Hey y'all. I'm Liah and this is my BJD blog. I've been in/out of the hobby since 2005, and am trying to get back into the swing of things (so much has changed in the four years I was out of the hobby). You can catch me here or on DOA (my sn is senko). Am not recast friendly.
(I'm currently writing an essay on how sesame street has impacted young people so I was hoping to get some information from Tumblr. Voters I would appreciate it if you could reblog this so it reaches a wider audience.) Did you watch Sesame Street growing up and do you think it impacted you positively?
Yes to watching it, yes to positive impact
Yes to watching it, no to positive impact
Watched something related (e.g. Furchester Hotel), had a positive impact
I reblogged her late last year and my 2024 has been very satisfying work-wise and (secure enough to not stress out) money-wise so far. Money Snake is wise and good.
I love that the modern-day tumblr post equivalent of chain emails only requires me to reblog a relatively pleasant image instead of forward an email to a bunch of my friends and family members to quell my raging anxiety.
"Listen as though I'm the voice of God or an angel talking to you. Telling you this room doesn't matter, this night doesn't matter. You're not inconsequential or a junkie. You're a bright young reporter with a point of view. There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you'll hear in your mind like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. "They are your lifeline." That's a free-baser I befriended for a few days at the drսg den. He told me to get my shit together and then he Richard Pryor'd in front of me. Everyone scrambled but I stuck around, watched him burn. What's always confused me was that... You know, he said those words to me, and he was already all burnt up. Figured I'd conflated the two events. But I didn't. Because it was you. I destroyed two marriages. I fuckеd up two daughters. But I stayed a journalist. I... I was never so lost I couldn't hold down a job.
Louis De Pointe Du Lac and Daniel Molloy in IWTV season 2 (2024)
i'm rewatching episode 3 of the acolyte and i'm noticing a lot of weird things about the fire at the coven
conspiracy theory under the cut
since episode 1 this show is about appearances and deception
first with osha being arrested for mae's crimes and the twins being mistaken for one another, then with the stranger posing as innocent and awkward qimir before being revealed as mae's master, and more generally with the power of the jedi and the council being built on lies and them not being as good as they seem
and from the beginning, the show has been telling us that mae is the one that started the fire that burned the coven and killed everyone, but also that the four jedi feel extreme guilt (up to the point of comitting suicide for master torbin) for what happened that night
so as i said, i'm rewatching episode 3 and everything is going well up until osha packs her bag to leave with the jedi and mae confronts her in their room. here's what happens:
mae steals osha's notebook
she runs out of the room and locks the door behind her
she sees the drawing of the lightsaber and the logo of the jedi order
she's angry, and she picks up the lamp from the wall and sets the notebook on fire
then we get a shot of osha running to the window to call her mother, and we hear the sound of the lamp breaking
osha turns around, the fire starts to spread
then we get a shot of the empty corridor with no trace of mae
for now this still seems somewhat logical since mae told osha that she wanted to kill her (and has displayed some signs of cruelty before) but bear with me
osha escapes the room though the vent thing and starts looking for mae
we hear them calling out each other's name until they both stand on the opposite ends of the metal walkway and mae says "jump over to me"
that's what makes me think mae didn't mean what she said when she told her sister that she was going to kill her
but who do we see running around the coven? master sol.
what is he doing here? great question.
did he have the time to go through the forest, climb the mountain and find his way into the building since the fire started? absolutely not.
mae "dies"
sol saves osha
they run next to a bunch of witches who are very much dead but are not burned, have not been crushed by rubble and do not seem asphyxiated by smoke of any kind (since osha and sol are breathing perfectly fine)
SO since we have one jedi running around being suspicious, why not have four?
i think mae set fire to the notebook, but one of the jedi smashed the lamp and set fire to the building while the others killed the witches, probably in order to "save" both twins
but mae "died", and they realised they fucked up big time and set their story straight and pin the fire on the dead kid (who can never corroborate their story since, you know, she's dead)
which would explain the guilt they all seem to feel about that night, and why all the witches seemed to have died on the spot, and qimir's little speech about "galactic dominance in the name of peace which is a lie" from episode 2
one last thing: we don't have a clean shot on torbin's face but he appears in the background when they are back at the ship and even though he's blurry, you can clearly see he has a new wound on his face wich will leave the scar he has in episode 2
This sounds reasonable to me. I'm interested to see the next episode, because I can see the past events play out as you're speculating here. I'm really hoping Sol will tell us why the Jedi were even there, and how they knew of the witches in the first place since Brendok wasn't part of the Republic.
