the Mortiz sisters is amazing and deserves so much love.

From Labyrinth Lost, narrated by Alejandra, the middle sister:

“But you weren’t,” I shout. “Where was the magic when my dad left us, huh? Where was the magic when my mom had to take two jobs just to pay the mortgage? How was I supposed to see the good in magic when we’ve only had suffering? I don’t live in the old days, Mama. I live in Brooklyn circa now. The only reason this happened is because of me. Not my mom. Not you. Me.”

Something inside of me just snaps. The earth trembles. Boulders roll down the hill. Mama Juanita cocks her eyebrow and takes a puff. The winds around me have funneled into baby tornadoes. Mama Juanita reaches out her hand to touch one, and for the first time since I was five, the old woman smiles. Actually smiles with teeth biting on that cigar.

“That’s my girl,” she says. “You need your family blessing. You need to hurry and free us.”

Then, her smile disappears. She looks over her shoulder and winces. It’s only for a moment, and then her sassy, cranky self is back.

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry.” She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “I didn’t come to make you feel guilty, nena.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

She purses her lips but keeps talking. “I came to tell you that your magic isn’t enough. You’re an encantrix. You’ve been chosen. You have magic, but all brujas need a way to conduct it. That’s why wands and charms became part of witchcraft. Our bodies, they’re just flesh and bone. The Deos are not, but our powers come from them.

“Without your family blessing…” She lets it linger. “That’s what the Deathday is for: to fortify you, so you can use your gift and not burn your body or mind so quickly. Have you started feeling it? The nightmares, the body aches? That’s the recoil, but it’ll get worse. At least I don’t see any marks.”

“Marks?”

“Without a Deathday, your power starts to consume your body. It eats away at you. It leaves behind black marks. When you’re covered in it, well, that’s when you know it’s the end.”

I shake my head. “No, that can’t be right.”

She leans in close, reaches for my face but grabs air. “Tell me you don’t have marks, nena.”

“I don’t.” I don’t, but Nova does.

And later:

I look at Nova’s hands. The black marks have spread farther up his biceps. One tendril flows from his stomach to his clavicle and then his shoulder.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Rishi asks.

He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“Nova, stop. You know I can’t let you keep using your powers.”

“No one lets me do anything.”

...

Nova looks up at the sky and mouths a silent rezo. “I never had my Deathday because my parents died when I was a kid. Deadbeat dad, drunk mom, delinquent brothers and sisters. The only ones who got away were my eldest brother, Unico, who turned his back on us and became a cop. Then my sister, Cinqua. She ran away the first minute she got a chance and I haven’t seen her since. I should have gone to my grandmother, but she already had too many kids in the house. Plus, she was still mad at my pops. Isn’t that something? Only brujas can stay mad at someone who’s dead. Besides, my old man would’ve been real disappointed if he knew I’m just a human matchstick.”

“Don’t say that,” I tell him.

He smiles, but I can see the strain in his face. “Don’t worry about me, Ladybird. The first time my magic appeared, I hurt someone. I didn’t mean to. Let’s just say my foster parents weren’t exactly out of a fairy tale. My foster father deserved it. After that, I just kept running and hiding. When the marks started, I wasn’t sure what was happening. I don’t have a Book of Cantos like you, and I don’t belong to no Circle. When my grandma finally took me in, she tried to give me the family blessing. But my family’s so broken, even the dead have forgotten us.”

“So you knew the consequences, but you use your powers anyway.” Rishi licks her lip. She’s hungry. We’re all hungry, but it seems wrong to eat while Nova is talking about his past. “Why?”

“Survival of the illest,” he says, but his laugh is forced. “I’ve never been much good at being anyone other than who I am. Even if it got me locked up. Even if it kills me in the end.”

“What happened?”

He shrugs. I hate when he shrugs.

“Girl was in trouble. I tried to help her from getting mugged. Someone called the police. She couldn’t really tell me apart from the people trying to hurt her.”

A boy made of light who's very bad at being good.

[ithastobeseven]

NOVAAAA. I love these books so much dammit.

[signed_sabrina]

Some Sabrina things:

Salem's arrival. One of many things I'd pay for is more goblin Salem.

As titled, Dark Baptism Fail. This feels like forever ago but it's so foundational. Sabrina resists, makes the right choice in a supremely dramatic and unsafe way. I think about this one and the "I will not sign [my name] away" as it relates to the rest of the series and her continuing insistence on remaining Sabrina Spellman.