I've seen a little trend of (mostly) men being shocked and annoyed at how much sensuality was in this newest episode of The Acolyte and I think it's time to re-introduce 'the male gaze' vs 'the female gaze' and how prevalent it is in fiction.
Those same guys don't complain when women are shown topless in bed, the sheet only covering their ass as the full curve of their back is illuminated while the male lead buttons up his pants and smizes forlornly out the window.
They don't bat an eye at 'Slave Leia's' costume or James' Bond's exploits or the gratuitous nudity and sex in Game of Thrones centered on the male gaze. They don't question dehydrated men with bulging veins screaming at their enemies as they flex.
But the moment there's sensuality for the gaze of the fem lead, all of a sudden it's "soapy" it's "fanfic" it's "ridiculous".
Why is that? Why are you so ok with sexuality when it's from the male gaze, but the MOMENT it switches to female, you think it's not to be taken seriously anymore? All of a sudden, it's not 'fit for the public', it's to be relegated to the dark corners of the internet and not spoken of and MOST DEFINITELY shouldn't find it's way onto our screens.
Was Qimir in that episode sexy as fuck? Yeah. Was that what the episode was about? Partially - but it was so much more than that, too. Unlike movies where women are just there to be ogled at by the male audience and have nothing of importance going on with the plot, the Acolyte showed both the man and woman in those scenes as important players in this story with depth and nuance that yes, included sexuality, but was not limited to it.
Men jack off to 'slave Leia' all the time - why is it suddenly disgusting when a man shows up on screen in a sexy way that's NOT dehumanizing to him? Would you have preferred Qimir in a slave costume being held hostage by the Hutts? (feel free to draw fan art of that *cough* what was that? I didn't say anything *cough*) Would that have made it 'not fanfic' to you? Or are only women relegated to those roles? Only women are allowed to skinny dip in the ocean and then talk to the MALE lead all dripping wet and naked. For a man to do that is...well....it's silly!!! It's fanfic!! That's not what we're supposed to see!!
race is not a natural static unchanging thing, it is historically and socially situated, changing, incredibly irrational, and about far more than just skin color. it is an economic power structure, not just checkmarks of identity
armand does not experience colonial subjugation just bc he is dark skinned and trafficked. he is trafficked/enslaved as a child by his parents because he is a child (i.e not a man/master) and because his parents (i.e the patriarchal power) have total possession and dominion over him. the show could’ve changed his age/era like they did louis but they didn’t, so it is significant that racism and race therefore proceed him, that he is older than their formation, and that he is a vampire by the time they’re really a thing, if they’d made him 414 instead or had him shipped to spain where racialist thinking starts/advances earlier bc of hatred of the moors, you could make a much easier argument for racism and colonial violence, but they don’t. certainly xenophobia and colorism are in play here, but colonialism and race are different things, and conflating them only naturalizes white supremacy. the reason why we find so many similarities between colonialism and patriarchy is bc european colonialists used pre-existing notions of sexual difference and sexism to justify the subjugation of africans and then other racialized ppl. armand is underground serving as patriarchal cult leader while racism is being theorized and then naturalized
why does it matter that armand brings louis and claudia to eat the racist nazi collaborator family when we know that Armand doesn’t gaf about ~human affairs and where Armand can flex his absolute dominion over the pinnacle of white colonialist violence? what is this serving when this is framed as part of the Paris was an awakening I didn’t have to worry about being lynched race was different etc when Armand later literally directs Louis and Claudia’s lynching? why does it matter that Claudia pointed out that Armand the master is darker than them both and yet he soon has her performing a minstrel show every night for 500 days?
to add a historical perspective to this: during the Haitian revolution, Africans and mixed ppl that remained loyal to the French and didn’t participate in liberation were deemed to be not Black, while white people on the island who joined in the liberation struggle were now Black, and allowed to remain in the Black republic where Blackness was a requirement for citizenship. this is because they understood, certainly better than anyone here, that race is an economic and political system of power within which skin color is simply one fluid category of organization, not the structure itself. obviously a dramatic example and I only use it bc I think it’s the most plainly stated one, though “not all skinfolk are kinfolk” gets close 🫶🏾
Louis and Armand’s relationship is not a story of men of color solidarity. the entire season is kinda about how much it is not that
I just want say since I’ve seen some people complaining, just cuz the folks want to fuck Qimir, doesn’t mean we’re falling for his sob story bs, some of us are just naturally Villain fuckers/ monster fuckers.
I get people concerned that 'viewers are seeing a hot guy and falling for his manipulation!!' but like....personally, I don't believe cops when they just tell me someone is bad without proof?
The thing about compelling antagonists is that a lot of the time, THEY HAVE A POINT!! Vader in the OG trilogy had no point. It was just black/white we want to be fascist all over the galaxy and have all the power, you want to stop us. In the prequels, Palpatine was the same: he wants power....just cause. Anakin you can make a partial argument for in that his initial intention was never just to get power for himself, but rather protect those he loved: this led to him being able to be manipulated and then making abhorrent choices like slaughtering a bunch of children.
In newer Star Wars, there's room for nuance - room for critiquing and looking into things and seeing it isn't always black/white our protagonists are perfect, the antagonist is psycho evil for the sake of being evil.
We didn't see the rebels in Star Wars Rebels, Andor, and Rogue One as evil because they were killing storm troopers - we saw that their violence was justified in fighting back against an oppressive regime that was hurting people.
When I look at Qimir, he's only killed combatants directly opposed to him. We don't know yet what his real goals are - we don't know why the Jedi 'abandoned' him. So I'm going to reserve judgement and hear him out until I get more info. You know, like you should when determining if someone is evil and needs to die? You don't just rush in guns blazing because you see a red saber and someone fighting enemy combatants?
I know a lot of people have woobified the jedi so much that even though they're a militant police force with absolute power to kill you with their laser swords, fighting back against them is somehow seen as kicking a puppy, but idk man. I'm not against violent opposition to an oppressive force. Obviously we need more info before we can say for sure if Qimir's goals need to be pushed back against, but I don't go into situations with the default view of 'the jedi must be right'.
For me, it's really interesting to see how similar Qimir's attempts to get Osha to join him are similar to how Sol got her to agree to join the jedi. Separating her from other influences: check. Giving her tests to unlock parts of herself she knows are there: check. Showing kindness and understanding of her situation: check. Offering her something she wants (with Sol it was to allow Osha to 'be her own person' rather than only the other half to her twin and the lure of other children like her (that he conveniently left out she'd never be able to have a deep relationship with due to the non-attachment rules of the Jedi) and with Qimir it was being accepted for who she was, not some sanitized version of who others wanted her to be, plus the deep relationships she craves): check.
Is Qimir pushing for Osha to join him so he can have power? Yup. Did Sol push Osha to join him so that the order could have more power? Yup. So now the real question is: power to do what?
Though the idea of the jedi is great, how they actually exert their influence isn't always good for everyone (see stamping out the witches who we, yet again, haven't seen do anything bad). When you have a huge organization that prioritizes their own view of the world above all others, it's not only 'bad' people who get caught in the crossfire. Everyone just makes the assumption that if the jedi are against you, that means you're just a psycho who wants to go around killing people with impunity and if the jedi are supporting you, that means you're automatically good - but that hasn't been shown to be the case. Lets take a look at the Separatists as seen in the Clone Wars tv show - they weren't all fascist maniacs, they just wanted to govern themselves - not to have slavery or be able to kill a bunch of people, but because they were concerned about centralizing rule too much (which turns out, they were right to be worried about that!!) Or Tales of the Jedi when we saw the Jedi turning the other way when members of the Republic were treating their citizens horribly.
Fighting against those aspects of the Republic and the Jedi doesn't automatically throw you into the 'fascist psycho mass murderer' category. Killing the Jedi you think are responsible for the slaughter of your whole culture, I don't think, puts you in that category either. And of course, there can be instances where people do bad things for what they believe are the right reasons (see: Andor and Rogue One) BUT they aren't doing it to people we've associated with 'the good guys' for so long it makes it hard to think about the situation at hand rather than reacting in a knee-jerk kind of way to protect your blorbos.
Very long winded way of saying: I'm not saying Qimir is good or bad. I haven't seen enough to say yet. No, killing Yord and Jecki isn't enough 'proof' any more than Cassian killing the injured rebel so they wouldn't be caught was 'proof' that he was bad. We need to know WHY they're taking such drastic actions before I'm comfortable making my decision on what the show is trying to say.
If you feel like that's me 'lacking critical thinking skills' because you've jumped to a conclusion that's not supported by any facts yet, fine. But I'll wait for the narrative to finish before casting judgement based on what I think is a common trope used in stories.
Sad about Jecki and Yord, but I truly expected them and any other jedi we spend time with to be dead by the end of the show. If Qimir really is a sith, no one can know about him in order not to break canon. Unless there's some major cover-up by the jedi, I just can't see any of our new faves surviving the show with that knowledge.