Sabrina signs the book. One of the defining moments in deciding to play Sabrina and also loving her despite her amazingly poorly done choices - she does give in, to save others. As much as she can seem self-centered, she has always been about the people she loves.

Sabrina versus mandrake Sabrina. Real Sabrina has to kill the mandrake double to fix a million bad choices. I love mandrake Sabrina so much, for one, in her childlike state, but also Brina manages to close the last of the Dark Lord's trap around herself in trying to escape. She's absolutely outwitted and outplayed, and she thinks she's made the hard, correct decisions, only to be so, so wrong. Honorable mention to the scene where she has to suck it up and open up Hell.

Sabrina drags a guy to Hell. Okay, Sabrina has not been updated to this point but this is so in line with how I see her in Darrow that I have to include it-- in terms of being comfortable with her infernal heritage. Here she's collecting on the 'deal with the devil' made by a child killer, one of the few benefits of ruling Hell.

And always:

[yiling_laozu]

I lack the attention span to do this properly, but if anything encapsulates Wei Wuxian's personality, it's this -

ok i rallied a little

[yiling_laozu]

hard to find decent clips so also some quotes~

being an edgelord:

“Wei WuXian smiled again, “Do you know why I’m not carrying my sword? It wouldn’t make a difference if I told you anyways.”

He turned around, stating one word at a time, “Because I want you to know that even if I don’t use my sword, with nothing but what you call a ‘crooked path,' I will still rise unparalleled and leave all of you staring at me from behind.”

*

“Why would a living person worry about what happens after they die? I’ll just live freely for as long as possible.”

memorizing Gusu Lan's 3000 rules for the sole purpose of reciting them when he was supposed to be reciting the Wen clan's rules

yup

on standing up to the other clans who use 'good' cultivation methods but do wrong, while WWX uses vile methods and does good

“Rebellion against orthodoxy? What kind of orthodoxy is that? Lan Zhan, do you still remember the promise we have made together? Throughout this life, I wished I could eliminate all traitors, and support the weak against the strong. But tell me now, who’s stronger and weaker, who’s right and who’s wrong. Is this the promise that we pledged our lives to keep?"

i just want you to hear the ridiculous lovesick music that plays every single time they make eye contact

it's wild

this is not a fan vid. this fucking aired just like this

mmhmm

[ghost_holder]

I'm truly amazed sometimes that I've played Aggie as long as I have, given that she only has about seven or eight minutes of canon. Admittedly, it's in a 90 minute stop motion film that makes every minute count but gosh.

This is the Aggie I brought to Darrow, back in 2013. Volatile, scared, and still hurting. She's so much more at peace in Darrow now but, I hope, still recognizable to that little girl.

Also that fight scene is just *chef's kiss* It's a mixture of stop motion, hand drawn, and I think some CGI animation and it really shows the power of the medium. It also has a piece of music that for some reason IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE OFFICIAL SCORE that hurts me down to my bones.

Anyone who saw her at East Hallow saw Aggie at about maybe 10% of the power she has in that clip.


I hope she gets some peace.

[psychometricguy]

And IDK how after all these years I've never actually watched the movie or seen any of this. AGGIE ;_;

[selfishdreamer]

A lot of playing Rue is getting Zendaya's kind of flat affectations in my head when I'm writing her. Rue is an addict, because she's convinced it's her best option to deal with mental illness, and she's very matter of fact about it, and it makes me sad ALL THE TIME.

This scene is from near the beginning of the very first episode, where she explains her reasoning behind it all. (Warnings here for strobing and drug use.)

More on Rue's addiction... one of my favorite scenes from the show. After a pretty shitty day, and after trying to stay clean, she breaks down at her drug dealer's door. This one is probably what won her the Emmy.

And one last one that drives the point home and really shows Rue at both her best and worst as far as her addiction is concerned. More warnings for drug use.

And while some of the more serious parts of the show are the best for helping me play Rue and get a handle on her voice, the funny 4th wall breaking bits are great too, because Rue is sarcastic and funny when she wants to be. Warning for actual dicks on this clip. I'm legit not sure why youtube hasn't blocked it yet.

And not a Rue clip, but WHILE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, have some animated One Direction Fan Fic. (more warnings here for sexual content lol)

[psychometricguy]

I know I wouldn't really be able to watch the show for various personal reasons, but fuuuuuuck Zendaya is so good. FUCK.

[topino]

I have to gush about my absolute favourite Old Guard fanvid for Joe/Nicky (the vidder also does great RNM), and it also does a very good job of giving hints of the characters' voices (and how thick Nicky's accent is when you're talking to him!)

I found, which is a great sum-up of Joe/Nicky in the movie immortal soulmate husbands gdi

I also adore the throughout history vignette that Netflix put together.

[ithastobeseven]

[too lazy to change journals to something not Luke, lol]

I LOVE that vid. Ugh. Stupid cute immortal husbands. (The only thing that bothers me about it on rewatch is that apparently it's super easy to get out of zip ties especially if your hands are in front of you BUT! you know what, that's a weird thing for my suspension of disbelief to get hung up upon) Usually I'm not a fan of speaking in fanvids, but with this one the lines are both so important and so well woven in that it worked really well.

[statement_ends]

The Magnus Archives is a lengthy podcast, but some kind soul has assembled a John/Martin supercut that covers all of their interactions from S1-S4. It also doubles as a pretty decent canon summary, which is convenient.

Plus, hey, if you didn't know what John or Martin's voices sounded like, here ya go! You'll hear both of them within the first few minutes.

It's a fun reel to relisten to, in no small part because John is just... so mean at the beginning, and it's easy to forget what a massive prick he was before he came around. But getting that whole journey from prickly bastard to softest boy in a tidy one and a half hours is extremely good. They're good boys, Brent!

[psychometricguy]

I'm slowly listening to the podcast in bits and pieces. I'm very early in, season 1 probably in the 20s? I just passed the episode where Martin is trapped in his apartment by the bug thing. And like, I know John HAS to get better at some point, but it's just soooo hard to listen to him in these early days lmao. He's SUCH A DICK.

It's super interesting to skip through that supercut and hear John's tone change a little. He's a bit more thoughtful, it seems? And way less stick up his butt. XD

[more_magic]

Most of Ninth House is, quite rightly, Alex's story, but the flashback chapters are mostly told from Darlington's POV, which is great--you get a lot of his background and a good sense of what drives him, along with the early stages of his and Alex's dynamic, and that happens, really, from almost the first minute he's introduced:

Daniel Arlington prided himself on being prepared for anything, but if he’d had to choose a way to describe Alex Stern, it would have been “an unwelcome surprise.” He could think of a lot of other terms for her, but none of them were polite, and Darlington always endeavored to be polite. If he’d been brought up by his parents--his dilettante father, his glib but brilliant mother--he might have had different priorities, but he’d been raised by his grandfather, Daniel Tabor Arlington III, who believed that most problems could be solved with cask-strength scotch, plenty of ice, and impeccable manners.

His grandfather had never met Galaxy Stern.

One of my favorite Darlington bits is the section that actually gave me his journal name, because it sums him (and Black Elm, and his love of both it and New Haven in general) up so perfectly:

But that had been his feeling about everything. There should be more magic. Not the creased-greasepaint performances of clowns and hack illusionists. Not card tricks. The magic he’d been promised would be found at the backs of wardrobes, under bridges, through mirrors. It was dangerous and alluring and it did not seek to entertain. Maybe if he’d been raised in an ordinary house with quality insulation and a neatly mowed front yard, instead of beneath Black Elm’s crumbling towers, with its lakes of moss, its sudden, sinister spikes of foxglove, its seeping mist that crawled up through the trees in the autumn dusk, maybe then he would have stood a chance. Maybe if he’d been from somewhere like Phoenix instead of cursed New Haven.

As an extra treat that has nothing to do with Darlington at all (other than that it's stupid and nerdy and ultimately useless), in between the various chapters of the book, Leigh Bardugo has inserted excerpts from both the Lethe House handbook and quotes from various diaries and journals kept by Lethe delegates throughout the years. They all have one thing or another to do with the action of the preceding or following chapter, but one of them also contains a reference to a real-life person that made me shriek when I figured it out:

"Tonight Bobbie Woodward coaxed the location of an abandoned speakeasy from what looked like little more than the remnants of a spine, a broken jawbone, and a hunk of hair. There is no amount of Jazz Age bourbon that can make me forget that sight."
—Lethe Days Diary of Butler Romano (Saybrook College ’65)

Bobbie Woodward is, in point of fact, Bob Woodward of Washington Post and Watergate scandal fame, and he really did go to Yale (graduating in 1965) and really was a member of the Book and Snake society, which in Ninth House are the ones who practice necromancy. And because I am a horrible, horrible nerd, I now want nothing more than the Ninth House-universe version of All the President's Men where Deep Throat is a ghost.

[herownway]

I understand why Spider-Verse is about Miles learning from middle-aged AU Peter Parker. I do! It was the correct decision, it is a fantastic movie, I love it.

I get why they did it.

But it also means we never get this, aka the Complete Thesis Of Jessica Drew And My Ultimate Touchstone For Playing Her, this absolutely tremendous dynamic between Miles and JDrew and this goddamn speech. It's just such a good gosh-darned series of pages, from Jessica's dialogue to Marquez fucking nailing the shit out of their faces, the colours especially on the last page.

I got this comic in a store on the way to SDCC and read it in a van and then got it signed by Bendis at that SDCC, like, The Jessica Drew Issue was the one I picked up at that time, it was some fate shit. It's very important to me.

[bring_balance]

MY HEART, SCOTT. MY HEART.

[goldstarwife]

Bandstand is a super great, super underrated musical with fabulous portrayals of post-WWII trauma and some of the best dancing I've seen, like, ever. I've been shouting from the rooftops for ages trying to get people to watch it, but it was tricky to easily find a good version until they finally put the proshot up for rent a few months ago, and, naturally, the internet provided. Anyone who wants to check out the whole show can do so here.

If you check out only one song, though, it should unquestionably be "Right This Way," the act one closer, which starts at about 1:11:20 in the above video, or just the audio from the cast recording is on Youtube here. It's some good, powerful shit, and the fact that none of this cast got Tony nominations should be a crime, IMO.

[and_survive]

I am kind of reluctant to post my Big Ticket Items from The Last of Us and from Part II because... context.

Like, okay, let's do a couple, here's the giraffe scene. It's a big deal, but just watching this doesn't entirely convey how it feels if you've played the game up until that point. It's positioned after the Winter sequence, where Joel is injured and Ellie ends up going through a Lot Of Shit, and she's very beaten down by the experience. Up until this she's gone from talkative and shit-talking to closed off, festering, and then... this happens, this moment of perfect grace after the end of the world.

ah jesus I have to say it

Nature.......... is healing???

and if that ain't enough meme for you, here's Ellie doing a cover of 'Take On Me,' an actual thing that happened in the actual game The Last Of Us part II and made me think I was hallucinating for a long moment because of personal history reasons. That is, for me, always the thing about TLOU: sometimes there's a giraffe. Sometimes you just play the guitar for your girlfriend.

[daughterofawolf]

THE GIRAFFES <3333

Lord, Take On Me. I was so mad about how emotional I got during that scene. (The lyrics are weirdly perfect??) I'M TEARING UP TO A-HA. WHAT THE FUCK. Anyway, just imagine Eponine doing Dina's extreme heart-eyes any time Ellie plays guitar.

I kind of want to know which ones you didn't mention, since I have context. I think Part II was excellent at them, which honestly made the whole thing even more heart-wrenching, but also...like. Life goes on. (Apparently, often even, with dinosaurs.)

[sir_samuel]

The Discworld books have such a distinct tone, and so much of writing Vimes is just attempting to sum up the slightest veneer of Terry Pratchett's spiky and absurd humor.

Vimes himself goes through quite a significant arc over the course of the books, and I do my best to think about who he was when he's first introduce and all he becomes over the books that follow. When we first meet him he's literally lying in a gutter:

And drunken Captain Vimes of the Night Watch staggered slowly down the street, folded gently into the gutter outside the Watch House and lay there while, above him, strange letters made of light sizzled in the damp and changed color...
The city wasa, wasa, wasa wossname. Thing. Woman. That’s what it was. Woman. Roaring, ancient, centuries old. Strung you along, let you fall in thingy, love, then kicked you inna, inna, thingy. Thingy, in your mouth. Tongue. Tonsils. Teeth. That’s what it, she, did. She wasa … thing, you know, lady dog. Puppy. Hen. Bitch. And then you hated her and, and just when you thought you’d got her, it, out of your whatever, then she opened her great booming rotten heart to you, caught you off bal, bal, bal, thing. Ance. Yeah. Thassit. Never knew where where you stood. Lay. Only one thing you were sure of, you couldn’t let her go. Because, because she was yours, all you had, even in her gutters...
-Guards, Guards!

And just a few years later, he's this:

"People know about you, Commander. Descendant of a watchman who believed that if a corrupted court will not behead an evil king, then the watchman should do it himself--"
"It was only one king," Vimes protested. "It wasn't a habit!"
"Sam Vimes once arrested me for treason," said Vetinari calmly. "And Sam Vimes once arrested a dragon. Sam Vimes stopped a war between nations by arresting two high commands. He's an arresting fellow, Sam Vimes. Sam Vimes killed a werewolf with his bare hands, and carries the law with him, like a lamp--"
-Thud

He's also the sweetest dad in the damn multiverse:

Vimes stroked his son's hair. It was funny, really. He spent the day yelling and shouting and talking and bellowing...but here, in this quiet time smelling (thanks to Purity) of soap, he never knew what to say. He was tongue-tied in the presence of a fourteen-month-old baby. All the things he thought of saying, like "Who's Daddy's little boy, then?" sounded horribly false, as though he'd gotten them from a book. There was nothing to say nor, in this soft pastel room, anything that needed to be said.
-Thud

And kind of a drama queen (but also a badass):

"Are you all right, Sybil?" said Vimes.
"A bit cold, Sam."
"You're not hurt?"
"No, Sam."
"Keep your hands where I can see them, Your Grace Vimes!"
"And are you going to promise me you'll let her go?" said Vimes.
A flame flickered near Vimes' face, a bright pool in the darkness, as he lit a cigar.
"Now, Your Grace Vimes, why ever should I do that? But I am sure Ankh-Morpork will pay a lot for you!"
"Ah. I thought so," said Vimes. He shook the match and the cigar end glowed for a moment. "Sybil?"
"Yes, Sam?"
"Duck."
There was second filled only with the indrawing of breath, and then, as Lady Sybil dived forward, Vimes' hand came around from behind him in an arc, there was a silken sound, and the man's head was flung back.
-The Fifth Elephant

But also doesn't have a lot of time for other people's dramatics:

“You'd like Freedom, Truth, and Justice, wouldn't you, Comrade Sergeant?' said Reg encouragingly.
'I'd like a hard-boiled egg,' said Vimes, shaking the match out.
There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended.
'In the circumstances, Sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher--'
'Well, yes, we could,' said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of papers in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was. 'But...well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I'm pretty sure that whatever happens we won't have found Freedom, and there won't be a whole lot of Justice, and I'm damn sure we won't have found Truth. But it's just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg.”
-Night Watch

And you really shouldn't try to pull one over on him:

"Oh, good grief," said Vimes. "Look, it's quite simple, man. I was expected to 'At last, alcohol!' and chugalug the lot without thinking. Then some respectable pillars of the community"--he removed his cigar from his mouth and spat--"were going to find me, in your presence, too--which was a nice touch--with the evidence of my crime neatly hidden but not so well hidden that they coulnd't find it." He shook his head sadly. "The trouble is, you know, that once the taste's got to you it never lets go."
"But you've been very good, sir," said Carrot. "I've not seen you touch a drop for--"
"Oh, that," said Vimes. "I was talking about policing, not alcohol. There's lots of people will help you with the alcohol business, but there's no one out there arranging little meetings where you can stand up and say, 'My name is Sam, and I'm a really suspicious bastard.'"
-Feet of Clay

...And I'll stop there because I could do this for a while (and often do). Vimes has a lot of canon, and Discworld is notoriously grand in scope. If you've been meaning to give it a try and just don't know where to start, Guards, Guards! makes for an excellent introduction, and I swear I'm not just saying that because I'm biased. XD

[forthsofar]

One of my absolute favorite Rosie bits in Arcadia happens early on in her second trip to Anterwold, when she's arrested as a trespasser and takes great offense to the very idea:

"What’s he saying?” Rosie asked. “Who are these people?”
“He is saying you are under arrest as a trespasser.”
“I most certainly am not. And you can tell them from me that if they want to arrest me, they can do it in English.”
Another exchange of words. “They are instructed to take you to their Lady, and you are under arrest. As am I, in fact.”
“We’ll see about that,” Rosie said. “Keep your hands off me!” she said, wagging her finger disapprovingly as one soldier approached her. “I know my rights. Touch me and I shall write to my MP.”
“You seem to have frightened them. Which is more than I managed. But they are determined to obey their orders and it would be best to do as they say. They are the ones with the swords.”

Rosie sniffed contemptuously. She examined the soldiers once more--they were getting back their self-confidence after the initial shock--and took a deep breath.

“Oh, if I must,” she said grumpily.

My other favorite part is actually something Rosie in-game doesn't have any knowledge of at all, since it comes from near the end of the book after she's been trapped in Anterwold for a while. Basically, in order to save Anterwold, there's a need for her to pretend to be the mysterious, unreal fairy figure that one of the characters mistook her as when he saw her for the first time--which leads to her holding court when one of the antagonists of the story requests an audience, resulting in the following speech:

Rosalind inclined her head at the end. “I am pleased to see you are fat,” she said absently, addressing the mirror on the wall. “For, as Caesar said, ‘Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men think too much: such men are dangerous.’ You know your Shakespeare, of course? Act 1, scene 2?”
“Certainly,” he said quickly, “naturally I do.”
“Good,” she said. “There are many who neither appreciate the beauty of his poetry nor yet the force of his morality. I look forward to a discussion with you at some stage. On Hamlet, perhaps, or Elvis.”
“It will be a pleasure to have a conversation with a lady of so great knowledge,” he replied nervously. “But I came simply to welcome you to Willdon, and alas have no time for such discussions now. I do hope I can excuse myself, as I have a meeting I have to go to.”

“Ah,” she replied, wagging her finger at him disapprovingly. “You must never begin a sentence with ‘But.’ It is a conjunction, don’t you know. As such, it must join two parts of a sentence. It cannot, therefore, start one, for if it does then it fails to fulfil its proper function. Nor should you say ‘I hope I can excuse myself.’ You are asking my permission, not stating your capabilities. It should be ‘I hope I may be allowed,’ employing ‘may’ as an auxiliary verb, followed by an infinitive. Finally, you should never end a sentence or other statement with a participle. That is vulgar. You must say ‘I have a meeting to which I must go.’ For, as Great-aunt Jessie said, ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place.’ That applies to grammar as well as life. As you have legs, I imagine you can go and, as far as I am concerned, you may do so.”

When the chastened Gontal had retreated through the door and the two were alone once more, there was a long silence before Henary said, “When I said unsettle him, I didn’t mean frighten him to death, poor fellow.”

[formicine]

I SHALL WRITE TO MY MP! omg, dearest Rosie. I love it.

Also lord, she's every teacher I had who said "I don't know, CAN you go to the bathroom?" in that final speech. Though, omg, can you imagine Grantaire and Rosie wound up to full ramble in the same room? Considering the many other speechifiers in both casts, the after-show party of Shakespeare In The Park must have been AMAZING and full of incredible declarations on very little.

[pylades_drunk]

Okay, you don't want me to talk about Les Mis at as much length as I could, so I'll try to keep it to moments I love and that inform Grantaire (and Eponine in her comment) specifically.

I base Grantaire off of both The Brick (the fandom's colloquial term for the ENORMITY of the novel) and the musical, particularly the 2012 movie version. Grantaire's a very interesting character to play while loving canon because he's been out of canon for six years and he's made some major life changes -- he trusts more easily, he doesn't drink anymore, he's a little less nihilistic -- occasionally I do panic a little and refer back to the Brick to make sure I feel like I'm still drawing the same person, if that makes sense.

Because the musical gives very little time to developing the Amis/the "barricade boys", it's very helpful that, of them with the exception of Enjolras and Marius, Grantaire gets some of the longest description in the book. A large part of this is just metaphor upon metaphor about how gay he is:

Grantaire in the presence of Enjolras became someone once more. He was, himself, moreover, composed of two elements, which were, to all appearance, incompatible. He was ironical and cordial. His indifference loved. His mind could get along without belief, but his heart could not get along without friendship. A profound contradiction; for an affection is a conviction. His nature was thus constituted. There are men who seem to be born to be the reverse, the obverse, the wrong side. They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus, Eudamidas, Hephaestion, Pechmeja. They only exist on condition that they are backed up with another man; their name is a sequel, and is only written preceded by the conjunction and; and their existence is not their own; it is the other side of an existence which is not theirs.

(You can do the googling on all of those references but they're all PRETTY GAY. Also "backed up with another man", while it is translation, is enough of an entendre that I can believe there's a pun being made there.)

Because Grantaire canonically makes just as terrible puns as Hugo himself does, he gets some really good lines, some that mean absolutely nothing but just characterise him as That Friend who takes the thing you were talking about seriously and interjects a musical that uses the same couple of words. Since I AM that friend, I super enjoy this part of his character (and honestly, don't use it enough). I found the discussion of one such line on tumblr: Echo, Plaintive Nymph, and of course his own nickname of "R" is a pun on the way his name sounds (and possibly a double pun).

This exchange with Enjolras gets, for obvious reasons, mentioned a lot:


Of the characters in Les Mis he's honestly the one who gets to talk the most like Hugo -- segueing into reference, tangent and bizarre metaphors that you realize ten minutes later were actually extremely relevant. So in a way I would argue to love Les Mis is to love Grantaire, even though he's also a drunk skeptical nihilist whose death is arguably his redemption arc.

Of course, then you've got the musical! His verse in Drink With Me is arguably his most poignant moment (and some saint cut together George Blagden's solo of it with the official movie recording, which CUT IT, THOSE BASTARDS):
https://youtu.be/9u-eRDG-yv0

Him storming off after this verse has also led to some really interesting onstage choices:


It's also super common to have Grantaire and Gavroche be best buddies in the blocking, with Grantaire especially overcome when Gavroche is shot; this role got handed to Courfeyrac in the movie and I'm not finding any good gifs of it but I definitely used that as an inspiration for both his literal relationship with Gavroche in game and more widely the idea that he's good with kids.

That's a lot, but there will be more for Eponine! If you enjoy my Les Mis rambling, my tumblr over at winged tends to have a lot of it now and then.

[primary_asset]

Um. Do I need an excuse to post awesome Person of Interest clips? I do not.

John in God Mode for the first time.

Giving zero shits about anything.

His obviously spoilery final scene.

[daughterofawolf]

More Les Mis! Okay, so I've spoken about Victor Hugo's love for tangents about things you don't think are related and puns and metaphors based on Greek myth and how those are all very relevant to Grantaire not only in how he's described but how he speaks.

Now we get to Chapter Two: Victor Hugo depicts societal/moral issues using his characters as references but manages to do it in a surprisingly complex way.

For example, with the Thenardiers it's easy to cast them as stock villains - and they are villainous - but they're not simply a moral judgement, they're the result of society telling the poor to simply Be Better. We see the "noble poor" depicted in Fantine and Cosette, the injustice of the justice system in Valjean vs Javert: the Thenardiers are working class (when we meet them) but they want to be successful or at least thought of as successful so much that they're willing to screw anyone over to do it.

When she's little, Eponine is a copy of them, tormenting Cosette and spoiled by her parents; when she's older and they're even worse off but running the same cons, she's a victim of and associated with their machinations but also refuses to be entirely cowed by them. At the same time, she's also a silly teenager and I love that that isn't totally left out.

This description is while she's exploring Marius's room, looking around while he hides and watches from afar.

Nothing could be more melancholy than to see her sport about the room, and, so to speak, flit with the movements of a bird which is frightened by the daylight, or which has broken its wing. One felt that under other conditions of education and destiny, the gay and over-free mien of this young girl might have turned out sweet and charming. Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only to be seen among men.

BLEAK! But it's a good description, and as I wrote at the time: I love this, given Cosette's depiction as a lark, and specifically "more a lark than a dove". It's also interesting that Cosette's wildness is "bohemian" or "adventuress" and Eponine's is "over-free" and broken-winged -- casting different lights on somewhat similar natures changed really only by the amount of love they're receiving.

Victor Hugo likes coming back to his metaphors, guys.

This next quote definitely influences things I've written about her history and mentali state but also, interestingly, is almost certainly the influence for the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers:

"I often go off in the evening. Sometimes I don't come home again. Last winter, before we came here, we lived under the arches of the bridges. We huddled together to keep from freezing. (...)When I thought of drowning myself, I said to myself: `No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I sometimes sleep in the ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along the boulevard, I see the trees like forks, I see houses, all black and as big as Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, I say to myself: `Why, there's water there!' (...) I think people are flinging stones at me, I flee without knowing whither, everything whirls and whirls. You feel very queer when you have had no food."

On My Own -- Eva Noblezada, who I just love anyway, but also does Eponine rather like I write her, a little bolder and less just sad. (this is from a concert but the only version I could find with her in costume was cut off).

Another one:

Eponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden, observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon transmitted to Babet's mistress in the Salpetriere. A biscuit, in the shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done.

Eponine loves Marius, but she very specifically and cleverly discourages harm from coming to Cosette or Valjean, which I think is important, especially since she knows who Cosette is but Cosette doesn't know who she is - there's nothing to gain. This also is a good example of her being familiar with argot and slang, and also generally lurking.

Last favorite Eponine moments include the entire chapter from where her username is from, but particularly the specific passage:

Thenardier stepped nearer.
"Not so close, my good man!" said she.
He retreated, growling between his teeth: --
"Why, what's the matter with her?"
And he added:--
"Bitch!"

She began to laugh in a terrible way:--
"As you like, but you shall not enter here. I'm not the daughter of a dog [a bitch], since I'm the daughter of a wolf. There are six of you, what matters that to me? You are men. Well, I'm a woman. You don't frighten me. I tell you that you shan't enter this house, because it doesn't suit me. If you approach, I'll bark. I told you, I'm the dog, and I don't care a straw for you. (...) You can use your knives. I'll use kicks; it's all the same to me, come on!"

She advanced a pace nearer the ruffians, she was terrible, she burst out laughing:--

"Pardine! I'm not afraid. I shall be hungry this summer, and I shall be cold this winter. (...) I ain't afraid of anything, that I ain't!"
She fastened her intent gaze upon Thenardier and said:--
"Not even of you, father!"

Then she continued, as she cast her blood-shot, spectre-like eyes upon the ruffians in turn:--
"What do I care if I'm picked up to-morrow morning on the pavement of the Rue Plumet, killed by the blows of my father's club, or whether I'm found a year from now in the nets at Saint-Cloud or the Isle of Swans in the midst of rotten old corks and drowned dogs?"

Every time I read it, it breaks my heart and also has me wanting to yell "WHAT A BADASS" at her. And they do leave! And when she does die, it's heroic too. That's Eponine, and I love that Hugo doesn't just make her a sad story about poverty.

[formicine]

The Raven Cycle! It's weird to write this now because although I love Blue as much as I ever have, I am a little less obsessed with her canon than I was when I first apped her. That said, even for its faults, it is a beautiful, compelling series that seems uniquely designed to hit me in the soft spots (ravens! magical trees! Wales, for no reason! girls who are walking "I want more" songs! friends who are willing to kill for each other! almost exactly the part of Virginia where I went to school!).

So much of what I love about TRC has to do with the language, so I'll throw a few quotes at you that particularly stick with me:

This first one was a moment when I went from liking Blue to really feeling like we were the same kind of people, and it definitely defines how I write her, even sometimes when I don't realize it:

“You can be just friends with people, you know," Orla said. "I think it's crazy how you're in love with all those raven boys."

Orla wasn't wrong, of course. But what she didn't realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another, analyzing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another.

Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want the other.

Blue has not GOTTEN less city in Darrow, but this is another good defining moment in the first book:

One day, she would live someplace where she could stand outside her house and see only stars, no streetlights, where she could feel as close as she ever got to sharing her mother’s gift. When she looked at the stars, something tugged at her, something that urged her to see more than stars, to make sense of the chaotic firmament, to pull an image from it. But it never made sense. She only ever saw Leo and Cepheus, Scorpio and Draco. Maybe she just needed more horizon and less city. The only thing was, she didn’t really want to see the future. What she wanted was to see something no one else could see or would see, and maybe that was asking for more magic than was in the world.

And:

She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness.

And last, the dialogue that gave her her username (which was Ria's suggestion and which I cannot take credit for):

“YOU'RE A QUEER LITTLE THING," Jesse Dittley decided. "LIKE ONE OF THEM ANTS."

She tipped her head back to look at him. "How do you reckon?"

"THEM ANTS THAT WAS ON THE TELEVISION. IN SOUTH AMERICA OR AFRICA OR INDIA. CARRY TEN TIMES THEIR OWN WEIGHT."

Blue was flattered, but she said sternly, "All ants can carry ten times their own weight, can't they? Normal ants?"

"THSE DID BETTER THAN NORMAL ANTS. WISH I COULD REMEMBER HOW THEY DID BETTER. SO I COULD TELL YOU."

"Are you trying to say I'm a better sort of ant?"

Jesse Dittley blustered. "DRINK YOUR WATER.”

[ithastobeseven]

It's very, very hard for me to say anything about The Haunting of Hill House that hasn't been said already in reviews or just yelling on Twitter. It's kind of a genius work of horror/drama that manages to deal with death and grieving and mental illness and how trauma affects families both directly and non-directly while paying a very respectful homage to the original book. It's not a direct adaptation, and if you want that, it's not going to be what you want, but it's just...beautifully executed.

I found a very, very well-edited Luke and Nell video that comes close to all the feelings in my head about the twins and also, is just a beautiful edit, that I am going to link here. It deals as graphically as the show (somehow, it feels like, more, because there's no surrounding context) with all the show's triggers, so warning for: needles and IV drug usage, hanging/suicide, death, burial, and light body horror.

There's No Without

I'm not sure how else to show my love without C&Ping about ten thousand gifsets on tumblr, so check the luke crain or thohh tags over there, haha.